John of God- Assessing a Modern Day Healer

| victoriazaitz

What is most compelling to me about John of God’s approach to healing is the community that he created surrounding his work.  His work draws 500-600 people per day from all around the world.  This creates an enormous opportunity for spiritual community that is deliberately sustained by his requests and requirements.

One is that visitors wear white, fostering a sense of preparation for healing and a communal unity.  He also requires that visitors meditate prior to healing.  He encourages people to reflect on the reasons for their visits and write them down, which is a time for introspection and also a type of prayer.  He also encourages them to make choices by allowing them to select the type of healing to pursue.  This allows visitors to instill trust in their own inner truths.  The community he created speaks of an atmosphere of love that is created by having a central place for people to gather, supported by a healer.  The environment itself provides an opportunity for spiritual community to develop.  I think this type of community can increase and amplify healing energy and also serve as a support for the person who is suffering.  Those who receive more support in their life are naturally able to sustain greater healing.  Within this community, reflection and attention to Spirit create the best conditions for healing to take place.

The qualities that John of God displays point to the similarities I have noticed in many healers.  One is to allow God to work through them—John of God claims that he himself has never healed anyone.  It is the power of God and what he calls “good spirits” that assist in his work.  He is only the vehicle that makes it happen.  This resonates with my own experience as a healer.  There is a feeling that something more is happening that is beyond my control.  When I am doing an intuitive reading, my ego has to get out of the way for the information to flow.  I am in a type of meditative state that is very light, enabling me to talk, but it is not the same as waking consciousness.  Many times I do not remember what was said, and have had the experience of “witnessing” myself saying things—aware that the thought process that my ego normally employs is not operative.  How can I take credit for that? It is as if another consciousness is either running the show, or feeding information to me which I then relay.   I have also felt the presence of a great deal of love, sometimes it is made known to me that it is coming from a deceased relative and also from what I would call “guides” of the person.  The only thing that I do is show up, and make sure that I am balanced enough emotionally and spiritually prepared to do the work.

I also noticed that John of God as a child was devoted to God and dedicated to religion, and had visions.  I have had similar experiences and have noted the similarity in my research regarding the development of intuitive ability.  I have also had a lifelong interest in religion, metaphysics and spirituality which seems to be common among healers, mediums, and mystics of all sorts.

I wonder if any research has been done regarding John of God’s healing work?  I would personally be interested in learning about his methods, particularly how he feels he can best prepare himself as a channel in his work.

Meditation, Intimacy, and Isolation

| victoriazaitz

Cultivating a meditation practice can create intimacy and connection or isolation if it is used in an unhealthy way. When we begin to awaken through meditation, it has an effect on all of our relationships, because we are beginning to change our own self-concepts. Realizing the ground of our being beyond the ego, typically we become more aware of the interconnected nature of humanity. We become aware that this ground of being supports all life, and this creates reverence for all of life in our hearts—beyond those that we love to those that we are more indifferent towards, towards other species, and potentially even those who have hurt us. This can bring a great capacity for love, empathy, compassion, and forgiveness to our lives. Relating to others with a greater sense of respect and recognizing their inner nature as divinity, we are better equipped to deal with relational challenges that stem from our differences.

Paradoxically, meditation can also help us to develop a degree of detachment in the form of spaciousness. Recognizing that there is an unchangeable, eternal nature to reality, we can be more likely to accept the nature of our emotions, thoughts, and sensations without becoming completely overwhelmed or unconsciously controlled by them. Typically a regular meditation practice helps to sustain emotional regulation and can lessen our tendency to dwell on negative emotions or thoughts. My experience is that meditation can create more room for joy, and reveals love at the base of all phenomena. Meditation has a way of taking us out of our heads and into our hearts. Mindfulness can help us to learn to sit with what is in a state of acceptance that can bring greater insight and understanding of ourselves as well as others. We may realize that any harm that we do to another, is harm done to ourselves, and vice-versa.

However, it is possible to use a meditation practice, or any spiritual thought or discipline, to serve our own ego’s fears. We may have a conscious or unconscious intent to escape our own shadow sides and that of others and may feel that meditation can help us do that. Or we may use our practice to glorify ourselves as “spiritual” beings on a higher plane than our fellow humans. In these examples meditation could be very isolating.

If we become very identified with transcendent awareness to the extent of losing touch with our ego and its contents we run the risk of disconnection with ourselves, our own lives, and with others. It is possible that our negative behaviors towards others and our deeply engrained ego patterns could become dominant if we give them less attention. Or we may use our practice to shirk away from a world that we are afraid of becoming too attached to because of its impermanence. We might not want to deal with our feelings, make difficult choices or changes, or become aware of our responsibilities towards all of life. In my experience, however, a regular practice can make it difficult to do this, as it makes one more aware in general rather than less aware of oneself as well as others.

Meditation as a spiritual practice has great potential to intimately connect us to the great web of life and to live a life of greater harmony in relationship to others. But it also brings many challenges that require us to honestly examine ourselves, our fears, our desires, and our behaviors. As long as we meet these challenges with mindfulness and compassion for ourselves, we are able to benefit through the strengthening as well as the transcendence of our egos.

Signs of a Soul Mate or Twin Flame

| victoriazaitz

2015 edit–please read–This is an older post. As such, we all grow and evolve.  At this point in my journey I will say that these signs are true for most types of soul connections, including twin flames.  However, the signs of twin flames include additional elements beyond this listing and are generally only understood by going through them over time (and in most cases, YEARS.)  It takes time to understand that you are in a twin flame connection.  Most of you are not.  I will be speaking a lot more on twin flames, stay tuned!

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Posted due to popular demand–many of you ask me about this. I have taught this information in LilyDale, NY and counseled lots of people about this. I give you, Signs of a Soul Mate.   If you are experiencing these symptoms and you need help– please get in touch with me.  If one could be given through life experience, I may have a PhD in soul mate experience, a hard but wisdom laden road.  I can definitely help you, and let you know what has helped others (and me) through these experiences.  Do not go through it alone, and no….you are not crazy!

Signs of a Soul Mate

 □  An energetic feeling of connection in the heart, sacral and/or third eye chakras.

□  There is a “romantic” connection.

□  An instant, magnetic, unexplainable attraction.

□  A moment of “soul recognition” that this person is a soul mate, often by a feeling that the connection is establishing itself in your energetic body

□  Psychic or telepathic communication, empathic feelings, knowing the person’s thoughts, feelings, or physical condition.

□  Synchronicities at the time of meeting or at important points in the relationship.  Or a repeated occurrence of seeing the numbers 11:11.

□  Vivid and/or meaningful dreams of partner, astral travels/intimacy/sex in dreams that feels real, a premonition of meeting this person in a dream or other form.

□  Feeling their presence when they are not physically present.

□  Feeling of familiarity regardless of time spent together, “love at first sight”, deep understanding with no logical prior knowledge.

□  Feelings of having spent past lifetimes together, actual past life memories, often tied to current soul mate themes or lessons.

□  General compatibility and mutual shared interests.

□  A spiritual awakening triggered by the partner, that can include: kundalini rising, new found awareness of your personal life purpose, a deepening connection to Higher Power.

□  Similarities in life experiences, often within the same timeframe, “just missing” each other (times when you could have met but didn’t.)

□  A period of separation, during which lessons are integrated.

□  The “runner” and “stayer” dynamic: one or both of you runs from the relationship out of fear, one or both of you at some point wants to stay and make it work.

□  Soul-mate “mirroring” and projection of personal issues.  They “mirror” for you what you need to work on in yourself.

□  You recognize life changing lessons to learn about yourself and the nature of love through this relationship.

□  A profound sense of unconditional love for this person.

□  Conflict in the relationship is intolerable and must be resolved immediately.

□  A sacred element to sexuality.

□  You don’t just “get over it”, you miss them intensely! Feeling that it is not over, even though it may appear to be in external circumstance. Loss/separation can be as painful as a bereavement process.

□  Your life has been thrown into upheaval, huge changes of job, home, finances, inner beliefs, spiritual or religious beliefs.

□  You feel like you are going nuts! Confusion, grief, etc.

□  Obstacles, blocks and more obstacles—partner may already be in a relationship (though not fulfilling) geographical distances, etc.

□  The connection lives on, even without contact or communication, even if you want it to end!

□  Feeling that you two are the only two people in the universe when you talk although there may be tons of people around, time “stands still.”

□  The “push” and the “pull”–Back and forth statements, “I love you” one minute, “I can’t do this” the next, on and off situations with the person, does not want you to leave them although they cannot be with you.

□  You know that a part of you is changing, or has to change, and there is no going back.