My dance prayer is that you’ll be swept off your feet and dance with me! Yes! Give your dance a chance to awaken your intuition.
Conjure your courage to dance from the inside out.
Right now I’m sharing my spiritual practice with you. I’m showing you that your dance is INSIDE you waiting to be released.
This is how we-as humans-connect with spirit-soul-higher power.
Your God-Goddess. I remember growing up Catholic-we were told that spirit lives in each of us.
My spirit wants to dance!
When I feel small, insignificant, bullied, or just simply stuck in my head-I dance.
Movement is Medicine. Movement is what sets me free.
Movement is Medicine. Movement is what sets me free. Movement makes me breathe in big gulps of air. Movement makes me sigh heavily to release my breath. This is dance. This is prayer.
YES! Your small dance moves mountains!
Kick off your shoes!
Sway, swirl, shake, shake, shake!
Skip! Let your small dance sweep you off your feet!
Oh My! It’s Thanksgiving week! Extended family arrived last night, or shall I say this morning at 2 AM. They drove in from Santa Rosa. I got up early, had my expresso and slipped out to dance Zumba Toning! Yeah! start my week off IN MY BODY!
My dance prayer for you is when you find yourself overwhelmed, or swept up with the Holiday madness, is to sink into your breath.
Let the whirlwind roll off your shoulders, off your back, onto the ground. Dance. Shake, Rattle and roll the madness into the earth with your feet.
Let the pitter patter of your feet match the rhythm of your heart beat. Boom! Boom!
Then shake it off! Shake your head, shake your shoulders, shake your tail, shake your feet and hands.
Point your chin up to the sky, stretch your neck up to the sky, lift your chest up and your butt out. Reach out your arms and flap your arms like a happy goose going south. Yep, where it’s warm and sunny! So happy to be alive!
Rock your hips slowly. Shift your weight slowly with soft feet. Soft ankles. Soft knees and soft swaying hips.
Find your breath. Inhale Gratitude for being ahh live! Exhale nervous excitement as a give-a-way prayer!
Most of us accept that we have intuition, a sixth sense, an inner knowing that bypasses instinct and intelligence. That’s not what wakes us up at night.The more pressing inquiry is how to access our intuition. Is it a muscle that we can exercise? And if it is, how can we strengthen that muscle?In a previous article, I entertained that intuition is like a fast twitch muscle and described exercises to strengthen intuition.In this article I explore ways to enhance reception and response of intuition. Read more about trusting your intuition from my article 3 Keys to Trusting Your Intuition.
6 STEPS TO HEAVEN
THAT INCREASE YOUR RECEPTION AND RESPONSE TO YOUR INTUITION
Intuition exists in each of us. We were born with it. Many of us are systematically taught to distrust our intuition during our childhood. Later we spend our adulthood developing a relationship with our intuition.Part of self-help psychology is conjuring our observer self. We learn to listen and respond with choice instead of react impulsively to what the world gives us. Discerning the subtle difference between spontaneous response and impulsive reaction leads us to an intimate relationship with our intuition. Becoming familiar with the voice of our inner guide develops our higher consciousness.
One could say that intuition is the voice of spirit that dwells in all of us and in all things.
Here are 6 steps to ‘Heaven’ that will increase your reception and response to your Intuition.1- We experience life through our senses. What senses are most awake? Is it sight, smell, taste, sound, touch? How does an Aha! capture your attention?Pay attention to how your intuition travels through you. Follow the current, the path, the course that your intuition travels. Increase your body awareness. Your intuition speaks through your body sensations.
Do your ears burn, or your nose itch? Do you feel a prickle at the back of your neck?
Does your vision widen or the room brighten? Do you have a flash in your mind’s eye like a deja vu or remember a dream?
Does your intuition travel through your skin like chills down your spine, or feel goose pimples ripple down your arms or crawl up your legs?
Do your ears muffle almost like you are underwater or does sound warp like in slow motion?
Can you hear your heart pound like a hammer or hear a loud roar from inside your lungs catching your breath?
2- Imagine your intuition is an energy system. Become familiar with it, like you would become familiar with an owl that visits the large oak tree in your back yard. Track your intuition’s behavior. Does your intuition visit when you are about to fall asleep? Does it drop in during day time naps more than nighttime dreams? When are you most open to a lull-like drift in a day dream? Possibly when you want another cup of coffee, or space out on the computer-that might be a time to just listen and observe ‘self’.
3- What increases your receptivity of your intuition?Your physical, emotional, and spiritual health sharpens your intuition. Professional athletes are devoted to their training. Intuitives develop a practice to stay clear and open physically, emotionally and intellectually. Wisdom is making ‘sense’ of information. Integration transforms tragedy into spiritual breakthroughs. For me that meant becoming sober from drugs and alcohol.
4- Cultivate discernment and know the difference between fear and intuition. Intuition serves love.
“Love is the total absence of fear. Love asks no questions. Its natural state is one of extension and expansion, not comparison and measurement.” From Gerald Jamposlky–
5- Be kind and gentle with yourself. As you develop your intuition, you may open yourself up to more than you asked for. Highly sensitive people are often more receptive to their intuition.Allow yourself rest and allow for more integration time between transitions-like work and play, and between social and private engagements. Like a gardener washes their hands after turning their compost bin- create rituals of how to cleanse yourself after a barrage of input. Densely crowded places can overwhelm your system. Children need a nap after recess; you too can benefit from ‘time out’ after a highly stimulating scene.
6- Keep a journal. Capture your intuitive hits as they come to you as sketches or journal entries of remembered dreams in a place that you can re-visit. Our intuitive hits may come as pieces in a puzzle or fragments of a song. Eventually we create beauty and order from our collection. Learn more about capturing your intuitive hits here.
Our intuition becomes a gift and blessing for our world.
Learning how to listen and respond to your intuition can save your life or the life of someone else. Read more here about trusting your intuition.
Thanks for reading my blog!
Shedding Skin,
Carola
If you find yourself hesitating, doubting yourself, or questioning your inner voice, I am here to serve you. I listen with soft ears and open heart. I offer my undivided attention and demonstrate compassion and self acceptance. I am all ears and at your finger tips-skype or phone.
It takes Courage to Love. Your answers are inside you.
512-925-0625 (Customary love offering $1 per minute.)
Loving the Pacific NW Tilt,
Carola Marashi M.A. Published Author, Therapist, Writing Coach30 years of professional experience.Carola Marashi has a Master’s Degree in Transpersonal Psychology and is a published author of 2 books: Sensual Eating; and Sacred Dance ( includes a 22 Card divination deck of her original artwork).
As a writing coach, Carola listens with soft ears and an open heart and mind. Her soul purpose is to help others follow their heart, trust their intuition, discover and walk their path.Sessions can be on the phone or skype. Carola lives near Portland Oregon with her beloved, 2 cats and a garden blossoming with love.
What some folks have said about Carola’s sessions:
“Carola’s intuition ability is excellent! Through her fine-tuned listening, she helped me unearth core areas in my personal life that had been unexamined; she supported me to become more empowered and clear.”
“She has a special ability to listen in a way that allows you to connect with your true self. She is a steady, insightful and a supportive guide. Through her skillful leadership I developed confidence in my ability to connect with myself more deeply.”
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I’ve been digging deep into my soul lately, writing about trusting my intuition. However, I notice a trend in my articles.
Thwack! Kick! Pow! Burn…
What about the subtle sensations like tingling on the back of my ear lobes?
Or the slight changes in my vision?
Or the tiny prickle along my scalp?
Hmm…
In this article, I’m writing about subtle Intuitive Prompts. Hit is not the word here. Hang with me as I sniff out how I track my intuition.
Just a couple of days ago, a friend and I were hiking to Dead Falls Lake near Mt. Shasta, California.
We were looking at a map and my friend laughed saying he never trusts his intuition about directions.
“I go the opposite of where my intuition points. If my intuition says right I go left.”
I wondered…
“Does my intuition have a sense of direction?”
When I was pre-teen, I could walk from sun-up to sun-down deep in the woods. I lived outside the city limits of San Antonio, Texas. I never felt lost. I wandered aimlessly in tall grasses and scruffy oaks. There were no streets or human trails, just animal paths to follow. With no outer direction I always found my way back home. I was 16 years old when I quit trusting my sense of inner direction.
To this day I laugh at myself,
“Turn me 3 times and I’m completely lost!”
Until a couple of days ago, I thought my hormones were the reason I lost my inner sense of direction.
Barefoot, I ponder
“What happened to my inner sense of direction?”
I take another step forward. A twig breaks under my foot. Snap!
Something deep inside my stomach twists apart. I can almost hear it click open. I can almost taste it. The sensation of an aluminum can lid twists open deep inside me. That old familiar blood-iron taste coats my tongue. As I put my next bare foot down on the path leading us to Dead Falls, I remember when fear shattered my confidence.
The noise in my ears is a deafening heartbeat BOOM BOOM BOOM.
This time my Intuitive Hit does crack the wall I put up when I am afraid.
What if my intuition is shouting at me?
I remember. I remember when I buried a part of myself in the dirt so no one could sniff me out. I remember from the same dirt, building a wall around me to shield out any predators.
I remember being raped at the age of 16. It was a date rape. I remember feeling so terrified for my life. I shut down and shut out everything. I couldn’t trust sounds or smell. That’s when I didn’t trust my sense of direction. I couldn’t trust anything or anyone. I didn’t trust me anymore.
I covered my tracks so I wouldn’t find my way back into my desecrated body.
All I can conjure up now is darkness. Shadows. Muffled sounds like a pillow is over my head.
Before being raped I hitch-hiked alone in Texas, and nothing bad ever happened to me. Sure, I was careful. I grew up around alcoholic men whose laps were not safe to sit on. I knew when walking alone at night which dark alleys were not safe to enter. I really trusted my ‘6th’ sense. I trusted my ability to sniff out danger.
It happens to the best of us. Life doesn’t always follow a straight line from point A to point B.
There really is a crack in the universe that doesn’t respect cause and affect. Twilight zone isn’t just a T.V. fiction episode. I think Twilight Zone really exists.
I didn’t feel safe to say no to the guy who asked me out. He was the top basketball player on our High School team. I felt something edgy about going out with him. He was black and I was a white foster child in a super small Texas town. When he asked me out, I felt seen. He chose me. I was living in a temporary foster home. I was one of 8 foster kids living in a small house with a Mexican American family that had 3 children of their own. I was waiting for a more permanent foster home. I was waiting for a family to choose me to be their foster child.
I do remember in slow motion crawling into the back seat of the car. One of his friends chauffeured us to a bar on the sketchy end of town. I never got out of the car. The driver parked the car in the darkest edge of the lot. He turned off the car and I could hear loud music pouring out of the dark and dingy bar. My date, sitting next to me in the back seat pulled out a knife pointing it at my neck. He forced himself onto me. Then he forced himself into me. I barely struggled. I don’t remember making a sound. All I remember is fear flooding all my senses until I was completely numb. I felt like a stray dog stranded on a highway when he dropped me off on the curb at the house. I didn’t feel human.
Now, shaking and determined, I keep following my intuition. I want to see what else I’ve buried.
I dig my toes into the damp earth with each step. I stay grounded as I fall backward in time.
I keep my nose, eyes and ears focused on the narrow winding path in front of me. Barefoot, I hop on a cold stone crossing a cold creek while my friend stays close behind me.
Cold penetrates the soles of my feet. My eyes water from light flooding in and my nose drips.
I hesitate before putting my right foot on the next slippery wet cold stone. The creek rushes under my feet.
I remember my therapist saying
“Carola, I want you to know what subtle is. I want you to feel my hand rest on top of your knee. If I’m not pinching or squeezing, can you feel me?”
Intuition can be a whisper. Intuition can be the most gentle nudge. Inner sense doesn’t have to be a ‘thwak!’ against the ear or a ‘bonk!’ on the head.
I’ve done the gross motor movements of bludgeoning the earth to uncover my buried body shame. Twenty-two years of furious ecstatic dancing unearthed me and 12 years of therapy pressed me back together. Now I’m learning the nimble skills of listening to the murmurs of calm, contained contentment.
My intuition gently whispers
“Seduce the subtle, enchant the awkward, and keep moving forward.”
sure-footed
Do you want to transmute fear into courage, dreams into reality, inertia into ecstatic movement? I’m here to help YOU live your truth out loud.
As a published author, I unabashedly speak my truth. As a trained Transpersonal Therapist, I am your soul advocate and Heart Whisperer.
As a facilitator trainer, I help you move forward and stay focused.
As a mover and shaker of authenticity, I help you unleash your tongue and speak your truth from the inside out.
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