For many people, doing a full home clean is a never-ending, tedious chore that they dread doing each week. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Cleaning has many benefits for your physical and mental health that can help you live a happier, more organised, and more fulfilling lifestyle.

Fitting a cleaning regime into your daily life may seem like just another thing to add to your ‘to do’ list, but if you fully invest in it, and find fun ways of incorporating it into your schedule, you may find that you enjoy cleaning your home more than you might expect!

Cleaning is satisfying, works as a mindful distraction to alleviate stress or anxiety, helps you reduce your exposure to disease and bacteria, and fosters a cleaner, healthier lifestyle.

Keeping up a regular cleaning routine once or twice a week reduces the amount you need to do in one ‘session’, making it more manageable and less overwhelming to approach.

But when you put cleaning off, however, you are likely to end up with a large amount that needs doing all at once, and you may find it more difficult to keep things like clothes and bedding in a sanitary condition.

‘But Cleaning Is Boring And I’m Busy!’

There are many ways that you can make cleaning more interesting and help it to fit around your lifestyle.

First, identify what you do enjoy.

If you like music, listening to a song with a strong beat is a great way to keep your momentum up and your mind distracted – this can help prevent you from getting bored. Alternatively, you could try listening to an audiobook, or perhaps the radio, to engage your brain.

If you are spiritual or religious, or if you engage in meditative practices, you may wish to incorporate cleaning into these to cleanse your home and body of negative energies.

You might also wish to meditate or pray before your cleaning, light incense while you work, and use crystals such as selenite or tourmaline to help purify your space. Ritual cleaning is a part of many religious practices throughout the world, including Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, as well as pagan and spiritualist practices.

If none of these appeal to you and you prefer a more practical approach, you can choose to put the television on, clean at the same time as doing DIY, or just clean as you go about your usual household routine!

Next, identify the limitations and requirements of your lifestyle.

If you are a creative type of person, you may find you are prone to creating a lot of mess. While this is not uncommon among creative individuals, you might find that your house or flat becoming messy gives you less room for your usual activities, and that you get stressed when trying to work surrounded by the clutter.

If you have a more logic or strategy-based mindset, you will likely have less clutter – but working long hours may make it difficult to commit to a thorough cleaning routine. So instead of doing one big clean at the end of the week, why not just do one or two small cleaning jobs each day before work?

This gets your housework out of the way, leaving you free to enjoy your ‘down time’. Plus, after a week of cleaning a bit every day, you’ll avoid having to do it at the weekend!

How To Structure A Cleaning Schedule And Stay On Top Of It

If you want to clean your home, but the thought of doing it is too overwhelming, the best way to approach the job is simply by making a list of things to clean. This will help you to identify what needs doing, and how and when to do it.

The trick is to not make your cleaning sessions too long, and to only commit to two or three tasks per session. If you have an overly long cleaning session, you are likely to tire yourself out or become stressed, which will put you off doing it next time around.

Instead, try to schedule in 2-3 longer cleaning sessions a week, with certain jobs (such as washing up, cleaning the kitchen etc.) being done daily or every other day.

‘But I’m Just Not Motivated To Do It!’

If you struggle with motivating yourself – particularly if you suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or depression – you might choose to prompt yourself to clean your home using a diary, your phone calendar, or one of the many apps on the market. Alternatively, if you have a reliable support network, you could ask them to nudge you when you are finding it difficult to maintain a self-care routine.

Another good way of giving yourself some motivation is to allow yourself a reward each time you do a clean.

Perhaps you can eat a bar of chocolate when you’ve completed a week’s worth of cleaning? Or maybe you could be very naughty and have a glass or two of wine when you’ve finished every cleaning job on your list?

Whatever you find motivates you, embrace it, and use it to your advantage!

Clean Home, Clean Body

There are numerous ways that cleaning your home helps to keep your body in tiptop condition!

Firstly, cleaning is a great way of integrating physical exercise into your daily life – especially for those ( such as the elderly ) who may not be able to carry out more strenuous exertions.

Moving furniture, hoovering, mopping, making the bed, and many other of the usual cleaning activities are effective ways of burning calories, with up to 100 calories being burned in just half an hour! Moving heavy equipment and furniture will also help to keep your muscles strong, lean, and defined.

Cleaning can help you eat healthier too! Studies have found that people eat more food, and more unhealthy foods, when they are under stress, and living in a dirty and untidy home increases cortisol levels – and therefore, stress.

Additionally, a 2013 study found that people who worked in a tidy and organised space were more likely to choose an apple over a chocolate bar when picking something to eat. Therefore, the cleaner your house is, the less stressed you are, and the more healthily you eat!

Plus, if you struggle with insomnia your messy bedroom might just be the culprit, as a survey by the National Sleep Foundation found that making your bed in the morning could boost your night’s sleep by as much as 20%.

Regularly cleaning your home also means you will not get ill so easily, as it helps to eliminate nasty viruses, bacteria, pollen, dust, and fungi spores which can trigger respiratory conditions such as asthma and allergies.

The best places to start? Mymove.com identified the nine germiest places in your home, including dish sponges, the kitchen sink, toothbrush holders, pet bowls, and bathroom taps, among others.

The Mental Health Benefits Of Keeping A Clean Home

Keeping your home clean is a simple way to reduce your stress levels.

Firstly, it helps you to stay more organised, as you will know where everything you need is. No more last-minute rushes in the morning trying to locate those important files before work! This will help to keep your cortisol (which is a stress hormone) levels low and under control.

Next, clutter makes us stressed because it overloads our brains with excessive visual stimuli. This contributes to what is known as sensory overload and it’s a particular problem for people with ADD, autism, and certain mental health disorders that can cause high levels of stress as a result of extraneous stimulation.

Clutter also creates feelings of guilt and anxiety from observing jobs that haven’t yet been done. It is hard to push aside the sense of being overwhelmed when there is evidence of uncompleted tasks right in front of you.

Another aspect of mental health that clutter affects is concentration. When we are excessively stimulated, our brains work overtime to try and process the extra visual information. This results in not being able to focus on other things – like work, for example.

Feelings of being overwhelmed by clutter can also promote avoidant coping mechanisms, such as bingeing on junk food or watching television.

All this means that by tidying your home, you can also achieve a tidier, more peaceful state of mind!

For instance, in 2011, researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging – among other biological measurements – found that clearing clutter from the immediate environment resulted in better focus, improved information processing, and higher productivity for the participants.

So by staying on top of clutter, you can help yourself to be more productive, have more energy, and live a healthier lifestyle.

Benefits For Your Home

Aside from keeping your home more clean and tidy, there are other benefits for your house that can be achieved from regular cleaning.

For example, if you clean regularly, you are less likely to find serious problems with your home – such as black mould and rot, for example – further down the line. Cleaning stains immediately helps them to stop ‘setting in’ and makes them easier to remove.

Regular cleaning also helps to prolong the life of carpets, furniture, and more, leading to less frequent spending on purchasing and maintaining furnishings.

Benefits For Friends, Family, Loved Ones, And Pets

Doing your share of the cleaning and tidying helps to improve relationships too!

A study by Yelp recently found that as many as 80% of households argue about cleaning, with 20% reporting that it was a regular cause of conflict. Keeping your home clean can help to reduce these arguments – but it’s not quite that simple!

Many arguments aren’t about the cleaning itself – but how to do it, and who should do it. Cleaning is often a way that gender roles are expressed, so women who do most of the cleaning may feel unsupported, while men may feel they are not doing enough to keep their partners happy.

By creating a regular routine of who does which job, you can help to reduce gender-based arguments, and communicate more effectively with your partner. You may even decide to set a ‘date night’ after cleaning day, so you can reward yourselves and spend time together at the same time!

Also, if you have young children, animals, or elderly relatives with a high falls risk in your household, clutter can pose some immediate dangers to health. But by regularly cleaning and maintaining your living space, you can keep your loved ones safe by reducing the likelihood of accidents occurring around the home.

Benefits For Society And The Environment

Tidying your house can even help wider society! By regularly decluttering your home, you can give to charity shops or list items on websites such as Freecycle.com that will help you offer the items to people who have more need of them than yourself.

This also helps the environment by ensuring that items you no longer need are reused instead of being thrown away. You may also find that you enjoy the creative side of repurposing old items into useful new household equipment and decorations!

Why Keep Up A Cleaning Routine?

Cleaning benefits you, your home, the environment, general society, and your personal relationships. So surely the question should be, why not get your cleaning routines properly organised, so you can see how much better they can help your life to be?

When Valentine’s Day comes around, our society heightens its focus on couples, romance and diamonds. What if you are not in a meaningful relationship? You are likely to feel even more frustrated, lonely or disappointed at this time of year. But take heart, making some easy changes in the way you go about manifesting a soul mate, will certainly yield the outcome you desire. Take a look at the top five mistakes people make when it comes to attracting a soul mate and change your approach today.

1. Forgetting to pray – Top on the list for hindering your efforts to attract a soul mate is forgetting to pray. One proven method of prayer for manifesting a soul mate (or anything else you desire) is Positive Prayer or Spiritual Mind Treatment. Positive Prayer is basically affirmative prayer, which is the foundation of all of your spiritual work, so incorporate it into your routine every day. I know we get busy and lives are hectic; yet this easy and powerful method will bring about your heart’s desires. Plus you will feel better because you will be more deeply aligned with the Divine Presence and that brings about peace, love, joy, harmony and health just to name a few. Without a doubt, Positive. Prayer is the way to set the law of attraction in action.

2. Hanging onto the past – Have you ever held onto a relationship too long? Even if the relationship is over, are you still clinging to it or even comparing new people in your life to the former one? We get rooted, or stuck, into this pattern and there is no heart space for someone new to come in until we release the past. If you’re not convinced that you should let go of old ties, consider the story Clytie and Apollo. Clytie was a water-nymph who loved the sun God Apollo with all her heart. But Apollo did not love her; he loved Daphne. Clytie would not let go of her love for Apollo. So she pined away for nine days sitting all day on the cold ground without food or drink while her tears saturated the Earth. Clytie would stare at the sun and follow Apollo, when he rose and as he passed through his daily course. She saw nothing but Apollo with her face turning constantly to follow the sun’s movements. Finally, her limbs rooted in the ground and her face changed into a sunflower. To this very day, the sunflower turns on its stem to face the sun throughout its daily course. Why? Because it retains the feeling of the nymph that it came from. Take heed from Clytie and don’t get rooted to an old relationship or to someone who does not have the capacity to love you back. Plant a new seed in your consciousness, release the past with love, thank it for the gifts given and the lessons learned. Bess the past and move on.

3. Using negative self talk or criticism – If you are feeling that no one loves you, it is easy to get into a pattern of self-depreciation, self-loathing or even guilt or shame. Yet, these are very destructive and can block the flow of a partner coming into your life. When you master the art of loving kindness for yourself, your energy will attract that in kind. Set an intention to shift your thinking, and you will begin to see wonderful transformation in your life. If you begin to criticize yourself or blame yourself for not having a partner affirm: I am a worthy and loving child of God. And remember as you increase prayerfulness in your life, you will see these negative patterns dissolve and replaced with kindness and love toward yourself and others. Another way to dispel negative thinking, self-criticism or self-pity, is to call on Archangel Chamuel for assistance. He is the angel of love and will help you find a soul mate. He will not only help you overcome depression, lack of forgiveness, grief and sorrow, but he will help you deepen compassion towards yourself and others.

4. Outlining or telling God how– We are really good at telling God how to do something and what it should look like, which is called outlining. While we want to have a specific picture in our mind of our soul mate, for example, someone who has certain characteristics such as loving, sense of humor, smart, kind, gentle etc., we do not want to tell God who that person is or what color hair or body shape the person should have or where we should meet him or her (for example, at work, at the gym, at church, on the Internet). So remember to hold a mental equivalent of you and your soul mate having fun together – but, please, no specific person in mind. If you do, you are limiting the Power and might eliminate a wonderful partner that Spirit unites you with. So be flexible and let God do the work.

5. Focusing on physical beauty– In our youth-obsessed society, we can fall prey into thinking that we have to spend lots of money on cosmetic surgery, painful and expensive wrinkle-reducing injections or take the latest diet pill to be attractive enough for true love. According to a recent study, more than half a million teenagers have an eating disorder. This is largely due the media’s emphasis on a rail thin body that is just not realistic. Advertisers have admitted to photo-shopping pictures of models so that their waist lines are abnormally thin. Many women (and men too) try to achieve an unnatural and unrealistic look and can even become obsessed with this quest. Don’t fall into this trap. What’s important is to keep your physical body in shape, to get regular exercise and to eat right to stay physically well and to radiate beauty from within. Your soul mate will be attracted to a beautiful spirit – one that is achieved with spiritual fitness not with surgical procedures. When you are in spiritual alignment with God, your ego can’t goad you into negative thinking or sadness. A person who is spiritually enlivened is attractive from the inside out and that is a magnet for true love.

Next Steps

Above all, on Valentine’s Day and every day, remember that you are always connected to God; therefore, always connected to love. Any time that you fear aloneness, you are feeling separate from God. So celebrate the Divine Love within you and know that if you are seeking a soul mate relationship and don’t fall into the pitfalls listed above, that soul mate relationship is on its way to you on Cupid’s wings right now.

The unhealed soul can be recognised by the lives they live and by the stories they tell. Could you be one of those souls whom happen to be walking around unhealed? Are you living a life free from the dark shadows of the past and fully aware that the circumstances of your life belong to you? Or are the stories of your life full of pain and a discussion point for all that is going wrong in your life?

Every one of us tells stories. Those stories have within them the power to empower or disempower others. As we examine the contents of our stories think for a moment on the objectives of telling the story. You see sometimes unknowingly we feel the urge to give people details to a story just so they can offer us some sympathy. Sometimes its necessary to discuss something that is bothering us, but with a trusted person, someone who can be objective; however we ought to recognise if we are one of those persons who always has several stories to tell about what has happened to us. If this fits something you may be experiencing you may want to consider that in some areas of your life healing is needed.

It’s been said that hurting people hurt people. Observing a victim is painful, but it is even more painful when they can’t see a way out of the pain. Consider this for a moment, any area of your life that is unwell, is not functioning, as it should, with vitality and vibrancy. In other words the stories you share and your reasons for not living a life of vibrancy and vitality may be causing harm to those around you. Are you still blaming others for the reasons why your life is not how you would like it? Worst still are you sharing that information with your children? Some people in the name of protecting their children tell stories to their children that are full of judgements, pain and things that the child has no power to change. This causes great harm to the children because it tells them to bear the pain of a problem that is not theirs to solve. Yet this is what happens when we are unhealed in certain areas of our lives. We live limitations! We complain! We judge! We hate! We tell one-sided stories! We expect whomever we tell to live our pain with us! We place expectations on others not really understanding that we are disempowering ourselves at the same time, not to mention destroying a relationship.

This may be you and if it is I encourage you to not ask others to share a pain that you may be unwilling to fix. If you look to heal from your failures, your lack of faith in yourself, your hatred for others, your pain and resentments you will automatically teach others to do so by example. They will become empowered by seeing you overcome. If you are the unhealed soul, do whatever you can to heal yourself. Get help because somewhere, someone is affected by your not being healed. Let those you love and care for know and understand that your pains have nothing to do with them. Let them know that the stories you tell are just one side of the story and it would be better for them if they understood that fully by not taking on your pain. If you know someone who is struggling with this, encourage them and let them know that by overcoming their pains, they will have a different story to tell, one that leaves a good inheritance for those they leave behind. Encourage those individuals that they have the power to change by letting go of the pain and learning to heal. Together we can all do our part by empowering the next generation by loving them enough to heal from our hurts and to tell stories that speak of overcoming.

Our future as a society, country and world depends on the stories we share with children. Let’s share stories that lift them, encourage them and fill them with the faith that they too can overcome anything that comes their way.

How are we going to cultivate divine love when the world as a whole has lost the actual definition of the word? Man has so abused the meaning of love that so few know what real love is. True love permeates our whole creation the same way oil is within every particle of the olive. It is not easy to define love, as it is impossible to completely describe in words the flavor of an orange. With love you have to taste its fruit to know and savor its flavor. Most of us have tasted love in one form or another in our hearts; that is how we know a little about its meaning. But most of us have not learned how to develop, purify and enlarge our human love into divine love. Man, unable to cultivate love has lost the original spark that existed in all hearts from the beginning of life.

Many people recognize that the feeling or the attraction they have for their friends and relatives is love and think it unnecessary to analyze what love really is. There is so much more to love than just that. The only real way to explain what true love is to you is describe its effect. You could not contain yourself it is so overpowering….so great would be your happiness and joy if you could feel just a tiny particle of real divine love. The fulfillment of love is never in the feeling itself but the happiness and joy that feeling gives to you. Those who think love is the ultimate intoxicating happiness, do not know; the true ultimate is bliss, ever-conscious, ever-existing, ever-new bliss. Just as love is native to the soul, it is still secondary to joy for there is no love without joy. That is why the real experience of love is always together with joy. Sometimes joy arrives without any material cause as it is not subject to outer conditions. It sometimes appears absent of any material cause. You may jump out of bed one morning feeling “lighter than air” full of joy and do not know why.

However there are outer conditions that can cause joy to express itself from within; like receiving a large sum of money and shouting out “I’m so happy!” this condition of receiving all this money has simply assisted in releasing a flow of cascading joy from within the concealed pool of ever new bliss. In individual experiences there are particular events that are generally necessary to bring joy.

The universal nature of love is the divine power of attraction and has many faces. There is fatherly love which is based on reason, while motherly love is unconditional and is based on feeling, there is love between the servant and his master which is based entirely on mutual benefit; there is friendship which is the grand relationship of human love that is pure and without compulsion, then there is God’s love which is the highest love and is the perfect love between the soul and spirit. There is conjugal love which is idealistic and a great expression of human love where a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife. However conjugal love is very tricky, and the majority of people will leave this earth with little satisfaction in their hearts. They have sought after material love in the wrong way.

Beware the whip of a beautiful face. Those who are mostly attracted by a good-looking faces and appearances which finds their soul-mates in the graveyard of gorgeous and wonderfully decked-out forms, unaware that a demon or devil may be dwelling within. Souls of ignorance that inhabit gorgeous bodies are tombs of flesh that cover up hideous skeletons. To live and be like that is the same as being dead. Therefore the most important qualification there is for a perfect marriage is that if neither one is spiritual nor you find a spiritual man or a spiritual woman… you should not get married; you will not be loved. Every mother and every father should teach this to their children.

Fear not, there is a hidden prayer affirmation for those who pray, given by the spiritual masters and the great one’s which is the promise to prevent you from making a mistake in choosing your true life companion or soul-mate. These prayers do have some prerequisites. They must be practiced for a minimum of six months with concentrated faith and have effected a heartfelt attunement with the Heavenly Father during your prayers and meditation. By continuously affirming this prayer desire, you will be blessed and marry an appropriate mate; but if you were attracted to one who is basically incompatible and mismatched the Heavenly Father will prevent you from making an incorrect choice by changing the circumstances. This prayer request should be done at the end of your meditation and with deep attention; affirm “Divine Father, according to Thy perfect law of soul union bestow on me your blessings that I attract and choose my perfect life mate.”

However there is an inner loneliness a husband or a wife can never fill. You can be totally in love with your husband or wife but may be feeling up to here with human love yet that love cannot reach what God has made for himself alone. God has made his creation full proof…without Him you will never know love. The less love you have the lonelier you feel. The lack of love is the lack of God. Because your soul has forgotten its relationship with God through countless incarnations.

There was a very heated argument between two disciples, so they went to their guru preceptor (spiritual master) for council to settle the argument and to decide who was right. To their surprise his answer to them was to “love God more” and that was his advice to many others who had grievances with each other. They pondered, “how does that solve our disagreements?” Loving God more changes everything because the one thing that God is longing for and does not possess in His blissful existence in heavenly Paradise is our love and our attention.

God has imposed the identical difficulty on himself as on his children. He has given man free will to reject him or seek him. God is pursuing every heart, watching and waiting for His children to reject His creation and move towards Him and those who move towards Him will attract the One that gives all.

There have been so many reports of near death experiences where these reports were all found to be similar or identical. Those with near death experiences who died and came back said they were asked who have you loved? It is so easy to love your immediate family, isn’t it? What about everyone else? Remember it is God who dwells in the bodily temple of the righteous, the error-stricken and your dear ones.

There are those who feel a dryness in their hearts and do not know how to love God while some have a lack of faith and have no idea on how to be devotional. When they talk about God they think of Him as a venerable Being in some remote Heaven sitting on a throne. They think to themselves, ” I do not know God, so how can I feel love for an unknown God.” Do not assume that God is enjoying himself in his heavenly existence in selfish joy. God is definitely suffering the disappointment of man’s denial of Him because it is He who has caused this separation and unless we go to Him willingly He is unable to set us free from suffering or Himself in his heavenly Paradise.

A student asked the guru, Paramahansa Yogananda “what would you and the great one’s tell us to do in our meditations to cultivate love for God and expand our love for all sentient beings?”

The guru replied, “here is the technique, it is called practicing the presence of God.” Close your eyes and gently turn them upwards at the point between the eyebrows and lock them there without straining. Put your complete attention on the heart center, imagine and feel the strongest and greatest love that you ever felt for another human being. Saturate every cell of your body with that love. While that love is encompassing and saturating all of your bodily cells, expand the feeling of that love as a surrounding sphere embracing all your loved ones, your friends and family. Now imagine your love ever growing and magnified a thousand times and include all the people in the state you live in, the country and the earth saturated with that love. Feel the whole world, your solar system, universe and galaxies bathing in this enormous radiant globe of love. Merge yourself in that sphere of love which saturates the infinitude.

It is important to know in the beginning of this visualization that the love you feel in your heart is human love. But once that love expands encircling all things it becomes the universal love of God. Many of you ignite a little flame of yearning for God but fail to put fuel in the fire, and it dies out. The fire of love and longing must be lit over and over with every day practice of self-discipline and meditation.

The love that most people feel for their dearest friends and family is human love. It is God who gives us all those we love; no human love should be larger than love for God. The loveable natures in our relatives were wisely selected for us as brothers and sisters with loving parents, so how much greater should our love be for God? Remember it is God that is our continual Parent who through many incarnations of the present, past and future times takes care of us as the instrument of limitless family relations and parents.

People that love and adore familial relations while being neglectful of God residing within those relatives will have a sad awakening when death separates their family ties.

Contemplate, if someone dies and is reborn as a neighbor to his prior home, his previous beloved family would see and treat him as a stranger who moved in next door. These are the mysterious workings of reincarnation. Read the article “Beware The Whip Of A Beautiful Face.”

The nodes (south and north node) are two points in an astrological chart that possess priceless information about one’s karmic past and soul-destined future. Calculated by using the birth data of the individual, the nodes symbolize the unique life path that one is on and can answer many questions about his own, as well as his partner’s, inner struggles and desires — answers that can transform not only his relationship but his life.

Since there are twelve signs of the zodiac, there are also twelve unique nodal positions — each pair of nodes (north and south) representing two opposite signs of the zodiac. For instance, a Cancer Sign North Node is paired with a Capricorn Sign South Node because they are opposites. And because they are opposites, they create a clear picture of the dualistic struggle that resides within the Cancer north node/Capricorn south node individual.

Often, the individual is unaware of the war taking place inside, a situation that could go on for years. As time passes he is dumfounded by his inability to progress in life – professionally, emotionally, and spiritually. He doesn’t understand why he keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again and continues to dwell on the past as he desperately dreams of the future.

All of us have our own set of visible (and invisible) struggles to work through — obstacles that the Nodes of the Moon can help us isolate and resolve while simultaneously freeing us to move forward on our destined path.

We all know that knowledge is power…and that’s why I offer a bit of it to you…to give you the strength and courage you need to not only live, but thrive.

This week I’d like to begin with a brief overview of the Cancer North Node/Capricorn South Node position.

To start, let’s take a look at some keywords. These words describe the polarity between these two opposing signs and can offer you a glimpse of the soul journey that the individual with this nodal position is on.

Just remember that the south node represents old patterns of being – patterns that have accumulated over lifetimes that now need to be acknowledged and released. The north node, on the other hand, represents the soul’s potential – the direction of the future…the behavioral habits that will lead the individual to greater happiness and the kind of life that will fulfill him.

Here are some Capricorn South Node behavioral patterns — patters that the individual must part with if he is to live an emotionally rich life:

Overly ambitious…pessimistic…insensitive…overly cautious…arrogant…obsessed with the past…disciplinarian…always needs rules…materialistic…unresponsive…stern…stubborn.

Here are some Cancer North Node behavioral patterns that the individual might find foreign at first, but ones that he needs to aspire to if he is to connect to his true potential and the existence his soul both needs and desires:

Nurturing…sensitive…intuitive…maternal…supportive…faithful…tenacious…protective…romantic…values family…devoted…focuses on home…empathetic…emotional.

The journey from a Capricorn south node to a Cancer north node will take some work. But so does everything else that holds so much potential. The key is to never lose sight of the ultimate goal and move towards it until it firmly lies within your hands.

The Cancer north node reveals a soul that has spent numerous incarnations as an opinioned, well-respected, and accomplished member of the community. It worked hard to achieve it’s once prominent level of recognition and enters this lifetimes wanting, needing, and pursuing the same prestige it once had.

The Cancer north node individual also arrives with much inner pride. He has vivid memories of the dignified social presence he once had and can’t understand why now, in his present life, he is not getting the respect he knows he deserves. As a result, he spends much of his life trying to regain what he feels he has lost.

In addition to pride, the Cancer north node individual also brings with him memories of past hardships as well as the desire to avoid all imperfection; especially within himself. He works harder than most yet fails to accomplish all that he sets out to do. And if he feels that a situation might make him seem inadequate, he will go far out of his way to escape the embarrassment; even if it means making himself emotionally and/ or physically ill.

Karmic residues of materialism and self-righteousness are also not foreign to him. Rarely will he accept the advice of others; secretly thinking that he knows best. Seldomly will he share his honest feelings because he believes in personal privacy and is unable to accept any form of criticism. And being the opportunist that he is, will strategically place himself in situations where there is something to be gained; not hesitating for one moment if offered the chance to use another’s weakness for his own benefit. All of this is done secretly of course, as to not damage the respectful image he has worked so hard to create for himself.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it, the Cancer north node will ask him to leave his rigid ways behind and soften his walls when dealing with others. He will be asked to trade his arrogance for emotional honesty and will be shown the benefits of nurturing and being nurtured. And most importantly, he will asked to gradually open himself up to his Cancerian sensitivity.

At times he might feel the urge to resist this transformation; feeling comfortable with the habits he has come to know so well. Yet life, being the wise teacher that it is, will certainly make sure that he stays on his soul-destined path.

As time goes by, he will begin to value life and family more than money, emotional connectedness more than calculated control and new creation more than old baggage. His soul will teach him that the rock which was once him, is now ready to give way and allow some water to seep in. His soul will help him see that one of his greatest pleasures and achievements in this lifetime will be to nourish others; both in physical and spiritual ways. His Capricorn south node has overfilled his vessel…and so now it is his turn to share its abundance with those who need it.

Having said all that, it might be a good idea to fill your surroundings with as many symbolic representations of the Cancer Sign as possible. Surrounding yourself with Cancer sign colors, Cancer sign fragrances, and Cancer sign ornaments will remind you of the soul mission you’re on and help you find your unique path to fulfillment.

Now if it’s your mate that has the Cancer sign north node, and you do that for your mate, well…that’s about the greatest gift that you could ever give him/or her. Because there’s nothing like the feeling one gets when he realizes that he has found someone who really gets him — a true friend…lover…and the irreplaceable soul companion he’s been searching for his entire life.

…that soul companion who is you!

Have an adventurous journey my friend!

You may freely use this article on your blog, website or newsletter provided the above credit and active link are retained.

Copyright 2006 Romantic-ideas-for-life.com and Julia Simkin

Drawing on demonic entities to help you reach your goals indentures yourself to them, and is to be avoided at all costs. Sometimes people don’t even realize they’re doing it, and those who do often don’t understand the consequences until it’s too late.

Once you die, in such an arrangement, you become their slave and must do their bidding, according to Manly P. Hall, author of The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

“First. The visible universe has an invisible counterpart, the higher planes of which are peopled by good and beautiful spirits; the lower planes, dark and foreboding, are the habitation of evil spirits and demons under the leadership of the Fallen Angel and his ten Princes.”

“Second. By means of the secret processes of ceremonial magic it is possible to contact these invisible creatures and gain their help in some human undertaking. Good spirits willingly lend their assistance to any worthy enterprise, but the evil spirits serve only those who live to pervert and destroy.”

“Third. It is possible to make contracts with spirits whereby the magician becomes for a stipulated time the master of an elemental being.”

“Fourth. True black magic is performed with the aid of a demoniacal spirit, who serves the sorcerer for the length of his earthly life, with the understanding that after death the magician shall become the servant of his own demon.”

“For this reason a black magician will go to inconceivable ends to prolong his physical life, since there is nothing for him beyond the grave…a man will barter his eternal soul for temporal power…in its various branches the black art includes nearly all forms of ceremonial magic, necromancy, witchcraft, sorcery, and vampirism…”

“Though the demonism of the Middle Ages seems to have disappeared, there is abundant evidence that in many forms of modern thought–especially the so-called ‘prosperity’ psychology, ‘will-power-building’ metaphysics, and systems of ‘high pressure’ salesmanship…”

For obvious reasons, short-term earthly gain through the help of demonic elementals isn’t worth selling your soul, but we believe it’s entirely safe to strive toward gaining abundance and whatever else you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone or yourself, and you don’t employ demonic energies to assist you.

How to Avoid This Trap

You must be very careful to only ask for help from positive other-dimensional energies, those of the Light. Whenever you’re in need of help, and we believe help is always available to you within your predestined framework, make sure to ask for help from God (or however you refer to the higher power) or “guides, masters, and helpers of the Light.” Our Spiritual Detox audio can help you keep your energy clean, and avoid harmful entities.

Aside from demonic other-dimensional energies, in our view there exist “guides” on the other side that don’t offer absolute truths and wisdom, and many have strong prejudices. Sometimes these entities are simply disincarnated souls who have not yet gone to the Light after their physical body died, so they may not be any wiser than you. There are also troublemaker entities who enjoy causing problems.

Any insight you receive that sounds biased Or that feels negative, be wary. Also, a very possible sign of a mischievous, or even dark and harmful other-dimensional spirit is one that claims to be someone famous, such as a deceased celebrity.

So go ahead and ask for assistance with your worthy goals from God or guides and Angels of the Light if you feel you need help. In addition, focusing on being grounded and centered and meditating regularly will give you plenty of valuable guidance from within, without having to ruin your soul through partnering with demonic energies

Copyright © Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo

Are you winning souls as a lifestyle? Soul winning shouldn’t be a periodic thing in your life. This is because the enemy is making converts every day in multitudes. Therefore, be smarter and faster than He is so that you can win more people for Christ. This post encourages you to imbibe soul winning as a lifestyle.

Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables – 2 Timothy 4:2-4 (NKJV).

Why Soul Winning Lifestyle?

The devil’s time is running out and he is desperate to draw many people along to his condemnation. And it’s not God’s will that any should perish. Therefore, we need to see the urgency of soul winning and drive it to success. So, it’s no more time to win souls when it’s convenient or when you’re less busy. Rather, you’re to live ever ready to win souls, for the labourers are few and yet the harvest is full.

Christianity As a LifeStyle

To be a Christian is to live like Christ at all times. As such Christianity is a lifestyle. So, it’s not clothing you wear or remove when you like. Rather, as long as you’re alive, you’re to wear Christ.

Let your life shine as the light that draws men to Christ. And let men see you and desire to be like Jesus. The scriptures call the believing Christians “Salt” that gives taste to the world, and “light” that gives light to the world. And you’re to shine forth that people may see your good works and glorify God the Father.

You need to understand that you’re not living for yourself again but for the Lord. He paid the price for your redemption with His blood once and for all. This He did that you may live by faith in Him.

And the main thing you live to do is to win souls for Christ. This is to lead people back to God even as someone led you back to Him.

Be Ever Ready

Therefore, be ever ready to accomplish the purpose of Christ being in you, which is reconciling multitude back to God. So, prepare both spiritually and physically to reach out to souls as often as opportunities present them to you. The scripture says that you are to preach the gospel in season and out of season.

Every day is a day of salvation for someone and God will use anyone who is available to win that soul. And you’re the one to decide whether you will be that vessel of honour that day. This you will do by being spiritually and physically alert. God will not entertain excuses but desires prompt obedience from His servants. Therefore, study to show yourself approved to God and give yourself to prayers, to be ever ready to win souls.

Also, know that your physical disposition determines your success in winning souls. So, be cheerful, confident, clean and tidy, and comported, thereby representing God well. And as the saying goes, ‘You are addressed according to how you are dressed.’

Biblical Example

Our Lord Jesus lived on earth as a soul winner and every day was a day to reach out to souls. And He was ever ready that anywhere He found Himself was a platform to preach or teach the word and win souls. Also, soul winning was the lifestyle of the disciples. Such that as they journey from one place to another they preached the gospel and won souls to Christ. And they virtually lived to win souls.

Put Soul Winning In Your TO DO LIST

As you write your ‘To-do list’, include soul winning. This will make you conscious of the souls around you and make you sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. And it will make you seek for opportunities to reach out to anyone you come in contact with. So, it will ensure you win souls that day. Furthermore, to drive yourself to win souls, give yourself targets: the number of souls you desire to win for Christ each day. As you do these God will release the wisdom and help you need to achieve your goals.

Give Glory And Thanks To God

For every soul, you win for Christ you should give glory to God. And thank Him for finding you worthy as a soul winner and for the soul won. This is because you have only done that which is your duty.

No man can come to Jesus except the Father draws him. So, all the glory goes to Him. However, the joy of service and pleasing God is yours, and the rewards will never elude you. For the Lord indeed is a great rewarder.

In Conclusion

Therefore, take soul winning as a lifestyle. Let everyone know you as an ambassador for Christ, who will seek the salvation of his contacts till they’re saved and established in Christ. And let the name of the Lord be praised.

In Celtic spirituality you are invited on a journey into love. The one who invites you on your journey is mo anamcara, which is the Irish for ‘my soul friend.’ The great matron saint of Ireland, St. Brigid, said that anyone without a mo anamcara was like a body without a head.

Here are some indications that you are meeting with, becoming involved with or married to your soul friend.

1. They speak the language of the heart

Your soul friend is always an invitation to the highest good that is within you. They invite your wildest creative imagination to be in free flow. This is an invitation to deeply trust who you are.

2. They invite you to fall in love

Your mo anamcara might become the one you marry. Or might not be the one you marry. But they most certainly invite you to the real marriage, which is the marriage of the feminine and masculine within you. They invite union with all those disowned aspects of yourself that you have judged and turned away from the wedding feast that is your creative life’s flow.

3. They are in love with who they are

Your mo anamcara loves the way that life expresses through them. They express their purpose. They allow the force of love that created them to use them for its own purposes. They feel a profound sense of abundance and give themselves away as love in action.

4. They invite you into going beyond the ‘do do’ in life

The mo anamcara does not measure you or judge you by what you have or do not have. They know that the truth of the universe is that we are all one. They ‘do’ life as love in action, which comes through the flow of their essential self. They work but they do not ‘make a living’ other than to express the joy of creation. They let the beauty that they are become what they do.

5. They radiate presence

Your mo anamcara is present to the moment. They do not think in the same way as you do. They live from presence and this is more than enough. They listen to the wisdom voice within that is unique to them. They are their own authority. Their will is their willingness to serve Love.

6. They may be hard to live with.

A mo anamcara invites the radiance of your soul to shine. They are not there to deepen your connection to your ego. They are, in fact, sane. They do what a sane person does. They live for the highest good of all. They will invite you to come into the light when you want to hide in the cave of your limited persona. This may feel difficult sometimes, even impossible to be with at such close quarters.

You are invited to become your own deepest heart friend. When you begin to connect with your soul then you have something that cannot be taken away from you. You begin to relax into the radiance of who you truly are. You are free and sane. You have become a friend to your soul. You and your mo anamcara.

Learn more about the language of the heart, how to get out of the ‘do do’ and into the beautiful radiance of the presence you already are. This is an invitation from a soul friend.

© Tony Cuckson 2008

Having read several of my books, blogs, and articles, by now you are probably aware that like Michael Singer, I believe we are trying to do something that doesn’t work – we are trying to find love, joy, happiness, etc. outside of ourselves. We are trying to control something that is not within our control: other people and the world around us. Everything we wish to experience is part of our inner landscape; they are not out there somewhere to be found.

Singer in his book, the untethered soul, helps you explore your inner landscape, an activity that for me has been a life long journey. He begins by asking you to look at the concept of self and the inner dialogue you engage in with self. Once you begin to think about and explore the concept of self, you quickly realize “… the concept of ‘self’ may turn out to be a bit more elusive than initially presumed.”

As a human you have been both blessed and cursed by your ability to think about your thinking. The blessing is that it is in the world of your thoughts that you can control your experiences in life. The curse is you are probably looking to the world to have specific experiences and your inner dialogue is acting as the judge of what’s happening around you. Breaking the barrier of this inner and outer world thinking will free you from your perceived problems.

So how do you begin to do this – you become intimately aware of your inner roommate – the voice inside of you. You recognize that your inner voice will never be content and at peace, and you let go of “I”. You recognize that-“Your consciousness is actually experiencing your mental model of reality, not reality itself.” When you perceive a problem you stop asking, “What should I do about this?” and start asking, “What part of me is being disturbed by this?” What part of me is ________ (jealous, angry, frustrated, irritated, etc.)? Singer states, “You will not be able to solve anything outside until you own how the situation affects you inside.” For a man not familiar with Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), he has captured one of its greatest lessons. Disturbance is an inside job.

Letting go of the inner judge and shifting your thinking to what I like to call the balcony view immediately relieves stress. My good friend Andrea Christopher once described it this way – it’s as if I am the math problem, then I am working the math problem and finally I am watching myself work the math problem. “You don’t have to think about it or analyze it; you can just be aware of it.” Doing this allows you to let go of the “I”.

From the balcony you allow yourself to “experience every note the heart can play.” You recognize that everything is just information and it’s up to you to quiet the roommate and relax into the moment. Singer provided me with a more spiritual perspective on PCT which is a very science heavy explanation of human behavior.

This book was like diving into the deep end of the pool of my own soul. PCT with a spiritual twist. I loved it!

The insidious cycle of addiction often starts with some life changing event that causes a person physical pain or emotional pain, an event that they cannot cope with or deal with. It may have started as a young child who did not fit in with their peers, anxiety over work, divorce or the death of a loved one. It’s also not unusual for it to happen due to chronic pain that cannot be treated properly. Whatever the reason, this is usually the beginning point where the problems start.

Often the person sees no hope for a solution and does not know how to get rid of the pain they are feeling. Many people experience problems in their life that cause them pain, but not all will turn to substance abuse as a solution. Some people have coping abilities that are stronger than others and they choose a different path to help them cope. Someone who is an addict will choose the easiest path and will abuse substances to help them cope with the situation.

In the beginning these substances will help them, and actually may appear to solve their problems. They feel OK and they think they are now able to cope with the curves that life has thrown at them. They then come to believe that this is solving their problems, and that with this crutch they are now able to deal with life’s problems. At this point the drugs or alcohol become a very valuable tool in helping them cope. This now becomes their solution for handling everything that comes their way – it seems the ultimate easy solution.

During this stage they feel that their pain can constantly be kept at bay, as long as they have these substances to help them cope. This is the beginning of a cycle of addiction that they normally will fail to recognize. They know one thing. If they are feeling pain, the drugs or alcohol will get rid of it. The problem with this is that it usually means that they will increase their use of these substances over time, not realizing that they are becoming mentally and physically addicted. They usually will not even recognize that they have passed a point of no return and that they have lost their ability to control this destructive habit.

When they do try to stop using these substances as a crutch they find that it’s no longer possible. Physically their bodies now need the substance. They may realize they are addicted and now know full well what going through withdrawal will be like, and it’s not something they want to face. Over time the addict finds they now need more of the substance they are abusing, since their body is constantly adjusting and the usual amount will no longer be effective. In many cases they now need the drug or alcohol in order to function in daily life.

They addict knows that they need to stop abusing the drug but they feel powerless. This causes more stress and anxiety as well as feelings of worthlessness, shame and guilt. Their cure for these feelings, is of course, to return to what helps to relieve them even though what is relieving the pain causes the feelings. They are now trapped in an endless cycle of addiction and they feel that there is no way out.