Fall in Love with Yourself and Embrace Life

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.”
― Albert Einstein

 What have you got to love about yourself? You know, I know I've shown this photo before and yet it still thrills me. I showed it to John Holland four years ago when I attended his workshop on learning to become more psychic and he took one look and exclaimed, "Oh those are spirit lights!" I stood there, stunned. It made sense and yet it shocked me. I thought perhaps he would say it was a guardian angel or a loved one watching over me, but wasn't ready for spirit lights in general.

So think about it: We have tremendous support all around us. I know I have reiki guides, spirit guides, guardian angels, the ascended masters, archangels, and ancestors who deeply love me. What is there to fear? Important, too, is to watch your actions. Deepak Chopra says an essential spiritual law is that of making "right choices" meaning asking your heart if it is something that will make yourself and your family happy and if you respond with a "yes" then go for it, and if it says "no" STOP. Oh how I've ignored this intuitive voice, time after time, and so thus paid the consequences. But I also know forgiveness is my right and I accept it and move on with my life. Freedom is how it feels.

When you realize there are parts of you who are powerful and celestial, it springs forth the realization of wanting to release any parts no longer serving you and thus becoming whole as you always are. We are whole from birth and die whole. The only difference is we accumulate so much unnecessary energy along the way, energy that holds us down, cramps us, walls us in, fences us with fears and resistance.

Reiki removes this energy. You have the power to bless it and let it go. Every modality helps. Most of all, staying attuned to your wholeness helps the most.

Your higher self and intuition are with you, jumping for joy to help you. You simply need to "ask". Ask until your voice grows raspy; ask until you feel like the most spoiled child on earth. For you are royalty. You had the guts to drop back down into this sphere and try again. Again and again. Oh what an evolved being you are!

What's not to love about you? Spirit lights for everyone!

Papa

Dear Readers:

It is so quiet tonight here in Brooklyn. There's a slight, slight breeze roaming through the apartment and with cleanly washed hair, I am enjoying this moment with you. It's been a while. Apologies. Not quite sure where I've been, but I'm glad to be back. Tomorrow is the 16th anniversary of my father's transition. Man was that tough. My brother, Steve, said I wailed, my cries going way down the hallway of the hospital. It's hard to say good-bye. Weeks, months later one starts to realize they aren't really gone, just visibly. Energy does not evaporate. I miss my father. I had a good friend who once told me he suspected I liked pomp and circumstance. I guess I do. Rituals, traditions, events recognized.

I was something in my dad's eye. I made him so proud. The father-daughter Homemaking Dance. Oh my goodness, can it get any dorkier? And while my girlfriends and their fathers were bored and waiting out the time, my father was twirling me around the room, his smile as big as Texas. We won the jitterbug contest. We hit a zone during that dance and my feet allowed him to throw and toss me around and we looked like dynamite. It was electric. Every now and then, years later, he'd look at me, and I'd see it in his eyes, his remembering that night.

We spent a lifetime dodging obstacles, missing deadlines, leaving unfinished projects. But my dad and I were and are wizards. He, I've been told, rides in my solar plexus and like a little soldier helps me summon courage and continue on my journey. An Air Force man, that makes sense.

I remember my grandfather took my father up to a tall, tall water tower when dad was about 16. My grandfather wanted to toughen dad up, make him less fearful. The truth is my dad was a rock and the bravest man I know. And he happily danced with his shy, introverted daughter at a silly off the popular grid club gathering.

He was a contender and so am I and I thank my father for this.

I miss you tonight, Dad. Why do anniversaries bring it in like a laser? The raggedy good-bye, knowing you're standing right next to me, motioning just to dance.

Breaking a Sweat

Here in NYC, we are experiencing our usual 15+ days during the summer of a heat wave. This one is supposed to break by Sunday.

Hallelujah.

Since the wave began, I've been resisting putting in my bigger of the two air conditioners and opting rather only to have the smaller one in my Reiki and Writing room with the hope of the air billowing out into the living space. I could sleep in my work space, however, I love the bigger bedroom and so each night, I pray a breeze will suffice.

Last night was the tipping point.

Sweat upon sweat, my t-shirt glued onto skin, a feeling of combustion threw the wrench into the whole "I'm not paying Con Ed any more than I have to this summer!" I took my favorite comforter/blanket into the semi-colder room with the smaller a/c and in turmoil went to sleep. In the morning, I awoke knowing I was sabotaging my happiness and so I went to the larger a/c and thanked it for making it another summer, slid it into the next room with a towel under it. Moving the twin bed I could get to the window that is much lower to the ground and so that much easier to haul her highness into the frame.Turning on the big motor, she spit chilled air like an overdue thought and I smiled, my shirt pulsing free from my skin.

I knew with this big mama, the air would better coil into the living room, and she did. In minutes, I felt reprieve. It was then I realized I could not fight what was bigger than me: the weather.

Better to work through the summer in sanity and pay Con Ed its therapy fees.

"Whatever we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart." - Sarah Ban Breathnach

I took the baby a/c into the bedroom and latched it into the window, aiming to use it only when necessary which will be tonight.

I am ready to receive.

Sheela Wolford is a writer, poet, Reiki practitioner, mom, and photographer of life. She is working on herself, a full time job that pays really well.

Last night while riding home on the 6 train that I take from the Bronx where I tutor on the weekends, a man walked onto the car. His two large black garbage bags told me he was homeless. He had a white face towel around his neck giving him the appearance of a boxer who had just worked out and was returning home. He wore a short sleeved sports shirt and exercise pants. He had his routine all right, but he wasn't robotic about it as so many men and women I'd witnessed on the train, giving their automatic speech on why they needed the money they'd hope we'd kindly peel out of our purses and pockets.

"I'm homeless," he stated, "and I'm selling candy. I'm not sleeping outside tonight; I'm telling you right now. No, I'm not. So I'm selling this candy and I'm getting a room and ordering Chinese food tonight like any normal person."

He didn't tell us what caused him to fall. He didn't blame it on anyone or anything. He just offered penny candy to help him get a room. I saw dollar bills come out of pockets from tourists and residents. I wanted to give him a twenty, but I didn't have anything. So I watched him and blessed him and asked the force of love to give him everything he wanted and needed.

As I left the train, I thought of him as I walked home.

He is America, right now.

He is all of us.

A good hearted man who is not giving up.

"I'm still hopeful and in good hygiene," he stated.

He is the voice of us.

Bless us. Bless him. Let's take care of him.

US.

 Sheela Wolford is a writer, poet, and Reiki practitioner, living in Brooklyn and knowing life is not passing her by. She is writing a book about her mother and her time spent when Sheela was her hospice caregiver. Please like her on Facebook on Sheela Wolford, Sheela Wolford, Reiki Practitioner, or Sheela Wolford, Writer. Check out her website at sheelawolfordreiki.com, @sheelacheela on Twitter or clickgirl on Instagram.

I am home and working and also watching the latest (and last, yes? yes?) storm come in this winter. As a 30-year resident of the deserts of west Texas, I find four seasons to be miraculous and calming. I love a good snow storm (but please go easy on Boston where my daughter lives). So I am taking a break this morning to offer to you some videos that may make you smile and feel as cozy and warm as I do right now.

Spring cometh soon, watch for your seeds to sprout!

Classic. This song goes back for me to El Paso when my own two daughters were still little. We'd drive I-10, dreaming. Later in NYC, they gave me this song and a book about the lyricists for Mother's Day. Grown, I pray we all dance, every day.



Elvis Costello's voice puts me into a creative space and also invites memories that span my youth and into middle adulthood. Every day, write the book.



Susan Boyle and her courageous move into stardom. She KNEW she had the voice. She also KNEW it would go unnoticed if she didn't defy the odds and just walk out on that stage. Goosebumps.



The 70s proved to be a fundamental time of growth for me that just now I'm seeing in full bloom. Back then, a kindred spirit and childhood friend of mine died in a car accident at the age of 17. I've never forgotten Dennis Morgan. He and I were friends and I look forward to greeting him when I cross over. This song always reminds me of him and that diamond sky blue time.



A Star is Born. I stood in line to see it, alone, and just had to see it. I bought the music for "A Star is Born" and played it on my 8-track over and over as I drove in my car, dreaming. And then while at a friend's wedding, I watched the couple dance to "Evergreen," and I sat there, wondering if love makes it? Can it stay ever green?



BoDeans. In El Paso, nearing 40, I was searching, unlucky in love, raising my beautiful family, and knowing there was more for us, but where, what, how would I become the giant I needed to become? Then I heard this song and a fountain arose in me. They came to El Paso to a club and I went. I know for a fact, my applause and pleading brought them back for three encores. There would have been a fourth, but they escaped when I went to the restroom. Their music tells me to stay alert to love. She's always there, flagging us down.



What are the songs that inspire and ground you toward your own unique greatness? I want to know!

Peace and love.

Sheela Wolford is a writer, poet, and Reiki practitioner, living in Brooklyn and knowing life is not passing her by. She is writing a book about her mother and her time spent when Sheela was her hospice caregiver. Please like her on Facebook on Sheela Wolford, Sheela Wolford, Reiki Practitioner, or Sheela Wolford, Writer. Check out her website at sheelawolfordreiki.com, @sheelacheela on Twitter or clickgirl on Instagram.

“Biography is: a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.” Jose Ortega y Gasset

My cousin's precious daughter, borne from an interracial marriage.

On the first Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s holiday on January 20, 1986,  I sat inside my solitary room at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas. Controversy had swirled and MBank where I was a bank representative at the hospital had decided to remain open. It felt wrong and eerie. I'm glad that day and mentality are over.

As a young girl, I grew up in a time when the talk again whirled that interracial union would be bad for the children it would produce. I remember a black and white couple at my high school. They walked with their heads high and today I know what blind courage that took. I watched earlier in my education, a young girl chased home nearly every day by cruel children, taught to hate. And I guess that's why I've been led to work in social services nearly all of my adult career whether through a not for profit hospital, public broadcasting radio station, publications office, social service agency, YMCA, downtown Brooklyn junior college, tutoring in some of the poorest NYC neighborhoods, canvassing for Working Families Party, and teaching English to welfare to work recipients and immigrants.

In my own way, I am standing up for justice. Back in '86, I sat behind my teller's window, nervous and upset. Few people came to my window. It felt like the whole Nation was on holiday except for me. I sat there all day, feeling ashamed that we were open. It didn't happen again. And as the king we honor today, once said, I, too, " have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Listen for Your Ceremonies and Rituals

“When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.”- Rabindranath Tagore

I'm the girl front row, center, hair waving.

"When I was about eight" I've seen myself write or heard myself say for now more than three decades, starting in my mid-twenties, "I wrote stories about birds." This comes at me so significantly now, it's as if  there is a string of trumpets playing behind me as I write this statement once again. We find our true paths so early in life, yet can also get so incredibly and easily lost, however, I believe with all my bird writing heart that we never fall off that perfectly designed path. It is lit in shining rubies and spotlights, geared for our eyes to see and through love we continue on its way. And as we go, people we meet remind us to stay on that shockingly perfect path. Everyone speaks the truth to us, and "those who have ears to hear" wake up and listen.

Two weeks ago, my daughter, Leila, announced she was going to write a book and she would do so by writing five pages a day similar to Stephen King's seven day ritual. And she asked me would I like to write together? My first reaction was "no", and only because I knew us sitting together would bring out my "chatty Kathy" persona. Then I thought about it and why couldn't we write together- she at her apartment, and me at mine? So I asked this of her and our writing lives together began.

And it has unloosened my world.

We write at 10 am, six days a week, changing this only when jobs demand, and noon on Sundays. How can I tell you how much I have needed a writing buddy? It creates a sacred space watching over me, soothing the frustrations and sorrow. If I need to stop and cry or pray for help, I do so, knowing Leila is swimming in her own discovery, too.

Leila and I on our first Mother's Day in 1984.

I've been going through the files I have on this laptop (oh the files lost from old computers and years of disorganization and chaotic doubt!) and the words are coming toward me, tattered and hungry, but alive. And the handwritten work (thankful!) I still have and now I see and can touch the manuscript ideas I have carried in gestation for nearly a decade, some older, others newer such as the ones about my mother and my journey since 2007. Leila is unstoppable. She writes until she gets those five pages. Her exploration lighting her path, reminding me of another Tagore line from his poem "Farewell" that reads, "Now the day has dawned and the lamp that lit my dark corner is out. A summons has come and I am ready for my journey."

I've been shown such mercy. I am filled with thankfulness this morning as I write and staying awake and on my path is my only task. The rest will be made clear.

I am a Reiki practitioner and last week, I was communicating with Elaine Clayton about building my Reiki practice. Her words return to me now as I establish not only this service, but my talent and equal offering as a writer, as well. "Doors will open," wrote Elaine, "I perceive a monk guide working with you. As if he were to say, 'Tend your garden and the right door will open.' Cool!"

To oversee my garden, what an honor! To be in the presence of love, what mercy. Let the hot coals be placed on my lips, Seraphim. I thank you. Clean, I write with Leila at 10.

Sheela Wolford lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is writing about her mother and her relationship, as well as putting down a slew of poems themed from Jesus's Parables, and last but assuredly not least, she is penning her hiccup salvation occurring from 2007 to 2010, give or take a few years, okay up to the present. She is also a Reiki I & II practitioner and can be reached at Sheela Wolford, Reiki practitioner or at wolfordfindyourvoice@gmail.com. Her daughter can be reached at Leila on Life.