Evolving to Your Higher Self

For many of us, spending time with loved ones during the holiday season is simply not an option. The reality of it is, many humans outlive their friends and families, and lack the needed motivation to stay socially active.

            In this insightful addition of Ask Leana, the Dr. shares some truly meaningful wisdom for all those who will be spending this time of year alone. The holiday season is socially embellished with images of happiness and human connection, but this is not the case for many. Leana offers a special message here, giving all of us inspirations of how to make the absolute most of your holiday season, and your overall state of being in this journey called life.

            Be sure to leave your comments and questions directly below with Leana, and she may respond to you directly in here upcoming feature.

From all of us at Spiritualists International, have an amazing holiday season and new year celebration.

What is your story? What is the one you tell the world, and the one you tell yourself? Do you even realize that the story you tell has a very big impact on the life you lead?

            If the story you tell is of hardship and pain, that is what you live, and if it is of joy and happiness, that is what you live. You may ask the question, if I have been hurt, damaged, and experienced pain for most of my life, how do I live a life filled with happiness and joy? It’s hard work, but honesty and forgiveness are a good start. Changing your life is never an easy task, because it entails letting go, learning new habits, and being honest with yourself and forgiving yourself. I think I have mentioned before, that forgiveness is a rather selfish act, because you do it for yourself not the other person or event.

I think before we can nurture our gifts, we first need to believe we have gifts, and once we believe it, we need to establish what they are.

            Quite the comment right? I have noticed that most of us do not believe we are worth very much, and that leads to a belief that we have no gifts that are worth anything. And even if we think we might be good at something, we do not always believe that our little bit is worth it. This is so very sad to me. Each one of us is created with such splendour and magnificence, yet we do not believe it.

Dr. Leana Kreil brings us another fascinating addition to here “Ask Leana” feature this week. Sometimes we forget just how important our spiritual practice can be amongst all of life’s obstacles. As she directly answers our readers questions about how to find purpose in life and spirituality, even while dealing with life’s tragedies and down spots, Leana brings great meaning to those in spiritual doubt.

No matter how many seemingly negative events are happening in your life, you can remain focused on what you are really here to do, and just how important you are as a human being on a spiritual journey. A truly brilliant message sure to inspire you in this short video presentation.

Dr. Leana Kreil PhD shares her wisdom with a reader regarding following your own spiritual path. Many of us find it challenging to explore our spirituality without insulting our friends and family who practice more traditional religious paths. Leana explains just how we can carry out our own spiritual callings, while still respecting and loving those who may not see eye to eye with our own practices. Don't miss this highly insightful presentation with Leana, and be certain to leave your comments and questions below. It is very possible that she will address your question in her next month's feature.

Thank you for joining us at Spiritualists international Magazine, and helping make our community so great!

We could not be happier to announce that Dr. Leana Kriel PhD is now extending here services internationally. Leana lives in South Africa, and works as a life coach, trauma counselor, and metaphysician. We are honored to be extending here gifts and knowledge to you now through Spiritualists International Magazine in an exciting new way!

            Beginning this month, we introduce “Ask Leana”. You are welcome to ask any and all questions you have about life, spirituality, love, and everything in between. Leana is quite literally one of the most openhearted humans on the planet, and her guidance is unfailing. 

            Ask Leana, and she will personally address your questions in her beautiful new video series. It’s like free counseling and spiritual guidance from one of the best in the world!

           Post your questions here below, or send your private questions directly through our contact forum. Then be sure to watch Leana's video column each month in SIM for your personal guidance. Also, please indicate if you prefer to remain unanimous.

So what is internal peace, and how do you even get there. Well, I think it is a journey, and quite honestly, it is a daily thing. I think you have to take each moment at a time, and deal with that moment before you can take on the next.

            My thought for this month is slightly more sinister, as the discussion is focused more on revenge. How on earth do we move from Inner peace to revenge? In order to move into you space of peace, you need to first be able to release all that is taking up space within you. Usually there is quite a bit taking up space. When we look at revenge, it does seem to look so sweet, especially when we sit and create or formulate our revenge in our mind.

            I know that we can find ourselves in situations that make us feel so helpless, and sometimes they can incapacitate us somewhat. What do we do when we feel powerless….we imagine how nice it would be to get back at another person. In some instances, we even convince ourselves that it is just getting back to that person for hurting harmless or innocent counter parts. We all know a person that we look at and think… ”If only”…. The problem with these thoughts is that they sooner or later can become stronger than what you are, and once that happens, the thoughts and their negative result on your life will become over powering and consume your space.

Cycles are what our space consists of, death of one thing and the rebirth of another. I have to admit that even though these are cycles, and we are aware of it most of them, they still have a tendency to be somewhat of a curveball. This means that they can throw you of balance and hurt like hell. For me personally, the worst is when we have to deal with the death part of the cycle. The death portion, or section, indicates that we have to go through the steps of healing ourself. So the sooner you get that, the sooner you can move into the rebirth. But it’s much easier said than done isn’t it.

            Thankfully, we are all different, and we deal with events in the case death differently. I consider death to be the end of a cycle. What I believe to be important, is to know that you are experiencing a loss, and then working through that loss. If you choose not to, you will end up in the same space for much longer than you need to, and remember, rebirth cannot be in the same space as death. Similar to light and dark, they do not share the same spaces at the same time.

            These are the healing steps as I have them: (it is always good to have some form of guidance, just so that you know where you are and where you are on your way to.)

1. Denial and Isolation

2. Anger / Guilt

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5.Acceptance

Being me, is a very busy space to find yourself in, and honestly, can be quite exhausting at the best of times! No joke, my mind mostly does not switch off, and I cannot always sit still or keep my hands idle. Multi-tasking is a constant in my space, together with planning and preparation, which is at the top of the list. Now doesn’t that sound somewhat obsessive? J

                                 My mind on a good day

            In knowing my ego, and what it needs to survive, I learned a long time ago that I would have to find alternative ways to nourish my soul. I remember when I first started my journey years ago, that meditating was almost impossible for me.  I could not clear my mind for one minute, let alone longer. Believe me, I tried envisioning, music, focused intention, nature, and everything else that I was recommended to do, and nothing was able to keep this busy mind occupied.

Do you know when your being is telling you it is time? Telling you its time for a change in small ways and in big ways? Have you learned to listen to what your being needs from you in order for you to live a good and positive life?

            We can all be somewhat hard of hearing when it comes to change. Scary is not even the word, depending on the change. Fear is usually at the forefront of events, and we have the most peculiar way of talking ourselves out of the most wonderful changes. You see with changes, all most of us see is the “change” part, and not what the future holds or the benefits of the change. So what we have to do is take a risk. Risk taking is not an event most people are comfortable with, and when you have to take them in your own space…well that becomes a challenge. 

My family not the most musical family on this planet, however we love to listen to the beautiful talent received by others. I spent some time in the last two weeks looking at the impact music has on my nearest and dearest. What was very interesting is how our whole being tends to change when we hear something pleasant. The body reacts to the sound immediately and the soul begins to embrace the positive emotions that are experienced. Ever notice how music allows you to just breathe?

Do you think that media and prosperity are linked? In our day-to-day life, media, some perhaps more positive than others, bombards us. We have news that has the ability to fuel most of us in terms of outrage, and we have gossip/ celeb media that can draw us in. So the negative gives us a feeling of frustration, outrage, anger etc. and then we have the gossip/celeb media that entice us to have an opinion, and this opinion has feelings attached to them as well, whether positive or negative. So what we can agree on is that, all that is portrayed in the media has an emotional impact if we choose for it to.

Now if we take the different emotions we experience into account only on media issues, excluding all other emotions we have in our daily space, concerning our work, home and family lives, we find that they are rather intense most of the time. If you are watching a devastating story about the murder of a young child, you become as enraged as the persons discussing the issue, you become the judge, jury and executioner all in that moment, sharing in the shock and horror of the event. If you happen to watch something a celebrity has done that you do not agree with, or was wearing something you did not approve of, this creates for you to have an opinion, judgment, and comment.

I was reading on of Dr. Wayne Dyre’s books and was reminded how we in ourselves co exists for lack of a better explanation. So when we refer to health, the manifestation of disease should be linked to all that is happening around us. Here are some thought on disease and perhaps you will agree with me perhaps not.

If you find yourself unwell with an aliment of sorts, it is often a good idea to search your life, space, environment and the general feeling about yourself. Where you are in your life at that particular point and time, has an impact on your body. If you find yourself in a space that is not ensuring that you live your best life, and does not make you smile or leaves you feeling discontent or in despair, your body responds to those emotions and thoughts many times leaving you feeling ill. When we experience trauma, or extreme differences between our loved ones, these have a tendency to manifest making the body ill to enlighten you that all is not well and balanced within your space. Illness is the body’s way of screaming at us to make a change so that we can bring into alignment the mind, body and spirt/soul.

SIM: Dr Leana, to begin, lets break the Ice a bit. In your youth, what were some activities that

you and your friends were involved in, that helped to build your identities as young

adults?

Leana: I think depending on the way you were brought up, you are automatically drawn to certain energies. As you grow, you may outgrow some energies and find attraction to others. That being said, when it comes to me I had quite the variety of energies around me, I had “good” friends and then what will be considered “bad”. I can honestly say I am very grateful for each person that has shared my life till date because I was taught balance. I had the best of both worlds in my opinion and knew I always had a choice. Our space was different when I was a youngster, electronics did not form part of my world so we spent a lot of time finding things to do, from movies, dinner, coffee’s, parties without drugs to telling scary stories in strange places (cemetery, dam, parks) in the middle of the night. Trust me walking to the car after these stories was quite the event. Each of the interactions builds who we are.

How can we “be the change”?

We so often want everything and everyone in our little world to change. If only the personnel in the office would be nicer to me…If only my husband would treat me better or do things for me …If only I had more friends… If only my children would listen to me…Does any of these statements sound familiar?

      I think we all struggle with attempting to align our lives with what we perceive to be our right way. The concern with this particular alignment would be to what you are aligning your world? The Ego, or the Source? In the questions I have asked, all have a very simple answer…Be the change you want to see. Doesn’t this sound easy! The truth of the matter is, change does take some effort, but like all things, it is doable. If the persons in the office are making your life difficult, identify what the action or the attitude is that is concerning to you. Once you have done so - be the change, once you become the change, your space will

automatically change.  An example: Your colleagues are not greeting you or ignoring you or perhaps they take credit for you work. In that case; greet first, friendly, audible and with a big smile, you will notice it is very difficult for someone to ignore you when you greet them properly, even more so when there are other people around. The ego is a hungry beast. If someone is taking credit for you work, find an alternative way of submitting the work so that there is no dispute where it came from. Do this kindly and you will have no further issues. There are always alternatives for each and every situation that is positive, and will have a positive result for all parties involved. Remember we wish harm to no other being.

I ask you, are we truly connected?

I, for one, am so very thankful for technology.  Personally, I think we are so privileged to have such a vast amount of information available, literally at our fingertips.  As with all things in life, too much of a good thing is also not conducive.  We have those souls who use technology for the more negative and darker side of life, souls operating from a more Ego centered space, rather than from spiritual connectedness, who are causing great destruction in the process.

As positive and productive as technology can be, I do think that it is the cause of great disconnectedness.

However, in the same breath, it has given us the opportunity to connect with anyone, anywhere, at any time.  With all the social media, we can connect with long lost friends and family, we have been enabled to search for family who, perhaps, we have never known. We are able to make friends with people who we would probably not even have glanced in a “real life” setting.  We have been empowered to grow more successful businesses as our audience has become global.  We now have the capacity to logon anywhere in the world, and to still be productive in terms of Employment Contracts. Medicine has excelled and information of new techniques can be shared globally; goodness, some organs can even be printed!  We are all connected all the time…aren’t we?

During the past 20 years I have spent most of my time learning who and why I am. I grew up in very religious home and family however I always found that I understood very little of what was taught in the bible or in Christianity. Later in life when my journey to self discovery started I realised that only once I learned to love who I was, would I understand that all things are connected and life would make sense to me.  I have learned from great masters. During my journey I came to learn that there are so many who are also on a journey to self discovery. In learning, I was also taught that we are not all at the same consciousness at the same time. This was quite the lesson for me and the result was that I was taught patience.