2009 can be a rewarding year for you, if you are able and willing to make a space in your life for imagination, mystery and wonder. It’s about having the stamina and courage to chart your own course. You can begin to do this by listening to your desires. They can provide guidance for the personal path that you need to take.

You should know that your path is your very own, but by developing a willingness to listen to the language of your inner life, you can make your journey a little easier.  We’ve talked about some of the symbolism of the coming year, but only you can really define your world and what it means to you.

Being willing to listen to and understand your own personal symbols can be a great first step in beginning to open the rewards that your inner world has to offer you. Who knows what awaits you? Your path to unlocking the secrets of your internal world can take some stamina and determination, but with time and patience you will be able to learn which tools and techniques work best for you.

For instance, to better understand a recent dream, some people might simply talk with a close friend to better understand it. Others might draw or paint some of the images from the dream. Those people who are more physical might dance, sing or go for a long walk. Whatever helps you to connect with the power and symbolism of the dream, and really connect with your own inner world, can be a powerful and rewarding tool for you.

Are you ready? One of the first steps that you can take is to simply jot down the thoughts and ideas that are streaming through your mind during the day. As you continue to collect these thoughts, you may come to realize that many of them are deeply connected to long held personal desires! With time, these ideas and thoughts may also help you to understand and interpret your nightly dreams. You’ll be opening to the wonder of life by learning to listen to the words and music of your own soul.

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As 2009 corresponds to the number 11, it can be commonly associated with the Strength card in the Tarot. Although, a few Tarot decks do place this card at the #8 spot. The Strength card also corresponds to the astrological sign of leo.

The Strength card can relate to the positive personal qualities and characteristics around strength, persistence, determination, stamina, belief, and patience. This card can also be associated with inertia, hopelessness, ignorance, gluttony and doubt.

It’s best to work with your own Tarot deck to determine your own personal meanings for any card. For me, the Strength card can relate to situations where I may be able to overcome a challenge, especially if I am willing to ask for help. The Strength card has taught me that I can let go of the need to try to do everything myself, and allow others to step in and help if they are able. It was important for me to realize that others may want to be of service, but that they still have their own needs and obligations to fulfill.

To better understand 2009, you can work with the imagery and symbolism of the Strength card. You may also wish to ask some questions, such as:

 1. Does this card trigger an emotion for me?
 2. Does this card trigger any memories for me?
 3. What does the scene depicted on the card mean to me?
 4. Am I reminded of someone by this card?
 5. Does this card remind me of a particular situation in my own life?
 6. What can this card teach me?

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Within the world of Numerology the symbolism of 2009 relates to the number 11.  As 11 is a double digit of the same number it is known as a master number. Master numbers can alert you to powerful situations and great potential, but you must be willing to do the work that is necessary in order to truly receive any of the possible benefits that are represented by the number. You can’t expect to have a major breakthrough without doing the necessary work.

What does the number 11 mean to you? If you are old enough, you might remember watching the Apollo 11 moon landing. Canadian currency has 11:00 on the clocks depicted on their currency. In the world of sports, there are 11 players on the field for soccer, cricket and football. You might also think of the phrase: ‘11th hour’, which means ‘at the last minute.’  There are also many people who regularly wake up at night, or look up from their desks during the day, to see 1:11 or 11:11 on their clocks.

There are also specific dates that you might think of. When thinking about the number 11, many people might think of Remembrance day or Veterans day, which are celebrated on November 11th. We have also come to also associate 11 with September 11th.

The meanings that you have personally attached to the number 11, and to the number 1, can help you to determine the energy and potential of 2009. Within Numerology these numbers 1 represent ideals, change, creativity, independence, authority and power. But, your personal symbolism is important too!

The year 2009 may present you with fantastic opportunities to learn about authority, power and independence, especially if you are ready. If you have past situations or obstacles to deal with, then they may have to be dealt with first, before attempting any new challenges. However, this year can be a incredibly rewarding time to take on new and significant changes and challenges.

Tags: 2009 11 Independence Authority Creativity

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“Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. “ --- Michael Jordan

“I drew my strength from fear. Fear of losing. I don't remember the games I won, only the games I lost.” --- Boris Becker

Fear can be a an obstacle that delays or prevents you from living the life that you want. It can be paralyzing, but it doesn’t have to be. You’re only really stuck when you are struggling against the fear, rather than working with your strengths to overcome the fear.  The real truth is that at one time or another, we all experience and are driven by fear.

Fear is natural. It can be used to your benefit when you take some time to think about your fear and what it is really about.
When you actually spend some time thinking about your fears, you may realize that you are about to make a major decision or change in your life and you have not adequately planned for it. Or, perhaps you don’t feel like you have enough support.

Perhaps too, without fear, you might not seek out useful help and advice from friends, family and trusted counselors. Helpful feedback from those people who are important to you can help to set you on the right path.

Fear can also help us to identify and go after our real desires, rather than feeling trapped or stuck. But, first you’ll have to understand where it is coming from. What is the reason for your fear? Some possible reasons might be:

 - Fear of rejection
 - Fear of looking stupid
 - Fear of failure
 - Fear of success
 - Fear of being inadequate
 - Fear of not having enough

With fear, one of the most important ideas to keep in your mind is that nobody can tell you to feel a certain way. How you feel is up to you! It’s not about blocking out the fear, but finding a way to work with it.

For instance, if you are fearing rejection then you might find a way to provide support and safety for yourself after you go through with the event or activity that you fear. This could be a simple as having a friend to talk with, after you make a an important call that you have been worrying about. It’s about acknowledging your fear and finding a way to safely step forward.


“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot... and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's precisely why I succeed''. --- Michael Jordan

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"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be." --- Kurt Vonnegut

There may be times when you wear emotional masks to cope with what is happening in the world around you. You might feel overwhelmed, hurt or confused. You may hide your real emotions from others to try to keep your current situation under control. For instance, you may not want to stir up any trouble and it might might seem like the effort to explain how you actually feel will not be successful.

Just yesterday, I was having coffee with a friend. He got there early and had engaged in heated conversation with some other people. They were all involved in a lively discussion about local happenings.  I felt a little trapped as I sat down with my coffee, so I excused myself for a few moments. When I got back, after the others had left, my friend asked me why I had gone. I said that I wasn’t trying to avoid the discussion, and told him that I was indeed upset about the circumstances. But, I didn’t feel good about the conversation. It just didn’t feel right to me.

For this particular event, I decided not to act like everything was okay. In the past I might have simply sat down and held my true feelings in. There are times when we all might think that by hiding our feelings,  we can prevent some kind of argument, rejection, or judgement from happening. But, these fears most often exist only in our imagination. And, internalizing our emotions can cause personal problems, like stress and anger, later on.

In his book, "A Natural History of Human Emotions", Stuart Walton writes "I invite the reader to dwell on the active and passive forms our emotions may take, for it seems increasingly important that we be vigilant about the ways in which they are evoked - by whom and for what purposes. Once they have been misdirected in a particular context, it can prove extraordinarily difficult to reorientate them."

By giving yourself permission to look at, and eventually lift away, your masks, you're giving yourself permission to be human. You're giving yourself permission to honor your emotions. Please understand that it may take time to look at all of the masks that you wear. When you remove one, another mask that you hadn’t thought about may be underneath. But this is all a part of being human. With patience and compassion you can gradually get to know the real you.

Tags: Identity Personality Compassion Connection Relationship Feelings Emot

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“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” --- James Arthur Baldwin

Within our daily lives many of us may portray certain parts of our personalities in different social situations. We’ve compartmentalized and created our own personal masks to help us present particular facets of ourselves to others. At a party the first question many ask is, “What do you do?” It’s an icebreaker. But, we might use the question to stay hidden.

I can easily fall into the habit of being “technical answer guy” and that is the mask I’ll wear, and forget I even have it on. I may even feel some comfort from it. I forget to question what is beneath my mask. Looking beneath your mask can be hard work. You might even find more masks. As I challenge myself to look beneath mine, I’m beginning to see that I often try to connect with others through action. If I can be doing something, I feel needed, purposeful and important.

Within Numerology, you can utilize the Outer Number to look at your personal masks. The Outer Number represents how others see you. You might wonder what you let others see. But, more importantly, how others see you really depends in how you see yourself.

Tags: Identity Personality Compassion Connection Relationship Feelings Emot

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“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

Today, many of us may be forced to face abusive verbal assaults on a regular basis. We do ourselves a disservice when we try to dismiss the hurtful words, by saying things like “It’s okay,” or “He doesn’t know what he is saying,” or “I’m too sensitive.” Verbal abuse can be defined as words meant to sting. The words can psychologically hurt an individual. And, more importantly, this abuse is destructive and damaging to your inner spirit. More often than not, the abuser will coerce the victim into believing that the words have real merit. Your faith in yourself can deteriorate. When we are weakened we can come to believe in these words that are hurled at us, wether they are true or not.

If you watch any amount of television, you might be bombarded with themes from popular shows that make “put downs”, ridicule, criticism or other forms of verbal abuse seem normal. We see the people on the screen accepting whatever hurtful words come their way. Although it didn’t necessarily emphasize hurting the people you love, the television series, ‘All in the Family’, may have really opened the door for these verbal attack themes. But, there is ample verbal abuse to hear in more modern shows like ‘The Office’.

Verbal abuse, no matter how innocent or tame it might seem, is destructive, painful and incredibly stressful. Breaking away from this abuse, is about honoring yourself. Breaking away, means that you want more for yourself. It’s about being conscious of your own words too.

As you probably know, recent research shows that stress has significant impact on our bodies ability to heal itself. This means that getting away from verbal abuse can not only help you to heal psychologically, but physically as well. In one study it was discovered that individuals who had trouble expressing their darker feelings and emotions were more likelier to need more time for effective wound healing.

In Numerology there might not be a more effective personal tool than your Maturity Number, when you are dealing with verbal abuse in an intimate relationship. It can be very useful in opening a safe dialogue for older couples, especially those over the age of 35 or 40. When you are feeling upset, you may typically vent your anger at your partner. You might not even know why you feel the way that you do. And if you don’t know why, then your partner might not either.

You might be facing a difficult personal challenge, but not know how to put the need for a certain accomplishment into words. Healthy relationships provide the space and time for discussions about needs, personal goals and dreams. Older couples may have come to realize that they need to find outside help and support. Next time, before you unleash a barrage of words that can be draining or hurtful, try to find a way to discuss, or work with, how you feel instead. You may also want to try to find ways to relieve stress as a couple. Yes, sex can relieve stress, but you might wish to try yoga, art therapy, journaling or meditation. Perhaps, by finding tools to help you relieve stress and honestly discussing how you feel you may be able to nurture your relationship and help it, and you, to grow to a new level.






Perceived stress and cortisol levels predict speed of wound healing in healthy male adults.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15110929

Stress Substantially Slows Human Body's Ability To Heal
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/wounheal.htm

Tags: Emotions Numerology Stress Healing

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I have been looking at ways to bring more simplicity into my life. Perhaps, you have too. Recently I've had some exciting thoughts about simplicity. What about simplifying your life on the inside? When we declutter we look for ways to make our external lives much simpler. We work diligently to clean up our homes, but we don't think about looking within.

Internal decluttering might mean that we look inside and look at the thoughts and emotions that are in constant motion. We can often let our minds fill with things like worry, doubt, or fear. We might tell ourselves that there is nothing we can do about our nagging and persistent mind chatter. And yet, simply sitting or being in silence might be an easy answer for our active minds, and our desire for simplicity.

You don't even have to meditate regularly to work with silence. You might start to allow for silence by beginning to unplug. Perhaps, you could turn off your electronic distractions for a few hours a week. This means turning off and stepping away from your television, computer, radio, mp3 player, clocks and phone. Turn them all off. Yes, even the clocks! Put down, and put away the newspaper, magazines and your books too. This includes bookkeeping, bills and paperwork; which you'll come back to.

This process might be challenging at first. But, I encourage you to set an intention to create time for silence in your life. You don’t need to do much beyond the unplugging. You might even be surprised at how easy it is to do. Once everything is unplugged and you have removed the other distractions, you can simply be silent. Sit, lie down, or walk around.

Be in the silence. How does it feel? What do you think about in the silence? Let whatever thoughts or feelings that you have come and go. If you wish, you could work with a journal. But, don’t journal if it is distracting. The simpler this process is for you, the better. Enjoying the silence can be enough. Be in the quiet. Be in the silence.

There it is. Silence. You are now one step closer to learning how to meditate. If you do not meditate regularly, then you might have wondered about how you could begin. Now you know. Now you can see that meditating doesn’t have to be as complicated or as big a task as you thought. It can be as simple as finding a moment to be in silence. And, it can be a great way to relieve stress and anxiety.

You can do this as a regular practice. Once a week, or as often as you like, turn everything off and clean up your living space. Put away the books. Recycle the newspapers. File your paperwork. You’ve begun to declutter!

As you make progress, you’ll find that it becomes faster and easier to clean up, turn everything off, and unplug. Give yourself the permission to sit in silence. Gradually you’ll develop a greater appreciation for it. When your life becomes cluttered and chaotic, one of the most powerful steps that you can take is to welcome the simplicity of silence.

Tags: Peace Calm Serenity Silence Meditation

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“What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.” -- Tolstoy

Compatibility
What does it mean to be compatible with a partner? Many people believe that "opposites attract". Often, when we follow this belief, we seek a partner with traits, pursuits, desires and interests that are completely different than our own. Unfortunately, this might not be the best way to develop any relationship that is lasting, supportive and healthy.

Sharing similar beliefs and interests can make your time together much more enjoyable. Sharing time with others, whether socially or romantically, involves some give-and-take and compromise. It takes a willingness to look for ways in which you can connect and develop your relationship. This means that you can be compatible and forge relationships with others when you share common values and interests, and you’re willing to consciously work on the relationship.

A relationship really is a connection between people. Your connection might be business, social, physical, romantic, sexual, spiritual, or a blending of many of them. We need to find balance and blend these aspects in our intimate relationships to foster our compatibility. At times, we might neglect our inner or outer need for some of these aspects.

If you are in a committed and long-term relationship, especially marriage, and you neglect parts of your relationship then it can eventually suffer. It can be very stressful for couples who don’t find differents ways to grow and develop together. All the facets and aspects of our relationships are important. Today, couples get caught in the trap of forgetting the importance of developing different aspects in their relationship and might think that they are too busy to be social, romantic or sexual. They might only be so caught up in the glamour of the social world that their relationship is only socially based. For other couples, their work lives get so hectic that they gradually become more isolated from their social networks.

One very interesting research project that has been looking at the way in which marriages and couples work is the PAIR Project. It began in 1981 and it involves the study of how the couples worked out their long term problems. Two interesting findings from the project are:

* The extent of differences in tastes and ideas among couples does not predict divorce.

* Some couples bury their concerns over such differences; others brood over them. Those who brood are more likely to divorce.


Ultimately, the interests, beliefs, similarities and personality traits that attract you to a partner may change and not hold up over time. This might be fine if you are still dedicated and willing to work on supporting and developing your relationship.

When you meet your partner the two of you might both share an avid interest in hiking. Over time, one partner might develop knee problems and begin to dislike the pain that long hikes bring. You might make a comprise together for the good of the relationship. Perhaps, you can continue to hike together by taking shorter trips. Perhaps, you can develop other interests together.

We've all had, or experienced, relationships in which the partners couldn't or wouldn't make compromises. One such relationship that I had in the past, involved a woman who really enjoyed remodeling work. It consumed much of her free time. She almost lived and breathed to be able to make repairs to old furniture and would often sell or give it away. It was her passion! Yet, looking for the furniture, or making the repairs just wasn't for me. We struggled to find a way to find a spend time together through compromise. With maturity, I think that I have learned more about sacrifices and being able to bend and make adjustments in relationship.

Often when a compromise can’t be reached, many of us think that we no longer share similar interests and are now incompatible, which may lead you to end the relationship. We all change. Compatibility really is a process and it's something you create together. It’s about negotiating and adjusting as you go along. You need to be willing to consciously examine your connection and approach to one another. Ideally, it’s about having compassion for each another, and seeing one another in a positive light and being willing and able to truly know another individual.

Tags: Relationships Compromise Interests Beliefs

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