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What’s the Cost of Being a Private Person?

By on May 17, 2012 in palmistry, Personal Development, Relationships, Spirituality

Heart lines have bucketloads of information just waiting to be understood and examined.  I’m in the process of launching a series a videos (free, btw) all about how Heart Lines really “work” in our lives.

It’s not all about romance and roses – to me, heart lines are the central focus of how we ARE in the world.  Our heart lines determine how we communicate, how we react to others’ communication and of course how we express ourselves.

I’ve long considered myself a very outgoing yet PRIVATE person.  I can talk your ear off about just about any topic that I’m jazzed about, but when it comes to really talking about how I feel — I’m quick to dance around the topic and put the spotlight back on you.  This trait is shared by a number of my nearest and dearest friends.  I guess it’s true that “like attracts like.”

You might ask, “If you’re all so guarded, how can you really consider yourselves friends?”

Over the years (close to 20 now) we’ve built up trust in each other’s ability to hold our secrets dear and, for me at least, I’m learning that sharing what’s really going on — deep down – is definitely preferable than putting on a mask, faking it or carrying the weight of whatever the challenge may be all by myself.  You might say that in 20 years I’ve grown up.

What’s interesting is that my heart lines have slowly changed over the last 7+ years — from a very solid “Strong and Silent” or Hermit line on both hands to one with a little more curviness.  On my right hand, the heart line is starting stretch out into a Nurturer!

You see, a Strong and Silent heart line wants and craves privacy.  To feel safe, even in the most intimate relationships, someone with this heart line will crave plenty of solitude and ‘cave-time.’  If they find themselves in a career that calls for them to be open and social, they may need twice as much cave-time when they come home at night.  The combination of a Strong and Silent heart line and career that calls for “being on” leads to the phenomena that I refer to as “outgoing introvert syndrome.”

Not only did I have two Strong & Silent Heart lines, but I also have a life lesson (in other words I’m getting a PhD in the subject) around trust, intimacy and surrender issues.

Cool right?  I taught myself from a very young age to use my outgoing personality to avoid any in-depth or potentially ‘intimate’ conversations.  I’ve always craved cave-time and I spent years beating myself for getting close to people who hurt me.  All part of the PhD process though!

Nowadays, one of my favorite things to do is gather with my BFFs and talk and laugh.  And really share with each other.  We don’t let each other get away with deflections.  We return to the subject at hand and we simply hold space for each other to be fully present.

This is, of course, the work I do in my business.

However, when my business was challenged and I had a hard time attracting my perfect clients, I now realize it was due to my belief that honoring someone else’s privacy was more important than holding space for them to be vulnerable.  We always attract what we’re putting out to the world.  As long as I was withholding my truth, so were my clients and those who were attracted to me as potential clients.

When you enter into a relationship of any sort, the most scary thing for you (particularly if you have Strong and Silent heart lines) is to be fully open and vulnerable.  Still if you’re looking for breakthroughs and guidance – the only way through is in being vulnerable.

This privacy thing isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation.  You need to reflect on where you feel safe and where you don’t.  When you feel unsafe, spend some time in stillness and ask yourself what it would take to feel secure.  From there you can move forward.

What started my shift was my deep desire to make a true and lasting difference in the world.  One person and one animal at a time.  The still small voice that guides me gently pointed out that in order to make a difference in the world, I’d need to make a difference for me – and challenge my own fears of intimacy.  I had to let go of my belief that I was rude and out of line when I wanted to ask friends and clients what was TRULY happening with them.  I also had to be willing to find people I could trust and to share my truth with them.

The whole thing hasn’t been easy and I’ve definitely released information to the wrong people or shared more than necessary – but each time, I learn something.

I’m curious — do you consider yourself a private person?  How has that helped or hindered you in your life?  Share with me in the comments!

 

photo by: exquisitur
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One of the things I’m Most Proud Of

By on May 10, 2012 in Personal Development, Relationships, Spirituality, Success

 

The thing I am MOST proud of in my life (this far) is my tender, funny, and passionate relationship with my soul-mate, Michael.  (that’s us at my baby sister’s wedding 2 years ago)

Before I met Michael I had a history of consistently dating the WRONG person. 

Over and over again.  I seemed to have been born believing that I didn’t deserve love and couldn’t trust anyone but myself.  So you know what I did?  I kept picking men that would prove that sad belief TRUE.

My challenges around relationships were so deep-seated that I even got married.  Twice.  (to different fellas, if you’re wondering).

After my first divorce I swore off marriage and dating.  I felt like a failure and damaged goods.  To top it off, I was also very much frozen in place by the belief that I had let people down by not “sticking it out” or “fixing” the problem.  I worried about him, his family, my family and even the slew of colleagues and friends of friends I ran into in our relatively small community.

While I knew in my heart that I’d done the right thing for myself I was feeling incomplete without a man in my life. 

You see, I’d been a ‘serial monogamist’ since falling for my first real boyfriend in 8th grade.  I was that girl who annoys the other girls by always having a boyfriend.  I told myself that I couldn’t help it – it wasn’t my fault if boys, and then men, found me attractive and good company.  The brutal truth was, I liked the attention more than I liked myself.  I’m definitely not the first woman who believed that her value only came from the opinions of others.  I could only see myself as beautiful, funny, smart and valuable through the eyes of a beau.

My second husband seemed nothing like the first.  Not only in looks but in demeanor, drive and passion.  I let myself believe that his dynamic personality would make up for the fact that I didn’t trust him.  I wanted to believe that his ability to provide and shower me with compliments and things was enough to make up for any cold feet that I might be having.

I convinced myself that my occasional sense that he wasn’t the right guy for me – was simply a result of my habit of picking the wrong guy.  My ability to trust my higher self was so out of whack that even though I had a strong desire to call off the wedding 6 weeks before the Big Day, I gave in when he called me on my reticence.  After all, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

No wonder that marriage didn’t survive. 

Not only were we incompatible on many fundamental levels, but I had completely lost my sense of self.  I no longer trusted my intuition and barely listened to my own needs.  I looked to him for validation and when he withheld it I’d either get mad and resentful, or I’d become overly apologetic and obsequious.

After that divorce, I wanted to curl up into the fetal position and snuggle at home all day with my two dogs and my cat.  For better or worse, that wasn’t feasible.  I had a business to run.  I had people who depended on me.  So I pulled myself up and kept moving.

I realized that I was the common denominator in the failed marriages and all the various relationship disasters I’d had in my life.  I started to see the pattern in each relationship and I accepted my responsibility for creating that pattern.  And slowly, I got on board with the knowledge that to be loved, you must fully love yourself.

Rather than beat myself up I decided to regroup.  Emotionally and spiritually and physically. 

Unlike Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame, I didn’t have the opportunity to travel the world in search of clarity and healing.  Like Elizabeth Gilbert, I was willing to own my part in creating my life and to make a conscious effort to get to the bottom of the cycle.

In a year’s time, I walked myself through a process that healed me, allowed me to see my own value and opened the connection to my higher self.  Taking specific and daily steps to create love for myself resulted in attracting Michael into my life.

Now one of the things I do in my business is help other divorced women reconnect to their highest wisdom so that they can attract their perfect match.  We work together through the exact same process that I used myself to free up the place in their hearts for true, soul-mate love.

I’d love to provide you with the guidance you need as you transition in your committed relationship.  Why not subscribe to my ezine (use the box in the top right hand column)? You’ll get weekly insights, tips and guidance to help you connect with your purpose and passions, learn to recognize your own brilliance and find ways to serve yourself!

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What’s a Mystic Cross?

By on April 13, 2012 in Hand Analysis, palmistry, Questions about Palmistry, Spirituality

I came up in a school of palmistry that didn’t talk about the Mystic Cross at all.  Still, it’s hard to study hands and read as much about palmistry and hand analysis as I do and not come across references to this mystical marker.

The more I read about it and the more I looked at my own hands I realized that I do have one of these!  In fact, I’ve had it for as long as I’ve been studying hands.

During my certification process we identified it as a marker of change and upheaval in my life occurring in or or around my 41st year.  (talking about time lines in hands is another BOOK, much less post, so I won’t get into it right now.)

The above identification made sense.  In my 41st year my entire life changed – dramatically.  I knew it was coming and it was underway when we made the identification during my certification process.  The culmination came later that year, but since I don’t believe in coincidences, I assumed that a cross between a head and heart line, with it’s center point directly below the Saturn (middle) finger would always indicate some sort of massive life change.

(If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that I believe that change is inevitable – neither good or bad – so you might as well lean into it.)

Massive life change isn’t the easiest sort of change to lean into, but boy was it worth it. (hindsight, you know).

Fast forward a few (cough SIX cough) years and suddenly I’m getting more and more questions from curious readers about a Mystic Cross.  I wrote the questions off and responded from my belief that this cross more accurately reflected a life-change around the early 40s.  (me?! a non-predictive palmist – predicting change at a certain date? I’m still embarrassed!)

But I couldn’t really shake this Mystic Cross mystery so I went back through my library of palmistry tomes and started really digging into the meaning of a Mystic Cross.  Most books (and websites you’ll find) simply state it’s an indicator of psychic ability, which is probably why I wrote it off at first – I feel strongly that EVERYONE has psychic ability.

Then I started to meditate on that – what if a Mystic Cross is a type of gift marking?  What if a Mystic Cross appeared on your hand to remind you that you got an extra dose of this intuitive/psychic/mystical/alchemical gift in order to go deeply into your purpose and service in the world?  What if it showed up when you were NOT using it to it’s fullest advantage and you had a penalty to work through? (oy)

Ahhh, that made sense.

And this new understanding worked in alignment with the life change thing too.  While the massive life change I  made was not overtly related to stepping into this work – the timing was ‘coincidental’.

Having a Mystic Cross all these years I’m now (FINALLY) rethinking how I am in the world.

The Mystic Cross is in the center of the red circle (c) 2012 Peggie Arvidson

 

I’ve never been one of those believers with a big B.  I’m not a person who goes to a psychic already enamored of the wisdom they’ll bestow on me.  I’m intrigued by things mystical and other-wordly, but I face them all with a skeptic’s eye and a strong need for authentication.  Frankly, I’m the Doubting Thomas of the Psychic World.

Still.  I can’t shake the idea that a Mystic Cross shows up to push us into accepting and using in a BIG way our intuitive gifts.  It shows up to require us to explore not only what is seen, but what is unseen, and to face the fear of mockery and ostracism that can come along with that particular type of pursuit of answers.

A Mystic Cross to me means more than simply dabbling in the magical arts for giggles and entertainment, it means stepping deeply into the quest for spiritual truth and answers.  Finding those answers and making peace with the spiritual, natural and material world is the gift of the Mystic Cross.

Now that I’m coming to terms with it, I’m eager to embrace it (and stop fighting against it) and see how it can help amplify my service in the world.

Do you have a Mystic Cross?  What’s been your experience?

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Freeing the Soul to Grow

By on February 24, 2012 in Personal Development, Spirituality

“Compassion needs space because love needs a place of unimpeded encounter between grace and nature.  In a world crowded by information, we need to find space for the soul to grow.” ~ From Compassion: Living in the Spirit of St. Francis by Ilea Delio, OSF

Finding space for the soul to grow?

Lately I’ve been in a Spring cleaning mode.

Could be the early onset of Spring here in Northern Virginia, or the knowledge that we’ll be moving at the end of the Summer.  Still, the urge to release what isn’t serving me seems to be stronger than I recall it being in previous years.

I’m taking time to look through everything that I’ve been carting from home to apartment to house over the past 10 moves and am really sitting and letting my heart release what no longer is needed.

Much of the stuff I’m releasing are clothes, jewelry and books.

These have been talismans for so long.

I’ve held onto them like Dumbo had his feather – believing that if I didn’t have that “lucky” shirt or book full of wisdom at my fingertips — that I’d somehow be ‘less than.’  As though my power and my value were determined by the things that I had.

I’ve also held onto gifts and doo-dads from people I love and have loved.  I’ve always had a deep attachment to things given to me, even casually, by those I love.  The cast off match box or the button found on a walk have been touchstones, reminders of the person.  Sometimes I hold the doo-dad well after the relationship has run it’s course.  Other times I know that I don’t need the lapel pin, missing all the shiny parts and the rhinestones to remind me of my Grandmother.  She is always with me, in the scent of rose that comes out of nowhere, somehow mixed with the scent of stale cigarette smoke.  The pin won’t be worn and it won’t be put on display.  It’s time to let it go.

Releasing in this way is cathartic and important.

It’s also a great stress reliever.  I never realized before how holding onto to so much – so many memories and naming myself the keeper of the flame was weighing me down.  The daily living with it all was so ‘normal’ that I almost didn’t realize that the stuff had more power in my life than I did.

Letting things go – consciously and compassionately is such a freeing process.

I realize now that doing it is freeing my soul to grow.

What frees your soul?

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