Happiness is not a thing, a commodity we can “get” or “have”. We know this. Whole industries and systems have been built upon getting people to question their ability to be content or sustain contentment in this world, and having them convinced that a) they are fundamentally lacking, and b) that there is something outside of themselves they can get (buy) in order to be happy, anything from a car to a vacation to a supplement or breathwork session, and so on.

For those on any kind of a spiritual journey or path, the reaction to all of this has led to a swing in the exact opposite direction, to the belief or “knowing” that happiness can only be found within, that we are effectively, and fully responsible for how we feel. This opens up a whole can of worms of its own, because we are left, in this scenario, with a whole lot of guilt and shame when we don’t feel happy – along with the feeling we are doing something wrong – and we are completely discounting the very socio-economic contributors to pain, and the real, positive and healing benefits of living in community and supporting and having the support of others – relationality – as part of the “happiness package.”

In other words, happiness is not a simple concept to orient around, and it’s not my intention with this article to do a deep dive into the very multi-layered phenomenon that we call happiness, though I’m feeling inspired to write a series of articles on the topic now!

Nor is this article going to change lives. It can be boiled down to the journey from how misery is reduced when we go from being reactive to challenging external situations, to being responsive. This came about for me in an interesting way recently, so I wanted to share the experience!

I’d been feeling a lot of pain in my body, which I recognized as a buildup of a tension that had been mounting for some time. There I was, smack in between two eclipses, unable to fully be with or ignore this heavy discomfort happening inside of me. I could sense a culmination coming, and was waiting patiently. I can’t say I was totally open to anything that might come – I secretly believed that there would be an “explosion” of some kind – a fight with a loved one, a walk to somewhere I could scream and cry without being heard.

Instead, what happened was this: I woke up at 4:00 am, and, knowing I wouldn’t fall back asleep easily, got onto my yoga mat (as I do most mornings, albeit a little later). I was going to start my regular practice, almost by rote, hoping something would move, when I felt anger arising.

I’m in too much pain to do this practice! Why am I in so much pain? Why do I feel I have to practice as I always do? Who am I failing if I don’t?

A few years ago, these thoughts would have been the insight. The lesson would have been about self-compassion, going easier on my myself, doing what felt loving and caring toward myself in the moment.

This time, the anger arose and disappeared very quickly. A few seconds later, I was just curious. I briefly wondered if I was really curious, or just too existentially tired to care. I decided for convenience’s sake that it was probably a combination I wasn’t yet ready to call surrender, and just observed myself having no idea what I was going to do on the mat. I lowered myself to my knees… and waited.

And started moving. I had no idea what I was doing. My body did, though, and I let it happen. I made all kinds of bizarre movements that anyone familiar with modalities like Somatic Experiencing would have no problem recognizing as part of a process of healing and release. Of letting the body’s wisdom have its moment unimpeded. My mind felt simultaneously void of thought and hyperfocused on reaching even the most subtle layers of pain and tension in the nether-reaches of my inner world, to sort things out.

There was nowhere I wasn’t willing to go.

It was heaven. In an almost pitch-black space, as the world slept and the moon was growing to full, my body was having its way, and I was there for it, with the vast spaces of consciousness that are inseparable from the body, with no theory and no agenda other than to be fully, entirely, profoundly present with myself with zero container with which to contextualize the experience. I couldn’t possibly have cared less if there would be “results” or what would come next. I couldn’t care less if there was a next, truth be told.

Pure presence is exactly context falls away. We know this. How often do we allow ourselves to live it? This is why presence is the birthplace for anything new that emerges in the world, for new contexts to eventually take shape, which, one day, will always give way to others.

That’s when I heard the following as clearly as though a dear friend where whispering in my ears:

There is happiness in this.

With every movement I made, where pain peaked and then subsided, I heard it again. There is happiness in this. There is happiness here. There is happiness here, too.

There are obvious lessons here: The healing/cure lies in the wound. There is no way out but through. The cracks are where the light gets in. Yes! It’s true.

But it’s still worth mentioning. I got to thinking: What if we could all make this a mantra, that There is happiness in this. There is happiness here, too. If we remembered to day this at regular intervals throughout the day, no matter what was going for us at the time, even to be in the pain and guilt that comes with recognizing how much suffering people are experiencing in this radically unfair, even cruel world, to recognize that ultimately, all we can do is be with what IS, and that in this IS-ness life itself is showing us nothing but itself, which is actually everything, through any number of filters and experiences.

Between pain and pain there is relief. There is release. This is the way of things, in every situation. There is a tiny keyhole into the vastness of experience – into IS-ness – that grows larger every time we acknowledge it. At some point, the momentum will shift, personally and collectively, and we will be living in a whole new way. And we get the privilege of being with the whole process as it unfolds, as happiness reveals itself to us not as a goal or a perpetual state of being, but as an infinitely-layered mystery that does not begin or end, but takes the open heart and soul into the profound variety of human living.

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com. She shares meditations and inspirational videos on her YouTube channel, @TammyStoneOMM.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about some statistics I read about how little people read these days. Many can’t remember the last time they’ve read a book. I’d guess that the same might be true for full-length movies: If people watch them, it’s likely at home, and with a lot of distraction – phones, chores, interruptions – taking away from the experience.

It’s not news that we’re in a fast-paced culture that favors instant gratification over patient and persistent effort with long-term rewards. It’s not news that kids are coming into the world wired differently than older generations, circuited more to be multi-tasking and “lateral-oriented” than singularly-focused. It’s the way it goes. Who’s to say that it’s “right” or “wrong”?

But it IS something. As I was thinking about this, an image, or really two images, came to me: A person nestled into a comfy armchair, reading a book, and then, a baby in the womb.

It’s an interesting connection!

From the time of conception, a little human fetus is taking months and months to grow enough to be read to be born. It is a time outside of time (because the fetus will have no conception of time) in which it is fully immersed into the space of the womb that provides its food, shelter, and conditions for growth. This growth actually happens cyclically: head and heart fold in toward each other, and then move apart, and each time the latter happens, more growth happens. Eventually, the folding and unfolding process create an “outcome” of a nurtured baby ready to come into the world.

Isn’t it wondrous, to understand growth as happening cyclically, with necessary rest periods?

When you get really into a good book, you are also entering into a time out of time; you’ve lost track of the outer environment and become fused, in a way, with the story you’ve “fallen into”… hopefully! This only happens when you give yourself time to read at length, when you don’t get up to do other things, and of course, if you’ve found a book you truly love. You can call it being in “the zone”, a term also given to artists when they enter the “time-outside-of-time” experience of creating a book, painting, dance, or whatever it is.

In a way, you can say that every time you enter into a deep, immersive experience that is set apart from the ordinary, day-to-day reality, something profound is happening. It is obviously not preparation for an actual birth, like being in the womb is, but can’t we say that it is a liminal space from which we emerge new, refreshed, ready for a new life with a fresh, inspired perspective?

I wonder if young people are having this experience of getting into the zone if they do not get into a deep, immersive experience with a book or a movie or something like it, like many of us in the older generations do. (Zoning out scrolling on the phone doesn’t count! That’s more a matter of being distracted and having no idea where the time went, than emerging back into the world knowing something profound has happened while you were “gone”.)

This train of thought also got me thinking: Is this not what happens when we have Akashic Records readings, or a great therapy / hypnotherapy / past life regression / Reiki session? In all of these cases, we are, in the best case scenarios, having “womb experiences” – we are consciously choosing to enter into an process of being held and nurtured through a capital “E” experience – the process and even the goal might vary from person to person, but the idea is the same: we are eschewing the ordinary world for a time, to be in a deeply interior space from which we will emerge in a heightened state of wellness and awareness. We will see and feel the world differently, and be inspired to effect positive changes in our lives as a result.

It would not be a stretch to call this a rebirth experience.

This thought process of course took me to astrology and natal (birth) chart readings, which quite literally bring us back to the moment of emergence from the womb, coincided perfectly and exquisitely with planetary and cosmic body alignments that forge the blueprint for the life to come. How gorgeous, then, to enter into the immersive experience of contemplating and understanding this blueprint, essentially to help “rebirth” you into your own life in a more conscious and connected way?

When we’re born, I believe, our soul has imprinted us – it’s decided the kind of life we’ll have for the purposes of growth and evolution and essentially, remembrance of the love that we are, by way of encountering all sorts of experiences that will show us where we are not quite feeling this capital “L” love yet. There is a plan for us, subject to all kinds of adventures and changes based on our free will – but the plan, the basic outline of the kinds of experiences we’ll have, is there. As this is happening, a baby begins the physical, biological gestation period, and this nine month “pause” is a literal creation of bodily self that will emerge ready to keep growing and provide the “vessel” for the growth experiences.

Can we look at this situation a little bit metaphorically and understand our very human need to have experiences where, like in the womb, we take pauses to rest, to regroup and / or to form and create ourselves in a new way, so we can have an elevated experience of life upon our “return” to the ordinary world?

When we’re very busily distracted or physically exerting ourselves a lot, we’re oriented to our activities and can’t really feel what’s happening internally. So, when we slow down – stop running, or running around doing a million things, the first thing that will happen is that we will notice the chaos, the movement within, because things haven’t had a chance to settle. We’ll notice: the thrumming of our rapid heartbeat; a zillion thoughts racing through the mind, the urge to scream or yell or laugh or cry; our tingling skin or sweat rushing out of our pores; you name it. All of this movement is the “result” of the activity that came before, and it needs to settle before the next movement begins – if it doesn’t, any number of things will happen: burnout, injury, and so on.

Moments of pause and rest are vital before the next cycle of expansion. It’s why Einstein got answers to some of his mathematical questions in dreams, how intuitions come through in moments of silence, things like this.

What a reframe this is, to look at our moments of “conscious pausing” as helping us be MORE well, productive, inspired… whatever your goal may be! For me, the goal is usually to be more spiritually attuned – to go so far and deeply within myself that I am paradoxically becoming more and more connected to the outer world, that perfect, and sometimes perfectly excruciating mirror of our interior landscape.

To come back to the beginning, to the fear that in our distracted culture, people aren’t reading books or watching full length films, or wandering around in a forest or a mountain, maybe finding the time for long, deep one-one-one conversations… what are we losing? The answer lies quite literally in our own formation: you cannot rush the creation of a baby – of you! So why would we rush any of the other processes of our healthy lives and development?

Let’s take time for the immersive experiences that help us rebirth into a happier, healthier, more peaceful version of ourselves as many times as we feel the impulse too – how beautiful would a society built on a reverence for rest and for restorative experiences be?

(If I can be of help to you in holding space during an Akashic Reading, Intuitive/Spiritual Coaching or Astrology Reading, please find me through my info below!)

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com. She shares meditations and inspirational videos on her YouTube channel, @TammyStoneOMM.

Thank you so much for being here with me! Today I wanted to share a poem I wrote several years ago when I was living in Japan, wondering about how I got there, and who I was, who had gotten there. Something I love thinking about (and talking about!), is our ability to look back on our lives to find the seeds of either the person we’ve become today, or the person we know we are coming to be, as spirit invites us ever forward… and we heed the call.

There’s something so powerful about pulling memories from the “archive of us” that did not, until now, fit into the story we have been telling ourselves about ourselves - or that others have been telling us about ourselves - and recreate ourselves according to the highest truth of who we are, and in the highest alignment with the cosmos that birthed us.

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ALL MY LIFE

All my life,

I’ve been praying,

Something I have not allowed

Myself to see,

Through years of un-belief,

Until now.

For the fuzzy caterpillar,

So that it could become

That most magnificent creature,

The butterfly, dizzy with flight.

For the sun-scorched grasses,

So that they may

Return to that most fertile green.

With the riot of flowers,

Cosmos and morning glory,

Peppering lawns and fields

As reminders of what is possible

When we notice,

And even when we don’t

Because what is possible,

The flowers remind us,

Comes to be, sometimes all at once.

I’ve been praying with the cycles themselves,

The snow sitting heavily

On hidden ice,

The worms coming through

The pavement in spring.

The crickets’ late summer hymn,

The fading leaves of fall.

I’ve been praying

With the trees,

Who were born in psalm,

And are unwavering

In their prayer for us,

That we, too, can find our way

To withstand the hurt,

Come to the other side of denial,

And breathe the good air

That is left

So that we may give back

The promise of tomorrow.

I have been praying,

Small as a scampering squirrel,

A child running between the shrubs

Dividing households

With no sense of borders,

Not knowing yet all the ways I hurt,

Knitting together a world.

I have been lovingly

In the throes of creation

Praying one word, one stitch

At a time, to find meaning

in what I see,

What creation comes through me.

I have let the sun

And moonlight bathe me,

Oceans take me,

And every submersion

Into what confronts and sustains me

Has been a prayer of gratitude

And challenging, and belonging, and love.

And faith.

For we are here, even though,

Imbued with such great power

Breathing life into the prayers

That have always marked the way,

The sacred space between

Questions and answers.

xo

Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com. She shares meditations and inspirational videos on her YouTube channel, @TammyStoneOMM.

Exhausted on every level, I was receiving Reiki from my dear teacher and friend Beatrix in Thailand when this phrase, healing is presence, came to me like a neon sign flashing in front of my inner eye.

Healing is presence.

Of course! It’s so simple, and so profound.

No matter where we are going for help or support – the doctor’s office, a therapist, a friend or family member, a wellness practitioner – aren’t we essentially looking for the same thing, before we fill in the details?

We’re looking to be seen and heard, even before we’re looking to be understood, and helped in whatever way we have come for support.

We’re looking for the person in front of us to not be doing their job by rote, or with an air of boredom or dismissiveness.

We’re looking to feel that for the time we are spending with them, we are the most important thing in the room, that how we feel and think and are matters. A lot.

You might have experiences with the opposite this. I know I have! Sitting in a cold, fluorescent-lit doctor’s office that makes me feel unwell before we even get started, asking questions about something concerning me about this one body I get to “have and use” for this life, only to be met with averted eyes focused on a screen with numbers, facts and figures about me they don’t bother to explain, minimizing my concerns or neatly squaring them away into some category or another that has nothing whatsoever to do with me as a person, a whole, unique, individual person.

It is certainly not this way all the time, but even one experience like this can truly leave its mark.

Contrast this with being in a space that is designed and configured to make you feel warm, safe, supported and welcomed, and by a practitioner who looks you in the eye, so that you are meeting heart to heart, soul to soul. Imagine the sigh of relief that immediately puts you at ease, regulates your nervous system. We can say that the healing “effect” has already started, before the session is even underway.

It cannot be overstated, the importance of feeling held, safe, witnessed.

This is where the true healing takes place, in the deeply felt sense of being witnessed as a person, as a soul occupying a particular “point” in space and time, in all of our uniqueness and with all of our particularities as we navigate, along with everyone else, the joys and triumphs, the challenges and hardships that are part of the package of being a human being.

We are all the same in having experiences that need to be processed and contextualized, suffering that needs to be allayed, joys that need to be shared.

We are all different in what we experience, how we experience it and what will serve us best in terms of care and support along the way.

But we are all the same, quite literally, in this one way: we are all here. We are all connected in our “here-ness”, and we are all connected to each other because at an energetic level, there is no way to tell exactly where we begin and someone else ends. This doesn’t mean we bleed into each other, only that we “share the same house” as souls emanating from Source.

We’ve all experienced moments when we meet someone and feel instantly connected to them – we see them, and they see us in return. This also happens with animals, and with nature. When we can get really quite in mind, heart and soul, we can feel this connectivity, and it is so soothing, and so healing.

The one condition for this ability to connect so deeply is presence.

(And presence, of course, is love. It is love’s way of talking.)

In this chaotic modern world, especially during these intense times, it can be really difficult to get quiet enough, to find the time and space to find and forge these healing connections. It’s so easy to find ourselves in a situation where the mind is constantly spinning with worry, the body is constantly in fight or flight, and it seems impossible to make any decisions that will be helpful for us going forward.

This is when it can be particularly helpful to seek the help of a practitioner in any modality that resonates for you, who can offer you this one fundamental thing before all else: presence. By being totally present with you in your experience, you can find relief at the level of body, mind, heart and soul, and start to come back to yourself, where the true healing takes place: within you.

And if it’s not possible for you to have something like a Reiki treatment, an Akashic Records session, a massage, or whatever it is, try to remember this one phrase, healing is presence, and try to arrange some time with a dear friend, or in nature, where love is automatic and unquestioned, and in this, the healing has already arisen to guide you.

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

On a recent trip to Japan, where my in-laws live, I was so excited to visit a place that has become one of the most special to me on our sacred planet. Close to the small enclave where my mother-in-law lives in Kyoto’s countryside, there is small trail that takes you past a tiny local temple on one side, and a low, dense mountain range on the other. In between lie a series of small rice fields tended to with love by the few residents of the village.

At the far end of these fields is another pathway that takes you to a park and the grounds of one of the larger and more famous temples in the area.

I’ve been doing this walk – which has come to feel like a pilgrimage for me – and visiting this park that overlooks the temple on the other side of a tiny stream – for years now. I got to know this tiny pocket of the world particularly well when, in 2018, my husband and I were in Thailand the night before we were going to catch a flight to India for what was going to be a “last backpacking adventure” before settling down (for awhile, anyway!) in Canada.

The universe had other plans. We got a very sad call that night that my husband’s father had suddenly passed away. We quickly did what we could logistically to reroute from India to Japan, and we stayed there for months. Everyone grieved in their own ways. My husband worked hours each day cultivating a beautitul garden where there were only weeds next to my mother-in-law’s house (my in-laws had just relocated to their home town in the countryside months before my father-in-law died, and the house was still in the very early stages of being lived in).

As for me… I walked. Walking is something I’ve turned to my whole life, for what I would now call refuge. Walking is where I meditated before I started meditating, grounding before I started practicing yoga, and where I enjoyed getting lost in thought, daydreaming, problem-solving, and just bathing in the salve of the world around me. While you would be hard-pressed to find me enjoying jogging for even 1 km, I can walk for hours on end without ever tiring.

This particular walk in Japan was where I first got to really fall in love with the passage of seasons, in a way that virtually all Japanese people do. Before my eyes, winter turned to spring, and the bare branches of an inconceivably large number of plant species blossom into life. I watched the famed plum blossoms give way to the cherry blossoms, and the tiny, hand-like Japanese maple leaves grow into their famed beauty. I marveled at how the whole world passes from the most alive kind of death, into manifest glory, in the span of weeks, as still, people leave this world, as others make their entry. I noticed, in short, how transience arises from essence, and how essence lives within every single thing that passes, and seems to leave us. It never does.

This time around, I had another remarkable experience. On my walk back home, there are two iron gates that open with a simple opening of a latch. I smile every time I reach these gates, because while one side is attached to a long gate protecting the rice fields, the other side is quite easy to just walk around. Still, like everyone else, I perform the rite of opening the latch and crossing through the gate, which has come to feel like a portal to me.

Every time I pass through, I turn around to state at the most magnificent mountain range in the distance, beyond the temple. I always feel so protected standing there in the valley between mountains where so much life happens: flowers blooming and dying, rice being harvested, people living their modest farm life. I’ve imagined living there more than once, learning to live with the rhythms of the land, of the seasons.

I was pressed up close to the gate, squished up to the diamond-shape metallic frame, so that my view of the mountains was restricted. For a moment, I felt like a prisoner looking out to a small fragment of sky outside of a barred window, and a feeling of heaviness clamped my chest. A seemingly ancient feeling of entrapment clung to me as I gazed at the mountains wistfully.

I finally turned around and started walking, but stopped again, a few feet later, to turn around. This time, the gate loomed like a large presence between me and the mountains, but there was a little more freedom. The gate felt like an obstacle instead of an all-encompassing presence keeping me from the wild and majestic nature around me. Then I started walking again, and when I was around 100 meters away, turned around one last time. This time, the gate revealed itself as the small, human-installed and fallible thing that it was, as the regal mountains reasserted themselves as the steadfast guardians of the land that they were. From this view, it was so easy for me to see that there was no barrier between me and the mountains at all. I could just walk around it to one side, or even climb it if I had to, to go where I wanted to go. To be where I wanted to be.

What a metaphor for life, I thought. What can appear so impossible and daunting when you are first faced with a challenge, with time, with space, with a shift in perspective, becomes something so much more manageable.

More than manageable, even: it becomes whole again, returned to enormous field of possibility that life truly is, when we accept that obstacles, just like freedom, are the path, as long as we are on this Earth plane we have so bravely and wisely chosen to experience. And how can we know one without the other? And isn’t the path to freedom, freedom itself?

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

This topic is so near and dear to my heart, I can hardly believe I haven’t written about it here yet! I was about to start happily typing away, when I remembered a passage from my most recent book, You Are So Much More Than You Think You Are. I’d like to share an excerpt here, since it so directly references our layered emotional world in the context of the human heart, and how exquisitely unique we are as a species for experiencing the feelings and emotions that we do.

When I do Akashic Records readings, I have the privilege and honor of meeting a diverse array of beautiful souls, all of whom are, well, going through stuff (who isn’t??), and in every single case, this means that they are having an emotional response to things happening in their lives – something is happening inside of them that is expressing as anything from unease and discomfort to sorrow, anger, resentment, despair, excitement, confusion… you name it. During the session, we will explore the root causes and the context in which healing can take place. No matter is going on for the person, the understanding arises that two things are true: we all want to feel better, and be more at peace; and we can work towards appreciating the difficult emotional terrain that initiates us into our evolution, every single time.

At the end of the day, no matter what we are going through, and no matter what expression our lives take in the world, we are here to learn through our emotions, that deep, watery terrain that teachers us about who we have been, who we are and who we aspire to be, as we take this arduous, challenging, and sublime human journey in, through and towards Love.

(P.S. Since the passage below is more about the heart and Love than the more difficult emotions we experience, I will devote some time on this Substack to looking at emotions in more detail – they are so important!)

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EXCERPT:

Did you know that your heart is one of the first organs to fully develop in the womb? We’ve all seen pictures of fetuses as they grow, and know that they are all curled up, like a kidney bean… around the heart! In fact, the forehead is often very close to touching the chest, which I love imagining as “head and heart” being so connected before we are born! At birth, head and heart become more separated as the head rises “above the heart”, just as we start prioritizing the head, and thinking, and being logical in our very productive-oriented societies.

What about our big, beating, expressive and beautiful hearts? Why don’t schools teach and cultivate children’s emotional awareness and intelligence with the same fervor with which they drill cognitive abilities, memorization and reasoning skills into us?

In fact, to the extent that we prioritize the mind and thinking life, we have it backwards. Humans are actually bundles of emotions that not only find their corollaries in physical and bodily sensation, but also serve to guide our thoughts. This is increasingly backed by science, too, the idea that emotions precede and lead to thoughts, and not the other way around!

Have you ever tried sitting and meditating long enough for “something” to happen? Most often, until we reach very high levels of consciousness, that “something” will be a form of discomfort: legs or back aching, neck feeling stiff, and so on. But if you really pay attention, there is a very specific sequence of events that are taking place – as I’ve noticed firsthand because I was so curious about this! Initially, you might just notice a sensation of discomfort. With some practice at tuning in to what’s happening within, you’ll start to notice that there is an accompanying thought to the sensation: “I’m in pain. I’m uncomfortable. This is a nightmare. My sister was so cruel to me that time she…” Something like that.

So, what precedes the thought? A feeling! At the heart of it all (literally!), there is an emotion erupting, dislodging from its stuck place within, because sitting still has allowed for the proverbial muck to rise to the surface. What we have stored inside is “emotional residue” from the past. So, it is an emotion that will arise, a feeling of frustration, or sadness, or anger, for example, which will very quickly inspire a thought and a sensation. Any of these three will catch your attention first, depending on who you are, so tuning into any one of them – emotion, thought or sensation, will take you on a very interesting journey into the bundle of activity happening within, and it’s all about emotional residue wanting to release, along with the physical pain or discomfort, so that you can feel lighter and freer. And where does this emotional residue come from? The past, of course – though it can only speak to you now, in the present, the perfect moment for healing and freeing it.

“Home is where the heart is.” We intuitively know that nothing in the world has meaning, or feels rich, or wonderful or valuable, unless it is accompanied by love, which is the domain and frequency of the heart. When you are not living in alignment with your pure and true self, what’s happening is that you are allowing your thoughts, or someone else’s thoughts, to lead. When you are in the driver’s seat, it is really the heart guiding you forward, and your heart, if you really tune into it, will never lead you astray. It can’t. It is your eternal soul speaking through your body, your connection to the great heart of the universe. Life flows so beautifully when we are moving from the heart.

It is all about the heart, and healing the heart, which leads to creating more space inside for empathy, compassion and love, the “higher expression emotions”. And that’s why we are here, every time: to understand and heal the emotional terrain, and come into a full, heart-based expression of our beautiful selves. The heart, and the love frequency, are the most honest and trustworthy backdrop to your life – to all life – in existence. Love accompanies your life through every obstacle and “emotional storm”, as I like to call them, and replenishes you even as you struggle, even as you despair, and also, of course, when things calm down and you have more capacity to lean into the support that has never left your side. As the Tin Man famously says in the The Wizard of Oz: “Now I know I’ve got a heart, ‘cause it’s breaking.” Knowing, really knowing we have a heart – that we are love – and allowing it to guide us, is the journey of a lifetime.

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

“Definitely not worthy of that.”

“Better to focus on loving the ones I love.”

“I don’t want to be selfish.”

“How indulgent.”

I just wanted to write a little love letter to you today, reminding you that finding all the love in the world for yourself is a) why you are here, and b) how the world is saved.

Let’s break that down!

a) You are here to love yourself, wildly, madly, deeply.

From the perspective of the Akashic Records, your highest self, your soul chose for you to come to Earth for this particular incarnation, this time, to have various experiences. Many of them are lessons, yes, but the keyword here is experiences. As a fractal of the great Source energy, you are also her emissary, out in the world, doing and thinking and feeling things that teach Source about her own consciousness and potential. It’s truly mind-blowing, if you think about it!

Every time you have an experience, no matter how it goes, you are fulfilling your purpose here. In terms of your own evolution, there are desired “goals” you are reaching, but this does not mean that there is one way to get it right, or a deadline for doing so. It’s all about the experience, and what you take from it, and ultimately, how the greater consciousness can expand as a result of your own expansion.

Because we are all fractals of Source, we are in it together, in every way. It can be frustrating using phrases like “we are in it together” that are so overused as to become almost meaningless, especially we are all very evidently living in a way that does not suggest interconnection in any way. But it’s true! Whether you enjoy using spiritual or quantum physical language, you can conceive of the universe as a consciousness or a “field” in which all matter arises, as part of this one field, and made of essentially the same “constituent ingredients.” Were even one tiny part of the manifest world different, the entire reality would be different. This means that not only are we all part of the “Field of One Consciousness”, but we are also dependent on one another for our very existence (in Buddhism, this is called “dependent arising”).

And really, we know this. We’ve all had situations of thinking about someone thousands of miles away, only to have them reach out to you. We may have had weirdly prophetic dreams, or “knowings” about things happening to people we know. When it comes to people we know and love on a deeper level, the experiences of telepathy and nonlocal communication happen at a greater frequency. We’ve also witnessed people walking into a room and either brightening the whole space or casting a gloomy pall.

Our energy affects others, and vice versa! And this is why doing the work of radically loving ourselves and our presence in the world is far from a selfish act – rather, it raises the vibration of the greater, collective field, and how miraculous is that? Talk about a win win!

b) Your self-love saves the world.

To recap, if it seems like a paradox, it is, but here it is anyway… to boldly place yourself at very center of your/the universe is to be paying the greatest homage to the universe as a whole. And you can’t cheat! You can’t do or say things every day that minimize yourself or reduce your stature, and then expect the world to come forth into your experience in all of its brightness, glory and opportunity. It doesn’t work that way!

Your consciousness is alive and dynamic and changing, and is continually shapeshifting the fabric of the world or the “field” in which you are but one part. Recently, I was at an exhibit in Kyoto called Team Lab: Biovortex, and they had an incredible room filled with hundreds and hundreds of lamps that were reactive to people’s presence. Every time you went near a lamp, it would light up, and this would trigger a chain reaction of lamps lighting up, so that the entire room was a perpetual symphony of gorgeous lights that never lit up in the same way twice. What a beautiful, visual and tactile representation of the power our light has to light the world in ever new ways… and in a way that is always, ultimately coming back to you.

I don’t mean to over-emphasize how the act of self-love is actually a service to humankind and to the entire universe, and beyond, though this is true. It’s also true that we are simply not kind enough to ourselves, and fall into habits like ignoring our body’s signs of exhaustion, grief and despair, and over-giving to the point of depletion. It is always wise, no matter what state we are in, to pause, deeply listen to our bodies – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – to get a sense of how “lit up” we feel, and doing whatever we can to feel better.

This is not an easy task, and sometimes it feels nearly impossible. We are living in such chaotic times, and the stressors we are living with are both loudly in our faces, and subtly running things from behind the scenes. Because of this, simply taking the time to check in with ourselves and observe ourselves with love and care amounts to a revolution. Creating even a little bit of breathing space within, from which to inject some light and hope into our systems, can go so far. It is this breathing space in which we can tune into the greater consciousness around us, which is so supportive, in which our sense of purpose resides and with which we want to align, as much and as often as we can.

If I can help you in any way to help you access that breathing space within, just reach out!

xo Tammuy

About the Writer:

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

In a nutshell, because it feels we’re in a time for nutshells rather than long, drawn-out introductions, what I want to look at with this article is a response to this sentiment:

The world is insane right now and I feel like I’m spiraling out of control. What do I do?

1) Accept that we are in a time of chaos and war.

Denying what is happening outside your window, or on the other side of your screen, is a surefire way to invite in more of what you are avoiding. Remember that the most effective way of attracting what you don’t want is to actively resist it. This is not because you are being punished – who would be the one punishing you? – but because what we resist, we fear, and what we fear, we invite in so that we can confront and hopefully, dissolve the fear. When you fear something, you are generating a world in which what you fear plays a prominent role. This world you’ve created is for all intents and purposes real, and so, why wouldn’t it become more and more populated with things to fear? Acceptance, on the other hand, is the brilliant first step in stopping the proverbial wheel of war, and doing something to transcend it. We cannot heal what we are not aware of, or not facing. Once we accept the existence of something, we can see it more clearly, and determine what we can do about it.

2) Understand your two choices when it comes to your fear.

Choice one is to succumb to the fear, making it a greater and greater reality in your life, and then scramble in search of a savior who will appease your fear. (No one can, but you). This choice involves entering into the fray, much like tossing your clothes all over your room and then running around, not knowing where anything is or how to begin to clean up the mess, because you are so subsumed within it. Another analogy is to find yourself in a storm at sea, and being so scared that your impulse is to thrash around against all of the currents, a surefire way to get tossed here and there, and ultimately, drown. Choice two is the brave and bold one: to become the calm, still eye of the storm. This is a furthering of the stopping of the wheel of war, through stopping your reactivity to it. As you still yourself, you create separation between yourself and the chaos and war, so that you can regulate your system, see things more clearly, and understand that it is possible to change your (and then the) reality.

3) Choose which you will feed.

What you feed, grows. Feeding the demons of war and chaos empowers them to become more of what they are. Feeding the forces of peace, love and light gives them the space within the collective consciousness of which you are a part to expand, so that they can diffuse the opposing forces and create the groundwork for a new kind of existence. Think of it this way. As a parent of a screaming toddler, does it serve best to start screaming too, helplessly asking your child why they are screaming knowing they cannot answer or express their reasons, or remain calm, nurturing and loving, so that your child can, when they are ready, align to your peaceful and loving state?

4) Learn to become the peace.

We don’t “get peace” or “find peace”, as though it is an entity outside of us that we can possess. We can only create what we are, and we can only be what we imagine ourselves to be. The power resides completely in our imagination and in our deep belief that what we imagine is true. It is entirely possible to be living in a world of war and to completely embody peace. This is what the yogis, mystics and sages have been doing all along: feeling into the world of which they are a part, and then turning to the self, where transformation is possible, and doing the practices necessary to bring the body and self to a state of peace and wholeness. These accomplished masters undoubtedly find themselves in a different realm or reality than the rest of us, despite the fact that they seem to be living in our world. They are choosing to be available, seen and present in our world in order to guide us to be able to do what they are doing.

5) Know that choosing peace is not delusional, but courageous.

Being the peace is not spiritual bypassing, unrealistic or unhelpful. Coupled with genuine acceptance over the state of the world and being accountable for one’s role as an essential piece of the puzzle, committing to cultivating inner peace is the revolutionary way forward, for the good of all. Being the peace means being brave enough to encounter every single part of the self that is not peaceful – the fear, the anger, the hopelessness, the doubt, and so on – and doing the work of healing. There is nothing more courageous. In wiping out the fear within yourself, you are dissolving that much more of the fear that is pervasive all around. This is how the world changes.

Learn what you personally can do to overcome your obstacles to feeling peaceful and be the eye of the storm based on your unique YOU-ness, through an Akashic Records session.

With love,

Tammy xo

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

Many years ago, when my sister and I were in our twenties (well over 20 years ago – how did that happen??), I was talking to my grandmother on the phone. I was in Toronto doing my Master’s Degree in film, and my sister was working as a teacher. Both of us were single at the time, and my grandmother was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s; her already-broken English was escaping her, but we always understood each other so well.

At one point, she started sighing, and she told me that she was worried. I asked her, “About what?” She said that she worried about my sister not having a husband, because she needed one, needed to have someone around her. “What about me?” I asked.

“You, I don’t worry. You talk to yourself.”

That made such an impression on me that I still remember it, all these years later. At the time, I was hovering on the brink of depression, and I interpreted her comment to mean that I was hopelessly locked into a hermetically-sealed world no one else would ever be able to penetrate – and in fact, a variation of this feeling was the focal point of a years-long healing journey.

Underneath it all, though, I knew what my grandmother meant: above and beyond being pretty hyper-independent (also true, and partially a gift and partially a trauma response), she could see that I enjoyed my own company, so that I never felt truly alone, no matter how lonely I might get. This couldn’t have been truer.

I love that my grandmother, who was so special to me, could see something so foundational to my existence, maybe in a way that no one else in my family has, that I am in a somewhat constant communion with an aspect of me that is far greater than myself – we can call this the divine connection, though I would have run away from such a term back then.

I’ve always been someone who loves, needs to get to the very bottom of things, the heart of the matter, whether in conversation with great friends, or great books (well, their authors, to whom I would passionately write in the margins by way of speaking to them). I’ve always needed to go on really long walks, without phones or AirPods, where I would quite literally have running dialogues with myself, sometimes in an overthinking way, but often in a joyful connection that comes from feeling tuned into the invisible parts of the world around me. Where people confused me, the sky, the trees never did!

In my book, You Are So Much More Than You Think You Are, I talk about the “breadcrumbs on the path of life”, those clues you can find, looking back, about who you really are, and where your true purpose lies. Looking back on this, for example, I can see the part of me it would take me years to fully become comfortable with, who finds it second nature to go within to both pose questions and receive answers, who takes great joy in integrating the invisible realms into our physical, manifest world, and then doing my best to express what I find.

It took some time, but I’m so grateful I found way to modalities like Reiki and the Akashic Records, which allow me to use this penchant I’ve always had of “talking to myself”, to anchor my heart into the heart of the world and bring light and healing in that I can share for those incredible souls I have the privilege of giving Reiki treatments to, or holding Akashic Records readings with.

At the end of the day, we are all talking to ourselves – we are in this world to learn how to find increasing levels of comfort, joy and peace with ourselves, with who we are, and how we can best express ourselves in this world, from a healed place of wholeness, so that we can play our part in bringing that much more light into a world that badly needs it. And of course, in talking to ourselves, we are actually talking to, connecting with, everyone else, and the entire field of existence, because it is impossible to separate any of us (though we do a great job of trying!).

We can all learn to “change the conversation” from one that is cluttered and full of doubt and fear and separation, to one that is nourishing, joyful, connected and loving. If I can be of service to you on this path, please reach out – I’d love to hear from you!

Love,

Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

In many ways, this article is a companion piece to my last one, Spiritual Guides are not Micro-Managers, where I liken guidance from beyond the veil to a conscious parenting style that seeks to support a child and make them feel safe, while granting them the autonomy to be delightfully, creatively themselves.

I’m very passionate about this topic, because as the world slides deeper and deeper into chaos – albeit temporarily – it feels there is an increasing tendency to want to turn to outside sources for help or “saving.”

But the truth is – we are here to save ourselves, in our deep and abiding connection to all living beings. We know this. We just need to feel empowered enough to live by this truth. When I write that your sovereignty cannot be stolen, what I really meant is that it can only be stolen if you let it be, if you choose to give your power way to external sources, or if you unwittingly keep your “field” (your energetic body) porous, and open to manipulation.

The best way to keep your field strong, and fortified, is to know your heart: to know your heart as the most valuable and prized possession you have. You can engage in deep contemplation about your belief systems and about what feels true to you, and from that place of deep self-attunement, be discerning about everything: what goes into your body, what you watch/listen to, and who you interact with, and so on. It’s not easy, to come to a place of absolute certainty about who you are and what feels right to you, but this is ultimately the very best source of protection you can have. No one can take away your inner freedom, no matter what can be taken away on the surface.

It is so important to know this, and not to feel victimized or beholden to external sources of power and control. And I don’t only mean corrupt governments and evil dictators or predators, and the like.

Take astrology, for example, a huge passion of mine. There are some schools of belief that your birth chart is your fate, and that there is nothing you can do to “escape it.” This couldn’t be further from the truth! As a soul, you chose your entry point – time, place, family, and so on – and your birth chart, a map of the star/planet alignments when you were born, reflects or is a crystallization of the choices your soul made for your evolution. Your birth chart, then, is a mirror of your soul’s own desires, and a blueprint offering you a picture of what you came here to learn, what challenges you came here to experience, and what gifts you have to help you along the way. I would say that a knowledge of your blueprint empowers you to know what you are working with, to better enable you to make choices to help you along your evolutionary path.

In other words, do not go see an astrologer who will tell you that you are “destined to get divorced/contract an illness, etc.” This simply cannot be true, and in the worst case scenario, can even entrain your brain to make it so. A good astrologer will do a great job of presenting you with your soul’s vision for you for your lifetime, so that you can navigate life’s storms with great ease and preparation, with the awareness that we are creating and re-creating our realities at every given moment.

The same exact thing goes for an Akashic Records reading. It is not a psychic reading, and psychic visions, too, are always subject to change as we, the co-creators of reality, make given choices that affect outcomes. A good Akashic reading will provide you with much the same thing as a good astrology reading: a lovely contextualized account of your soul’s wishes for you for this lifetime, for no other reason than to connect you with your divinely creative and sovereign spirit.

What more can we ask for, than guidance that does not look like control, directives or deterministic outcomes, but rather, looks a whole lot more like a supportive and loving window into your own psyche, to further enable you to live your life on your own terms?

Wisdom-inflected love and support in holding space and providing guideposts for your healthy and happy growth cannot be underestimated! After all, we are here as sovereign beings, but also, we are here in connection, in relation to one another, and there is a divine purpose in this.

But the cosmic order from which you come wants you to live life on your own terms, to stumble and to fall, to try and to try again; it is, in every sense, why you are here. Your consciously lived life is a massive contribution to existence itself.

So, don’t ever forget: YOU are the creative intelligence, and the key operator of your own life, and the rest of our cosmic ecosystem depends on your awareness of this!

xo, Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

I was just thinking about the beautiful role of conscious parenting, and a particular vision came to mind, of a couple of three- or four-year-olds playing together. The kids are wholly absorbed in their world of make believe, whether it’s dolls or trucks or building blocks or just role playing. They are delightfully immersed in a world of their creation, like no other world exists, and they do so with complete conviction, honesty and belief in what they’re creating. In this world, they are the heroines and the villains and everything between, and the decisions that they make change everything.

Nothing is off limits.

Of course, if we pull back from this scene, we can see that their parents are watching on, supervising, and maybe they are remaining silent, in the background, not to interrupt the creative flow. Of course they’re there! These kids are really young, and can potentially get into all sorts of trouble, and these amazing parents in my scenario are staying as invisible as they can so that the kids can have the agency to navigate their way through their experience, while offering support as needed.

I realized that this vision came to me as a startlingly clear and beautiful analogy for the ideal relationship we’d have with “spirit” – you can call it “God” or “Source” or “Universe”, and you can also refer to the beings called “spirit guides” or “guardian angels” or just “guides” who surround us from beyond the veil throughout our lives.

I find that there is sometimes a tendency to cultivate an over-reliance on the loving support and guidance that is available to us from beyond the veil. To go back to the analogy, this would be akin to a 4-year-old playing “doctor” with her friend constantly turning to her father every two seconds to ask him questions: Daddy, should I help the patient? What do I do? How should I talk to her? How do I do A, B, C?”

I can imagine the conscious father answering this way: “Sweetheart, try to figure out for yourself, I know you can do it! And if you make a mistake, it’s okay. You can just try again. Listen to your heart, and your gut. They know! And if you try and try and you are still stuck or confused, come ask me again and we’ll figure it out together.”

I love applying this analogy to our real life search for spiritual meaning and for guidance in times of confusion or stuckness. There is this perpetual idea many of us have that we are constantly getting things wrong, and we can become really fixated on “getting the right answer” from somewhere. We know from thousands of years of patriarchy and religious persuasion that “God as the bearded man in the sky” and religious doctrine was happy to have people believe that they needed this kind of “help and guidance”, to be “parented” from cradle to grave, and we all know how that’s gone – look at the state of the world today, and how much corruption has been exposed, and much disempowerment has resulted from doling out our sovereignty in this way.

Depending on our state of consciousness, and certainly our conditioning and upbringing, we will have greater or lesser capacities to become our own inner authority. We are trained from such an early age that our parents/guardians are the ultimate, all-knowing authority, along with our teachers, governments, and as we’ve looked out, our religious leaders. Our awareness of our own power is constantly being taken away from us.

This is why “turning to spirituality” it can be a particularly interesting and sensitive time: on the one hand, so many are waking up to the awareness that authority figures most certainly do not always know best, but might still have an unconscious attraction to externalized sources of power – hence the over-reliance on “spiritual guidance.”

It cannot be overstated: just like the little child playing make believe, we are meant to be the designers and architects of our own lives. We come from a creative impulse and we are here as living embodiments of creation and creativity. If every child was constantly told how to play and what the rules of the game were, would anything new ever be created?

Now, this does not mean that there is no room in our lives for guidance. We know this! If we’re lucky, we’ve had teachers who have opened up our eyes to whole new perspectives on things, and these incredible teachers, like the conscious parent, would open doors for us, but let us walk through on our own.

This is how I approach my work as an Akashic Records reader, along with my own experiences with the Records, and guides. The infinitely expansive consciousness of which we are a part is naturally designed to hold space for our growth – it cannot be any other way. Tuning into this field of love and support will naturally “elevate us” into a frequency and internal harmony in which insights and clarity arrive to guide us. As a reader, I consider my role to be a facilitator – since I spend so much time in this space, I can bring in the frequency as will as the information that will not “guide” you in the sense of micromanagement, but will provide the context and the energetic frequency that puts you in a greater position to tune into your infinite potential: for power, for wisdom, for stepping into your purpose.

It is such a gift to watch clients’ faces light up – glow – as they feel in an embodied way the love and support that is always with them and within them. This becomes anchored as a deep knowing within, and this does not go away, and continues to fuel the spiritual path, just as a child raised consciously to be creative, confident and empowered will have the foundations she needs to become the most expansive version of herself as she grows up.

It is such a beautiful thing.

xo Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

We are so clearly in the depths of the fires of transmutation, personally, collectively and as inhabitants of a planet that is, herself, living through a time of metamorphosis, and we know that can be no creation, no regeneration, without a period of destruction. Here we are, and thank goodness, thank GOODNESS, we have each other, and our hoping hearts, and our connection to the vastness of the cosmos through the vehicle of love.

Love is what we are, love provides the perspective (this is the essence of the Akashic realm to me) and this is what carries us through.

A woman reached out to me after she found this poem published on a beautiful blog called Journey of the Heart. She was attending a ceremony honoring UK soldiers who died on a battlefield abroad - her son was among them. She asked if she could read this poem at the ceremony. I was honored more than I could possibly say to know that words breathing of the essence of love could be carried from the whispers of my heart, through the winds, far and wide. We all have the spirit of love in us, and nothing feels more urgent than to amplify this spirit, to make love our conscious offering, in every moment.

Thank you so much for reading, and being here, and sharing, if you feel called to!

xo Tammy

*

I Choose Love

When it turns to dark and my heart says hide,

I can still love.

When I can’t inspire or feel the muse around me,

Still, I can love.

When the air has gone dry, when my throat is muffled,

When I can no longer sing,

I can still choose love.

When the words fail me, when everything is wrecked,

When love has forsaken me and my memories fade

So that I’m forsaking myself,

There is still a space for love.

When my soul fragments, when my joints thicken in fury,

When my eyes gloss over and I can hear the ocean wailing,

When the world is torn to bits,

I can still love, and love again.

When the magic fades away, when I’ve lost my perspective,

When my protection is gone, and my nerves are shot,

When the tears won’t stop, when I never even want them to,

I can always choose love.

When the sky hangs heaviest, when fear is the loudest sound,

When I collapse into a pile, and passions run mad,

When colors bleed and spill,

I can choose the path of love.

When the platform is gone, when I don’t understand

Anything at all about love,

I will still, as best as I can,

Choose love.

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

If there’s one thing that unites every single human on Earth, it is the shared desire to be loved. We so often struggle with not feeling loved, or loved enough; with not feeling worthy of love; with feeling separate from others, lonely, and isolated.

And because everyone and everything around us is a mirror, we inevitable have to turn these feelings to ourselves, and ask: Do I love myself enough? Do I feel worthy of my own love? Do I feel separate, or a lack of connection with my own self?

We know that despite feeling sure that we love the ones we love, we can’t ultimately, truly love until we have genuine love for ourselves. We cannot love fully if our hearts are not full, and if we don’t love ourselves, then our hearts are not and cannot be full. We hear this all the time, and know it with our minds, but it’s very challenging to have an embodied feeling of the interconnectedness of all things, that we all fall under the umbrella of love, like we all receive the sun’s rays equally.

I am thou, said philosopher Martin Buber. I am you, and you are me, so loving ourselves is inevitably an integral part of the equation.

Why is it hard to know that we are all connected? I used the word “embodied” very deliberately. As humans, we are embodied – we have bodies, we are in form, or structure. Matter exists in form, and form by definition can be delineated. We can easily see the boundaries, the separation between things, or objects, or anything that has form. Of course everything appears separate, because in one sense, it is!

As soon as A is separate from B, A can classify B as “other”, and then continue to make judgments about B, and make comparisons. This is the basis, in short, of all divisiveness, and, in the worst case scenario, conflict, violence and war – total destruction. We are very much aware of what this looks like in our world today.

It takes understanding the science of matter (that it is ultimately energy that never dies, only transforms) and giant leaps of faith to live according to the edict that separation is ultimately an illusion, that we are all one, fundamentally connected in a unified field. I am a firm believer that we can use our rational minds really effectively to understand certain principles, like matter being energy, along with the scientific proof of nonlocal consciousness – that we are not bound by the reality our senses perceive, but can affect things and be connected with things at great distances away, or have telepathic experiences, and so on. Once we rationally understand things to be true, we can start to do the work of allowing this knowledge to really sink into our own consciousness, until it feels like a lived reality in us – in our blood and bones, so to speak.

And what is it that we ultimately want to feel on the deepest levels inside of us?

Love.

We want to feel love as the very fabric of our existence, and not a byproduct or secondary aspect of it. We certainly want to feel that love is not conditional and is not something that can be given or taken away.

We are love, made of it, and living emissaries of it, with every breath we take. If we can really feel this, then we don’t even have to question if we love ourselves, or anyone else. It would just be the default experience of life.

Can you even imagine this state of affairs? And yet, this is the direction humanity is now heading in, if we so choose. The momentum is there for it. Collapse inevitably brings expansion in its wake.

So, where do the Akashic Records come in?

We talk often about the Records as a vast consciousness containing all of us and our experience, and as such, that they contain information about our past, present and future outcomes. This is true, but the most important thing we want to think about when we think about the Akashic field is that is a field made of Love, just like we are, on a more microcosmic level.

Very often, when I do readings, the information that comes through for clients is illuminating, and sometimes it can be a little abstract or even confusing in the moment – it can take months or longer for the guidance that comes through to be fully understood or integrated (and I love hearing from clients when things “click”!). But one thing that happens on some level during every single reading is that the client is glowing by the end. They look lighter, relieved, even. They feel seen, heard and loved. Many start crying at certain points in the reading, and I tell them that this their bodies responding to the Truth of Love. The body doesn’t lie, and can comfortably release when truths are encountered, and healing and releasing become possible.

These are the forces of Love at work, amplified because the client and I have a shared intention to opening our fields to healing. It is so powerful, and Love bypasses the mind, every time. The body responds to being seen by Love, and this love activates the love principle in the person being seen by Love.

When we receive the love that comes through from the Akashic consciousness, we are not receiving something we don’t have. We are awakening the Love within us, that is activated by the unconditional love pouring in. Whether our minds understand what is happening or not, our whole being is realigning to the pure force and truth of Love, and this is how self-love can be beautifully cultivated. And what can’t follow from there? It is astonishing to see how much clarity and expansion and even decisive action feel possible, once Love is the way of being.

It doesn’t happen overnight, but the more we very attentively tune into the love that we feel coursing through us – from an Akashic session, from a genuine encounter with a loved one, by looking at a sunrise – the more we are “training” our whole being to live in this flow state of Love.

This love is vast and it is for everyone. And it starts with the self, in which the All exists.

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

Sometimes people ask me, “Why is it so ‘unicorn and rainbow-like’ in the Akashic Records when our world is in such a dire state of affairs? Are the Records blind?”

And I really appreciate hearing this perspective, because I can imagine that before I started doing energy work and then spending time in the Akashic realm, I would have had the very same questions. I would have been suspicious of a perspective that didn’t address the “realism” of the times – spiritual bypassing comes to mind.

When you go to school, you learn in steps. You don’t start first grade, then second grade, and so on, starting over each time. Every year you start learning new things, building upon all the things you’ve learned previously, so that there are layers of knowing. Great teachers, too, because they’ve worked toward a greater degree of knowledge and/or wisdom, have the ability to gauge where a student is at, and not only meet them at that level, but teach them in a way that expands their potential to truly learn – not just to amass information, but to expand their consciousness.

The Akashic Records is a consciousness that is inseparable from your human consciousness, but it is a larger realm. Just like you might say of God or Source we are this Source or divinity, but as one individualized aspect of it, we can say we are not separable from the Akashic realm, which also stretches out into the entire cosmic field.

Because the Akashic Records store within them everything you have ever thought, felt, said or done, it is very “aware” of the struggles and challenges that you experience, and that humanity undergoes. That is a given. They are also aware of all the experiences you have had but don’t consciously remember in this life, including the proverbial “good, bad and ugly.” Being in the space of the Records, you can access qualities of your soul’s experience on other planets and galaxies, and other lifetimes on Earth in times of peace, serenity, bliss, and so on. You can also access potential “future” outcomes that run the gamut of difficulty and ease, pain and joy.

It is all there. And this “there-ness”, these imprints of experience are held within a field from which all experience arises. This field also has consciousness, a really high-level consciousness that knows and understands the levels of evolution it has already transcended. We can think of this field, once again, as God or Source or the All That Is, or in scientific terms as a quantum or plasmic field that contains the pure potentiality from which all life emerges.

This is why the Akashic Records are such an incredible realm to access and make use of – the guidance you can get there is always coming from a perspective that “understands” our everyday concerns – which job should I take? Should I leave my partner? When am I going to be out of debt – but “sees” you at the level of your vast, beautiful soul, along with the experiences and lessons your soul wanted you to have and learn in this lifetime. From this perspective, it matters much less which job you take, and much more that you fulfill your soul’s longing for you to express your gifts in this world, in any way possible.

Similarly, the Records “understand” that there is war and suffering all around, but they also “see” that humanity is playing out repeated karmic patterns to learn, heal and release them, and also that while we all harbor darkness inside of us that is mirrored by the darkness in the world, we are truly beings of light, that the light can never leave us because it’s what we are made of, and that the light is always stronger than the dark, which is also of the light, of Source, of the All That Is.

Just like certain high frequency music can rearrange grains of sand into sacred and harmonic patterns, the Akashic Realm, simply by operating at such a high frequency understanding, can raise our frequency through its transmissions of love, guidance and wisdom, so that the light within us can be felt by us more palpably, inspiring us to live our lives in a more aligned way, which “lifts us up” into a higher way of being and living. This serves us much more than receiving guidance about one job or another, which might improve our lives in some way, but keeps us in a relatively dense layer of human experience.

If you went to see a true guru, a fully realized being, you would very likely, in their presence, lose all interest in asking questions about money, or career, or the like. You would be almost blinded by the light and love they emanate, and want to simply bask in their field, their energy. If you were able to ask questions, you would most likely feel inspired to ask questions like: How can I feel as peaceful and happy as you seem to be? How can I best serve the world so that the whole world starts to feel more peaceful and happier?

We would be asking really big-picture questions!

Happiness is not something you “learn”, but something that you feel, and being in the vibration of happiness, bliss, peace, joy, contentment, creates a field for you in which you can start to feel the same thing. It’s very simple, and very profound! And this is what I often feel the Akashic realm is like. Whether I’m going into my own Records, or doing a reading for others, we all inevitably emerge from the loving presence of the Akashic realm with our greatest troubles, personal and collective put in perspective and feeling so much more optimistic about life.

It’s not that we should ignore our troubles or the world’s troubles, just the opposite. We should always be aware of what is happening within us and in the environments around us. Our troubles are a very real part of our existence, and they exist for us to confront and work through. We cannot do that by being mired in negativity and helplessness. What we can do is seek that higher perspective that allow us to see our troubles as more manageable, so that we can move forward.

A larger perspective has never diminished our lives. It will always help us create the spaciousness we need to breathe deeper, remember the perfection that we are and that everything is, and take the steps we need to take to sort out the troubles we find ourselves in, and get to the other side… which has been available to us all along, and is always ready to meet us with a smile.

PS. A little announcement! I’ve put together a compilation of poems called 100 Days of Peace and Hope (hoping to be a little light in these trying times!!), and put it up as an ebook on Amazon for less than a cup of coffee! If you’d like a PDF sent to you, or to send to friends, for free of course, just ask!!

You can find the book here!

Love, Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poems and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

We know that we want to move from a fear-based state to a love-based state. We would choose love over fear every time.

And yet: we are scared. We have so much fear. So let’s start there.

We are undoubtedly, and very rapidly, finding ourselves in times of greater and greater uncertainty, in just about all aspects of life. And we are probably noticing that we are feeling this at the individual and also collective levels.

What is happening? And why?

We can’t really answer these questions, though we can come up with plenty of theories, go down infinite rabbit holes, and beat our heads against the wall wondering why we want peace, and yet end up in a state of war, over and over and over again.

We can look to history, both smaller and larger time frames, and find cycles of peaceful times, followed by times characterized by greed, power grabs, and violent conflict. We can wonder: what is the way out of this cyclical nightmare, what the Buddhists call samsara?

I’m more interested in asking:

What do we do right now, to make things better, to change things? What can I do, in a personal level, as one tiny drop in the ocean of life, to make a difference?

First, I can recognize that even one drop of water added to an ocean changes the ocean completely, and forever. We are that important, that profoundly influential. We must understand this about ourselves, if we don’t want to be completely subsumed by feelings of helplessness, or powerlessness.

Then, I can examine my relationship with fear. Most of us are probably filled with fear right now, as the world threatens to completely implode.

What we fear gets stronger. We may want to upend certain national governments, if not all of them, and put an end to all of the madness, but our fear of them and what they are organizing is strengthening their power. We have essentially agreed, on a mass scale, that we have no choice but to live with these governments, within these systems, subject to the decisions that they make, even as most of us have distaste, if not outright hatred, for the manifest outcome of these beliefs.

Our fear is literally running the world.

I often think, if every single one of us wanted to put an end to the madness, there is nothing stopping us from connecting, communicating, and putting our actions where our beliefs and desires lie. It’s that simple. But we don’t. We are scared: scared to lose what comforts we still have, scared of the uncertainty of what a so-called anarchy would bring, scared of retaliation on the part of those who hold power over us.

But what is more scary than continuing down the track we are on?

One impulse, when we are scared, is to want to retreat. We can become flooded with nostalgia for better, safer times, even when those times were essentially the seeds, if not the cause of our situation today.

We can allow fear to force us into retreat, hoping that we will be saved by someone or something. Or, we can lean into fear and hold fast to a vision for a better future. Because who is going to make that future, if not us?

We are still in a stage of having been lulled into complacency in one way or another, and we don’t truly believe that things can get that bad. Even if we know deep in our hearts that things can, and in fact have, gotten that bad. Sometimes we are nudged into change, and sometimes, if we don’t heed the call, we are sledgehammered into it.

The sledgehammer has hammered, has it not?

So here we are, truly understanding that something needs to give, to change, to be completely overhauled. And it can only start within. This is the one area we know we have complete dominion over.

And this is where the second, alternate response to fear comes in. We can resist the impulse to run away and obey, and face the fear head on.

I’m scared of war.

I’m scared the world will end.

I’m scared that nuclear power will come into play.

I’m scared of humanity’s annihilation.

I’m scared of suffering and dying.

And on and on.

We can consciously sit with the fear and see what it looks like, what it feels like, and what visions it is presenting to us. We can let our bodies shake, quiver, scream, cry, pound at something in fury.

Our fears have so much to teach us about our desires, because we are so emphatically confronting what we don’t want to be facing. Our fears can help us become crystal clear on the kind of world we want to be living in, which is the starting point of any revolution that will bring these changes about.

Right in the heart of our fears lie the seeds of potential and possibility like a little light with the power of a thousand suns piercing through the veil of complacency and jarring us into empowered action.

This light comes from the cosmic field of light that is the foundation for all of existence on the macro and micro levels, and it is ours to access, to seize, to merge with and to align our actions to. We can allow our fear to motivate us to move toward what we want rather than back to what may appear comfortable but will keep us in fear.

And we do this together, we will be unstoppable. Each of us has a very unique blueprint and set of gifts and skills we can bring to this togetherness, and we will understand that we don’t have to change the world alone, and also that our contribution, coming from a pure and aligned heart, is enormous.

The fear is uncomfortable, and it will become more uncomfortable before it starts to dissipate, make no mistake about it. We also know that no significant change, no hero’s journey, is accomplished without it.

This is our time to shine.

Love, Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poem and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

**I’m using the word “heroes” here instead of “heroes and heroines” in my understanding that “hero” is not an exclusively masculine term, for the sake of simplicity.

You’ve undoubtedly heard all about the Epstein files, and may have had certain reactions to discovering how many times Deepak Chopra appears in them. If your algorithms are “tuned to the spiritual dial”, as mine are, it’s all anyone’s talking about. And it’s understandable. No one wants to see a person very comfortably assuming the position of role model and teacher, if not outright spiritual guru, be implicated in… well, the beyond-disgusting world we’ve come to associate with Epstein but is of course much more pervasive than that, and with whomever else might be on one particular list, no matter how devastatingly long this particular list is.

Devasting, but not shocking. Is it? We know that all is not right with the world – far from it. We’ve known for a long, long time, and we wonder how long things have been so… toxic, backwards, wrong, evil. We’ve been uneasy, and to equal degrees, we’ve been gaslit in more ways that we can wrap our heads around to believe that the world we’re living in is as it should be. Our senses have been dulled, our minds have been manipulated and controlled… and to some degree, we might acknowledge we’ve been walking right into this state of affairs, eyes wide open.

We find ourselves in a situation where we’ve allowed ourselves to be coddled and “protected” by forces who, as it turns out, would not hesitate to mislead or harm us, or, in the case of Chopra, at the very least present a version of himself greatly at odds with certain aspects of his character. Why did we do this? Why do we do this? For many reasons, but mostly, because it was/is convenient, and the path of least resistance. But also, many among us simply believed that those in positions of power and leadership, and also those elected by the people to serve and protect the people, have been genuinely interested in doing their jobs well, and ethically.

We have believed, as a matter of course, that there is value in having “heroes” – role models, gurus, leaders who show us the way. And that we can’t find the way without them.

Why do we have heroes? Where does what we can essentially call hero worship come from?

This is a very complex question, of course, but I think we can agree that when we, as individuals and cultures, adopt heroes, it is because we are looking outside of ourselves for whatever it is we are seeking: answers, meaning, protection, to be saved, and so on. And why do we do this? because we feel helpless, vulnerable, scared, powerless on our own.

This is the crux of the issue. This is what needs to be reckoned with if we are to heal and move forward as a people very clearly in a moment of crisis.

Of course, we want to hold the Deepaks and Epsteins of the world accountable. Of course, we want to do every single thing we can to ensure that no one – no child, especially, but no one, no one! – is ever harmed again as they have been, repeatedly and gruesomely, for so long, as they continue to be this very minute. But it is imperative to this end that we stop creating the conditions that allow these subserve, subterranean worlds from thriving, unseen and insipid.

We have to become thoroughly sickened by societies built on hierarchy, in which glaring examples of difference and othering are the norm: higher class and lower class, leader and the lead, hero and the hero worshipper, teacher and student.

Us and them. Me and you.

I don’t mean by this that that there is no room for students to learn, teachers to teach, leaders, even, to lead. In an ideal world, the teacher knows that they are always learning; the student knows that their own heart is their ultimate teacher, guiding them to the teachers who can help them along their path; and leaders know that their calling is less to lead than to serve.

We are not, right now, living in this ideal world, not by a long shot, though we can find some examples of this beautiful, ideal scenario, and some beautiful, realized beings on this planet. To achieve more of this, we must come to recognize that a fallen hero, in addition to being a decoy, or distraction away from even more gruesome realities being hidden to help the powerful maintain their power, is simply a highly publicized “device” that serves to perpetuate the appealing myth of the hero.

In other words, when we hear of fallen heroes, we can either scramble to immediately turn our gaze to heroes not yet fallen and place our authority there, or we can finally recognize that we are the hero of our lives.

We are the hero.

No one has walked the path we have walked. No one knows better than we do what is true, what is real, what is good, and what we need. We are here as souls in embodied form specifically to live out a unique life no one has ever before lived. No one has a de facto justification for being placed on a pedestal, or in any position of authority over us, whether they are forcing their authority over us, or if we think we are choosing to give it to them.

It might look like we have chosen. We might feel we chose to read Deepak’s book, to attend his workshops, watch his lectures on YouTube, place trust in him. And to an extent, this is true, or can appear to be true. It takes an extraordinary amount of effort to become utterly discerning in recognizing all of the cultural forces that have created a society that almost demands hero worship at every turn.

This celebrity. That athlete. This public figure. That guru.

In so many ways, we are crafted, created, designed, even, by forces greater than us, and it takes a lot of work to figure this out, dissect what these forces are, and extricate ourselves from them, if we’d like to. It’s also true that we cannot ultimately separate ourselves from anything outside of us, including these forces. Change yourself, change the world – we hear this spiritual truth often.

Instead of losing our minds trying to figure out whose fault it is that we lie here, broken an untrusting, confused and hopeless, without rudders and lost at sea, we can start to believe that there is a way out of this chaotic storm.

If we are part of the mess, we are also part of the solution. It truly is a giant web connecting us all. This is not about fault, but about recognizing the parts of ourselves that can connect with what we despair over in the world, and the parts of us that are uniquely equipped to see ourselves – to love our way through.

We can take some time and dwell with the confusion, not so that it subsumes us, but so that we can confront it with the unflinching gaze of the hero determined to transcend the times we are in. We can fully, bravely encounter the feeling we have in this moment that the madness of the world will never be resolved. That the madness of our inner world – the heart – will never be resolved. We can stop trying to untangle the mess of what is what, and let the feelings we are experiencing wash over us… and through us. Only we can do this. Only we can, with the greatest love and compassion, unleash what has been buried within for so long… and this is why we are the hero of our lives.

Slowly, from here, we can cast our gaze out from our broken but utterly loved selves, and turn to others who are also emerging from the wreckage of their devastated selves, looking for connection and the joys and triumphs that come from sharing in both our pain and our hope. We can learn to trust again, one step at a time, because our hearts have been shattered, broken open, and they know how to lead us. We might notice that we won’t find ourselves grasping for promises others might try to make about our salvation, but for the simple, sublime, truth of loving connection.

We will understand that we are the heroes, and in our connection with others, heroes among heroes. We will learn as we teach, teach as we learn, and invite wisdom everywhere we find it. We will allow love to seed, grow and nourish us. It will feel inconceivable to harm another, or to allow another to be harmed. We will not give our power away. We will celebrate not hierarchy but difference, because difference – diversity in every single way – is the fabric of our manifest world. We are all incredibly unique, heroic aspects of Source experiencing itself through us, through every single one of us, equally and purely. If there is something more heroic than finding and living in the very heart of our human experience, I don’t know what it is.

Love, Tammy

I’m going to preface this article with a belief that I hold close to my heart, which is: there is nothing that you seek that is not already inside of you.

It’s so important to stress this, because it can feel so natural, so common for us to externalize, to look to something other than ourselves as some final arbiter of anything from our health and happiness to peace of mind and even overall “salvation”, whatever that would look like for you.

We can come into our lives with a predisposition to outsource for our sense of worth or wellbeing, or we can be conditioned really young to believe that even beyond our basic survival needs, we are fairly helpless without the intervention of our parents or primary caregivers, and then teachers and other authority figures, and so on. If this is the case, we can very easily grow up with the patterned belief that we cannot trust our own hearts – our own selves – to guide us.

We say this often: Follow your heart. Listen to your heart. Even, your gut knows. What does this really mean? Science has shown that both the physical gut and heart areas have their own intelligence, which are in some ways more sophisticated than the intelligence of the brain. There is more than one “operating system” in the body, so to speak, and we can train ourselves to become attuned to this.

On a more energetic level, we would call this learning to cultivate our intuition. When we go through the portals of the gut, or the heart, or both, we find ourselves having access to a wealth of information, and if we use discernment about what we are accessing, we can find our lives enriched by a wisdom that transcends what are thinking minds can grasp or get to on their own.

Now, of course, everyone has intuition, and the capacity to cultivate it. People often believe that they are not intuitive, but when pressed, can come with examples from their lives when they suddenly had a knowing, and it saved their lives, or the lives of loved ones, or enhanced their lives in certain ways. The belief part is the hardest, because there are so many more forces out there keen on keeping us “small” and dependent on external systems, than relying on our inner compass.

In other words, I think many of us are in situations of “knowing, but not knowing for sure”, and when there is that base awareness of having an intuitive grasp on things but a feeling of stuckness on taking these intuitions in interesting or productive directions, it can be really helpful to have an Akashic Records reading.

The Akashic Records are not a “saving grace” or an external “entity” of some kind that has answers for you. They are a consciousness, and as such, are completely interwoven with your own – they are you, just like God, or universe, or source, or however you want to call it, are the most expansive aspect of you, so that you are an inextricable part of the All that is ever-unfolding.

The Akashic realm is an energetic consciousness that lovingly holds the story of you in all of its permutations, so there is much more there than your conscious or egoic mind can perceive – and this is perfect, because if we could perceive that much in our day to day lives, we would be completely overwhelmed. In times of feeling stuck or troubled about something, though, it’s beautiful to know that you can tune into this greater consciousness holding your entire human (and soul) experience, for a new and helpful perspective on how to navigate your way forward.

I don’t like to think of Akashic Records readings as providing answers so much as perspective. After all, we are here as spirit having a human experience so that we can learn and stumble and make mistakes and have more experiences and learn – and what we are learning, we are feeling our souls, which are hungry for this experience. We are not here to find cheat sheets in navigating our lives, but when we are feeling stuck, at a crossroads, or pondering some really big questions, we can get some help and context from a larger perspective – and we might well learn that we are deliberately having the experience we’re having, because navigating our way out, by making certain choices, or following certain paths, is the entire point of our existence, and serving a fundamental purpose at this point in our journey.

This is something you can learn to do for yourself, by cultivating habits like sitting with silence, developing mindfulness, tuning into heart, and earnestly asking questions. Along the way, getting a professional Akashic Records reading might be really helpful, because we readers have spent a lot of time cultivating these qualities for the express purpose of being of service in this way! As conduits for this higher wisdom, we are here to offer what really amounts to affirmation of what your deepest heart already knows.

I guess this is the point I wanted to make the most: it is all inside of you. And as you work on believing that and practicing accessing it, you can turn to a reader who can tune in to your field – to your Records, and give you that jumpstart on affirming for you what you already, deep down, know. Being able to work this way together, in communion, for the advancement of our lives, our souls… this is what it’s all about.

Love, Tammy xo

About the Writer:

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poem and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

It’s true!

It might not feel true, though.

It might feel like there’s a heck of a lot going wrong, and this is likely part of the reason you are considering having an Akashic Records reading, or another kind of reading, healing or treatment.

It might be that your relationship is falling apart (or that your dream relationship is elusive). It might be that you hate your job, or can’t find one, or want to move more into your vocation. Life might feel devoid of meaning or purpose. There might be a whole lot of fear related to all the uncertainty in the world.

This is all extremely valid, and I feel for you!! More than that, I feel with you. I have been there! I am there still, in many ways, at one time or another.

That’s why I love looking for ways, not to make it all better in one fell swoop – and we can’t anyway, and nor should we, as our more challenging moments are great teachers for us – but to find ways of reframing the situation from a higher perspective.

And this is one of my favorite ones. I love looking at what we can call engaging with the miracle of life.

Not everyone will resonate with this, but many believe that as souls, we choose our incarnations. In other words, if we are here, struggling (or not) and stumbling through life as best as we can, it’s because we chose to be here. We chose to come here and have a human experience and learn all sorts of things through making all sorts of mistakes, which are our impetus to grow and change: to evolve.

That doesn’t mean we will automatically feel better about everything, but it does change things a little, doesn’t it, to know that there is purpose and meaning in the particular ways we are struggling in life, that there is some larger arc or journey in which this lifetime, with all its pain and triumph, is but a part?

Maybe, armed with this awareness, we can become really curious and contemplative about our unique struggles, search for patterns of this lifetime, maybe seek guidance from an Akashic Records reading about patterns that have persisted over lifetimes looking for resolution, and start to engage with our lives like the magical, mysterious adventure tale that it actually is.

On top of this, and this is not news to anyone, we can cultivate gratitude. The fact is that despite our struggles, there is a whole lot going right that we tend to overlook when we are struggling. Psychologists trace this to something called the “negativity bias” – we are hardwired from our history struggling to survive in the wild, to be on the lookout for threats and dangers to stay alive. We are still really good at honing our focus in on what is not working, even though our immediate survival is likely not being threatened.

For whatever reason, negativity can take over our lives. We can receive 10 compliments in a row, but it’s the one criticism that we will fixate on. You know how it goes!

Because of this, it would be very much worth it to spend some time each day making a point to reflect on what is going right. You might have some relationships that are going well, or the weather can be beautiful, or maybe you had a really great idea for a project you want to get started on.

And at the most fundamental level, you are alive. This means that no matter what your health status is at the moment, there is more going right in your body than going wrong. The fact that you are breathing, moving in any capacity, the fact that you have a vessel that is allowing you to breathe and think and feel and read this article… this means that the vital force of the universe is expressing itself in you.

And this means that you are existing in a field of pure possibility. Because the love and awareness and intention that we bring to every single moment of our lives can truly change everything in an instant. It might not, for various reasons, like our negative thought patterns that are hard to break, and on. But the simple awareness that your aliveness is your portal to all miracles, big and small, is the beginning of a profound journey into the fundamental perfection of the present moment, as imperfect as it may feel!

This aliveness of yours is not a matter of chance, or the function of a cosmic joke. It is an exquisitely designed moment of creation and evolution… and it is yours for the taking.

Love,

Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poem and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

I’m often asked if an Akashic Records reading is like a psychic reading (or if it IS a psychic reading). Even when that’s not asked directly, people tend to ask about what will happen in the future, how things will go, and when certain things will happen.

It’s understandable! Often, when we are seeking guidance and turn to energy workers, healers or readings of various kinds, it’s because there is a lot of uncertainty in our lives, and we want to know if things will be okay, and how soon! Ultimately, we all have a very base need to feel safe and secure, even if there is also the part us, lovingly guided by our souls, to push the boundaries of what feels safe and secure so that we may evolve through change – often, through the school of hard knocks!

We want to feel safe (the proverbial comfort zone), and we want, on some level, to face the unknown, because on the other side of the unknown potentially lies everything we’ve been dreaming of and have not been able to manifest from the confines of our status quo. We are very interesting creatures indeed, with all of our dual desires… and it was designed to be this way.

We are human, having a human experience in bodies, with minds and egos and emotions and all of that fun stuff. That is the transient part of us, while the eternal, non-dual part of us gets to “come down” from the cosmos and experience life through polarity and duality, conflict and strife, emotions like deep sorrow and great joy.

Our souls know that everything is fundamentally perfect and alright and that there is no way to get things wrong and that we need to be constantly pushing the envelope in the name of growth. Our human selves might catch glimpses of this wisdom from time to time, but we are often very resistant to change, and often on a subconscious level, so that we don’t really know where our points of resistance are. Allowing great change into our lives comes from an ability to surrender: to have faith that everything is going to be okay, because we are divinely guided, and are, in fact, not separate from divinity itself. Not an easy task!

And this is why we are attached to a need to know what is going to happen. Are we going to get the job? Are we going to be healthy? Is everything going to be okay? What about finding the love of our lives, when is that going to happen? Will my investments pay off, or lead to bankruptcy?

We think that knowing these things will make us feel better. But I see it as no different from reading the final chapter of a book before reading the rest of it. Don’t we lose out on the magic of mystery and the unknown if already know how things will go? If we came into life knowing or able to know all of the answers, what is the point of the journey?

This is part of what I wanted to address when it comes to being drawn to psychic readings, as opposed to an Akashic Records Reading. Because the Records contain everything related to a given soul, including past, present and potential future outcomes, it makes sense that we would want to ask for guidance about how things will go for us.

You’ll notice that I wrote potential future, and not actual future here – and we are making the distinction as though chronological time exists, which, at the quantum level, it does not. We do experience time here on Earth, though, so we want to understand how it works here. The fact of the matter is that based on how things are going in the present (which is based on our past decision-making and proclivities), it is possible to access probabilities for how things will go in the future. Anyone tuning in to “the future” is accessing a point in time and space resonant with the frequencies of now – you can call it the current timeline. Because everything is frequency, energy and vibration, and because things don’t move linearly on that level, we can access all kinds of possible outcomes – future ones, ones happening in parallel lives – right from where we are now. There is no other way to do it.

There’s no other way to do it, because there is no entity called “the future” that exists in any concrete way from our perspective of now. We only have the present moment, and the imaginal world that formulates from there based on how we think, feel, act, and so on. This is true of individual souls and also the collective, which is why we can look at probable outcomes that are very personal to one individual, or ones that are larger scale, for communities, countries, and so on.

For example, I can go into Sue’s Akashic Records to get guidance on her career moving forward and get some pretty concrete information about her no longer being in her current job and pursuing her dream of leading creative workshops. I can go into the Records of Earth herself and see all sorts of things ranging from wars to climate disasters and even changes to population distribution.

But it’s always true that everything can change. I cannot stress this enough! Information that comes through as a prediction can have the effect of willing this prediction into action, for better or for worse. When a doctor tells someone they have 1 month to live, they might well die within a month, whereas if they were told they have an illness that can be overcome, the outcome might be very different. Words are energy, and how they are used, and within which power structures, matter!

Every single human being is a sovereign being, has free will, and can tap into the deepest reserves of power and (divine, cosmic) wisdom. A single moment of clarity, determination and focused desire can change the entire course of a person’s life, and this extends out into society, as an extension of increasingly conscious human beings. This concept of free will also has to be examined within the context of the soul’s plans and desires for this lifetime, created before birth into this incarnation, so it’s actually not the simplest of concepts, and we’ll look at this in a “future” article!

This is what I always tell my clients, as I also remind them that this is why a reading today might look very different from a reading they might have a month or year from now – because how we vibrate in this world, and choose to vibrate in this world; how we choose to confront the obstacles that come our way, and how we choose to focus our desire and intention not only alter the future, but actually create it. And no one is creating it for us – the future is a masterpiece co-creation between you, your highest self, and the universe of which you are a part.

How magical is that?

And so, while psychic readings can be interesting and insightful and often lead to “accurate foretellings” of what is to come, it’s impossible to make predictions with 100% accuracy, and nor should we really want to have our endings predetermined in this way. How much more rewarding is it to tap into the field of possibilities that can be lovingly presented to you by a good reader, and then contemplate these as you continue with the masterpiece of your life?

P.S. I will save the matter of how we can also alter our pasts for future musings!

Love,

Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poem and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.

Dear All,

It’s never not a good time to talk about love (and honestly, when we’re talking about anything earnestly, we’re talking about love), but there’s something about this season, and about the endings and beginnings wrapped up in it, that make it a particularly delicious time to contemplate this thing, LOVE, that consumes us all so much.

I think that anyone who’s contemplated love even a little bit understands that that there are different kinds of love, or rather, layers to the expression of love in the world. We know that if love goes something like this, as the briefest of examples, then it’s not love in the truest sense of the word:

“I will love you if you take care of me properly / if you love me back.”

This kind of love is conditional, and involves dependency and attachment. Not that this is wrong. I believe that we are all, as souls having a human experience, trying to work our way back to true, pure, unconditional love (which is God, or Source, or the All That Is), and that we are all going to stumble and fall along the way, and find very humans way to experience love in its many versions. And that this is the point.

If we didn’t have some inherent knowing or awareness of the ever-presence of Love, we wouldn’t be drawn to finding love’s “derivatives” in our lives. We are actually looking for love, because we don’t yet recognize that we are love, and that love is the essence of everything. I will definitely be talking about what that looks like in a romantic partnership in future articles!

For now, though, I wanted to talk about love in the context of the Akashic Records. People often ask me about the difference between what I’m doing, or accessing, when I do an Akashic Records reading as opposed to when I’m working in other modalities, like Reiki.

And every time, when I answer, the answer boils down to: IT’S ALL LOVE.

What does this mean?

I’ve written a lot about how no one heals someone else: everyone heals themselves. A healer, or energy worker, or Akashic Records reader, is a facilitator, doing things like: creating a safe space, or container for healing to take place; offering guidance and insight about what the client is experiencing on their healing journey; offering wisdom based on experience about the path that is unfolding; becoming a vessel for the healing power of love to flow freely.

This last one is… everything! Because love is the foundation for all, and because love loves to express itself through vessels like us humans who are receptive to it, when love can be felt, received and shared through us, there is simply nothing more powerful.

It is through love that wisdom arrives. It is through love that the answers to questions we didn’t even know we had exists. Love is the vehicle of our healing, and our evolution - which are really one and the same.

Because of this, healers are always working with the extraordinary, omniscient power of Love, and the very best of healers know that they are simply a conduit for the Love to flow through. This does not mean that the vessel – the healer – is irrelevant. Of course not! That is why you will automatically feel safe and comfortable with some people, and not with others. People who work with energy and with other, precious human beings have to ensure that they keep their “vessels” – their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies – clear, so that they can best receive and share the Love. This can involve anything from not engaging in mind-altering substances to being very careful about the words and actions they emit into the world, and basically, doing the work of healing themselves!

As healers are also on their own healing journeys, and are very consciously clearing and purifying on an ongoing basis, they have a lot of wisdom to share with clients, and have often developed gifts like the “clairs” to help them be of service to others.

The important thing is that Love is everything, it is free, and it is the domain of every single one of us. Love is foundation for the creation of the multiverse, and for all the levels of consciousness that include our human consciousness, and the consciousness we call the Akashic Records, that stores the journeys of our souls and is always available for us to access for guidance, information and… the gift of loving awareness.

When I/Reiki practitioners give a Reiki treatment, we are tapping into the Universal Life Force, which is, of course, Love. We bring it into our hearts through the crown chakra, and allow it to flow from our hands to the client. The Love, the healing, knows where to go; we as energy workers can observe this process take place as we provide comfort, safety, and insight. In an Akashic Records reading, we readers are accessing your Akashic Records, which is Love “presented” in a certain way, as a dynamic archive of the soul, to get “information” and guidance that will benefit and help the client.

The processes are different, and require the cultivation of different skills (that we can all cultivate!), but the bottom line is the same:

When we heal, we are drawing from the pool if infinite Love and remembering that we, too, are pools of infinite love. This awareness will spark an entire healing journey that involves facing those imprints within us that block us from fully living in the arms of love, things like karmic imprints and conditioning that cause us to feel fear, doubt, the drive to self-sabotage, and the like.

It is a fascinating, harrowing, sublime journey, and everyone can do it, and having the help of those who have walked this path before can be immensely helpful. But in the end, it is all Love, and it is the domain of every single one of us.

And with this little intro to the Akashic Records, I’m looking forward to diving into more detail in future articles!

And with that, the happiest of holidays to you, filled with all things love!

Love,

Tammy

About the Writer

Tammy is a mystic, writer, poet and author, energy worker and Akashic Records reader. A longtime yoga practitioner and meditator, she is a certified Yoga Teacher, Wellness Coach, Reiki Master and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy practitioner. She recently added to her services Personalized Soul Poems, Spiritual Mentoring and something called Your Heart Story, where I access your Akashic Records and intuitive gifts to write down the story of your heart’s longing across time, ready to express fulfill in this lifetime. She sees all of her services and offerings as unique branches connected to one tree, and that one tree is called Love. Love heals, love recognizes our unique soul journeys, and love unites us all. Tammy shares spiritual poem and channeled Akashic messages very frequently on her Instagram, @tammytstone, and you can find out more about her services and books on her website, tammy-stone.com.