Soul’s Code

Marriage and family therapists are advancing a new way to disarm people when they lose their cool: the Aikido of Communication

SOUL’S CODE —  Like a scene out of the Michael Douglas movie, Falling Down, a just-divorced aerospace worker in California’s “Inland Empire,” dressed up as a Santa on Christmas Eve 2008 and shot nine people at his in-laws’ holiday party.

The  day after Christmas, 2008 in Philadelphia, 29-year-old James Joseph Cialella Jr. shot a father in a movie theatre after arguing with the latter and his son while watching the Brad Pitt-Cate Blanchett vehicle, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

It’s not a total coincidence that the shootings in Covina and Philly took place on either side of Christmas Day.

Stock market forces might be causing a “correction,” but a larger “force” is at work. It seeks more than a correction. It seeks an evolution

BY DAVID RICKEY — The media is full of polls that reflect what everyone already knows: Americans are clinically depressed by the depressed state of the economy, and their own investments.

People are losing their jobs across the board, as layoffs seep beyond the real estate and financial sectors and into the upper echelons of the high-tech workforce. Try borrowing money for a house, or even a car. Actually, don’t bother.

Fear, we all know, begets fear. So much of this economic “crisis” is based on perceptions, even illusions. And yet there are very real effects stemming from these illusions.

A real-life mentalist explains how staying connected to lost loved ones can help you deal with grief

GUEST COLUMN: MARK ANTHONY — No one is immune from losing a loved one, and the pain of death and loss comes to each one of us. Healing from the grief of loss is a road everyone is forced down at some point in life, and it is a path no one wants to take. Finding the right path through grief is basic to human survival.

As a medium, I help people connect with their loved ones in Heaven, which many also be referred to as “The Other Side.”

One of the benefits of mediumistic contact with spirits is that it validates a belief in God, Heaven, an Afterlife, and the immortality of our soul. I also know it is possible to contact those who have crossed over to The Other Side. I communicate with spirits on a daily basis and have conducted hundreds of discernments (also known as “readings”).

“Every emotion you go through in this rat-race life, I am going through, too”

GUEST COLUMN: NICK RALLS — I try to find love and peace in the everyday world while in the midst of the rat race.  I often reflect on how it might be easier to cut the world off but I know that love is in my heart and that I can find what I am looking for.

Today, I reflected on how easy it is to be peaceful, loving and harmonious— in short, divine — when living in a cocoon, in a monastic or spiritual retreat, away from the strains and stresses of reality.

But it can be a hard job when you are in the throes of modern life, with people coming at you . . . demands, money problems, communication challenges and not always being the person you imagine yourself to be.

As a producer in the revolving-door of media, Heli knows job loss. Here’s how she accepts the day she gets the news

GUEST COLUMN: HELI TUOMI CARLILE— I have a positive approach to job losses. I always try to welcome them as signs from the universe, signs that it’s time to move on to a new adventure, painful as it may be at the time.

Clichéd as it may sound, in these moments I visualize “one door closing, but others opening,” even though I can’t quite see what lies behind those new doors.

This technique hasn’t failed me yet, and I have come through some tough emotional times with that reassurance, finding fabulous new adventures and opportunities that have gotten better and better.

Ayurvedic medicine made Deepak Chopra rich and famous. It can make your next spa visit an exercise in deep healing

GUEST COLUMN: ALAN ANNAND — You may have heard about Ayurveda, and wondered what it is.  Ayurveda is a holistic system of medicine that has been practiced in India for over 5,000 years.

Literally, the word Ayurveda means “knowledge of life,” and its practice constitutes a science of routines and remedies designed to foster and maintain optimum health.

“Young widow” was a label that I found repulsive. Beyond the label a new love happened

GUEST COLUMN: SUE FREEMAN — When I lost my first husband in 2006, I wondered what changes would come next. Instantly, I was a single parent raising a three-year-old girl. I had mountains of my husband’s paperwork to contend with, which took me upwards of six months to complete.

Most days I didn’t know if I was coming or going, especially during those first few months. Between answering questions as to the “why” of his death, and my attendance at two rounds of very helpful grief support groups, I started to feel a little more like my feet were on the ground again.

Cupid’s Coach.com founder Julie Ferman answers questions from Soul’s Code about the boom in the love business, and “What is an aura mixer”?

SOUL’S CODE — According to varied forms of spiritual practice and to the discipline of parapsychology, all of us are surrounded by an “aura” — a field of faint and glowing radiation.  You have probably had the experience of meeting people who seem to exude love, fun, anger or hate — even before they utter a word.

Julie Ferman uses auras to help singles connect. She hosts Aura Mixers and Flirt Parties. Julie is an expert in these matters: She launched the matchmaking service Cupid’s Coach in the last recession after 9/11 and the dot.com bust.

I made a commitment to a spiritual practice before facing my “enemy”

BY TOM HUDGENS, episode 2 (of 5) — “John Black is very eager for this meeting.”

That was the short and simple email I received from Rick Warr, a mediator with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice who was arranging for me to meet John Black,* the man serving a life sentence for raping and murdering my sister 30 years ago.

Why was he eager? I wondered. What did he think would happen?

A post-modern mystic describes how she learned to accept — and appreciate — financial ruin, homelessness, and terminal illness

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — I have had to start over so many times in so many aspects of my life, you’d think that ‘Square One’ was my mailing address. I’m sure we at least share the same zip code. I have been diagnosed — terminal — twice.

I like to refer to myself as a “terminal over-achiever.” Because of those chronic health problems, I lost the business I spent nearly a decade building. And then it took every cent I had ever saved just to stay alive. I had to start over financially, from Square One.

I have been without a home, and as Blanche DuBois from Streetcar Named Desire would say, “. . . have relied on the kindness of strangers.” No home? No problem. I can stay at Square One — they even leave the light on for me.

I have been lied to, and cheated on, by nearly every single romantic partner I have ever had, which for me, is a deal-breaker. So, the instant I discovered betrayal, I packed up and left. My destination? Square One.