Intuition

Posted on March 9, 2016 by rick_ranum

More than three years ago I had a woman come and see me. She was having trouble with life. We talked for a long time. She rested her feet up on an ottoman between us. I asked her if she would like to go into a trance now and would it be okay if I directed energy into her body by holding her feet. It is the only time I have ever held someone’s feet during a session. (Having a Reiki Healing Certification and being a Minister allows me as a Hypnotherapist to appropriately apply touch and I do so very sparingly.) Our session went well and I think I have seen her once in the many years since.

So, a few months ago a longtime friend said she had talked with this client about that session long ago. I immediately went into a a thought pattern of fear. I was afraid that she may have said my holding her feet during that session was wrong or creepy or something. Being human I do care about what others think of me even though I would like to be free of caring.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that she had been suicidal at that session and since that session had had no suicidal thoughts. I was very happy about her and a little troubled that I would be worried about being appropriate. I am revisiting this topic because of someone I know having taken her life recently. My experience tells me that truly suicidal people can hide that intent very well, much better than those crying out for help. Without my intuition would this woman of that session years ago still be with us? I don’t know. I do know that she credits that session with her choosing life and that I was compelled to add energy healing with her.

Being a therapist can be a difficult thing. Sometimes people come to simply prove that the last resort, hypnosis, can’t help them either. My intent is to help. It can be difficult to balance the training, theories, and intuition. I see all of us as spinning tops, and most of us wobble off of our centers. We are caught in complex patterns and habits that have recent or distant causes. We are comfortable in the familiarity of those habits and patterns even when they do not serve us well.

At this time in my life, I am considering scaling back my practice or taking a sabbatical, maybe I’ll write, or do more study and research, I am not sure. If we are alive, things are changing. That is true.

As an additional thought, is it possible that happiness is only attainable when we Love Allow And Accept?

I’ve got Buddha on my mind

Posted on March 4, 2016 by rick_ranum

Buddha:

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

Loss

Posted on March 3, 2016 by rick_ranum

I was expecting to see a woman this week. Her sister had passed recently. I was expecting her call.

Yesterday two people called to say she had taken her life late Monday. We were to meet this week sometime when she would be in Olympia. We had talked for half an hour last Wednesday and life was difficult for her. Her bond with her sister was very strong. She had cared for her sister as her sister moved through last stages of cancer. Her loss was compounded by having to get back into the flow of commerce, find a job, make some money.

Most people who knew her considered her grief normal. I too felt she was grieving and would naturally emerge from that grief. Everyone will have a moment of wondering what if? What if I had called, or what if I had noticed, or what if I had reached out. This is normal and it is normal because the future is unknown. Consciousness is busily holding thoughts and feelings, busily creating the future moment by moment.

All souls are eternal, and lifetimes are but a blink of an eye in eternity. Lessons not worked through will be worked through later. It is a universe of eventually, eventually we grow into greater harmony. It is ultimately a cooperative universe.

She is close and she and I are going to collaborate on a creation that commemorates her life.If you wish to communicate with her, find quiet space, think of her,watch, listen, feel, she is close.

My sense is that she is now looking at the options she had that she didn’t see in her grief. She made a choice. Choice is that which makes us truly divine. With our ultimate return to oneness with the source, her choice is of no real importance in the scope of eternity. Still, now we process our loss and grief alone and together. Such are the effects of some transitions in life.

Blessings,

Rick

Thoughts are Things, Thoughts are symptoms

Posted on February 1, 2016 by rick_ranum

“Thoughts are things and become crimes or miracles” says my favorite mystic.

According to Louise Hay (I have her book “You Can Heal Your Life”) physical symptoms are evidence of what is going on in your unconscious mind and how you really feel deep inside. I often look at the back of this book to pages of symptoms. Each symptom is connected to an attitude, and these attitudes we have are at the root of our physical problems.

I like to look at the body as a symphony. Each organ, bone, gland, nervous system, all parts having different unique sounds like the many instruments of the world.When we are in balance with physical nutrients and mental peacefulness, then all is well.

And when we are not we are surely headed for physical imbalance — illness.

Or you could think of them as each having their own color.

When attitudes become negative the sounds become flat or sharp, raspy or sharp. The colors become muddied or changed in some way that no longer blends with other colors. I am thinking about this because I see how it happens in us and why we have such difficulty being aware of our creations. And even when someone becomes aware of their creations and the how and why, it is often difficult to create a new and healing habit.

PS Here is more on this subject. Coincidentally, a Science Alert article was published three days after this blog post.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

“The patterns we predict with the harmonic waves on the human brain can be compared to the musical notes composing a complex musical piece; the building blocks of more complex patterns of brain activity,” said lead author of the study, Selen Atasoy.

“Our results show the shape of the brain matters, in the same way that the… shape of a Stradivarius violin matters if you want to produce an exquisite sound when the strings are vibrated,” added Pearson. “Interestingly, the same kinds of harmonic waves are thought to explain other self-organising phenomena in nature, such as the patterns that sand forms when sitting on a vibrating metal plate, or the development of biological patterns such as the stripes on tigers and spots on leopards.”

You can read the article here >

Relationship Section added to News and Studies Webpage

Posted on January 15, 2016 by rick_ranum

I have been adding to my News and Studies section of the website.

The topic is relationships. Relationships, the commonality of human existence. I already have five interesting studies. Take a look here >

Joey Alexander

Posted on January 6, 2016 by rick_ranum

When Mozart incarnated, it must have been such a phenomena for the few in the world who knew of this child. Today, Mozart would be well known because of the internet. Joey Alexander is now becoming very well know. He is like Mozart most likely was, an incarnation of someone with past knowledge close to the surface of his mind. He is truly a Jazz Prodigy.

A long healthy life

Posted on January 5, 2016 by rick_ranum

This is a concluding paragraph to a Ted Talk by Robert Waldinger

So this message, that good, close relationships are good for our health and well-being, this is wisdom that’s as old as the hills. Why is this so hard to get and so easy to ignore? Well, we’re human. What we’d really like is a quick fix, something we can get that’ll make our lives good and keep them that way. Relationships are messy and they’re complicated and the hard work of tending to family and friends, it’s not sexy or glamorous. It’s also lifelong. It never ends. The people in our 75-year study who were the happiest in retirement were the people who had actively worked to replace workmates with new playmates. Just like the millennials in that recent survey, many of our men when they were starting out as young adults really believed that fame and wealth and high achievement were what they needed to go after to have a good life. But over and over, over these 75 years, our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned in to relationships, with family, with friends, with community.

Here is the link to the talk The Link >

Magic Mushrooms

Posted on January 2, 2016 by rick_ranum

Can one blissful moment change your life? Producer Andy Mills introduces us to Reverend Mike Young, a man who can pinpoint a pivotal handful of minutes in the 1960s that he claims did just that. As a college student, he was part of a study in which theology students were given psilocybin (a.k.a. magic mushrooms) in a church basement during a Good Friday service. This might seem ridiculous, and in fact, it wasn’t long after that the use of these kinds of drugs for both science and recreation was banned. Nonetheless, we follow our curiosity to some current psilocybin experiments that demonstrate the powerful and surprising effects of psychedelic drugs. Dr. Roland Griffiths and Charlie Bessant help us pin down these hard-to-describe, intense feelings of rapture. And Andy finds himself reassured about a deeply personal experience from his own past.

Go here to listen to the interview >

Queen of Rainbows: Flowering

Posted on January 1, 2016 by rick_ranum

Another year and time to draw a card with advice for the new year.

The Queen of Rainbows is like a fantastic plant that has reached the apex of its flowering and its colors. She is very sexual, very alive, and full of possibilities. She snaps her fingers to the music of love, and her zodiac necklace is placed in a way that Venus lies over her heart. The sleeves of her garment contain an abundance of seeds, and as the wind blows the seeds will be scattered to take root where they may. She is not concerned whether they land on the soil or on the rocks–she is just spreading them everywhere in sheer celebration of life and love. Flowers fall on her from above, in harmony with her own flowering, and the waters of emotion swirl playfully beneath the flower on which she sits.
You might feel like a garden of flowers right now, showered with blessings from everywhere. Welcome the bees, invite the birds to drink your nectar. Spread your joy around for all to share.

Zen wants you living, living in abundance, living in totality, living intensely–not at the minimum as Christianity wants you, but at the maximum, over-flowing.
Your life should reach to others. Your blissfulness, your benediction, your ecstasy should not be contained within you like a seed.
It should open like a flower and spread its fragrance to all and sundry–not only to the friends but to the strangers too. This is real compassion, this is real love: sharing your enlightenment, sharing your dance of the beyond.

New Theory of Addiction

Posted on December 28, 2015 by rick_ranum

It is reasonable to ask about the way we think about addictions. Just take a moment to reflect and you see how pervasive the behavior of addiction is within people. We attribute powers to the substances and behaviors, physiological effects that leave the addicted one helpless in their grasp.

What if none of this is so? What if it is all about human connection? What if human connection is part of an overall pleasant environment, a pleasing home?

A recent study confirms this and it did so by questioning the scientific method used in the original studies with rats. The researchers didn’t consider the “psychological” effect on the rats confined in cages.

Along comes a new study where the rats are given a “Disney Land” environment to live in and now they prefer the water over the drugged water.

The study is interesting.