• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Insights
  • Begin Here
  • Books
  • About

Search Results for: Does Your Path Have a Heart?

How to Interpret the Messages from Within

February 20, 2019 By Cara Lumen

How to Interpret the Messages from Within
An Inner-world Exploration

We get messages from the unseen world all the time.  We first recognize them as hunches and intuitive nudges.  We either learn to pay attention to them or we don’t.  However, when you pause to listen, your inner voice becomes stronger and clearer. 

Nudges and knowing

How often have you acted on a hunch and been right?  Many times, I’m certain.  Begin to notice the choices you make based on those intuitive insights. See how often they turn out to be right. Learn to trust those inner knowings.

Feel Your Inner Voice

Notice what forms your nudges and knowing comes in.  Certainly, you have experienced a sense of simply knowing. No reason for it, just a certainty about the right choice or the next step to take or what was about to happen.  You FEEL your inner voices. 

Years ago, I remember driving home during a heavy snowstorm. It was a rural landscape and the highway only looked like a larger snow drift while the highway was barely visible.  I had driven that highway many times but it was night and there was freshly falling deep snow. I remember the sensation of putting out my antennae all around me and as I drove, I got flashes and pictures and knowing of where I was on the road.  I drove by instinct.  I drove by feeling. I trusted because I had no other choice. I could barely see.  And I got safely home. The feeling of extending my antennae to the countryside around me was immediate and intense.   I was really vibrating with sensory listening. 

Hear your inner voice

You may hear a loud internal voice. Or a soft one. But the suggestions and information may also come in the form of words.  You HEAR your inner voice.  It speaks to you in phrases and sentences…!

My inner voice often shouts at me.  A word or a phrase will be amplified in my mind – by a book, or the television, or some passing stimulus. My inner voice simply shows up as a very loud thought!  Those words, that specific phrase are loud and immediate.  It’s as if they are saying, ”You need to look at this.  You need to explore this.” So I do.  My inner voice is often very insistent.   

Interpret your inner voice

I was taught to “read” crystals fifty years ago. My friend told me to hold the crystal in my left hand and see what came up.  I got a sensation in a particular part of my body and since I knew the chakra system, I used that as a guidepost for the beginning of my interpretation of the messages of the crystal.  As I worked with crystals, I learned to immediately know if a crystal was for the heart or the crown or the third eye.  Then one day it was clear to me that a particular green calcite crystal was to be used by people who were grieving.  I began to listen more broadly, more deeply. 

Just recently a crystal (I have over 150 of them) called out loudly to me from a shelf I was passing by and told me quite clearly it was to be taken to a certain place on my desk. It has not yet fully explained its reason for being here but it’s nearby and I’m listening. And it’s talking… 

Nature will talk to you

Whether it’s the warmth of your cat who has come to sit beside you, or the call of a bird outside your window, or the wind rustling the leaves of a nearby tree, nature speaks.  We must learn to listen.  

One winter, a very wet, heavy snow fell and the weeping birch tree outside my window bent deeply in response.  I realized there was an important message so I wrote Messages from a Snow Fall and learned a lot.

Nature talks to you when you listen. 

Move when your inner voice tells you

I’ve made some major decisions based on a sudden “knowing.”  When it was time for me to move from California to the Mid-West to be closer to my daughter, I made the decision in three hours.  I got the nudge, did research about the area I wanted to go, found an apartment complex that felt right, and called my daughter to say I was coming.  

In three hours. 

Yes, there were other factors building up to that “sudden” decision.  A roommate had just moved out, a new one was financially imperative and the choices that were appearing were very unappealing.  Was it time for me to move to a more affordable place? It became a major choice made in a small window of time. 

Pay attention to your nudges and knowing. You’ll know when it’s time to take action.  Trust that. And act.

You can “channel” your inner voice any time

If you’re hearing an occasional voice speaking loudly to you, you’re channeling your inner wisdom, your inner voice.  I’ve brought my inner voice more deeply into my writing.  Over the years, I’ve found myself typing in things that I wondered where they came from.  

I was present.  I was typing, but the words seemed to flow from elsewhere.  That is your inner voice and you must listen and learn to interpret its subtle messages.

When I do my shamanic journeys, I set an intention before I begin. I close my eyes go within and type my journey.  Occasionally my fingers get on the wrong keys and I can’t read what I typed, but I periodically peek at the screen to make certain I’m still making sense.  This typing and journeying has allowed me to deeply explore the inner world of my spirit guides and review and thus remember the details. I begin by going to my sacred garden to meet them, each time I journey. 

Dreaming your inner voice

It’s very powerful to set an intention for your sleep.  A lot of good healing and rebalancing occurs there.

Years ago, I was given a green hand-holder stone.  I meditated with it and eventually lay down on the bed and slept while still holding it. I had a very strong dream of being in a group of robed women. We collectively were being called to do spiritual work.  When I awoke I remembered every detail of the dream.  Forty-five years later I have reconnected with what is now the Circle of Light Beings in my shamanic journeys. 

Let your dreams open doors.

You have to trust your inner vision 

I take a shamanic journey every day. I place my mala beads around my neck, ring a ceremonial bell to signal my beginning, sit at my computer and type in my intention, my question for the journey. Then I sit with closed eyes and prepare to feel myself disappear until only my typing fingers are moving and the rest of me is busy in my inner world. I am not very aware of my body but am actively following my thoughts. 

In shamanic journeying, we are offered metaphors that can be in the form of animals, or helping spirits, or elements or plants.  It’s up to us to interpret the metaphor. As I continue this inner world practice, I feel my ability to hear and interpret my inner voice growing stronger, my answers growing clearer, and my calling growing louder. 

If you are beginning to journey, a shamanic drumming track may be useful. 

Hearing your inner voice may take some practice.  You must do it enough so you recognize the signs and whispers you’re given and then more practice and actual experience in order for you to begin to accurately interpret them.  

Just begin by talking to your inner self.  And listening to the soft answers.

You can ask for physical signs of your inner voice

Kinesiology is actually about receiving information through muscle testing and I have been taught to do that. For my first experience, I was told to stand with one arm outstretched and to resist the downward pressure from the other person. I did. I was strong.  Then a packet of sugar was placed in the other hand and all physical resistance whet away.  I had been weakened by the presence of a negative. Pretty amazing.  

I use a version of kinesiology to explore other choices I make.  I may take identical slips of paper and write each choice on one side. I include a paper that says “other” in case I need to make a choice I have not considered.  I place them face down before me and mix them up so I have no idea which is which.  Then I hold my hand over each paper one at a time and feel and listen to what I’m told.  One answer always calls to me. 

Sometimes I use that selection system to narrow down my choices in case two things call to me equally. Just listen to the thoughts that show up. Learn to interpret them out of your deeper self-awareness.  It’s a very powerful tool.  

Pendulum

A pendulum is used for dowsing.  You can make one with a bead on the end of a string. And you can buy some lovely ones. It’s a very fast way to get a “yes”, “no” or “maybe” answer for any question. Each time you begin, hold the pendulum away from your body suspended between your thumb and forefinger. Run the fingers of the other hand down to make the pendulum perfectly still. Then one at a time, ask it to show you a “yes” and see which way it rotates, then a “no”, then a “maybe”. The choices will be circle clockwise, circle counterclockwise and move back and forth, left to right or possibly not move at all. After you have identified the form the answers will take, ask your question which obviously should be phrased with a yes/no/maybe answer in mind.

Allow yourself to channel

Learn to trust your intuition, your  inner words, your inner nudges. 

Begin with your intuition. Learn to trust that.  Do some meditation and perhaps ask for a message to be given at the end.  Then write that message down.  Journey/meditate with a specific intention, looking for a clarifying answer and let your helping spirits guide you. 

Learn to interpret the answers you get.  No one can do that for you.  With practice, you easily learn to do it for yourself. 

Let your inner one-word nudges expand into complete sentences.  Often when I was writing a few years ago, I would have an entire section come in that I was aware of typing but I thought it was too good to come from me.  I pictured a trio of Shakespeare-type writers with feathered pens, dictating to me.  

Now, I just listen and type and know that it’s my inner voice coming through.  It’s a lovely mix of conscious and unconscious thought that shows up on the page.  

Trust what you receive. Learn to interpret it 

If the message or metaphor or symbol isn’t clear to you, ask your helping spirits to clarify it for you.  Then watch for what they give you.  You might also ask, “How am I to use this information?”  And see what you get.  

Keep an eye out for your ego. Interpreting your inner voice is so much fun and you get such great answers that for me it’s never about me doing anything.  It’s about me simply opening up to receive something wonderful.  Don’t judge. Don’t filter.  Listen. Absorb.  Adapt. And maybe you even need to reword your question.

Trust what you find when you speak to your inner voice. 

FOR DEEPER EXPLORATION:

Unleash The Power of Your Inner Garden 

 Live in the Center of Your Being 

Discover Your Spiritual Heart

Join the Circle of Light Beings

The Language of the Stubble Realms 

How to Explore Your Invisible Self

What Seeds Do You Allow to Grow in Your Garden?

Does Your Path Have Heart? 

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Insights and Applications
join the Deeper Song Community.

Filed Under: Self Awareness, Self Transformation, Spiritual Heart Tagged With: inner wisdom, self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion

What is the Difference between Spirituality and Religion?  

July 10, 2018 By Cara Lumen

What is the Difference between Spirituality and Religion?
An Inner World Exploration

Consider this: Religion is taught and interpreted through the limitations of the human mind. Spirituality is discovered through the soul.

Religion is taught and interpreted by mankind in accordance with the prevalent group consciousness. Spirituality is discovered through your individual and unique awareness of the whole.

Your spirituality continually unfolds

Your spiritual awareness and experience will expand and contract and shift directions as you get to know yourself, define and clarify your personal values and make self-aware, aligned choices that create your life experience.  These all lead to individual choices in what to believe and how to apply it.

We have choices in evolving our spirituality. We can mindfully take time to question the religious beliefs we have been exposed to since childhood to see if they still resonate.  We can look around at what we’re experiencing, choose the values we want to live by and forge not only our own life path but a spiritual path that supports our journey.  We do that by exploring our inner world.

There are three phases in developing your own spirituality: 

– question your core beliefs
– explore unfamiliar spiritual expressions to see what resonates
– create your own unique spiritual practice.

Question your core beliefs

Because our core beliefs have been around so long, they’re familiar and comfortable and seldom called into question.  But we should periodically examine and define these beliefs to see if they still resonate with what we’ve learned and what we believe.  

For instance, there are a great many things we believe because that’s what our parents taught us or reflected back to us.  Now, this can range from good to bad. A drug-addicted parent gives us one view of life, a conservative parent another, a free-floating explorer of life another.  Stop for a moment and put your parents in a general category. Also reflect on the cultural climate they grew up in, how it restricted or motivated them. Then see how their life experience differed from your present one and what that means about the choices you should/could make today about your core values and beliefs. Question what you believe and why you believe it and re-choose based on who you are today.

There’s a difference between a taught-from-childhood religious education dictated by the beliefs and backgrounds and choices of your parents and an experiential discovery process of your own unique, individualized spiritual expression.  You may have to look closely to see what you inherited and what you consciously chose.

Like the core values we learn as children from the belief systems of our parents, it’s probable that our specific religious training, or lack of one, was also dictated by them.  

My mother was Presbyterian.  My father Morman, which my mother actively didn’t like as a religion.  I got a strong message there.  

As a young divorced woman, I was drawn to the low Episcopal church but could not enter a second marriage through that church because I had been divorced. So I felt rejected by a religion I was drawn to.  I went back to the Presbyterian church to get married.  Then back to the Episcopal church for the ceremony and structure that appealed to me at the time. I had begun my own spiritual exploration by noticing what called to me and taking steps to go exploring.

My first major discovery or what truly called to me, what I truly believed, all by myself, for myself, came from one book, The Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson.  I was a wife and mother living in the conservative mid-west. That book told me about people all over the country (particularly on both coasts)  who were doing and thinking and being like I wanted to be.  I had not even known they existed.

I made a major life decision to go exploring for myself and that’s when I recognized the difference between the handed down religious beliefs I had been indoctrinated in and the very personal spiritual exploration and discoveries I embarked on in my forties.  I became a metaphysician!

I continue to explore.  And choose.  And modify.  I have not stayed with any one form of spirituality or one religious practice. My spiritual core is based on metaphysics that includes New Thought, many forms of energy healing, Taoism and Shamanism.  I see myself as spiritual, not religious.   Eclectically spiritual, for my spiritual beliefs come from my exploration as a human on this planet. I have chosen what calls to me.  What resonates with me.  What is effective for me. It’s never the whole system, simply the parts and pieces that resonate. 

Religion to me is a formal, handed down doctrine that’s taught and interpreted by people steeped in the beliefs and prejudices of their own time. Spirituality is what you evolve for yourself. It comes from many sources and is chosen because it resonates deeply with you. And you take only the parts that feel aligned with your own spiritual path.

Be aware of your unique spiritual path

Instead of seeing yourself as a member of a congregation, you are now aware that you have an individual spiritual responsibility, a path of service that’s yours alone to walk.  And you set about selecting the beliefs and concepts and ideas that support you in making that individual journey.

As our life evolves, and we learn about and understand ourselves more intimately, we need to question our beliefs, whether they come from a particular discipline or have become an eclectic mix of spiritual principles that call to us. Do you have the courage to do that?  Do you trust your own inner wisdom to discern what’s currently for your highest good? 

Even if we’ve explored and taken parts and pieces of various forms of spiritual expression, we still need to periodically examine and evaluate to see if those ideas and practices still serve us. 

Explore unfamiliar spiritual expressions

The first time I had a clue about anything other than my Presbyterian upbringing was in a Comparative Religion course in college.  I had no idea all those spiritual approaches existed.  My question to myself was, “If there are all these different religions, how do I know mine is ‘right’?”  Right in the sense that it gets me closer to a higher energy?  Right in that it makes me a kinder, more thoughtful person?  Right in that it answers my need to feel connected to a greater energy? 

What is right for you?

Here’s my problem – all of these religions have been interpreted by humans and are filled with the limitations of being a human.  

Spirituality is of the unseen world. There are no boundaries, no limitations.  The core is Oneness.  The oneness of all things.  If each of us could live our lives as if we were all one energy –which we are – can you even begin to imagine how our world would change?

So I went exploring over the years. Becoming a metaphysician took me exploring in energy techniques like reiki, transcendental meditation, yoga, tai chi, chi gong, Bach flowers, herbalism and Ayurvedic principles.  

When I left New York City for Santa Rosa, California, I found the Center for Spiritual Living and spent five years becoming a licensed practitioner. That is New Thought with a lot of Emerson influences and has elements of all the world’s great religions.

But I moved on.  Poets like Rumi and Gibran spoke deeply to me.  I was steadily drawn into Taoism, which seems more free-wheeling to me than Buddhism. As I explored, I took what resonated and left the rest.  

A few years ago, I began to immerse myself in shamanism, learning its powerful form of meditation called “journeying”.  I have developed an exceedingly strong and active inner life connecting with my helping spirits for their guidance and wisdom.  Is it religion? – No.  Is it spirituality? – Totally.

I studied the work of a past-life regressionist Michael Newton, who, by leading his patients into descriptions of their lives between lives on earth has opened a whole realm of possibilities for me. It’s part of my personal spiritual exploration and what I have come to believe about it is very aligned with being 85. There is a great “next” waiting.  

And that’s the point.  Take what works for you and leave the rest behind.

Understand and periodically redefine your core values

What are your core values?  If you are like most of us, you don’t even know where to begin. 

Core values are our fundamental beliefs. Our guiding principles. They help us understand the difference between what we see as right and wrong. They are our guideposts, our measuring sticks, to help us find our way on our chosen path. And they may prioritize themselves differently as we move through life.  

“Spiritual exploration” is at the top of my list of core values.  Finding my place of illumined service is right next to it.  Learning is near the top.  I value life (I’m a vegan – “do no harm”). I value inclusiveness.  Honesty is high but it’s so ingrained as a core value I almost forget to list it. You get the picture.  Make a list of a few of your core values, those guidelines, and guideposts, the choices you make on your life path.

What concepts offer you the most comfort, the most strength, the most “whatever you need right now” in your life?  Pick and choose and add the elements that support your personal spiritual practice. 

I begin my day with a personalized ceremony that’s eclectic and open to change.  It includes sound healing, chi gong intention setting, gratitude and blessings for the day to come. I deepen my inner awareness by taking a shamanic journey every day.  I do mindful breathing. I pause in my day to meditate with nature. My spiritual practice is eclectic and totally nurturing to me.  It’s also open to adding, subtracting and rearranging all of the elements. 

What forms of spiritual expression have you explored? Have you given yourself permission to pick and choose the practices that call to you?

Create and evolve your own expression of your spirituality

Because spirituality is individual, because it’s made up of elements that resonate with your current needs, you can let the form evolve. You can add things and drop things. The point is to have your spiritual practice, your spiritual exploration, expand your awareness, deepen your connection with All-That-Is and make you a better person.

I don’t like to be restricted.  I don’t like rules. I don’t like to be told what to do. Formal religion feels constricting. It has too many rules, too much conformity. Even after five years of training to become a practitioner in the New Thought Center for Spiritual Living, I formally practiced only a few years before I moved on to my own more eclectic version of spiritual expression.  I had grown spiritually and the format was too rigid for me. And that’s a pretty relaxed church.  

As I explored I moved to terms like the All-That-Is, and the Nowhere That We Came From, (Rumi) the Web of Life, and one I made up: The Emptiness that Holds Everything. That frees me from a limiting human, male, dominating father-figure and frees me to feel and be and explore my core essence, which I feel is light”.

Whatever beliefs are at our spiritual core, we base our lives on them and make our choices from them.  Everyone’s spiritual path is different.  We must learn to honor that. We must allow that.  And we must not try to make others think the way we do or condemn them if they don’t.  Each person is on their own spiritual path with their own version created by them alone to guide them on their path.  

Just work on your own spiritual path.  There’s enough there to keep you busy. Each person has their own version. Our personal experience of religion/spirituality is all up to interpretation.  Whether you’re looking at the doctrine of an organized religion or an oral, generationally developed spiritual tradition like shamanism, the individual interpretation and application is up to each of us. Even what looks the same on the outside is going to be seen and experienced differently on the inside depending on our personal viewpoints and cultivation of our own spiritual experience. 

At the core, nearly everyone believes in something greater than they are  

But from there the journey and the beliefs are as varied as we are.  It may be seen as a force “out there” or “in here”. It may be described in many metaphors, but it is actually indescribable.  It is felt. It is known. It cannot be described. 

Our spirituality is also so fundamentally vital in our life that whatever version we’ve defined for ourselves is seldom questioned and seldom changed.

Therefore, human-based differences based on our core religion/spirituality will continue to be the source of discord – until we all can see ourselves as One Light, One Interconnected Web of Life and know that our strand in this Web of Life strongly affects others.  The focus and depth of our inner light as reflected in our own life has a ripple effect that shapes our world and our life experiences.

How is your light doing? 

Does your life reflect your current beliefs or have you changed a bit?  Do you need to become kinder, more inclusive, offer more unconditional love?  Can you feel the connection of your inner light with others? Do you feel like we are all part of one Light Community?

In order to expand your spiritual experience, do you need to look around at other spiritual philosophies? I love the Taoist concepts of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching. I find shamanism gives me the most direct spiritual experience I’ve had so far.  I love the Buddhist concepts of mindfulness and the messages of nature that life is always unfolding. 

Question your core beliefs

The first step in exploring this difference between religion and spirituality is to be willing to go exploring. To be willing to identify your core beliefs and let your inner voice guide you into your personal expression of spirituality. 

Look around.  Talk to people of different belief systems. Read the authors who describe different forms of spiritual expression.  See if they’re repeating the dogma they have been taught or if they are actively thinking about and exploring certain facets of their religion.  Go exploring.

Evolve your own spiritual experience

Begin to create your own expression of your spirituality. Be eclectic.  Be selective. Take what speaks to you and adapt it into your own spiritual path. 

Then walk your spiritual path, with openness, expectation, and a willingness to change. 

Have you questioned your spiritual foundation recently?  Will you?  I wonder what you will discover…

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

Abide at the Center of Your Being

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

How Your Spiritual Life Changes You

Discover Your Spiritual Heart

The Path of Supportive Service

Does Your Path Have Heart?

Filed Under: Our Luminous Legacy, Spiritual Expansion, Spiritual Heart Tagged With: Spiritual Expansion, Spirituality, transformational thinking

The House You Live In

June 12, 2018 By Cara Lumen

The House You Live In

What we speak becomes the house we live in.

– Hafez

What kind of an inner house are you building for yourself?  Everything that shows up in your life is there because of what you believe, what you say and what you do.  If you love what is happening, keep doing what you’re doing. 

If things are not going so well, there’s only one place to begin
– within. 

What you believe you deserve and what you believe is possible is like a beacon calling to your life.  Where are you shining your light? What are you drawing to you?

To Sing a Deeper Song, consider:

Follow Your Personal Drumbeat

Does Your Path Have a Heart?

How You See Yourself – You Are

Call on Your Sacred Space Within

What are the Foundation Stones Upon Which You Build Your Life

Filed Under: Deep Listening, Self Awareness, Spiritual Expansion Tagged With: self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion, transformational thinking

Do Things from the Soul 

May 1, 2018 By Cara Lumen

Do Things from the Soul 

“When you do things from the soul,
the river itself moves through you.
Freshness and a deep joy
are signs of the current.” – Rumi

When you work with love, when you create with passion, you’re expressing your soul, you’re sharing your soul with others.  When did you last consciously come from your soul and how did that feel? We may not consciously come from our soul often enough.

What does your soul want you to do?  The answer is in the nudges and urges and insights that keep showing up.  Sometimes you act on them.  Sometimes you don’t. Begin to pay more attention.  Begin to honor the voice of your inner wisdom and do what it suggests. This is your soul talking.

What is your soul calling on you to do?  Will you do that?

More Deep Listening:

Does Your Path Have a Heart?

What are the Foundations Stones Upon Which Your Build Your Life

How Effective Is Your Spiritual Practice? 

Have You Raised Your Sails?

The Path of Supportive Service

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Start Where You Stand

April 10, 2018 By Cara Lumen

Start Where You Stand

“Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” – George Herbert, poet and priest

Wherever you are right now is a perfect place to begin.  Take a step.  Followed by another step.  Then look around at the new view.  

When a new idea pops in, explore it.  Let it take you wherever it does.  Do with it whatever it calls on you to do.  Each time you go exploring you learn, your experience is deepened, your skills are sharpened.  

Where are you now and what do you simply need to start doing?

For a Deeper Exploration: 

Follow Your Personal Drumbeat 

Build on the Distance You Have Come 

Does Your Path Have Heart?

What are the Foundations Stones Upon Which Your Build Your Life

Discover Your Spiritual Heart

Filed Under: Deep Listening, Positive Change, Self Awareness, Self Transformation Tagged With: positve change, Spiritual Expansion, transformational thinking

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Do not follow where the path may lead, go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Join the Deeper Song Community

Recent Posts

  • Honor Your Role
  • Where Your Mind Goes Qi Goes
  • Manifest What You Want
  • Moments That Changed Your Life
  • The Universe Has A Plan For You

Let’s Connect

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2022 · Made with by Freshly Baked Brand