Molly Jacobson https://mollyjacobson.com/ Writings & Readings Sat, 19 Dec 2020 03:40:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 163326274 Smell the Roses https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/smell-the-roses/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/smell-the-roses/#respond Sat, 19 Dec 2020 03:32:30 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2874 December 19, 2020 Topic: Smell the Roses. Take your moments where you find them. Read This Now

The post Smell the Roses appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for December 19, 2020: Smell the Roses

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers, and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “smell the roses.”

This was a remarkably short session today. I think it’s because there is no point in belaboring a simple, pointed message.

I’m taking a little time off here at the end of the year … so the next weekly reading you’ll see will be the one for January 2, 2021. (EEEK! A new year AND a new decade!)

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Smell the Roses

Q: What do we need to know about “smell the roses?”

A: We’re lucky that it’s the holiday season because right now the energy of this week seems to be just … so … relaxed.

It’s time to rest, but not to go to sleep. It’s more like to be on VACATION. Something we haven’t had much of this year, right?

[And no, staying at home and working in your jammies is not the same as “being on vacation.”]

But, what do you do for vacation when you can’t go anywhere?

Or when you and/or your friends and colleagues and families are fighting the pandemic, or losing their work, or facing eviction?

You go on vacation in your mindset. You take a break, in every way you can. You literally stop and smell the roses. It just takes a few seconds — but if you do it right, you’ll be a little more relaxed when you’re done.

So this week as we all cautiously approach the weirdest holiday week in years, as we prepare for mostly low-key, no-contact celebrations, ENJOY the time.

The holidays most years are hectic. Fun, sure, but over-packed with events and concerts and traditions that take time and energy.

This year, all of that is optional, and the holidays can be about Netflix and a glass of wine.

Take it. Enjoy it. Relax.

It’s time for us to take any moment we can — no matter how fleeting — to rest in wellness.

The first sip of coffee in the morning.

The way the light falls on the flour as it sifts into the bowl.

The curve of your child’s cheek.

Burying your fingers in the deep fur at the back of your cat’s head.

Feeling the cold tile under your bare, wet feet.

The flickering of Christmas tree lights out your window.

Deepen your attention during these moments, because this holiday season you have an amazing opportunity to pull two, three, four times more wellness out of them than normal.

There will also be attention-grabbing events, and there will be plenty of action … but in between, breathe deeply, and if you see some roses, take a deep whiff.

Life is good, even when it is bad. Breathing and being alive is a blessing in itself, and this holiday, those of us who are breathing and alive owe it to each other and ourselves to rest and soak in that fact.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post Smell the Roses appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/smell-the-roses/feed/ 0 2874
Love Is Everywhere (Reprise) https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/love-is-everywhere-reprise/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/love-is-everywhere-reprise/#respond Fri, 04 Dec 2020 21:03:56 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2871 December 5, 2020 Topic: Love Is Everywhere (Reprise). A returning theme deepens like the ocean. Read This Now

The post Love Is Everywhere (Reprise) appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for December 5, 2020: Love Is Everywhere (Reprise)

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

When I opened up and listened I heard, unmistakably: Love Is Everywhere.

And it sounded so familiar!

And no wonder — it’s also the topic for a message from December 14, 2019 — nearly a year ago.

So I listened a little harder. Perhaps I was missing something?

Nope. It was there, louder, and more insistent. Love Is Everywhere is the message for today. So … let’s see what we find out.

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Love Is Everywhere

Q: What do we need to know about “love is everywhere?”

A: I have a little routine I go through before I engage in Readings with folks. When I say “let me settle in for a moment,” that’s me taking a moment to get the heck out of the way. I imagine myself sitting in the corner of my room, reading a book while I do this work. That way, I don’t get too engaged, I don’t get in the way. I can stay in the flow of the Reading and speak exactly what I hear, no more, no less. My ego is parked in the corner, studying something else. (I’m a thinker, and intensely interested in … ugh, everything. It’s vital I get my intellect out of the way!)

Sometimes, especially this year in 2020, I find I need to be a little further away. So I imagine myself on a beach down the road from me, walking on Keawakapu and enjoying the waves as I get into the conversation.

And lately, things have been so intense that I find myself floating on a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean — far from land. Out there, exposed to the sun and the wind and the salt, I know that I better not come back until the Reading is Over — because the water is deep, and there really are currents and strange things. It’s not safe for me to go back on my own.

Also, it’s pleasant to float for a while.

Also, there is no better way to experience the truth that Love Is Everywhere than float in the middle of the Pacific, the “newest” ocean with the bluest (newest) water. It’s so gorgeous, people. If you haven’t seen the blue of the water, you don’t understand just how gray-green the Atlantic is, for example.

And where I live it’s also warm, and the salt isn’t as intense as it is off the shore of New England, where I was first introduced to Ocean.

And yet, the ocean I live in is the ocean that you live in, too. There is no ocean on the planet that is disconnected and solitary. They all flow together, meet, and speak, and mingle and toss together. They are One, even though they are in different places and named for different things, and appear in different colors.

They are all one, and everywhere. Love is Everywhere.

And why are we being reminded of this now, at the end of 2020, as we were at the end of 2019?

I suspect in 2019 that reading was our higher selves arming us for the time to come. We were being asked to Remember Love so that we wouldn’t get too discouraged by the epic events to come. I mean, really — to find the love in a huge centipede?

How’d that work out for you? Does 2020 feel like a foot-long centipede, or what??

And did you manage to find the love in 2020???

Well, this coming year looks like it will not be quite as massive, hairy, or scary as this one was. It won’t be easy, but it won’t be as overwhelming and hard as this one was.

Of course, nothing magical changes when our calendars flip from 2020 to 2021. But the human brain is structured to associate change with change — so the turn of the year can FEEL like a magical clean slate to us.

All dates, holidays, traditions, rituals have one purpose: to allow us to focus and choose.

So as we come to the end of the year, let’s take a moment and look back. All years are One, as all Oceans are One … and Love Is Everywhere just like the ocean.

So over the next couple of weeks, repeat that to yourself, whenever you get the chance.

Love Is Everywhere.

[[Try it on as a thought experiment if you don’t really believe it :-)]]

It doesn’t mean that Other Things aren’t going on. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t needless suffering, intense denial and disastrous misinformation, or sad and hard things to go through.

It just means that somewhere in all of that is (also) a glimpse of the sea. Glinting on the horizon, or lapping at your toes, it’s there.

Even when you are land-bound in the center of the continent, the ocean is there for you. Every time you take a drink of anything, the water in it came from the ocean. And as it enters your bloodstream, it rejoins the ocean, because our blood is close to seawater in its salt concentrations — and it goes everywhere in our body, just like the sea. We carry the ocean. Love is everywhere, even in our every cell.

So if you look at your life this month and only see sadness, do this: press your fingers into your ears until you hear the roaring of your own blood. And listen, listen, to the sea, and feel, feel, how it loves you, this blood, this heart that pumps for you without your will or intention. Listen to the tidal rush of your breath in, and out.

Love Is Everywhere, including in You. You are the Love that Is Everywhere.

So as we bookend this terribly upsetting year, let us turn to this altered holiday time with a renewed sense of wonder and awe. Let’s listen for, taste, see, hear, and feel the Love that flows in, and out, all around.

The globe. You.

Love Is Everywhere.

May this meditation carry you this month and orient you toward the peaceful contemplation of what you love so that as we “flip the page” and enter 2021 we are focused, and choose to build More Love into our world, into our society, into our lives.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post Love Is Everywhere (Reprise) appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/love-is-everywhere-reprise/feed/ 0 2871
Ungratitude Practice https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/ungratitude-practice/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/ungratitude-practice/#respond Sat, 28 Nov 2020 00:22:07 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2869 November 28, 2020 Topic: UnGratitude Practice. Yes, you read that right. Let's make a list! Read This Now

The post Ungratitude Practice appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for November 28, 2020: UnGratitude Practice

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “ungratitude practice.”

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ UnGratitude Practice

Q: What do we need to know about “walk the line?”

A:  An UnGratitude Practice?? Isn’t that … spiritually wrong somehow?

Nope. Here’s why.

When you are in struggle, when you are depressed, when things Are Just Not Working Out for You, when you get one bad break after another, when you are worried about the political climate and the environment and the mental and emotional health of your children and loved ones, it’s normal to feel — to coin a word — ungratitude.

Ungrateful. Hateful. Pessimistic. Beleaguered. All normal feelings in extreme circumstances!!

From our smallest days we are told to keep a stiff upper lip, take it on the chin, turn the other cheek, look for the silver lining, or “think positive.”

That’s not necessarily bad advice, it’s just not always GOOD advice.

When things are really, really sucky, trying to “be positive” might actually backfire. You might put a smile on your face and end up denying reality. You might ignore the suffering of others, or yourself. You might find yourself savaging others for not being able to “man up” and be more positive about THEIR troubles.

It could make you look like, act like … a jerk.

So. Let’s practice UnGratitude, just a little, and see what it gets us. (For those who are wincing right now, just bear with us, it’s just a thought experiment.)

What happens when you acknowledge that things are crap for you right now?

You are listening to yourself. You are validating the reality you are feeling inside, without arguing with whether or not you SHOULD feel that way. You are becoming humble — which means close to the ground — and giving yourself the gift of your own imperfect life without trying to improve it or change it. (For now.)

There’s an old saying that a trouble shared is a trouble halved. By simply sitting down and feeling miserable about miserable things, you are sharing your troubles with YOURSELF. And just that simple act can halve the troubles!

Why? Because by removing the heaviness of unacknowledged troubles, you are able to start to see solutions. Answers. You get insights, ideas, and strategies.

But when you’re just muscling through your pain, pretending that nothing is wrong and you are all #blessed, you can’t get past the troubles. You can’t see the solutions for yourself, and if others offer some, you might not be able to take them.

It’s hard when you carry the weight of the world. Share it with yourself, make yourself a trusted friend and colleague. Then move on from there.

Now, obviously, there are times when you should ALSO share your troubles with a trained professional. So if you don’t feel a little better after doing the exercise below — reach out. There is no shame in getting help. In fact, there may be more shame in NOT getting help once you realize you could use it.

OK … so here’s a great Ungratitude Practice:

Ungratitude Practice:

Find a quiet place, preferably alone, although you could also work with a friend or family member who understands the importance of letting you express yourself fully before “moving on.”

Settle yourself, feeling the earth under the feet, the pull of gravity on your body. You are safe.

Extend your awareness out all around your body. Become alert to what’s around you. Feel your personal space, which is the space around you that feels like “yours.” Make sure you can feel ALL of it. Extend it a little if it’s too close to you, and fill it up right up to the boundaries. Make sure you can feel your space behind you, and below, and above, as well as the sides and front. This is YOUR space. And only YOU are in it.

Look on the boundaries of that personal space with your mind. Any tears, holes, or gaps? Fill those in with your alert attention.

Now that you have grounded yourself and identified your boundaries and shored them up, let’s use this space to be totally 100% UnGrateful.

Either on paper or out loud, start listing your worries, troubles, cares, fears, and darkest doubts.

Do not censor yourself. If you have something that feels trivial, put it down. If it’s something you’ve never dared admit before, put it down, speak it out loud.

Anything hard, sharp, contemptuous, disgusting, horrible, terrible, awful: put it down or speak it out loud.

[I just did this for myself, and I noticed that mostly I have giant FEELINGS come up. I didn’t really have words or even memories. But man, did I ever have FEELINGS. I found a sense of nausea, rage, and deep grief. So I just thought “grief” and then “ejected” it from my mind. It sort of felt like a mental throwing up!]

What does this do? It purges these things from our minds and puts them on paper, or at least, outside our heads. Byron Katie likes to say that “all war belongs on paper.” I tend to agree, although I find speaking out loud to be really helpful for me, too.

Sharp words and nasty thoughts rattling around in our consciousness have consequences. Your body/mind is soft and filled with precious fluids, and it likes cozy, comforting, nourishing, inspiring ideas.

A fear, a past trauma, a contemptuous feeling … these are like loose nails carried in the body/mind. They tear and puncture and scratch. Left alone, they do damage, some of it permanent.

By letting them out, you do NOT affirm their truth. You relieve yourself of their effect and begin to heal.

[[The body always heals itself. Healing begins IMMEDIATELY after an injury occurs. And it continues until the job is done, even if it takes years. Can we heal everything permanently? No, not always. But the cells work, and work, and work to heal. They never give up on us.]]

Think of this process a little like draining an abscess — if you drain it, you heal it, even though what comes out at first looks disgusting. You don’t want to keep that stuff inside — it’s poison. Let it out.

And as it comes out, as it drains out onto your paper or into the cool air, don’t take any more notice of it than you would that fluid exiting a wound. It’s not important, it’s not good, it’s not true, it’s not worth keeping.

We don’t drain our abscesses and keep the mess for posterity. We don’t wear it as a badge on our heart, as a marker of who we are. We wipe it away, clean the wound, and start the healing process. The fluids are discarded. They’re trash.

Continue to speak or write — or just FEEL the feelings of your upsets and troubles — until you feel a sense of being lighter and freer. Your mind will sort of come to rest, and you will feel better.

Now, get that poison out of your personal space. If you have it written down, ball it up and throw it as far as you can. Then pick it up and throw it in the trash. (Remember, it’s poison, no need to keep it.)

If that doesn’t feel far enough, feel free to take your paper and remove it from the house, or burn it. Just get rid of it as the trash you do NOT want to keep.

If you did this in your mind, imagine a way to clean up your personal space. I just imagined that my emotions were sticky balls of masking tape, and I clumped them all together into one BIG ball, and put it in a t-shirt launcher, the ones they use at ballgames, and launched it out of my personal space. (All the way into outer space.)

But you could use a vacuum cleaner, or a broom, or a fairy wand, or whatever other tool feels fun to use to clean out your personal space.

Repeat this as needed. Multiple times a day, a week, for months. Years.

Anytime you feel filled up with despair, or trauma, or weakness.

Because afterward, you actually FEEL better. And once you feel better, the silver linings aren’t necessary. You will start to see the blue sky.

You won’t need to stiffen your upper lip. There will be a naturally firm, focused quality to your mind already.

You won’t need to “think positive,” because you WILL feel more positive. (Even if just a little.)

When we remove the cause of the bad feelings, the nails in our psyche, we can start to heal.

And once we are on a healing path, we can see the role we play in our lives and the lives of others.

We might see that our thoughts were the issue, not our circumstances.

Or, if our circumstances are still problematic, we can see the ways we might change them or get the help we need. Sometimes the answers are right under our nose, but we don’t notice them until we’ve dumped the poison.

Or, if the problems we’re burdened by are civil, rather than personal, we can see how to serve. How to make things better.

Get Ungrateful this weekend. It’s not fun to see this stuff — I’m the FIRST to admit that — but it’s totally worth the payoff.

Here’s to our healing.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

 

The post Ungratitude Practice appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/ungratitude-practice/feed/ 0 2869
Walk the Line https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/walk-the-line/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/walk-the-line/#respond Sat, 21 Nov 2020 00:36:34 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2867 November 21, 2020 Topic: Walk the Line. Actually, don't. Not this week, anyway! Read This Now

The post Walk the Line appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for November 21, 2020: Walk the Line

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “walk the line.”

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Walk the Line

Q: What do we need to know about “walk the line?”

A: What is the line between sane and insane? Fantasy and Fact? Where does the sky end and the sea begin?

The Line is calling us, this weekend, calling us up right to the edge, daring us to step over — or straddle both worlds, one foot in darkness, the other in light.

One in moon, the other in sun.

The Line is, of course, a fiction in and of itself. Nothing in nature is in a line, and nothing in nature is All One Thing and Not Another.

We are all on a spectrum. And we get to move along that spectrum toward whichever direction we feel is right for us.

And the truth is, the harder you look for The Line, that exact moment where black ceases and gray begins, or gray pales out to pure white, the less likely you are to discover “the truth.”

Because just as we reach the horizon in our little sailboats, we realize that there is more horizon, out there, dancing in the distance, wavering in the humid air, teasing us with more questions. There are no 100% solid answers to our questions, dear ones.

Rare are the answerable questions.

And so this weekend, as we fight for Right and Now and Certainty and Relief from Tension, keep this in mind: trying to solve the riddle of This or That, When or Where, Now or Later is a fool’s errand.

Look down between your feet. There it is, the line you should pay attention to. What has your attention, right now? What issue, or struggle, or happiness, are you straddling? What’s the cliff you’re tiptoeing along?

There’s a road in Montana that winds up cliffs in Glacier National Park. It circles and swoops with a 1-foot guardrail to your right as you climb up the mountainside, heading toward the pass that The People used to cross into their wintering grounds. You get wet as you drive, because waterfalls drop onto the road.

This road was once a foot trail, and then it was a WPA project, and now it is carefully tended by the National Park Service and closed with the first snow. It is called Going-to-the-Sun Road, and it is glorious, not least for the views, but also because of the way your heart thrums and your knuckles clutch as you rise. When you meet the thin air at the Continental Divide, you feel Divinity in its most wild, feral form.

It is dangerous to go to the Sun on any day of the year. And sometimes it is impossible.

And so it is with all Lines — all roads that separate the mountain from thin air, the waterfall cliff from the sheer drop. It’s dangerous to try to snake along on your own, and you feel it, in your bones, the folly of it. Why are you doing this to yourself?

Don’t Walk the Line, not now. We are in too volatile a time. There is too much confusion and disorder as it is.

Decide, this weekend, to choose the side of the Line you want to live on for a while. And make your peace with staying away from the questions, the “where is the line, what is the thing that happens when it is crossed” kind of questions.

It’s OK to choose safety, comfort, peace, and Thanksgiving.

Focus on the soft, on the friendly, on the beautiful and the compatible.

Give yourself a break from the cliff. It’s time to cozy in, cuddle up, and forget about Walking the Line for a while. Don’t walk it. It’s not worth the adrenaline rush. Take a break, now, while you can, because the adrenaline rushes will keep coming in the next months. You don’t have to ride each and every one.

It has snowed, and the Going-to-the-Sun Road is mostly closed.

Think about giving yourself the most delicious, loving, comforting time you possibly can this Thanksgiving.

And be safe. Please. In terms of the virus, we are heading for the darkest time of the year in more ways than one. Minimize risk and exposure, OK?

Stay safe.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post Walk the Line appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/walk-the-line/feed/ 0 2867
Reaping Time https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/reaping-time/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/reaping-time/#respond Sat, 14 Nov 2020 00:53:23 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2865 November 14, 2020 Topic: Reaping Time. The harvest is ready to come in. Read This Now

The post Reaping Time appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for November 14, 2020: Reaping Time

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “reaping time.”

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Reaping Time

Q: What do we need to know about “reaping time?”

A: When the farmer goes out into the field to reap the harvest, he or she brings a long, sharp blade. This is true whether he carries it in his hand, or she drives a reaper vehicle. Taking the harvest from the plants living in the soil is done with steel and sword. The plants are left barely alive, decapitated, limbless. They wither and withdraw into the ground, shriveling in their roots, barely putting up resistance when they are dug up later.

It’s OK, right? They give their lives so we may eat.

Yes, it’s OK. It’s the way things go here on Planet Earth. In order for you to live, many, many others must die. And in order for many, many others to live, you must die.

When death comes to reap our human bodies, we too are returned to the soil, where we provide nourishment for many other creatures. And this goes on, and on, for centuries, millennia, epochs.

Death/rebirth is happening all the time.

And it cuts, like a sharp sword, like a powerful whack, like the turn of a wheel of blades. If we’re lucky, we go under the blade quick, lose our heads as Anne Boleyn did, in a whisper of a breath, our eyes turned upward toward heaven.

This time in our year, this crazy year of 2020, is harvest time. Whatever we’ve planted the rest of the year up until now is coming up for reaping. And it will be difficult to leave anything in the ground. Once it’s ripe, it must come out, or it rots in the field and sows rot for the coming year.

So as you see things in your life get turned under the blade, notice — did you resist? Was it clean? Have you somehow known this was going to happen?

I know this sounds so grim, darling. But really, it’s not.

Because the bare, shorn fields of the late fall get covered in a warming blanket of snow, which blesses them over the course of the hard winter. The soil is protected from the winds and the ice. It huddles down and sleeps, resting for the great spring awakening in March.

You’ll see so many reapings over the next few months, and some of them will feel like Too Much, Too Soon. There will be literal deaths, and many of them, in such numbers that your heart will hurt. Please, stay safe. It’s not a good time to gather for holidays. It’s not a good year to decide to do that “one last thing” on your way home.

For every trip out of your house, ask yourself: “Is this worth it? Will I look back on this trip and say ‘that’s when it happened?’ and will I be OK with it?”

Be careful. With yourself and your loved ones.

Reapings will happen in every part of our life, in our collective and our individual lives. Perhaps the reaping will come in a different way for you:

  • Finally understanding that this health condition is TREATABLE, and deciding to TREAT it.
  • Realizing that you DO want to move in together.
  • Realizing that you DON’T want to move in together.
  • Seeing how a casual approach to the truth results in harm to yourself and your loved ones.
  • Understanding a concept in new way, feeling like the scales have fallen from your eyes.
  • Losing a shingle to a windstorm and seeing a bigger roof problem that needed fixing.
  • Getting a degree or a certification.
  • Finally starting that creative project after a year of wishing you had time.

I won’t even bother to list all the reapings we’ll see in our political life. There are too many, and most of them are too obvious to bother.

In short, we’ll see people reap what they’ve sown in both their public and private lives.

And we will reap, too.

Take some time this weekend and review. What have you sown? What are you about to reap?

And what should we do, if we look back on the year and realize we have sown harm, or lies, or misrepresentations, or half-truths, or anything else we would like to avoid reaping?

Go out in the field, my darling, and pull it up by the roots. Make amends if needed. Redo, rework. Don’t wait for it to ripen. And don’t let it rot in the field, either. It will only cause more trouble later.

Make the apologies. Remove yourself from the group. Leave the program. Say no to the invitation. Stay home, or go — whatever you need to do to balance yourself, do it now. Stop drinking too much, or stop denying yourself the relaxing drink. Stop eating, or allow yourself the comfort of food. Take longer walks, or bounce on the trampoline. We will all need to balance in different ways — so don’t judge anyone else.

We all need what we need, and we all have our own harvests to tend. This is the busiest time of year, when we take things out of the ground that will nourish us this winter.

Get ready to be fed, and loved, and comforted. And get ready to steel yourself. Stretch out your shoulder, and sharpen your blade.

We want to be ready for this time. We want to be sharp, alert, and knowledgeable.

Carry yourself lightly, keep your blade handy, and remember — only take your own harvest, no one else’s. This is not the time to point fingers or judge another by their harvest. It’s a time for clarity, for revealing. If you’re thinking about someone else’s work right now, you’re not tending to your own tasks.

When this time is over, we’ll feel cleaner, clearer, and, frankly, bone tired.

But also, lighter, in every way. This is a good, hard, necessary time.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post Reaping Time appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/reaping-time/feed/ 0 2865
Endings and Beginnings https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/endings-and-beginnings/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/endings-and-beginnings/#respond Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:45:48 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2862 November 7, 2020 Topic: Endings and Beginnings. Dark bricks of potential dark matter! Read This Now

The post Endings and Beginnings appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for November 7, 2020: Endings and Beginnings

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “endings and beginnings.”

With the U.S. Presidential Election not yet called (it’s 4:00pm EDT on Friday 11/6 when I write this) this message feels particularly useful to me this week.

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Endings and Beginnings

Q: What do we need to know about “endings and beginnings?”

We are at the beginning of an ending, the end of a beginning, and the end of an ending and the beginning of a beginning.

Wow. No wonder we feel so much energy!

They say that if a door closes a window opens …. Well, all the doors and windows in our house are banging open and shut repeatedly. It’s hard to hear over the clattering of closings and the creaking of openings.

And that’s OK. That’s actually the way it always is on this planet, we’re just not usually going through the Same Ending/Beginning at the same time.

So what do we do at Endings, and what do we do at Beginnings? Let’s take a look.

Here is a VERY partial list of Beginnings:

  • Birth
  • Naming a baby
  • First solid food
  • First birthday
  • First time riding a bike
  • Swimming across the pool for the first time
  • Graduation from High School
  • First day of college
  • College Graduation
  • Wedding Day
  • Birth of first child
  • First job
  • First day of retirement

And here is a VERY partial list of Endings:

  • Weaning yourself from your mother
  • A new sibling being born
  • Death of a close relative
  • Graduation from High School
  • Graduation from College
  • Wedding Day
  • Birth of first child
  • First day of first job
  • First day of retirement

There are many, many life events that are both Endings and Beginnings.

In fact, every day’s sunrise for you is someone else’s sunset. Every single moment on this planet features sunset and sunrise. Every moment!!

So we REALLY know how to do this! Let’s ground ourselves in this idea of constant motion, endless endings and beginnings, so we can better understand this dynamic.

Put your hand on your heart for a moment, and take a few deep breaths: in for five, hold, out for five, at least ten times in a row.

With your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) engaged, take a moment and feel your feet on the ground, or if you are sitting or lying down, feel your body on the chair or bed. Remember, the more you relax, the more support you feel … so relax and continue breathing deeply.

And now, picture your body in this place, which is connected to the center of the earth. Even if you are on the 32nd floor of a high rise in a city, you are still connected to the center of the earth through your furniture, the building, the ground.

Feel that solid support under your body. Let your body relax into it. You’re not going anywhere. Gravity and you are friends, and it keeps you plastered to this planet for your entire lifetime.

And now, with your body fully engaged with the earth, tune into the cosmos that surrounds us on every side. Feel the vastness. Feel the possibilities that stack like dark bricks of dark matter out there in the void – and inside our cells and the planet — and let the opportunities (all those open doors and open windows) announce themselves.

As you sit, floating in the void, with me, let’s attune ourselves to the very essence of potentiality that the heavens represent. Perhaps tonight, you will go outside and see the stars, and feel as one of them, a brilliant point of light that someone on a distant planet is gazing at, millions of light-years away.

Take this attitude this weekend, and into the next week.

You are grounded in the present, this planet, this reality, and also infinitely aware of the endless possibilities twinkling and calling to you.

When we give birth, in the same instant we cease being Only Ourselves and start being Parent to This Person.

When we are born, in the same instant we cease being One and start being Two.

Endings and Beginnings always come at the exact same moment. That’s why it is so important to listen for the creak of a window opening when you hear a door slam shut!

And here’s why it’s so important: when you End/Begin, you are responsible for What Happens Next.

There is always a “next” that comes immediately after an Ending/Beginning.

You were a person, and now you are also a parent … and you have to figure out what that means. How do you breathe, with all that responsibility??

You were a fetus, and now you are a newborn … and you have to figure out how to breathe on your own. How do you breathe, without your mother’s oxygen??

The next is the thing, dear ones. What’s next?

Because there are all those possibilities before us, and we are ready for them, and Now Is Our Time. What will we make next?

What will I make next?

What will you make next?

What is this new world, and how do we make it work? We have been tasked with a sacred responsibility that countless of our foremothers and forefathers handed to us.

Let us set about tending to our new world the same way we would that newborn. With great tenderness, and gentleness. With endless fascination. With love that breaks the heart wide open.

We sit, grounded, mind in the heavens, heartbroken, open. And from here, we set about growing up our new world into a fine, competent, wise, kind, and loving adult.

It begins!

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post Endings and Beginnings appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/endings-and-beginnings/feed/ 0 2862
Hope Is the Thing https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/hope-is-the-thing/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/hope-is-the-thing/#respond Sat, 24 Oct 2020 04:24:56 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2860 October 24, 2020 Topic: Hope is the Thing. She's singing in her cathedral -- can you hear her? Read This Now

The post Hope Is the Thing appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for October 24, 2020: Hope Is the Thing

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “hope is the thing.”

With deepest gratitude to Emily Dickinson, what follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Hope Is the Thing

Q: What do we need to know about “hope is the thing?”

A: One of Emily Dickinson’s most famous poems probably expresses this weekend’s theme best, so let’s start there.

“Hope” Is The Thing With Feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
– Emily Dickinson, poem 314, from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Harvard University Press

This weekend, let’s join Emily — our lovely Grandmother of American Poetry — in her contemplation of the thing with feathers, the strange little robin that flutters about our ribcage and sings about spring even as we enter this deep, dark season.

The Hallows draws near, dears, and with it, the uprising of all the dead. Those who have passed, sure, we think about them as the autumn leaves fly. But all the other dead are coming, too.

The dead ideas that drag our mind into ruts of repetition. We mull our darkest thoughts, over and over, asleep to how they are dragging us around.

The dead ambitions that don’t fit who We Really Are.

The dead longings that are just habit, just old cravings that we satisfied in other ways.

It’s time to meet our dead, and negotiate peace with them. Listen, listen, as they whisper in our ears and reach for our hands, and then smile at them, and say the words they long to hear:

No need for you, any longer, you can go, you can return to whence you came.

And as they exit our minds and hearts, they leave our beautiful bodies empty as cathedrals, which means not empty at all.

The singers reading this know that the body is not just flesh and blood, it is a giant cavernous vessel for sound. The feet stamp into the earth, draw up strength, flood the bowl of the pelvis with power, and that power vibrates until a great sound is made, which echoes in the chambers of the torso, thrust by the lungs through the gate of the throat where it is shaped by the tongue and spun out into the air for the rest of us to hear.

Our bodies make songs, loved ones.

And when the dead thoughts and desires and longings and ambitions leave, and we are cleaned out, we are blessed by these sounds we can make, and we can sing with that small bird called hope, the thing with feathers has plenty of room to fly.

And she does. She flies, and everywhere she swoops in our body she leaves a trail of lovely trills and whistles, and we feel them as shivers of excitement. Our skin puckers with gooseflesh as she threads her way out of her nest in our heart, fills the ribcage with her song, and races along our arms.

Our very noses tingle with her tickling song.

We hear it when we are going to sleep, even, slipping away from the world, listening to her last notes to lull us to sleep. And in the morning, if we stay a moment before we remember our name, we can hear her again, quietly greeting us.

She has been singing all night long, thrumming away at her work. She loves us, and she is true to us.

And so listen, loved ones. Listen to everything.

Let your dead go, and listen to the thing with feathers grow strong-voiced.

She is singing for you.

Strike the ground with your heels, stand on your feet, let your knees loosen and your body sway, and sing, sing with her this weekend.

We have “Hope,” and she never leaves us. Or asks anything of us, except to clean out our bodies and minds and hearts so she has a beautiful cathedral to fill with songs that sound like prayers.

She never fails to sing for us, and she never fails to give excellent advice.

As the dark of the year approaches, as the troubled times continue, hollow out yourself so you can fill up with birdsong. It will help, and it will make the Song louder, so others can hear it, too.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post Hope Is the Thing appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/hope-is-the-thing/feed/ 0 2860
Make It Happen https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/make-it-happen/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/make-it-happen/#respond Fri, 09 Oct 2020 22:57:23 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2857 October 10, 2020 Topic: Make It Happen. Don't focus on happy thoughts. Focus on feeling good. Read This Now

The post Make It Happen appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for October 10, 2020:

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “make it happen.”

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Make It Happen

Q: What do we need to know about “make it happen?”

A: There is an upwelling of desire all over this planet as we close in on mid-October 2020. The desire for peace, health, relaxation, well-being, safety, comfort, happiness, and contentment.

Now, often that desire is showing up as Not What We Want. For example, the desire for peace may rise up in you in the form of “how can people react violently to this or that situation??”

Or the desire for health comes hidden deep under a Fear of Being Sick.

The wish for well-being and safety is manifest as a Worry Over How to Pay the Rent or Put Food on the Table.

At the bottom of every scary thought and “negative” emotion is a deep, simple desire for something that feels good.

Why bother looking at this, this weekend? Because it matters. How You Feel Is an Indicator of What Things Happen.

Now there is a woo-woo explanation for this that goes something like this: when you think about something with anything other than happiness, you are not “attracting” it. So stay relentlessly positive, folks, because otherwise, you are “creating things you don’t want to create.”

That’s an exhausting way to approach life. You can’t control your thoughts and feelings to the extent that is required to live up to these standards. Also, sometimes it is truly next to impossible to focus on feeling good about your health, for example, if you cannot breathe.

That’s why this attitude so often encourages a pernicious mental habit called spiritual bypassing.

Here’s a more nuanced, accurate, doable, and less mystical way to approach Making It Happen:

When you are feeling safe and healthy and comfortable and sated, relaxed and at peace, you are more likely to engage in open-minded thinking patterns. You are more likely to see Reality for what it is and to make the BEST choice available to you in the moment. And those little daily choices add up to larger trends in your life. You trend UP when you trend up because momentum matters more than desire!

Desire is great — but it’s not enough. And if you work yourself up into a frenzy trying to will your desire into manifest reality, you will get tired, and frustrated. And that will shut you down and you will start to feel bad, which will lead to less-than-optimal choices. And less-than-optimal choices tend to take you AWAY from what you want, not toward it.

If you look for a way to feel good — in any way — in the moment you’re in, you will be on your way to making it happen, even if you are not actively thinking about your desire.

And sometimes, in trying times, it’s something very small that can offer you a little sliver of feeling good. For example, just an extra twenty minutes of sleep might make a world of difference.

Example:

You choose to go to bed half an hour early > you wake up better rested than normal > you have a better meeting in the morning > you feel more accomplished and sure of yourself in your job or business > you can relax at lunch and have a nice conversation with your spouse or a friend > you feel more secure in your relationship > you arrive back at work feeling better than you did before lunch > you end the day with a clear heart and organized mind, having ticked off several important tasks > you socialize and relax in the evening and feel good > you notice you are tired and head off to bed at that same early hour > the next day is even better > repeat > repeat > repeat.

Counter-example:

You choose to stay up a little later than normal > you wake up less refreshed > you can’t quite get into the meeting and miss key points > you worry you are out of the loop > you spend your lunchtime reviewing the meeting, trying to figure out what happened > you arrive back at work feeling sluggish and insecure in your job and also irritated with your friend or spouse who tried to talk to you when you were so busy thinking about the morning meeting > you end the day with a muddled mind and worried heart, with few if any accomplishments to point to > you isolate in the evening and have an extra drink because you feel so down > you stay up later than normal trying to calm yourself down and thinking about how behind you are at work > the next day is even worse > repeat > repeat > repeat.

The easiest way to improve your life is to make a better choice at this moment than you did at the last moment. Tiny, incremental improvements that are consistently made are far more powerful than massive, life-altering changes that happen “overnight.”

[Ever hear the saying that overnight successes are twenty years in the making? This is why.]

We’re not here to tell you which choices to make — that’s your decision alone.

But we are here to tell you that the human mind and body functions best — and therefore YOU FEEL BEST — when the following is consistently true:

  • You rise roughly with the sun and rest soon after it goes down.
  • You hydrate your body an hour before meals so that when it’s time to eat you have enough water in the system to facilitate it. You then hydrate your body two hours after meals to replace the water used in digestion.
  • You move everyday. We were born on the edges of great grassy plains, and we love to walk in the open. If you can, walk everyday for an hour or two. The greatest writers and thinkers walk for three to four hours a day.
  • When you wake in the night, especially if you are following the sun, you assume it is for a reason other than insomnia. (It is, sometimes, but if you are giving yourself a full night’s sleep, it probably isn’t.) It may in fact be the body waking to take advantage of the dark of the wee morning hours, when we are stillest, and can best hear ourselves and our loved ones. This may be the best time to write, or work at deep things, or conceive a child.
  • You spend some time in contemplation every day. For some this is reading, and for others it is praying, and for others, meditating. The form of contemplation is not as important as the consistency. Do it daily, it is that critical to the functioning of the mind, and body.
  • You listen to yourself and your own counsel before taking other’s opinions or ideas on.
    • Be like an investigator or intelligence agent: start with 0% trust for someone else. Add 10% of trust for everything they do that proves they are trustworthy. Only trust those who have SHOWN themselves to be trustworthy. Until then, withhold your judgment. This will help you to feel confident and relaxed in your relationships, because you will know that you protected yourself from disappointment as best you could.
    • When asked for help or a favor, start mentally from a position of “no.” Then ask questions so you can discover reasons why you should change your mind and say “yes.” This will help you to feel joyful in your yes, and avoid regrets later.
  • You listen to music every day. What kind of music? Whatever you enjoy listening to. Listen, and move. Dance, darlings, because that way lies freedom.
  • You listen to your body and do as it requests. If you really treat your body like the intelligent being it is, you will “hear” its instructions and requests. Our cells do not give up on life — many live and keep living long after death comes — and they always make their needs known. If you feel yourself called to eat pumpkin seeds, or drink peppermint tea, or have a hot buttery slice of toast, do it. What we need changes from moment to moment, and there are no “right” ways to nourish ourselves. Every one of us has different needs from each other and from moment to moment. Give yourself what you need.
  • You reach out to other humans for connection. We incarnated into bodies that are designed for physical and emotional and spiritual communion. Do not pass up the opportunity for deep conversation, fun adventures, and simple connections. Hold hands, hug, bring pies, gaze at clouds — together.

This is a challenging time, as we’ve been, um, noticing for a while now. Radically committing to yourself in every way will help you navigate these challenges and also Feel Good Even Though This Crazy Shit Keeps Happening.

And the more of us who feel good, and make good choices (little good choices moment by moment) the more of us will change the Crazy Shit.

As we said at the beginning, there is this upwelling of desire to feel good, all over the world. Even if it looks like anger or frustration with current circumstances, it’s Actually a Wanting to Feel Good.

And some folks don’t quite see how to feel good when they are trapped in unhealthy relationships, or food insecure, or sick. And that is why it’s important that we all do what we can to make small, everyday choices to feel a little better… so that we can help others do the same.

There are some illnesses that are chronic and must be cured over and over again. When they come back, was that a failed cure? No, it was just a cure for that version of the illness. The current version of the illness asks for a new cure.

The same is true of the human condition. What can you do to feel good at THIS moment, despite all the things that feel bad?

That question is repeated moment by moment throughout human life. It’s especially up right now.

And sometimes, when things are very dark, it can be hard to see how to “feel good” until circumstances change. But circumstances cannot dictate our wellbeing, dear ones. If they did, how could any of us ever feel good? Even most #blessed lives have trouble, illness, injury, accident, and hardship. If we have to solve every problem before we feel good, we’ll never get there.

So instead we have to find something, NOW, that feels good. We don’t have to think about what we want and yearn after it. In fact, if we’re yearning after what we want we’re not likely to get it. We won’t be able to Feel Good enough to make the series of small choices that will lead to a life More Likely to Include What We Want.

Or our yearning will distract us from noticing Things That Aren’t So Great About What We Want. We will stay in yearning, thinking that if we just get what we want, we’ll be happy … and then stay miserable forever while it doesn’t happen, or (maybe worse) realize once it does that it wasn’t what we wanted after all.

So to Make It Happen, whatever It may be for you, make a small choice, in the moment, that feels like the Best one you can make.

Take the time to respond to your friend’s email fully and with heart.

Put your phone down and listen to the birdsong.

Read a novel instead of watching the news.

Have a glass of water before dinner starts, even though you don’t feel thirsty.

Take a moment to reflect on your day before you go to bed.

Smile at your neighbor or the clerk in the store.

Walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator.

Practice taking deep breaths when you notice anxiety rising.

Wear your favorite scent even though it’s just you at home.

Every moment, even those direst and Important, offers us at least two choices, and usually many more. Our Freedom and Liberty spring not from externals, but from our own authority over our choices. We have the right and the responsibility to our own pursuit of happiness. And if we pursue happiness as our rightful occupation, we will gracefully and surely make better and better choices, for ourselves and for others. We will also form a government that reflects these choices.

And that, friends, is how to thrive. Not by closing down and shutting out. By opening up, seeing the possibilities, and making the best choice at the moment …

… Knowing that every new moment will bring a new opportunity to choose again …

… On, and on, until we draw our last breath and withdraw our energy back into the consciousness we are all part of.

This weekend, and from now until that last breath, treat yourself and your body like a treasured, beloved child, an infant in arms who is innocent and lovely, and such a little miracle. Think of your son and your daughter, and know that is how we see you — complete and whole and perfect.

We all want, in the end, to be warm, cuddled, loved, and fed. Safe and dry and clean.

Give that to yourself, so you can give to others. Promise, that’s how we make the world lovely for all of us.

I appreciate you, and your attention, and your love.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post Make It Happen appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/make-it-happen/feed/ 0 2857
Hold On To Yourself https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/hold-on-to-yourself/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/hold-on-to-yourself/#respond Sat, 03 Oct 2020 03:22:07 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2852 October 3, 2020 Topic: hold on to yourself. Be like a willow, sappy and bendy! Read This Now

The post Hold On To Yourself appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for October 3, 2020:

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “hold onto yourself.”

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Hold Onto Yourself

Q: What do we need to know about “hold onto yourself?”

A: So. If you’re not feeling the acceleration of events and energy this week, you’ve been good about putting down your phone and focusing on your own stuff. Congratulations, because in a way, you’re WAY ahead of the game!

For the rest of us, if you’re waking up on Saturday, October 3, 2020, feeling ten years older than you did a few days ago, it’s time to really take a beat and re-center.

Because the only way ANY of us make it through the next few months with our dignity and sanity totally intact is if we Remember Who We Are.

Hold on to yourself. Don’t let go.

This message is not going to be long this week, because it’s not about the message. It’s about YOU. And I have some work to do, too, it turns out. Here’s what we’re looking at together:

Who are you?

Yeah, just the little question at the center of each of our lives. We’re going to answer it this week. Here are a couple things to get you started.

Answer the following questions for yourself. It may take you a few stabs to get a simple, elegant answer, but it’s worth it.

When you are gone from this world, what do you want people to remember about you?

When you look back over the life you have lived, what are the moments you most proud of? What connects them — how are they similar to each other?

What are your three, four, five BEST qualities?

If you had a mission statement, what would it be?

Take an hour, a day, a week to get your answers. Answer them completely. Give yourself time to edit and remember and rearrange.

And then, once you feel like you have those answers, here’s the last question:

How do these qualities show up in your life? How are living your mission?

What do you need to do every day to make sure that you live up to these qualities? What are you doing now that you should recommit to? Are there things you need to cut out? Are there things you need to start?

Each one of us has at least one thing to cut, one thing to add, and one thing to re-commit to. And now’s the time to implement. Because we all need to be centered in our own selves now.

Otherwise, we’ll get blown by these winds of change, right in half, like a dry blade of grass.

It’s a time when we need to feel the sap in our veins, running through us from deep inside, giving bendy qualities to our bodies, so we can bow when the winds blow without being uprooted.

Think willow tree, tossing in a storm. And then, when it’s over, glorious and in shape, leaves washed clean but otherwise intact.

Hold on to yourself, so you know who you are and can make good choices that align with your values.

If you don’t, you’ll likely get blown off course and find yourself in a fight you aren’t equipped for.

There is civil unrest and worse on the horizon, dear ones. Be safe, be smart, and hold on to yourself. We’ll all get through this if we are bendy and firmly rooted in ourselves. Go deep this week and see yourself as you are, in all your glorious loving.

I’m here to help. In fact, I NEED to help you. (Ooh! I’m about to ask you for something!!)

Let me explain.

I’m an odd person, and I always have been. At the center of myself, the self I hold onto is an open kind of consciousness that I cannot quite explain. The closest I can come to explaining it is to show you this photo:

To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colourful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, about four light-years across. This stunning nebula was first catalogued in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna, who sought to record nebulous objects in the night sky so they would not be mistaken for comets. Since Hodierna’s observations, the Lagoon Nebula has been photographed and analysed by many telescopes and astronomers all over the world. The observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 between 12 February and 18 February 2018.

When I do readings, when I have spiritual experiences, when I am most “myself,” an image like that is what I see, and feel inside. At least, it’s the closest I have ever seen in life to what I experience inside.

And in order to fully “be” there, I need to have a reason to go there. As an adult, it’s writing, or doing a reading, that puts me there.

But I have this ancient practice from my childhood that I know I would benefit from starting up again, and that’s what I need your help with.

When I was a kid I used to notice when someone was in pain, or upset, or having trouble of some kind … and I would think about them when I was falling asleep at night. I would see this beautiful landscape of the cosmos kind of like that nebula above. I would feel very still and calm, and then I would sort of sail their problem into the cosmos, and ask that they receive help.

The closest word I have to sum up this very specific process is to say I would “pray” for them. (That’s not quite right, because it’s … just not quite right. But it’s close enough.)

I don’t have many stories about this “working” for others, because honestly, I’ve never really revealed that I do this, so I’m not sure that it helped at all. But I understand now that this is one of the practices that helps me to hold onto myself.

So here’s my Big Ask. If you feel like something is overwhelming or upsetting or distressing, would you please reply to this email and tell me just a little bit, just a few words, so I can have a “reason” to go to that space inside? I don’t need details or a confession. Just a sentence or phrase. “My mother,” or “my relationship with my son.”

“My health,” or “my business.” “The election,” or “peace on the planet,” or “the harvest.” It doesn’t matter.

And seriously, ANY time you think to ask me for this, do. I would love to, any time. And tell your friends.

Because I need to re-commit to this prayer practice that is at my center.

Having a “job” to do in prayer, like the ones I used to assign myself when I was a kid, would help me.

It would help me to hang on to myself.

Deep roots, darlings, and plenty of sleep so they strengthen.

I appreciate you, and your attention, and your love.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post Hold On To Yourself appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/hold-on-to-yourself/feed/ 0 2852
thanksgiving day https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/thanksgiving-day/ https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/thanksgiving-day/#respond Sat, 26 Sep 2020 08:25:19 +0000 http://mollyjacobson.com/?p=2851 September 25, 2020 Topic: thanksgiving day. Is every 20's terribly tumultuous?? Read This Now

The post thanksgiving day appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
Weekly Reading Topic for September 26, 2020:

Well, good morning, love! I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:

What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?

The answer was: “thanksgiving day.”

What follows is your weekly reading, dearest one.

Weekly Reading │ Thanksgiving Day

Q: What do we need to know about “thanksgiving day?”

A: Thanksgiving has come early this year! It’s time to give thanks for all the bounty we have in our lives.

The first Thanksgiving was nearly 400 years ago, and it took place in a cold, harsh winter where half the colonists died and nearly a thousand Native Americans were slaughtered. It was a brutal environment, a desperate time for all involved. Whether you were the invader or the invaded, you were suffering. It was a real 2020 of a year.

The Puritan faith taught its followers that they should regularly set aside days of thanksgiving. Whenever they experienced trials, they believed, they should set aside time to thank God for their blessings.

This tradition was the one they followed in 1621 when they had what we think of as “the first Thanksgiving.” Having a yearly feast to celebrate our bounty on the third Thursday of November is an American tradition … but we can (and maybe should) have thanksgiving days more often.

There are many things to be grateful for, even in the midst of trouble and turmoil. And setting aside a day to give thanks for them is as important to our mental, emotional, and physical health in 2020 as it was four centuries ago.

When you focus on gratitude, it expands your definition of “good.” And it helps you to feel grounded, and cared for.

Here’s the trick, though: in order to focus on the blessings in our lives, it’s sometimes important to acknowledge the harsh weather, the drought, the famine, the pestilence. It’s important to Be Here Now, which doesn’t just mean Be Present, but also means to get your shit together and look in the mirror and see the Truth — all of it.

We’re in an extraordinary time. There is a lot of turmoil and trouble. And sometimes we can’t just switch our attention from that comfortably. Sometimes, we find it next to impossible to turn away from the headlines and focus on our dog’s smile, or the smooth texture of the clean plate, or the perfect dapple of sun on the water.

That’s when it’s time to play a game called Mad Sad Scared Glad. If you’ve had a week of trouble, try this one. It’s best with a partner, but you can play it yourself with a pen and paper.

I got this game from therapist Natalie Tyler, Ph.D., and it’s been a huge gift in my life. The goal of this game is to FULLY express your feelings about anything and everything that comes up, without reservation. And it’s also to listen to your partner FULLY express their feelings about anything and everything that comes up, without reservation! (And if you do this alone, to listen to YOURSELF.)

Here’s how to play:

Sit with your partner and pick someone to speak first. The other person is the questioner. The questioner asks the speaker the same question, over and over, with no other comments or questions.

Here’s the first question:

“What are you mad at?”

The speaker answers “I’m mad about/that/at ____________”

No matter what is said, the questioner has only response:

“What else are you mad at?”

“I’m mad at _________.”

It doesn’t matter how trivial, how important, how mundane, how petty, how silly, how irritating or unfair what comes out is … the questioner only ever prompts more expressions.

“What else are you mad at?”

“What else are you mad at?”

“What else are you mad at?”

This goes on (and on and on depending upon what kind of week it’s been) until the speaker answers “I’m not mad at anything else.” Or maybe “I don’t know.”

At which point they are tapped out. They can’t think of a single other thing they are mad about. That’s when the questioner asks the second question:

“If you were mad about ONE more thing, what would it be?”

And the speaker always has ONE more thing they are mad about 🙂

Once you have fully exhausted the Mad session, the questioner IMMEDIATELY asks “What are you sad about?”

And the speaker answers, and the questioner prompts again, and gets an answer, and round and round they go until the speaker confesses they aren’t sad about anything else. At which point the questioner asks “If you were sad about ONE more thing, what would it be?”

And once that question is answered, the questioner prompts “What are you scared about?”

And so it goes. Once the full range of sorrows has been prompted and expressed, and the one last sorrow has been sad out loud, it’s time for thanksgiving.

“What are you glad about?”

“What else are you glad about?”

“What else are you glad about?”

And the speaker lists everything, everything they can think of that they are glad about.

And then the speaker becomes the questioner, and the questioner becomes the speaker, and at the end of the game, BOTH people have fully expressed every little thing they are Mad, Sad, Scared, and Glad about.

And they’ve done so without being interrupted, stepped over, blamed, corrected, or dismissed.

And they’ve both practiced listening to sometimes terribly unfair, horrible accusations from their most beloved, without doing or saying anything to defend or deflect … instead, just prompting another terribly unfair, horrible accusation.

This game is one of the most powerful ways I know to have a thanksgiving day any day of the year.

Because once you have fully acknowledged just how Shit Things Can Get, you are ready to acknowledge just how Wonderful Things Can Be.

This time is filled with strain and stress, and all of us are up against our worst fears, and we are exhausted. Playing this game is an excellent way to cope and maintain our balance.

Because this is not the time to engage in spiritual bypassing and ignore the actual, real dangers we all face. We have to do the work and face problems, whether they are our own or our collective problems. That’s the only way forward.

We’re all on the planet now for a reason, and finding that reason for ourselves is critical to Hold the Center.

(Hold the door!)

Just like in the winter of 1621, our houses may be flimsier than they thought, and they aren’t quite keeping the weather out. The food is not as plentiful as it used to be. And there is a conflict that has already drawn blood and looks to draw more before the year is over.

And yet, we still have time for thanksgiving days. We must take them. Otherwise, we may forget what we came here for.

So take as many thanksgivings as you need to. Indulge in thanksgiving days regularly. It’s good for your mental health and equips you to cope with this current time, the months to come, and to ready yourself for the spring, for next spring, when we will be able to gather food, and wood, and start to rebuild.

Happy thanksgiving day to you and your loved ones.

I appreciate you, and your attention, and your love.

I am always here to serve in any way I can.

Much Love to You,

Molly


Want Your Weekly Reading Delivered to Your Inbox Every Saturday Morning? 

Click Here to Subscribe


Book a Session

The post thanksgiving day appeared first on Molly Jacobson.

]]>
https://mollyjacobson.com/weekly-readings/thanksgiving-day/feed/ 0 2851