A Humanitarian Appeal This Christmas

Hello Chickpeas! This year my family is doing something new for Christmas. Rather than give and receive presents that we don't really need, each of us is going to make a donation to a charity of our choice This is mine: I heard about it when a friend emailed to ask for help. You'll find her email below. If you aren't familiar with the crisis in Venezuela please click on the link below: 

 25% of Venezuela's children are malnourished 
~ The Guardian

Dear friends,

As you are probably aware, the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela continues to worsen and its impact on the population, especially children from low income households, is truly dramatic.  

The situation is heartbreaking, but watching it with your own eyes is even sadder. This is why we are supporting #AlimentaLaSolidaridad (which translates to #FeedingSolidarity) a program that does an extraordinary job providing lunch to little ones, who without this support, could go without food for days. These kids not only feel hunger, but their development is being threatened.  We are looking for people wanting to show solidarity with these Venezuelan children.

Last Sunday, we heard the testimony of Alba, a teacher of Carapita (a very poor neighborhood in Caracas). She had a hard time telling us what it feels like living there, her tears could not let her speak. Alba began the school year in October 2015 with 32 children in her classroom; by March only 3 were left. The children’s moms were not sending kids to school because they didn’t have anything to feed them with and so, many would faint in school.  

Parents would rather force their children to sleep until mid-morning to reduce hours of activity and avoid listening to their starving complaints. Alba, distraught over the situation in her classroom, was lucky to find #AlimentaLaSolidaridad, headed by Roberto Patiño and that seeks to, among many other things, feed children in low income areas of Caracas (you can watch other testimonials and read more details below). Thanks to this program, Alba's community is now feeding 120 kids.  

Having seen the results of this organization, we would like to invite you to participate with your donation to allow Roberto and his team to continue this program and reach many other neighborhoods that are in need. USD 0.6 is the cost of one meal per child per day, and USD 12 is the cost per month.   

Any donation would be more than welcome.

Please us this link:

https://www.gofundme.com/alimenta-la-solidaridad-venezuela 

We thank you in advance for any support you can give,

Daniela and Guillo

Image Source: Arianna Cubillos (via Guardian.co.uk)

***

Regina Chouza is an energy healer, angel medium and the author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. Blogging at Diary of a Psychic Healer since 2010, her passion is bringing the qualities of love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuits. Read her books to unlock your intuition. 

Instagram ~ Facebook ~ Youtube

> Español: @AngelMedium33

The Winds of Change Are Blowing

Hello Chickpeas! I have been thinking... 

It has been three years since I left London and moved to Mexico; nearly four since I quit my job in marketing to become a Healer. People often ask if I miss London and I don't miss it (even though I do miss my friends there), but oddly enough, what I miss most is corporate life. Who would have thought it was possible? But yes, it is true =) 

I miss the routine of having a 9 to 5, the marketing meetings, and even the headaches that went with the job. I always did my best in crisis situations, thanks to my astrological shadow (Mars in Leo) which makes it easy for me to take the lead when things go haywire. If you are wondering where this line of thought is going, I have decided that it is time for me to go back to the business world, where I hope to apply that quirky blend of logic, intuition and drive, as I have done in the past. 

The past four years have been truly wonderful - they gave me the opportunity to meet amazing people all over the world, online and off. Top of mind is the wonderful team at the Community Cancer Center in London, and of course all of the wonderful human beings who cheered me on as I self-published both of my self-healing books, helping me tweak the blurb, choose the right cover and get it out there! I couldn't have done without your help and support. And of course, the countless workshop attendees, my healing clients and so many others who also share their own light.  

This Diary of a Psychic Healer blog will still be around, especially in the weeks or months while I job hunt. I will eventually take a sabbatical, as it has been six years of weekly updates, but I'll be sure to share my thoughts in the long run as writing keeps me sane. If you have been thinking of booking a coaching session, I would encourage you to do so, because private readings and healings may not be available in 2017. 

As for the online lessons to complement my new Chakra Healing & Magick book, rather than host live sessions, I plan on prerecording classes and leaving them up indefinitely, for those of you who would like more guidance than the Chakra Healing book offers. To my friends in Mexico - please stay in touch as weekly meditations are likely to continue informally, with friends and fellow Healers leading the sessions.

Let's end with an idea - they say the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, and the realist adjusts the sails. I can't complain about the wind as it has been propelling me forward for a good ten years, but it is still time for a change. I sincerely hope you will follow me on this new phase of my life's journey! 

Stay tuned and please wish me luck! 

Reiki hugs, 

Regina

***

Regina Chouza is an energy healer, angel medium and the author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. Blogging at Diary of a Psychic Healer since 2010, her passion is bringing the qualities of love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuits. Read her books to unlock your intuition. 

Instagram ~ Facebook ~ Youtube

> Español: @AngelMedium33

Image: canva.com (Updated July 2021)

Reaching Enlightenment Through Dreams

Hello Chickpeas, 

This week’s post is based on a book that I am currently reading: The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche. It is a fantastic read and not the least bit depressing, despite the fact that it is meant to prepare us for the unknown. The chapter I am on now looks at dream states and how the phases we go through while we sleep are similar to the soul's journey when we cross over.

In the Buddhist worldview, the transitional period that comes in the moments after we die (referred to as a bardo) presents a unique chance to pierce the illusions of the mind and become enlightened. Unfortunately, it will also be a new experience for most of us. Even if you believe in reincarnation, very few remember going through that experience. I know I have no recollecting of being born, or of dying.

So how would we prepare for such an event? And how can we be sure that our state of mind will be "with it" enough that we will be conscious of what is going on; that we won't be scared, confused or in a daze? If that moment is our best chance at breaking free from Samsara - the endless cycle of death and rebirth - what can we do about it?

Enlightenment Through Dreams

I do not have a complete answer to this question, but I will come back to you as I continue reading. The author tells us that our dream states are similar enough to the bardos that we can practice mindfulness while we sleep to prepare for the unknown. 

There are several key phases to watch out for:

• When we are just dozing off. 
• When we are sleep but haven't begun dreaming.
• When we are actively dreaming.
• When we begin to wake up.

The biggest opportunity to prepare for the bardos is when we are asleep but not yet dreaming. Personally, I've never been self-aware at that stage but I imagine that adopting a daily mindfulness or meditation practice could help us become conscious in our sleep, though I am not sure how it would come about. The book hints at something called sleep yoga but has yet to explain what it is. 

A quick aside - if you'd like to remember your dreams, that last phase when we are coming out of sleep is the best time to remember them. We can take advantage of this by setting our alarm 10 minutes before we need to get up and jotting down our dreams.  Just be sure to set another alarm in case you fall asleep again. Try it out for yourself!

Similarities With Lucid Dreaming

Mindfulness can also help us with  lucid dreaming; when we are aware that a dream is a dream and we can then decide to fly or to walk through walls, etc. The theory is that by becoming aware of our thoughts during our waking hours and shining a light on the unconscious, including ideas, fears and scenarios that it may fabricate, our unconscious mind begins to lose its grip on our dreams. 

When we realize that a dream is a dream, we can take control of the dream and create our own adventure.  It is meant to be fun and while I have not tried it for myself, I would certainly love to know how it feels. On another note, if we know that a dream is a dream, does that mean we could also do away with the fiction and see what is actually real?

Disconnecting From the Matrix

Have you ever though that life is the dream, and that when we sleep, we wake up? I still have a lot to learn about consciousness, but I have a hunch that lucid dreaming and meditation can help us disconnect from the matrix and see things clearly. Maybe that is what enlightenment is about; seeing things for what they really are.

This is very much a student's "diary entry" as I am just beginning to explore these topics. Please get in touch if you have read this wonderful book or if you have studied lucid dreaming, consciousness, or Buddhism for yourself. And stay tuned for part two in a few weeks as I continue to read The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying.

Hopefully we will have some answers soon. For now, ask your guardian angel to help you fall asleep tonight with a bit of consciousness. And set your alarm clock a little bit earlier than usual so that you can start to become aware of your dreams.

***

Regina Chouza is an energy healer, angel medium and the author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. Blogging at Diary of a Psychic Healer since 2010, her passion is bringing the qualities of love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuits. Read her books to unlock your intuition. 

Instagram ~ Facebook ~ Youtube

> Español: @AngelMedium33

Volunteering Is Good For the Soul

So the big election is finally here (couldn't come soon enough) and while the world's attention is focused on the elections, for many, the outcome is overshadowed more pressing circumstances in their lives. I was reminded of this last week when I began volunteering at at a hospital here in Mexico: teaching meditation and offering "listening sessions" to cancer patients and their families.  

Volunteering: Chicken Soup For the Soul

I am enrolled in a Kabbalistic Astrology class where we learn to balance our personalities based on our time of birth. One of my ruling planets is focused on social harmony, philanthropy and volunteering. The teacher suggested that I can integrate my energy by "volunteering" my time. 

The funny thing is that a month ago I met someone who worked at a local cancer hospital and when I told them that I taught meditation and had volunteered with cancer patients in London, they had me come in for an interview.  

Everything moved quickly and a week later I was volunteering. I was blessed with the opportunity to lead a group of patients through a meditation and while they cared little for the results of the elections in any country, one in particular was understandably anxious about the results of a PET scan in a few weeks. This is one of the situations where meditation and energy healing come in handy, especially if we use visualisation tools to consciously release stress from our mind and body. 

A Simple Stress Relief Meditation

In this case, I suggested we use visualisation to clear and release the emotions held in the upper abdomen, where most of us tend to feel butterflies when we are nervous, or anxiety in more extreme situations. It is also where we find our Solar Plexus Chakra. Energy healing isn't on the hospital's list of approved complementary therapies but meditation is, so we carried out this simple guided visualisation:  

• Sit quietly with your your hands in your lap. Take three deep breaths, visualising white light on the intake and gold on the way out. 

• Use your imagination to visualise a white star hundreds of thousands of milles above your head - somewhere in the Milky Way. Connect with that star, and visualise a ray of light coming down to meet you. 

• That light enters the top of your head, flows down to your Heart. It overflows from your Heart, flowing down your arms to your hands. 

• Bring your hands to your upper abdomen and visualise that light dissolving any stress, worries or tension as it is released from your body. 

• When you are done, visualise the star's light wrapping you in a ray of love and protection.  Let any emotions absorbed from others sink into the ground beneath you, as your mind and body relax.

In this setting I couldn't talk about energy healing because the word healing could confuse patients who are looking to heal from a specific disease, but it is easy to explain the stress relief benefits of meditation if we think about how our subconscious holds onto everything we experience. By engaging in these visualisations we are giving our mind (as well as the physical body) permission to release that stress and tension. This simple meditation had an immediate effect and we can repeat it at home easily. It is a simple tool that we can also use in other situations. 

A Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love 

Three years ago I published a book on energy healing, meditation and how various techniques can help cancer patients and their families find healing on mental, emotional and spiritual levels. It also looks at complementary therapies that can be used in combination with medical care to address what we could call energetic, emotional or spiritual risk factors for disease. Find it in the Bookstore, HERE.

Reiki hugs, 

Regina  

***

Regina Chouza is an energy healer, angel medium and the author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. Blogging at Diary of a Psychic Healer since 2010, her passion is bringing the qualities of love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuits. Read her books to unlock your intuition. 

Instagram ~ Facebook ~ Youtube

> Español: @AngelMedium33

Image: www.canva.com (added 2021)

 

Healing, Halloween and Family Constellations

Happy Halloween Everyone! 

As you know I moved back to Mexico two years ago. Here we celebrate Day of the Dead on November 1st; a night when we celebrate and remember the dearly departed family members. As an energy healer, I have learned that honoring, blessing and working through issues in our family line is very important. My blog post today is fit for Dia de los Muertos. 

A few weeks ago I stood in as an extra at a healing session that looks like theatre work, but turned out to be a form of mediumship or channeling - you may have heard of the system known as family constellations. It was a weird experience and personally, I am not sure that I enjoy the process although I certainly see the benefit for the person receiving the healing. 

There are situations where healing has to go beyond the person receiving the healing as an individual, so that we can heal an issue that "runs in the family" whether the symptom being healed is a physical illness that appears to be hereditary, or behavioural patterns, belief systems and even emotional wounds that handicap us. An example might be the pain that is handed down through the family when one of the ancestors (say a great-grandparent) was an alcoholic, and how subsequent family members act out that same pattern until the trait is healed and released. 

There are different techniques for these healing and "constellations" are one of them - a technique that was new to me (more on that in a second). 

At the School of Intuition & Healing we learned to carry out ancestral healing sessions where the Healer calls on the spirits of the parents, grandparents and great grandparents on either side, and sends healing to the one who requests it or who needs it most - while also having a dialogue with them on a telepathic level so that we can gain clarity on the issue at hand. Once that issue has been addressed, the healing light flows down from that ancestor to all of his descendants, including the Healee, essentially clearing and healing the issue so that it is no longer replicated down the line.

With family constellations, a similar process unfolds albeit in a theatrical way. Volunteers are brought in to represent the different people involved in the conflict or issue, as well as energies, such as "Femininity" or "Abundance" or "Empowerment." If for example, the client feels that her relationship with her husband, her father and other significant men in her life block her from feeling "empowered" then a volunteer might represent "male energy" as a whole as well as specific people standing in for the different family members. 

The volunteers feel the energy of the person being represented and share it with the person receiving the healing. The goal is to eventually realise that the people we share our lives with do the best they can, with the tools and insecurities that they are given so that we can eventually accept and forgive them for their mistakes - healing through that forgiveness. 

I was called on to stand in for a grandparent and was blown away by how the grandparent's energy blended with mine so that all I felt was love for the client, despite the fact that the client in question felt "judgement" where there was none. It showed us how we place filters on our relationships and the way that we experience people may have more to do with us than with them. It took a lot of role playing, dialogue and many many attempts at communicating the love from the grandparent before they finally come to an understanding. 

On my side it felt like "mediumship theatre" and while the session was very helpful for the person who received it, I can't say that I enjoyed the process because mediumship (channeling departed loved ones) has never been one of my hobbies; I'm not a fan of that energy. Even so,  the healing modality appears to work well and I would recommend it if you are looking to heal dynamics in the family, especially with people who are no longer there or can't be dialogued with (if they're not talking, etc). 

I would love to hear from you if you have tried constellation work - did you enjoy the process and was it beneficial for you?  Would you recommend it? Please comment below! Here is a snapshot from Dia de los Muertos, in 2014. 

Also, if you're wondering, the man in the painting is the Lebanese saint known as San Charbel. He was a mystic and I believe also a healer. In Mexico, San Charbel is hugely popular for miracles of healing, and just miracles in general. If you would like to learn more about him, read: Miracles, Ribbons and San Charbel. 

Reiki hugs, 

Regina 

                                   

***

Regina Chouza is an energy healer, angel medium and the author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. Blogging at Diary of a Psychic Healer since 2010, her passion is bringing the qualities of love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuits. Read her books to unlock your intuition. 

Instagram ~ Facebook ~ Youtube

> Español: @AngelMedium33

Photo by my mom (a wonderful photographer).