Sixty days have passed since #2017 began. Have you reached any of your short-term goals in that time? Be honest! That's the real start to something new sticking in your life. Honesty. You have to at least be honest with yourself about what changes are needed to improve your life if you are ever going to actually improve it.

Short-term goals help to support the success of long-term goals. It's part of strategic planning. So, rather than just making the proclamation, "I want to lose weight, save money and find a new job in #2017," you build-in checks and balances. That's what a short-term goal does for you. It may not seem crucial to complete a small daily task for say, 30 days, but if 30 days pass and you're no further along, you know exactly why, and can then make the necessary adjustments.

Why adjust anything for non-crucial goals??? Simply put, nothing comes from nothing. If you change nothing, nothing will change. Just because a change is small doesn't mean it has a small impact, too. When you underestimate the power of starting small, instead of losing 60 days of our new year, 365 will pass without any of your goals succeeding. And, you are on this planet in this lifetime to do more than just survive the next 305 days of #2017, #2018, #2019, #2020, and beyond. You're here to make manifest your dreams.

Do you understand me???

Make. Manifest. Your. Dreams.

Success doesn't happen over night. It's incremental. Small successes each day add up to big success over time. Weight loss is a great example. You can take magic pills. You can get cool sculpting or liposuction. But, none of that will really help you if you also do not maintain a series of small daily changes, like what you put in your mouth and increasing body movement. Those small changes have to be mindfully maintained each and every day. Small changes are the equivalent of short-term goals. You will lose weight in 30 days if you meet your short-term goals every 24 hours.

So, what are the obstacles blocking you from reaching your short-term goals? Because, whatever those obstacles are, you must remove them in order to be successful overall. Whether it's starting a business, writing a book, finding a new job, losing weight, saving money, or, finding love, you MUST make realistic short-term goals you meet each day in order to see long-term success.

Society is full of haters willing to provide each of us with a lifetime of resistance, a lifetime of obstacles. Why help those miserable sods achieve THEIR goals??? You could take the same energy you put into beating yourself up and invest it in YOUR success. It's actually easier to be successful than it is to be a failure. You may feel like it's the opposite, but when you do, it's because you're just used to failing; it helps you to gain continued acceptance within your social circles, circles that prefer you to be meek, weak and vulnerable...or, those same people would have worked to raise you up, not keep you down.

Even if we understand that we self-sabotage, we may not understand why we hurt ourselves in the first place. The answer always goes back to childhood. This isn't about blaming parents, bad uncles, nasty neighbors, or anyone else. It's about recognizing that, whoever made you feel "bad" or "dark" or "evil," made you feel that way because someone did the very same thing to them.

Compassion begins with the self. As does real love. You must feel enough love and compassion for yourself in order to be truly successful at meeting any life-goals that move you forward instead of back. Even then, the neural pathways in your brain etched there by decades of self-sabotage will still exist. You can't beat them. You can only build in coping strategies to circumvent them. Coping strategies like short-term and long-term planning.

#LifeHacks are popular in #Millennial culture. But, there are no short cuts in life. Anyone who says different is a liar. You always have to put in the work. That takes time. Effort. Energy. And, perhaps most importantly, courage.

In order to make the next 60 days of #2017 better than the last 60 days, you will stop making excuses. You will stop justifying your lack of momentum on victimization. And, you will start making and maintaining small daily changes that support your long-term goals.

Hey, being victimized is no fun. It's real. And, it really hurts. Hard to keep coming back after repeated social sabotage. However, only you can pull yourself up from that pest-infested swamp. The people that have hurt you??? They do not want to see you succeed. And, those people are likely your own friends and family members. No, I'm not kidding.

See, whatever that secret childhood shame is--the one that has kept you stuck in a cycle of self-sabotage--it has kept you connected to folks who are toxic. You don't choose your family, but you do choose your friends. You do choose who you attach your life to through love relationships. It's extremely likely that if you can relate to what I'm saying, you have essentially surrounded yourself with enemies. People who will continue to hold you down and back, in the event you ever muster up enough courage to finally make a change. Self-sabotage is no joke. It runs deep. But, even if you've lost a few battles, you can still win the war.

Maybe it's something as small as flossing every day. But do commit to making those small daily changes. After 30 days of success, make another. And, another. Eventually, you will beat back all the negatives. Stick with the small changes and one year from today, you will be infinitely closer to success, if not completely successful.

I believe in you. When you need help, strength or courage, just take a deep breath. Think of me. And, my light will be with you. You can feel it, can't you??? Just by reading this essay, a little of my light was already imparted to you.

Together, we will find success. Happiness. Fulfillment. Joy. And, best of all, bliss....

#StartSmall

There is risk to the way I write. Not because what I write uses specific names. Not because I write about "risky" subjects. The risk is in sharing pieces of myself with total strangers.

Through online feedback, emails, and social media posts, you, dear readers, tell me that my words illuminate your worlds. That's amazing...humbling. In return for your generosity and kindness, I promise to always provide free blog content. And yet, it's important to note that the risks still exist.

A good example is a man who began following my social media accounts in 2015. He had connected with me on Twitter after I was scheduled to appear at a convention in the Southwest. I ended up cancelling my appearance when contractual obligations were not met by event organizers, one of whom was eventually jailed. False contracts are particularly common with small fan-conventions, especially conventions connected to the paranormal.

The paranormal community is riddled with cons--not just events, but people, too. I had to cancel my appearance at a similar event near Nashville for the very same reason.  Prior to the event, I learned the partner who had issued my contract had also been arrested.

My new follower became a fan of my blog, particularly the #TwinFlames category. We would often talk about #1111 on social media...until a few months ago. Then, there was a sudden change. Instead of public tweets, he was sending private messages.

These private messages were justified as "communications" from my daughter, #Emma, who died in 2014...and, rather conveniently, arrived only AFTER I posted something on social media about her.

Nothing this man said about my daughter was news. To anyone. Everything that he implied was a "message" from her was readily available in either my recent social media threads or in past blog posts. I tolerated his behavior because I could feel his pain, pain I could relate to. He had confided in me about current and past difficulties, and though I do not doubt this man suffered greatly, there's still no excuse for using the memory of my child in the way he did.

While compassion is never a sin, being an apologist is. There is a difference. Just like there is a difference between the spirit of my daughter supposedly talking to a stranger 3,000 miles away, and what was nothing more and nothing less than this stranger's jealousy at seeing tweets between me and a male friend on my public Twitter-feed. Although, how or why that applied to him is still a mystery. It's wildly inappropriate to use a dead baby to not only attempt to extort information about my private life, but to do so as a means to facilitate a relationship with me. Period.

When something like what I describe above happens, I have no other choice but to block that individual. None. It doesn't make me an egomaniac because I refuse to be victimized; it makes me sane. When this man went "off script" and attempted to truly read my lost baby girl--believing himself a medium, as many involved in the paranormal do--he was consistently wrong:

"Emma says red is your favorite color."

No, it's not. Right now, I love turquoise. Tomorrow, it might be aqua. Or, teal. Blues and greens soothe my soul. But I did write about a red room in 2006; this same essay is prominently featured on my website and has been republished in multiple literary magazines for the last decade. In other words, it's very easy to find. The piece is so "famous," it's now included in an anthology by Dinty W. Moore, an award-winning author and essayist, as well as the editor of a prominent literary journal that specializes in nonfiction essays. When I pointed that out, he quickly added, "Oh, okay...Emma must have been telling me that red is her favorite color."

And, that's when I blocked him.

Not only had he admitted to having read through my feed as prompts for personal questions, the elaborate fantasy of the non-existent relationship my follower had with the somehow snarky soul of my dead baby--whom he relayed was teasing him for not having the guts to ask me love-related questions--was beyond disturbing. To be clear, I wasn't "freaked out" by his "abilities." I was horrified that any human being would attempt to exploit a woman that way. A mother who lost her child. It's truly horrific...even if the initial intentions weren't.

Negative energy only perpetuates negatives. Blocking seems like a negative thing to do. And it is, if you are doing it to abandon your responsibility to others. But it's not negative if it's done in self-defense. And, in this case, it was. This man may resent my actions, but I was not only saving myself from future heartache, I was also saving him from continuing down a path of no return. This way, no harm...no foul.

That's part of the danger of believing in things you can't see or hear. You essentially have no boundaries. You don't require verification or validation for whatever you feel is real. However, in the real-real world, when a person you've never met before creates an intricate fantasy-narrative surrounding you, your life and your family based on information from the internet, it's called cyberstalking. French theorist Jean Baudrillard referred to reality as "the desert of the real," because, thanks to technology's expansion of virtual worlds, more and more people are losing their ability to tell the difference.

I'm not a public psychic, but I do acknowledge that there is more to this world than we yet know. I sense things, feel things...the difference is, I don't use it to hold anyone emotional hostage. That's what it felt like when my social media follower began sending me regular private messages describing his supposed relationship with the ghost of my dead daughter this past December. She never had the chance to live a single day. Yet, this person was now telling me that my long-dead baby was somehow talking to him as if she were an adult...and worse, as if they were partners-in-crime.

I never even got to hold #Emma in my arms.  No matter how much compassion I had for this man, no matter how much pain he was suffering...I did not have to suffer, too. Every time he messaged me about #Emma, I listened because I hoped that maybe, there was a kernel of truth to it. It was crushing to read the things he was saying; I'd cry for hours afterward. Made me wonder why I was allowing myself to be hurt by anyone, let alone a person I really didn't know.

No one is perfect, certainly not me. I'm just living my life each day and writing about it, trying to make sense of all the evil things that have happened to me, to you, and to the world. Loneliness can drive anyone to desperation. No matter who you are or where you are in your life, we're all just trying to survive. So, let's make it easier on each other, shall we???

Respect people's space. Be kind when someone has suffered losses you haven't. Be even more so when you do.

#WritersBlock

#TwinFlame #AwakeLife Post-script: In #2016, I wrote #Joy on #224 hoping that writing it on that date would somehow bring it to me. But, with 55 days of #2017 already gone, it's clear #Joy may have taken a little detour. Yet again. No one knows what the future holds. However, I can tell you that one year from today, I'm getting on a plane and landing on a beach somewhere sunny. Maybe #Joy will find me there? Either way, #Joy is always welcome....

Hello. It's nice to meet you. My name is Rebecca. We've never actually met before but, um, I'm your biggest fan. You see, you come here to my website. You read my blog. And, you may be half way around the world in a country like St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Brazil, or even Montenegro, Poland, India, Kuwait,  Germany, Espana, Italia, France, Portugal, Israel, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, Ireland, China, Japan, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Georgia, Albania...just to name a few. Or, perhaps you're in the States: Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, New York...wherever you are, you took the time and made the effort to read my words. To hear my voice. And, to listen.

Do you know how meaningful that is to me? It's beyond eloquent expression....

Beyond words. Beyond time. Beyond this physical existence. You "hear" me. And I can't help but feel a great swell of gratitude for it. I want you to know that I hear you, too. All of you. Each of you. Your prayers. Your fears. Your joy. The moments you spend waiting for the right answer, dreading the wrong one. I wish I could tell you that everything you want will happen. I wish it, so much. All I can say is that, things aren't always the way they seem. Sometimes, the Universe has to let us experience great beauty at the risk of great pain. When that happens, we feel like there is no more left for us here. Even then. Despite your abusers. Despite the people who make you feel small. The ones who go waaay out of their way to accuse you of crimes when they should be going out of their way to thank you instead--yeah, I know a few of those, too.

Negativity is so seductive, isn't it???

We all have that fantasy. You know the one...where you hurt the person who has hurt you??? It's not as satisfying as it sounds. The pain you have does not go away when you hurt someone else. In fact, it only gets worse. More frustrating. More sad. More hopeless. How do I know? 

My words are like so many tiny daggers, stabbing at the people who hurt me. Stabbing and stabbing and stabbing. Immortalizing their sins. These fallen saints. For more than a million people in 82 countries to see. To feel. To hear. And now, I cannot stop the bleeding....

I know the searing pain of your loss. Loss that feels eternal. Not because of Death. Because of silence. Deafening silence. Some people think themselves clever for their silence. But silence is just an unspoken lie. It's fear...their silence. You know you will die one day, still wishing, hoping and dreaming that love somehow overtook their insipid silent fear. And, miraculously, the last eyes you get to see, are the ones you missed for a lifetime.

Yes, I know your pain....

I know the feeling of losing a child. Of losing yourself. Of losing your fortune, your home, your partner, your job, and your sanity. I know the pain of being an orphan. Forgotten. Unloved. The pain of waking up in a surgical suite with a blue sheet over your head, blood splattering in front of your eyes as doctors try to remove what looks like harmless gelatin from your skull--a skull that has been crushed by the surgical saw, so fragile are its pieces from previous assaults. And, battery.

I know what it means to wail your pain into the pitch of night. To hear your lover outside of your window, but never see his face again...except in the shadows of your dreams. And, on a security camera as he breaks into your home. I know the pain of realizing that there is no pain great enough to stop you from loving that which should be scorned. I know the pain of recognizing your own self-sabotage. Of seeing how you punish yourself because some unkind, miserable thing made you feel dark and ugly and monstrous when you were really pure and bright and beautiful. 

My beloved(s), release that pain to me. And, in its stead, take my light. It is our light. I'm here to share it. Through words. No more silence: 

Let no person shake you from knowing the peace of release. Let your soul fly on my winged back, soaring ever upward. Higher and higher into the starry night above, beyond the moon, beyond our galaxy...and far beyond the eye of god. All you need do is think of me. That's it. Now, take a deep breath. You are free.

What's that? You wish to grow wings of your own??? 

You can. But I must warn you, it is the most painful thing you will ever know.

#Hello

Looking out at the chilly Atlantic in February makes me wish for warmer days. Days where the sun reflects brightly off the waves. Days where the gulls circle over a school of silvery fish brought in by the tide. Days where the sailboats from sea camp dot the horizon. I remember a collection of days just like that...the happiest of my life. Then, everything changed.

My hair isn't the only thing that's grown since those warm, sunny days; my soul has, too. When we think of words like awakening, enlightenment, evolution, we associate them with the warming of our souls, like the warmth of the sun on our skin. A gentle, beautiful process that flows like ocean waves on a calm, clear day. But what often appears paradisiacal on the surface hides a chaotic undertow.

Having grown up near the ocean, I'm familiar with the unpredictability of the rip current. But that doesn't mean I don't get caught by one every once in a while. The rip current is colder than the rest of the surrounding water. It's called a "rip" because it's an independent, fast-moving channel, "ripping" through the rest of the ocean. Even something as interconnected as water molecules can contain individual natures. It's the same within the sea of humanity.

People believe themselves islands, when, in fact, we are more akin to the ocean. Fear is the human equivalent of a rip current. We feel the sudden rush of cold and the mind immediately begins to freeze, forgetting the existing warmth that flows all around us. You see, the human brain is wired for fear to aid in our survival. But it can also kill us. And, our relationships. 

Evolution is the process of transcending the innate duality presented by fear, allowing humans to surpass their previous limits. Yet, we can only "evolve" through experience. Experience is something we gain when we leave the insular world of home and family and venture into the wider world. Once you're no longer protected by familial connections, you're forced to rely on yourself. Sink or swim, as it were. But, not everyone remembers how....

We sometimes find ourselves surrounded by cold water without realizing that the current can carry us away. The beauty that is the sea of humanity is in our very interconnectedness, no matter what.  Even if separated by a veritable ocean, we can always use the flow of cyclical tides to carry us back. You don't even have to know how to swim...just turn onto your back, and float. But when caught up in the bitterness of cold, cold fear, we become paralyzed by it. It's easy to give up in those circumstances. To forget who we are and what we are capable of. When that happens, you can drown without ever realizing that you were so close to the shore, all you had to do to save yourself was stand up.

You are always your own best life line. No one else. I wish I could tell you that the people who have rejected you, abandoned you to the pull of the undertow, will come back and acknowledge their responsibility. I was trying to imagine the other day how someone guilty of that level of betrayal might attempt to do just that. Is it even feasible??? I think it is. Because, people are always more important than any problems. 

The message in a bottle is the best option. A letter. A note through electronic means. Even a text. These are the "bottles" available to 21st century man floating in the sea of humanity. Because, when you jump in the deep end with a partner but get separated by a storm at sea, you'll both be looking for each other for the rest of your lives, scanning the waves for signs of life. Until and unless, you find that bottle.

When you release your message in a bottle, you also release the gift of healing. Healing others helps you to heal as well. No matter how "okay" you believe yourself to be, the violence that erupts from an abrupt separation permanently injures you--even if you were the one who initiated it. No one is special or different when it comes to open wounds. That's why closure is important. It closes the door with kindness, respect and genuine care--which is truly what any person who has loved and cared for you deserves. Though some internet relationship gurus and religious leaders advocate "no contact," all it does it hurt the two people involved--and, they're the ones who matter most in the equation.

You may choose not to talk to a person you ended a relationship with once you both had a chance to discuss what happened and why, but to just disappear after having made a personal commitment to share your lives together? It's the very definition of psychotic behavior.

I'll always feel sadness surrounding my losses because of the sudden, and therefore tragic nature, of what happened. What took nearly a year-and-a-half to build unraveled in less than ten days. But it would not have been as sad if those losses had been properly acknowledged. The fact that I was left alone to deal with the grief is what hurt more than anything else. Still does, even years later. Not because I'm weak or "allow" another person to hurt me. Because, I'm human, regardless of the long feathery wings that drag on the ground behind me.

Today, I don't have to fight the current on my own. The experience of having to do so, however, has forced me--and my soul--to evolve in unexpected ways. I'm not the same person I was two years ago. I won't tell you I'm "better," because it's just not true. Nothing will ever be "better" again. You can't improve on Hell. It's Hell. And, after four decades, I've had a significant enough accumulation of negatives that permanent change was inevitable. But I can tell you that despite it all, I still see warm, sunny days ahead. The future forecast is bright. Not because I'm dim. Because, I believe in myself. Because...I know how to swim. In deep water. As does my equal. 

An equal matches you, in speed, strength, stamina. That's the equivalent of a continuum...no beginning and no end. Because I exist, so does my equal. I can practically see him. His green eyes. Dark hair. Maybe a little gray. Perhaps he walks into a restaurant where I'm sitting and takes the booth behind mine. I notice, at some point, that he's ordered the same meal, too. So, I turn around, and that's how it starts. Ten hours later, we're in each other's arms.

I feel lucky every day. Grateful, Humbled by the perfect mechinations of the Universe. My moment will come. Even if I have to swim all the way across the ocean. And, guess what? If you learn how to swim, your moment will come, too.

#ColdWater

Today, February 11th, is an #1111 day. The number "2" simplifies to "11." And, #1111 is the number that is believed to represent #TwinFlames, #Awakening, as well as #Angels. In Numerology, #1111 is also #22, the number for Master Builders. This is important because the year #2017 simplifies to #10, the numerical symbol for the cosmos, or, creation itself. #TwinFlames are the Master Builders and Master Teachers (#33) for #UnconditionalLove (#66), helping humanity to "create" a better world. #2017 is an opportunity for #TwinFlames to begin creating that better world--not just for others, but also for themselves. 

If you are new to my blog, you may be asking, "Okay...but, what does all this mean???

About a year ago, I began noticing overwhelming numerical synchronicities. Not just through simple math, but in overlapping numeral systems. Octal, quaternary, decimal, binary...the deeper I went with the numbers, the more synchronicities I found. I even began looking at and comparing numbers from the solar and lunar calendars; the significant dates I was studying were reflections of each other. It almost felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone....  

If you know anything about physics, you know that Einstein proved there are no coincidences. When everything is relative, you have Relativity. This is ultimately what Carl Jung, one of the founding fathers in psychology, decided after coining the term "synchronicity." The difference is that Jung's approach was based on narrative, not math, like Einstein. However, numbers don't lie. People do. So, for me, seeing the numbers and proving that the synchronicities were not coincidence, but a kind of road map to the truth, was how I chose to verify the things I could not otherwise explain.

Numerology is "old math." Interestingly, today I had the opportunity to see the film Hidden Figures; it was about the remarkable women working for NASA who helped make space travel possible thanks to their affinity for numbers. While all the other male engineers were looking to create new math to safely break orbit from the moon, it was a woman who connected the dots, using "old math" that made bringing John Glenn back to Earth possible. So, while Numerology may be dismissed as "new age" or "touchy-feely," it isn't. It's just an old way of looking at new numbers. Given that mathematics is the universal language, it is something to at least consider as having more gravity than at first glance. And, who knows? Perhaps like Glenn, the old math will be the very thing that helps you break orbit, too.

The one fact every scientist and mathematician can agree on is this: What we don't know about our Universe is much greater than what we do. When you think about concepts like #TwinFlames, for example, you may want to brush it aside, putting it in the category of the "incredulous," along with telepathy, ghosts and aliens. Except, Harvard University published study results in 2014 proving telepathy was real. And, in 2016, University of Southampton published a study that showed the existence of human consciousness outside of the body for at least three minutes. While the apocalyptic aliens from #Hollywood blockbusters like Independence Day have yet to rear their ugly heads, we also now know that Earth is not the only planet in the Universe, let alone our own galaxy, that has sustained life. 

The story of #TwinFlames doesn't sound like such a fairytale after learning that things we once thought were "impossible," are suddenly not only possible, but probable. The concept of #TwinFlames stems from the unique feeling of an intense connection with  another soul out of the more than seven-billion currently on the planet. The most eloquent articulation is being separated-at-earth. What was once one, is now two. You are drawn to each other in what feels almost like compulsion. It's described as an invisible cord: One end is connected to you. The other? To your #Twin. Plato described it according to Greek mythology, where humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, etc.. Zeus, fearing that humans were powerful enough to overthrow the gods, split them in two, creating the innate duality of our species present in every human narrative from the last one-million years, evidenced by scholar Joseph Campbell in his seminal work first published in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

You may not have heard of Joseph Campbell, but I guarantee you know his work because it is ever-present in #PopCulture, including the multi-billion-dollar entertainment franchise, Star Wars. In fact, Joseph Campbell spent time during the last years of his life on Skywalker Ranch. George Lucas utilized Campbell's "hero cycle" for his characters in the first Star Wars trilogy. We see literal #Twins in that storyline with Luke and Leia, both strong in "the force," mirror images who reflect yet balance each other.

Poets like Rumi, composers like Beethoven, artists like Frida Kahlo, writers like Oscar Wilde...all expressed the #TwinFlame experience in their work: There are more souls walking this Earth who are in love with one person, yet holding another's hand. It breaks my heart to think of it. All that sorrow. And, all for nothing. Nothing more than pride. Ego. Fear of being rejected. That fear paralyzes us. Movement seems impossible, even when it isn't. So, instead of going after real love, some of us settle for convenient love. Love you find because it lives next door, works within a few miles of you, or walks right up to you and asks for your number. It's like eating empty calories. No matter how much you consume, you're never satisfied. You just get heavier and have less energy. The funny thing is, we know it. We're just afraid.

How very, very sad. Sometimes all it takes is a single phone call to change our world....

I primarily focus on positive energy...not because I am the token Polly-Anna in your midst, but because I have known great suffering. You see, it's in my numbers. But so are miracles. So is awakening. And so is the fact that I am not here to suffer; I am here to love. To give it, cherish it, receive it, and help others learn how to do the same. I call it #AwakeLife, because, today, I live each day more mindfully than ever before. Compassion is my modus operandi. Negativity is not an enemy, but a friend. An opportunity to create what can only be described as utter magic. I do not die; I live. I am not dis-abled; I am super-abled. I am not bitter from loss; loss is what fills me with infinite love and light. 

This is the evolution of a #TwinFlame. The creation of not just a human being, but of humanity itself. You do not have to believe in any religion to evolve. You do not have to send money to a preacher-man in Texas or pay expensive annual dues for a fancy building in an even fancier city. Living an #AwakeLife is a simple choice. It's free. Like my blog. You can read and re-read anything you'd like for as long as you'd like. Because, similar to the synchronous numbers I see, my words are a road map. Yours. Whatever led you to me, you were meant to read them. You were meant to understand yourself and your world--your very purpose--better than you did yesterday. 

 And, I am grateful....

#211

#TwinFlame #AwakeLife Post-script: If you'd like to hear me talk more about #Love in person this #ValentinesDay weekend, you can listen to me LIVE on February 12th, 9pm Eastern on ParanormalFiller.com, hosted by Wes Forsythe--who also made the great digital poster I'm using as the picture insert. The song below (more than its depiction in the video) is related to #TwinFlames and #LostLove...I want the people who are truly in love with each other to be together. It is my wish for each of you. Because, two-plus-two will always (and forever) equal four....