Coloring books & earthquakes

I just published a coloring book – surprise to me. Earlier in the year, I intended to find an outlet for the creativity that won’t stop flowing through me these past few years and a lighthearted way to help people find comfort, peace, and relaxation. Many of the lightworkers I’ve talked to this year have expressed a deep desire for rest and easy inspiration, and I wanted to figure out a way to support them.

The first sign that something was bubbling up from within was that I reconnected with my love of doodling. I used to create beautiful patterns on my school notebooks. I drew what looked like aboriginal art all over my math composition books and doodled what people now call “zen tangle” all over the history notes. I had forgotten all about that until I was sitting one day, waiting for customer service on some phone call, and I started doodling. It was fun! One thing led to another, and soon I was making mandalas. They were too pretty not to share. A post on coloring books appeared in one of my social feeds, and down the proverbial rabbit hole, I went.

I learned a lot from making a lot of mistakes! After making 50 mandalas and feeling quite happy with myself, I realized they were all too intricate for coloring. So I tossed them all and started over. After uploading my book, I realized I needed to fix a few pages and then a few more. I uploaded it four times before I was satisfied. After uploading the artwork on the amazon page, I realized it didn’t look right, and I had to take it down and try again. It was all so much fun!

The contrasts, however, are stark these days. I received an email Monday morning from one of our dear angel readers in Turkey, who told me about the devastating earthquake they had just experienced and asked for a message from the angels. That day at lunch, the heavens came pouring through with a magnitude of love so powerful I had to drop everything and run to the computer. Had I resisted, I would have been in pain. They were not asserting their will but rather answering my prayer to do anything I could for our dear friends across the globe, many of whom are struggling for survival. I don’t recall most of the angels’ words, but I will never forget the love that came through with the message. I can’t imagine resisting that stream.

It is not a time to resist love these days, in any way, especially by ignoring or stuffing feelings. I’m not suggesting we take out our frustrations and pain on others. Instead, take time to be with yourself, feel what you feel, and acknowledge any need for change that is rising from within. The weeks before the earthquake, I had what I call “Ann-quakes.” It often happens before a significant earth event. I need to lie down and quiet my mind, and then my body starts twitching and shaking. I surrender. The angels once said many of us volunteer to release what pressures we can when the earth is feeling them. A psychic friend recently told me she experienced the same phenomenon in her body. Shaking or not, we are warm and safe while hundreds of thousands are grieving, without homes in the dead of winter, and trying to survive in an area still shaking and rolling. What can we do?

Each one of us is uniquely guided. We can listen to our hearts and ask the Divine to point the right way for us. You can donate if that is an option for you. Countless relief organizations are working diligently to do all they can (Unicef , , Oxfam, Save the Children , and Doctors without Borders ) are just a few that our dear friend in Turkey suggested. There are many more.

You can pray. You can sit and allow light and love to flow through you with the intention of it reaching someone in need. You can listen to your own heart so as not to contribute to the build-up of future pressures that our earth must release. The angels encourage us to enjoy our days as we can since being in a higher vibe serves the greater good at all times. In a higher vibration, we can allow more love to flow, both in the spiritual and material sense.

To our dear readers in the areas affected by the devastating quakes, our hearts, prayers, and love are with you. I pray you can feel the outpouring of the world’s love and care amid the suffering. I pray the supplies you need reach you. I pray you can feel God and your angels’ guidance to help you rebuild your lives. May you be wrapped in a blanket of love and guided to all you need.

The rest of us can do what the angels suggest. We can sit, breathe, and receive. We can allow this vast and swiftly moving stream of love to flow to and through us. We can become channels for this love with the intent to elevate human hearts. In our surrender to love, by listening to our own bodies, minds, and hearts, we tune into our guidance and become a gift to humanity. We cannot quickly cure the root cause of the earth’s problems while mired in crisis, but we can do wonders when we focus on solutions while living in love. We can hold a vision for a bright future while doing our best in the present moment.

The Divine always guides us, whispering in small, subtle urges. What seems frivolous might be a step on a more significant path. What seems selfish might be what you need to fill your cup so it can spill over. What seems unremarkable might put waves of goodness into the human pond. We can’t cure all the world’s ills with our individual actions. We can’t help all the hurting hearts even if we could drop everything and travel immediately to devastated areas. However, we can do our part. We can trust our hearts and, in so doing, trust the loving guidance of the Creator who wants all souls to know they are loved.

The dollar you donate may be a loaf of bread that nourishes a family’s stomachs and hears or buys a freezing first responder a cup of coffee. The prayer you send might give a person who is about to give up strength. The light you emanate might inspire someone to do more or might touch someone who is praying right here and now. Trust your heart. God wants us all to live and breathe in a beautiful dance of love.

Here are a few tips to help you listen to the subtle messages from your heart…

1. Take time in silence every day

Take a few minutes in silence every day to ask yourself, “What am I feeling inspired to do?” This week, I was inspired to create a coloring book and drop everything to channel an angel message. These are very different activities. There is, however, only one vibration of love behind them.

I am committed to releasing love through my life and actions in whatever way God guides. I don’t want to “clog God’s arteries,” as the angels have said in the past. While our actions matter to the individuals they affect and are undoubtedly worthwhile and necessary, our energy touches the collective. Both are needed.

If you feel inspired to help the victims of the recent quake, sit in silence and ask the Divine to guide you. Check in with your feelings to see how you are personally called to help. It may be material, spiritual, or both. Trust.

2. Notice the difference between allowance and resistance

When you allow love to flow through you, you feel good. Even amidst a terrible catastrophe, when one soul helps another, they feel good, if only for a moment. In the moment, love flows, you feel good. In the moment we resist love’s flow, we feel not so good.

Sometimes external circumstances make it insanely difficult to open to love’s flow. We are not conditioned to stop everything and open to God and the angels when there’s a disaster, death, or someone is unkind, and yet that is the best thing we can do in those moments. Allowing love to flow to you from the heavens when under duress is the best way to cope. Sit, breathe, receive, the angels say. They want to help, to hug, hold, comfort and guide us. We have to allow for it.

Resistance can also be more subtle. You feel the urge to do something, say something, go somewhere, or say yes or no to a request, and you ignore that slight urge. You feel the resistance as a little bit of frustration, tension, or emotional fatigue. This too, is a sign to stop, breathe, receive, and check in with your feelings to see what you are inspired to do in this moment.

Years ago, I left the phone on one day. I rarely do because it interrupts sessions with clients. This day I “forgot” to turn the ringer off. It rang, and uncharacteristically instead of letting it go to message, I felt like running and answering. I didn’t even look at the caller ID. I just felt a natural urge. On the phone was a former client calling to say goodbye. She had pills lined up to kill herself. She had lost someone dear and couldn’t stand the grief. We talked. She chose life.

These subtle feelings to do something, say something, or try something can have a small or sometimes significant impact on our world. Some souls woke up in the middle of the night, went out for a smoke, and lived instead of being killed in the quake. We are always guided.

3. If you catch yoruself resisting love, just start fresh

Sometimes you catch yourself resisting love. A common way I do this is by ignoring my need for breakfast when I have a ton of emails in the morning. I get rolling and look at the clock. Just five more. Another ten minutes—just five more. Soon I’m near kicking myself because I’ve got only ten minutes left before my first client. I stop resisting love and get breakfast! That is simple, but it affects my day and how well I can serve.

When you catch yourself resisting love, get back on track and open to it again. Rest if you are tired. Do something if you keep getting the urge. If you want a new job, stop telling yourself that it is impossible. If you want a relationship, stop saying it hasn’t happened. Catch yourself resisting the way you want to feel and get back on track. The universe never keeps score.

If you are inspired, let us collectively send all our love and whatever we can to our dear human family affected by the quakes. Let us listen to our own hearts with the resolve not to block the flow of love so we can be conduits for a far more gentle flow in the future.