You’ve found an old oil lamp. It’s tarnished and dusty. But with a little elbow grease it’ll be as good as new. You start to polish it and POOF! A genie appears and offers you three wishes.

What do you want?

Seriously, what are your wishes? Stop reading this for a moment and list them. Even better, write them down.

Here’s what I want to know: Why does that stingy genie only offer three wishes?

In tarot, the wish card offers you nine cups to fill. Can you come up with nine things you’d like?

I recently pulled the 9 of Cups and I only had one wish. Perfect health. I want to be pain-free. I’d like all my health numbers like cholesterol, vitamin D levels, and triglycerides to be in the ideal range. I’m in pretty good shape for my age, but what if it could be even better?

And you? What’s your deepest desire?

Once you’ve named your wish, how can you help it find its way to you quickly?

First, write it down. That’s planting the seed. To water it, imagine what it would look and feel like to have your desire fulfilled. Jump on opportunities as they present themselves. But you know these steps. They’re the simple Law of Attraction.

What else can you do?

Extra fertilizer comes in the form of listing the ways your wish benefits others.

For me, being pain-free means being in a better mood which makes me more fun (even more fun!) to be around. When I am in perfect health, I have more energy and can play with my granddaughters. I can do my share of the household chores.

Here’s something else you can do to nourish the seed you’ve planted: metta meditation. This is also known as loving-kindness meditation. “Metta” means positive energy and kindness towards others in the Pali language of India. You can practice this on family members, friends, people who you find difficult, even strangers.

And although you can do it as part of a meditation, it can be done anywhere.

When you see someone pass your house, say, May you be happy. May you feel love.

While you drive, say to the people you see walking, May you be at peace.

At the store, send a metta message to your fellow shoppers. May you feel strong and confident.

Surrounding yourself with this positive energy has benefits beyond bringing you your desires. It promotes self-compassion. It decreases stress and anxiety. And, surprisingly, there’s evidence that it can reduce physical pain and improve longevity.

Make a wish (or nine) and then give metta meditation a try. Let me know how quickly your wish comes true.

Both the moon and Saturn are in Aquarius now. Aquarius represents humanity. Saturn teaches lessons. With this lunation, think globally.

This is also an excellent time to quit anything that isn’t serving you–a pattern, behavior, job, or person. What new possibilities are being presented to replace them? Pull some cards and find out.

“Betty’s so cute,” I gushed.

I was at a café with a friend. My husband and I had just gotten a puppy. “Except she hasn’t figured out that peeing in the house is frowned upon.”

“Shhhhh!” my friend scolded.

My friend, now ex-friend, shushed me in public. Like I was a toddler. I wasn’t being loud. And I hardly think I was being crass. WTH.

Why do relationships go south? Sounds like a question with a complicated answer, doesn’t it? It’s not.

When we are not comfortable being ourselves, we get prickly. And the opposite is true. When we don’t allow the people in our lives to be authentic, things start to unravel.

Have you heard of Byron Katie? She’s a wise woman who encourages loving what is and has a method to help people do that.

Basically, she says you can’t change anyone. And if you want to, what you’re doing is not loving the person as they are. You’re asking them to pretend to be someone else.

We certainly don’t want anyone to ask us to pretend to be somebody else. We can’t expect them to pretend either. And there is no should.  There is only reality.

“She shouldn’t be so competitive.”
“He should know what I want.”
“She shouldn’t go out with friends so often.”
“He should be less crabby in the morning.”

Except she is competitive, he doesn’t know what you want, she does see her friends a lot, and he’s not a morning person.

Love them as they are. Love who they are.

I’m not suggesting we be doormats. We can express how we feel. We can tell someone how their behavior affects us. But without expectations. If we decide we would be happier without that person in our lives, we can leave the relationship.

Asking someone to pretend to be someone they’re not is like asking a spoon to be a banana. If we wanted a banana, the spoon wasn’t the right choice.

I broke off my friendship with The Shusher. It felt like she had been on a decades-long quest to improve me. That “shhh!” was the straw that frosted the camel’s ass. I had accepted her when she seemed a little crazy. That’s just The Shusher, I’d think. I didn’t see a need to change for her. I like who I am.

We are each unique. We long to be accepted, not in spite of our quirks but because of them. We want to express our authentic natures.

So, you be you. If someone doesn’t love who you truly are, move on. Because imagine the joy of finding someone who loves you just as you are.

Have you ever been in a relationship that started to go south?

Of course you have. So have I. Plenty.

And what do we do when we’re no longer having fun with someone, when it starts to feel like work?

We decide we need to work harder.

Huh? How does that make any sense?

We do the same thing with Spirit. We feel distant, cut off, separate and we conclude the best thing to do is to make a commitment to a spiritual routine. We’ll meditate for twenty minutes a day. Or we’ll get some books by Caroline Myss and Ekhart Tolle.

Except we hate meditating. And Myss and Tolle bore us to tears.

Just like that relationship that was nearing its last gasp, what’s needed here isn’t more work.

We need to be having more fun.

Spirit would love to go for a walk with us. Or sit on the beach. Or take the dog to the dog park and watch all the puppies. Or do a jigsaw puzzle.

Forcing ourselves to meditate is like doing Spirit’s laundry. Guess what—Spirit can do its own laundry (just like our ex could but we took it on because… Why did we take that on?)

Think of how a relationship starts. We sit and talk and laugh with someone. We try axe throwing or a new restaurant or painting pottery. We see how much we have in common. We delight in our differences, too—not so that we can change to be more like the other person but because we enjoy how who they are combines with who we are.

So if you’re feeling like your connection to Sprit could use a boost, take yourself out on a date with Spirit. Go somewhere you’ve been wanting to go. Some place fun. Spirit doesn’t want to be solemn any more than you do. Spirit doesn’t love misery and would prefer that you not feel miserable.

Make a key lime pie. Go to the zoo and watch the sea lions. Sit outside and enjoy the sunset, just you and Spirit.

You can make dates with Spirit a regular thing. But only if it never feels like a chore.

As I’m writing this, another me in another universe somewhere may be writing about pineapple upside down cake. And in another universe somewhere, my doppelgänger might be eating pineapple upside down cake. And still another me in another universe might own an upside-down pineapple plantation.

You’ve most likely heard of the multiverse, maybe even seen a movie like Benedict Cumberbatch’s latest Marvel adventure, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

The scientific theory behind the multiverse is complicated, but simplified it says that if there are an infinity of universes but only a finite way to arrange the particles in each individual universe, then the same patterns are bound to be repeated eventually. Which means in some distant universe there is likely another you sitting there reading this exact newsletter.  And if the particles are arranged slightly differently, you might be reading a newsletter written by me about pineapples.

Which, so far, this kind of is.

But let’s bring it down to a more personal and understandable level.

When I had one of my first jobs, a friend worked at the same place, although never on the same days. Someone asked her if I ever talked. My friend laughed and laughed. Does she ever talk? More like does she ever shut up.

Think about the way your mother thinks of you. What words would she use to describe you? Independent? Dramatic? Picky?

Now think of your best friend. How does he or she see you? Hilarious? Adventurous? Practical?

Expand it further. Your sister. Your brother. Your boss. A coworker you get along with. A neighbor you annoy. A neighbor who annoys you. The checker at the grocery store who sees you once a week.

We have different interactions and experiences with everyone we meet. Each person has their unique, unshakable opinion of who we are. If we’re snippy with someone the first time we meet them, there is little we can do later to convince them we’re friendly. And that’s ok, because we are both.

We are light. We are shadow. We are masculine and feminine. We are vulnerable and strong. We are human and spirit.

We are a multiverse.

If this concept intrigues you, I highly recommend the movie Coherence. It’s described as a “surreal science fiction psychological thriller.” But I say watch it and decide for yourself.

Make sure any intentions you set with this new moon are made with your heart and not your ego. This new moon is fiery and feisty! Watch your words and don’t say or do anything you know you’ll regret.

This is also the perfect time to purge. When in doubt, chuck it out! Possessions, people, patterns–whatever either no longer serves you or never even did.

And pull some cards. Here’s a spread to get you going.

The full moon in Capricorn is the perfect time to reflect on how far you’ve come this year and where you still want to go. Capricorn gets it done. If you’ve been putting off accomplishing something big, now is the time to kick it into gear.

This is also a great time to detox. Who needs to be let go? What are you putting into your body that isn’t healthy? What habits should get the boot? How can you declutter your house? Start the detox on July 13th. You can do one day, three days or until the new moon on July 28th.

An elephant family reunion, pogo stick market research, an Irish dance marathon, a floor-pacing how-to seminar, a clogging competition and a clodhopper focus group.

I was in a hotel where I swear all those things were happening simultaneously on the floor above me. All when my startle response was at an all-time high.

I have PTSD. Sometimes it’s manageable. Other times it feels like it’s trying to eat me alive. I’ve been working steadily to heal for years, each summer making a little more progress.

You know that feeling when you narrowly miss crashing into another car? The slightest stress can make me feel that way. Having to go to the store. Needing to talk on the phone. Hearing a siren. That elephant reunion. And then the jangly, anxious feeling doesn’t go away. PTSD affects both the quantity and the signaling of norepinephrine in the brain, which is a fancy way of saying I feel like I narrowly missed that car crash for days, even weeks.

This then triggers a fight-or-flight response. Or fight and flight response. I realize this is hard on my loved ones. I wish they knew it’s much more difficult for me. I can understand they want me to relax. To calm down. That I seem over the top. I need them to understand what is happening inside me is much more intense than what they’re seeing.

But I’ve discovered we can change the seemingly impossible-to-change.

How do you feel about karma? What do you believe it is?

I believe that karma is a balancing of energy and patterns from past lives. It’s not a punishment, it’s a choice. In each life we do things that hurt others or ourselves. When we die, at some point we realize the mistakes we made. When it’s time to come back and have another human experience, we decide how we’re going to offset that harm.

For example, if I were a controlling man in a past life, one who needed his dinner on the table at 6:00 each evening, who demanded his boxer shorts be ironed, had to have everything just so, I might see what this did to those around me, especially my wife. For my next life, I might choose to be someone subservient. The trick is to learn the lesson rather than perpetuate the cycle.

Karma is a very deep subject, and this example is almost an oversimplification, but you can see how it works. Our job in this life is to learn what we came here to learn. To balance what is out of balance.

How?

I am currently working with two powerful systems of change. One is opening the Akashic records, seeing your past lives and the mistakes you made and then altering the past. It’s like illuminated time travel. The other is called the Quantum Breakthrough Code. This is a simple method of decoding and then recoding patterns and behaviors.

I’ve had tremendous success both with myself and with clients. I’m currently working on my PTSD with these systems. That is more deeply entrenched but I’m confident I can minimize if not completely irradicate it.

Would you like to give it a try? What would you change if you could? Your weight? Chronic pain? A pattern of people-pleasing? Do you attract the wrong partners? Are you often betrayed? Or abandoned? Reply to this email and we’ll set up a time to talk. I know you’ll be amazed.

In the meantime, to everyone who has had to live with my over-the-top-ness, please be patient with me. I’m working as fast as I can and doing my best in the meantime.

This new moon in Cancer focuses on home, family, and community. How can you make your living space more homelike? What can you do with your family that’s fun? What ancestral wounds need healing? How can you make a greater positive impact on your community?