Cosmic Emotional Calamity...

    Venus traipsing across the Sun and the Ecliptic fan dance of the Moon, along with a variety of other Astrological shenanigans have some of us feeling incredibly raw at the moment. The combination of these phenomena have open the proverbial Pandora' box of suppressed emotions from current heartbreak to long lost childhood wounds.
    For some, there is just so much emotional introspection going on that they feel as though they are being turned inside out, left feeling raw, naked and vulnerable. It is so easy to look so deep inside at all the emotional carnage from the past, both immediate and distant past, that we feel like we will fall in and be swallowed whole, lost forever. Many of us have unfinished emotional business we have filed away in the hopes that it will just eventually fade into nothingness.While that may work out for some people, others are like time bombs ready to go off under just the right cosmic allignment and circumstances, eventually forced to deal with all the emotional baggage the had shoved deep into the back of the closet.  
    For others, there is this overwhelming urge to curl up in the fetal position for a nice long hibernation. This is especially true of empaths, like myself. Not only are we dealing with our own emotional wreckage but we are also being bombarded with the emotional slaughter of others. Most empaths have safe-guards against this onslaught, but with the incredibly amount of shifting energies, expanding consciousnesses, and variety of other awesome cosmic goodies, we are having to fine tune and make constant adjustments to our defenses. Not a great time to have things storming the wall when you are having to rearrange the bricks to make them fit. 
    I am not speaking for all empaths. Many are able to manage it all and keep going, while some get knocked off balance from time to time. Everyone is an individual and deal with their emotions in their own way, some not at all. There are things I do to help myself during these times, things that help me keep my sanity as the little birds of the emotions of myself and others twitter about my head. Here are some of these things:
1. Keep the home fires burning:
    In my previous blog post, I talked about creating a "base camp". This is especially vital for anyone who is an empath or does any sort of energy work. You have to have some place where you can decompress, ground and feel safe from all the external emotions and energies coming at you. Even if it is just one room of your home, everyone needs that free air space to breathe in. You should be able to walk into this space and immediately feel it's positive effects. If not, do your home work and make it happen.
2. Know when to say when:
    Humans are innately social creatures, generally wired to gather, mingle and socialize through a variety of events. When you belong to a family, specific group or community, there are expectations to attend events. In order to survive these things without becoming a hermit, you have to learn to prioritize what to attend and what to pass on. There can be a great deal of pressure from family and peers to attend every single event that comes down the pike, but it really is not required. Your well-being is far more significant than attending every birthday party, weekend blow out, barbeque and barmizvah that you are invited to. Look at what things are important to you, what people are really significant in your life. When you get an invite, really look at where it falls in the overall scheme of things. And, those times when you are feeling especially vulnerable, its ok to say no. Better you say no than go and not have fun or be a totally downer for the rest of the crowd.
    This also means knowing when to leave. You go to an event to hang out with your friends and thing are going great. Then, someone or something changes the feel of the energy on the room, not a little change but a huge, brain-splitting change. You have two choices in this situation: sit and suffer in silence or make a polite excuse and leave. If you stay, the people who really know you will know something is wrong. You can't expect to just sit there like a brick and no one will notice this change in your demeanor. Be prepared for well-meaning, though crazy annoying, questions. If you can figure out a graceful way to exit, or if you really just are feeling like crap, it usually is best all the way around to just make an exit.
3. Finally, there is the Capture, Illumination and Release:
    The real key to dealing with anything in the universe is to define it, figure out exactly what the emotion is, what the real underlying issue is, and where it is coming from. It is sort of like having a virus on your computer. The very first thing your tech person will do is to isolate exactly what virus your computer has so that it can properly fix it. By isolating what emotion you are feeling and its souce, you are capturing that paticular emotion, allowing you to narrow your focus and deal with the issue in a more constructive manner. Sometime, you can actually just resolve the issue nice and neat, and be done with it.
    Sometime, you really can't. Your issue may be with someone you are no longer able to talk to, or is part of an event that occurred so long ago that it is just not possible to figure out the exact element that needs to be dealt with. As an empath, we are sometimes gifted with the emotional baggage of others, with no real way to resolve an issue that isn't ours. We may not even know the exact source of these emotions. In these instances, just letting go can be the best solution, allowing you to lighten your emotional load and go about your life.
    Every so often, especially when I am feeling particularly overloaded, I use the part of the lunar cycle to clean emotional house. I spend the 3 days of the Full Moon capturing the emotions that are really weighing on me. I examine them for ways to resolve them, even if it is possible. I call this the process of Illumination, using the light of the Full Moon to really examine what I am dealing with. Once I have looked at it from every angle, I prepare to release it on the first night of the Waning Moon cycle.
    Sometimes, I write my feelings down or draw an image that describes how I feel during the Full Moon cycle, and then burn it for my release ritual, scattering the ashes to the wind or burying them. Other times, I tie knots in an appropriately colored string while focusing on the emotion during the Illumination process so that I can untie them and release the emotion on the Waning Moon night. You can use candle magic as well for this, carving an appropriate symbol or sigil on the appropriate colored candle, and then burning it as part of your release ritual. 
   The possibilities are really endless with this method, creating a something to capture or symbolize the emotional state during the Full Moon phase, and then destroying the item as a means of releasing the unwanted emotions out into the universe during the Waning Moon cycle. Mind you, this is not effective if the emotion is coming as part of a repeat issue you have with a specific person, group or event. These emotional issues will have to be resolved mundanely and completely before they can actually be released properly.
    These are just some of the ways that I deal with these trying emotions. Everyone has their own way of dealing with them, and what works for some may not work for all. The important thing to understand, above all else, is that it is perfectly normal and ok to feel what you feel. Learning to deal with your emotions in a way that works for you is the key to not allowing them to prevent you from really living and enjoying your life.
Blessings
Urban

The Base Camp...

    I recently moved into a new place, like a big blank canvas for me to expand in. I didn't particularly like where I was living, for the most part, as it was cramped and felt rather cave-like. There was not enough room for my stuff, nor space enough for me to really work or create in. As such, the energy always felt a bit on the stagnant and opressive side, not allowing for growth, expansion or progress, things I actually saw reflected in my every day life. Why was this?
    Well, we spend a lot of time in our homes. Eating, sleeping, showering and doing whatever it is you do at home. It is your space, your domain, where you go to regroup, recoup and recharge your internal battery. It is also your tiny little "base camp" in this vast universe, where you lay out your life plans and decide what you want to bring into your universe. This is the crucial key, because if you are surrounded by negativity, you are going to unintentionally bring in negativity. I call this the Negative Life Flow.
    Negative Life Flow is when the energy of your Life pattern keeps you away from or even moves away from your desires and goals. This can occur because of road blocks, things pushing you another way, or even negative energy holding you stuck in place, dooming you to a repeated negative cycle that is nothing but toxic to your dreams and goals. Having your base camp in a place that is negative in some way can create this Negative Life Flow, keeping things from manifesting in a way you are wanting or even needing, keeping your Life from moving in a positive direction. What you need is a base camp that instills positive feelings, attracts the energy you need to create a Positive Life Flow in your life. To understand how to do this, you first have to understand the three key components of Positive Life Flow.  
    The first component of Positive Life Flow is attracting positive energy into your life. I once had a friend who was continuously bombarded with crap. What I noticed about them was that it almost seemed like when there was a lull in the action, they would basically stand there acting like they were waiting to recieve the next big pile of crap in the face, like they were inviting it, ordering it with a side of more crap. Crap attracts crap. Stop looking for crap. Your base camp should be a positive space, full of motivating, positive visual, audio and other sensory cues. You should be able to just step into this space and instantly feel the awesomeness coming towards you. Think of Positive Energy as the cool people everyone wants to hang out with. Your base camp has to be a space where the cool positive energy wants to come, hang out and do awesome things for you, like attract prosperity and love.
    Your base camp also needs to be an exclusive club, meaning absolutely no negative energy allowed. This is the second component of Positive Life Flow, keeping the negative out. Negative energy is like that really annoying friend that nobody really likes to hang out with, always bitching and complaining about how much their life sucks, the party sucks and they pretty much suck the life out of everything. How do you get away from them? You don't invite them in. You don't give them a house key. They are persona non grata in your base camp. If they show up at your door like a creepy pizza guy, you deal with them at your door, figuring out exactly what you need to do to deal with them as quickly as possible, all the while not letting them in. That is the key to dealing with negative energy.
    I am not saying you have to be happy and positive every moment of every day because that is not even remotely possible without some serious pharmacology. What I am saying is that when you are smacked in the face with a crap pie, you don't stand there and wear it for a while like a facial treatment. You figure out where the negative energy is coming from, why it is there, and how to disperse, rechannel and just drop kick it out of your space. If you can't figure it out, ask for help. If you don't have time to deal with it, set it aside with the clear and strict intent that you will not deal with it until you have time, and will not dwell on it or wear it around like a freaking crap hat. You will also give a specific time frame because you do not want this stuff just sitting there like roaches, festering, having babies, setting up housekeeping, creating a big fat pile of crap that keeps you from moving forward. The amount of negative crap you will have to shovel out of your path is directly proportionate to the amount of time you let it sit there and grow. Shovel it quick and be done with it so it is not blocking your forward progress.
    This is the third component to Positive Life Flow, keeping this positive life energy moving in a forward direction. This can actually be a tough one, especially if our base camp is full of what if's, if only's, and momentos of loss and regret. They act like pause buttons on your DVD player, holding you hovering in that one spot in time and not allowing you to move forward. There is nothing wrong with tokens and momento of the past in your base camp, but they should inspire you fly, give you comfort and strength to move forward, not act as anchors to hold you fixed to a moment in time. These are the things that should be in your base camp.
   Now, your base camp does not have to be your whole home. I am fortunate enough to where I could probably do that here as the only thing my boyfriend cares about is where he can put his tools and his underwear. Whether you are doing a big space, like a whole house, or a small room, the first thing is to pack away what triggers anything negative. You don't have to throw it away, just put it in a box for now until you can deal with the emotions it brings to the table. When you are finished doing that, look at what is left. How does it make you feel? Move stuff around; add stuff; subtract stuff. At each interval, stop and see how it feels. Leave the room for a while and come back, seeing if you still feel that positive life flow going on.
    Also, look at the space in your base camp and imagine how energy would move through it. Would it be able to flow freely or would it get bogged down? Would it even make it through the door? Positive Life Flow is about moving your life forward towards your goals, so the energy has to be able to move forward. Clutter equals chaos which equals negative movement, so stop it. Weird stuff lingering in your space distracts the energy, makes it stop and say "wtf?", ditch it. Be brutal, be honest. be real.
   And you realisitically cannot just tackle your entire house all at once, so don't beat yourself up or drive yourself insane. Start small. One room, one space. I, luckily, had that blank slate of a new place to work with. We brought just the furniture in and set that up. I had them place the boxes in the garage and started adding pieces in. I also utilized a number of the methods I talked in the blog I wrote back in January called "Magical Living Spaces". It is full of fantatic ideas about how to place things in a way to keep that Positive Life Flow on track.
    The bottom line is that a good base camp will keep that Positive Life Flow energy moving in the right direction. Added benefits are that your base camp is a place of healing, of finding your center when the rest of the world is just crazy, and a place where you honor the Divine within yourself. It doesn't have to be huge. Start by creating a small safe, nurturing and positive base camp in your corner of the universe, and see what happens to your universe.
Blessings
Urban...