Tag: self-development

Book Review: “Soul Vows”, by Janet Conner

I occasionally peruse my bookshelves and look for “new” old books that I haven’t thought about in a while. “Soul Vows,” by Jannet Conner is a gem of a book that I did a lot of work with about six or seven years ago, and it’s struck me recently that this is a great book to read if you’re doing shadow work even though it’s technically not about shadow work at all.

Subtitled “Gathering the Presence of the Divine In You, Through You, and As You,” it comes across as a thoroughly spiritual book, not one with a psychological bent. …

Five Tips for Successful Journaling

Have you been intending to journal, but haven’t managed to do it? Do you wonder why something that seems so easy can be so hard? Here’s five tips for creating a successful journaling practice.

Pick the Right Journal

There’s so many journals out there that it’s hard to know which journal to pick. There’s leather ones, hand-bound ones, refillable journal covers, and even aside from that there’s the question of lined vs. unlined, or maybe graph paper or dot lined. It’s so complicated! What’s the right journal? The one you’ll use.

Fancy, gorgeous notebooks sometimes can be too intimidating to …

Tarot for Teddy: Finding a Mentor

Teddy was a bit busy and overwhelmed this month, but at the same time he was feeling kind of antsy with the onset of spring and warmer weather. Starting a new business with his duck friend reminded him of how good it was to take risks and learn new things, and he was wondering where in the rest of his life he might be overlooking the need to shine in some light and learn some new tricks.

I suggested we do a simple reading this time to give him some food for thought. We used the Wild Unknown deck with

Life Coach Question: How Do I Find a Teacher?

Finding a teacher isn't hard. Finding the right one is. There's so many choices now of ways to learn and who to learn from, that it's hard to know what's a good enough bet that you want to fork over your money. What do you do if you know you want to start studying something, but you're overwhelmed by the options? How can you tell if something is legitimate?

Here's some tips on finding the right setup for you:

  • Know your learning style - do you need the visual input of a blackboard or demonstrations, or can you learn from

The Hierophant

The Hierophant

The Hierophant is one of the more difficult cards to approach in the tarot. In many decks, it's a straight-laced, old, religious figure -- pretty much the uncoolest-looking pope you can imagine, or an old uncle who comes to Thanksgiving who smells 

like ancient aftershave and the crypts of the undead. In the Rider Waite Smith deck (a standard deck that a lot of people use) he's an aged religious figure in formal vestments raising some religious items over the head of two bald men. Personally, I have a little trouble relating to this. In more modern decks the cards

Tarot for Teddy: Uniting the Masculine and Feminine

Be the Balloon Tarot Spread

Last month Teddy came to me because he was starting a business with his duck friend Anatra and needed some help navigating that transition. When I checked in with him this month, he was unusually silent, even for a stuffed bear. I hoped things weren't going badly for him. 

"Everything's going just great," he said, ​and started to choke on his coffee.

Once he settled down, I asked him what he wanted to talk about. If everything was going well, what was bothering him?

"Well, that's the issue," he said. "Everything's changing, everything's better. But I don't know what to

Five Ways to Set and Maintaining Healthy Boundaries


On the Facebook groups I'm on, I commonly see questions about setting boundaries. Some people, especially empaths, worry about how to keep other people's energy from getting to them. Others just want to know how to keep other people from treating them like crap.

In order to set proper boundaries, we need to know what they are. Then, we need to know when we need one--and after that, how do we set and maintain them?

Boundaries are a really interesting concept that's best understood in terms of the expansion and contraction of the Empress and Emperor. Instead of a fence or a

Faces of Parenthood: The Empress and the Emperor



After he meets the High Priestess and the Magician, the Fool moves on to the Empress and Emperor, the more earthly, material faces of the feminine and masculine in the tarot. These are the parents, the queen and the king, the one who creates life and the one who makes sure the kingdom operates precisely.

This is a hard topic to discuss when, in our society, we are trying so hard to figure out gender and sexuality and power in a way that does not marginalize, pigeonhole, or colonize anyone. It's hard to figure out what these roles have to

Five simple ways to help hold yourself accountable

Around this time of year, we've made a number of resolutions and kept, well, maybe not all of them. Just because it's a new year doesn't mean we have any more skills for getting stuff done. Add in a lack of novelty and a stomach flu or two, and suddenly things aren't looking so good for our hero.

So one of the big questions people around now is about how to get more done and how to hold themselves accountable for the goals they set. How do you drop the guilt and just get stuff done again?​

Now, this can