Spiritual Awakenings: Volume 1 is now available!

April 27, 2023April 28, 2023 Melissa ConklingLeave a comment

It’s finally here!! My very first published writing in a book collaboration on Spiritual Awakenings.

Remembering The Truth of Your Soul
Spiritual Awakenings are the pivotal moments in our lives when we remember that we are so much more than our bodies; we are infinite and eternal beings. We have always, and will always, exist.
The stories in this book share the spiritual awakenings of the authors, illuminating the uniqueness, and the shared experiences, we have as we awaken to the truth of our existence. In it, you’ll find guidance and a sense of connection to all that there is.

An excerpt from my chapter:

“Nature was always where I felt most at home. When other kids spent their weekends at slumber parties or playing video games or doing whatever the “normal” kids did, my weekends and afternoons were quite often spent with my dad at the tree farm. While my dad would be planting or mowing or shearing trees, I’d be off in the woods playing. Most often in the grove of trees my sister and I named the enchanted forest, searching for the fairies. Determined to find the source of the mysterious sounds and magical spirits I could always sense in the woods.

There was an innately spiritual element to the tree farm, though I didn’t know it as “spiritual” at the time. Rather, I saw it as magical. There was a power there that many people, especially my dad, experienced often. It revealed itself in mystical, otherworldly ways. The overgrown tree my dad would no longer shear because he saw it glowing on some evenings, though lab tests showed nothing out of the ordinary about the tree. A mysterious and irresistible force drawing him to the massive oak tree that stood at the edge of my enchanted forest that made him nervous. Events like these just happened there.

And the magic can still be felt. Visiting the tree farm last year for the first time in decades, I realized as an adult how different the air is there. It’s as though the spiritual elements of nature live actively in this plot of land. This magic lived inside me as well, as a spiritual side that grew throughout my life just under the surface. It made me feel safe, as though the world itself was always looking out for me.

At some point in what I now estimate to be my middle school years, however, the sense of safety began to give way and fear took over. Not a noticeable, anxiety filled fear. Just a cloud that wasn’t there beforehand.”
by Melissa Conkling, featured in Spiritual Awakenings: Volume 1

Click here to purchase your copy!

intuition · Spiritual Mindset · Spirituality

Insights on Developing Your Intuition

April 23, 2023 Melissa ConklingLeave a comment

Developing my intuition has been an amazing journey. I have discovered some very interesting things along the way. Not only about myself, but about how intuition comes to me. So I thought I’d share some of my recent discoveries.

#1 – Intuitive insights are a lot like dreams.

Even when I’m 100% positive I’ll remember it later because it was so clear in the moment, it often fades or blurs or I totally forget!

Writing things down immediately after my listening practice was part of the process when I learned. As I got better at doing readings, I neglected this part more often. Recently I’ve discovered just how important it is to continue doing it so I can continue growing!

So I’ve learned the importance of being intentional with my intuitive practices and writing it down, not relying on my memory alone…because that hasn’t always worked.

#2 – My position matters. A lot.

One night, laying in bed getting ready for sleep, I began my daily listening practice. Unexpectedly, I had the sudden call to sit up. As I did, my intuition started to flow in a whole new way.

I often feel my intuition through my whole body, so sitting upright rather than laying down allowed me to tune in with my physical body much more. Tuning into your intuition in an upright and untangled position helps a ton – so uncross those arms and legs!

#3 – Don’t overthink it!

One of the things I learned when I first started intentionally working with my intuition was to listen first, write it out second, and discern its meaning third. As my mind and intuition flow, my conscious mind loves to speak up and give her opinion during the process.

Allowing myself to simply acknowledge and then let go of the urge to discern while listening has been incredibly helpful. Because once I do, that’s when my intuition really begins to flow.

Sometimes I feel that thought of “Oh no! I need to write this down so I don’t forget!” But I’m continuing to learn to trust the process, knowing that I’ll remember just what I need to, and know that if something is super important and I forget it, it will present itself again!

Building intuition is an ongoing practice and it’s getting stronger all the time. And maintaining that beginners mindset is key! So often, we love to think we’ve mastered things and don’t need the basics anymore… But it’s kind of like exercise. Just because someone is an elite athlete doesn’t mean they don’t need to warm up, cool down, or practice!

spirit guides · Spiritual Mindset · Spirituality

Spirituality vs. Religion

April 15, 2023April 15, 2023 Melissa Conkling1 Comment

So many people shy away from their innate spirituality for one big reason: Religion. They either believe spirituality is against their religion or they mistake them for the same thing. And it’s an easy mistake to make. Or maybe they had a bad experience with religion.

For thousands of years, religion has been a powerful force on this planet. In many ways, religion took over spirituality. It became the most accepted way to explain things that could not easily be understood. As Christianity spread, it even went so far as to incorporate practices and holidays from old, spirit-based religions to promote this new one.

To be clear, I don’t like to hate on religion. In fact, it fascinates me how similar so many of the world’s religions are to each other. Yet we tend to focus only on the differences. To me, religion is not separate from spirituality, but it’s not the same either. I consider religions to simply be different modalities through which people can access and make sense of their spiritual nature.

However, because of the politics and power struggles that make up the history of so many religions, the spiritual aspect as it pertains to an individual is often forgotten. “Spiritual” became an aspect of religion to strive for, rather than something we are born with. Spirit became something outside of ourselves, not part of who we are. We were told we could not connect to spirit without religious leaders or practices. And as with anything, when we are told something often enough and for long enough, we eventually come to believe it.

Yet a part of us knows deep down that somehow and somewhere we are connected to the spiritual realm and that spirit lives within us. I got lucky in that department. Growing up Catholic, I attended CCD regularly. As I was nearing the date of my first Reconciliation, I recall having a huge sense of dread. We had to confess our sins to our priest for the first time. At nine years old, talking to adults was not something I loved to do…talking to anyone was not my thing. So the idea of having to sit one on one with Father Barnes and tell him about all the horrible things I had done so far in life absolutely terrified me. What should I even say? That I didn’t clean my room when my mom told me to? That I didn’t wash the dishes? The “sins” were unbearable!

As the fateful day approached, my dad sensed my dread and asked me if I was nervous. I will never forget his response when I confirmed his suspicion. He said, rather matter-of-factly, “it doesn’t matter. You can talk to God directly any time you want to. And you don’t need to go through a priest to do it. So just tell him about the fight you got in with your sister the other day.” And my nine year old mind was blown…and full of questions. If we can talk to God whenever we want to, why are they teaching us that we can’t? And more importantly, how do we do it?!

Thinking back on that moment, it is no surprise that I always felt more connected to spirit than a lot of people around me. Unlike them, I was told from early on that I was. I didn’t have to discover it after years of soul searching. It was simply something that I accepted. However, I did need to learn how to do it and to truly believe I had that power.

Whether you consider yourself religious or not, and regardless of your past experience with religion, you are connected to spirit and you can communicate with God, the universe, whatever you choose to call it, and with your spirit guides as well. You just need to learn how to do it and how to believe in and trust the guidance you receive.

To learn more about connecting with your guides, join me Tuesday, April 18th at 3:30 p.m. ET for a free Spirit Guides Masterclass. Click here to learn more and register.

intuition · spirit guides · Spiritual Mindset

FREE Third Eye Chakra Hypnosis Recording

April 6, 2023April 6, 2023 Melissa ConklingLeave a comment

Did you know that when you Strengthen Your Intuition and Balance Your Third Eye Chakra, it assists you in connecting with your Spirit Guides?

The third eye chakra, also known as the Ajna chakra, is believed to be important in spiritual practices as it is associated with intuition, perception, and spiritual awareness. It is thought to be a center of higher consciousness and can help individuals connect to their inner wisdom and guidance.

The third eye chakra is associated with intuition, insight, and spiritual awareness. It is believed that when this chakra is balanced, individuals are better able to trust their intuition and make decisions based on deeper wisdom. It also helps people to build self trust, connect with spirit guides, and trust their messages.

Meditation, Visualization, and Hypnosis can help you to balance your third eye chakra. I created a powerful hypnotic meditation to combine all three practices. It is the perfect way to give your intuition a tune-up!

And it’s FREE!!

Click here to download the free recording.

spirit guides · Spiritual Mindset

How to Get Your Mind Ready to Meet Your Spirit Guides

April 5, 2023April 18, 2023 Melissa ConklingLeave a comment

Communicating with spirit guides is something everyone can do. In fact, your guides are already communicating with you…but chances are you are missing their messages. Why? Because your mind isn’t ready yet. Fortunately, you can prepare yourself to connect with your guides.

Here are 5 ways you can prep your mindset to connect with your guides and receive their messages.

1. Embrace the Power of Your Mind

There are three levels of the mind to be aware of when communicating with the spirit realm.

First is the conscious mind. This is the logical, doing part of our mind that makes us take action on what we set out to achieve. We rely on our conscious mind heavily, and it is essential to our existence, yet it only represents about 5-10% of our individual mind power.

Next is the Superconscious – the universal energy where all-that-is exists, including spirit. It is where this guidance is coming from and is accessible to everyone, containing all knowledge and possibilities. The superconscious is not individual to us as humans. It is a collective energy.

Between the two lies the subconscious mind, which makes up the other 90-95% of our individual mind power. It is the bridge between the superconscious and the conscious mind. It is where our intuition, emotions, and creativity lie, as well as our habits and beliefs. This is why getting your subconscious mind on board in your spirit guide journey is so important.

2. Strengthen Your Intuition

Each and every one of us is born with an internal guidance system that assists us in connecting with the spirit realm – our Intuition.

You are an intuitive person, whether your realize it yet or not…and you don’t have to sit back and wait for your intuition to show up. You can strengthen and develop it like any skill. Connecting with your intuition intentionally and consistently helps you make better decisions faster, helps you build self trust, and assists you in connecting with your spirit guides, receiving their messages, and trusting their guidance.

Feel like your intuition could use a boost? Check out this free hypnosis recording I made to help you with this!

3. Throw Logic Out the Window

Now that we know the subconscious mind is crucial to connecting with our spirit guides, we need to take what is often the hardest step. We need to throw logic out the window. Not entirely and not forever, but it can hinder your ability to recognize your spirit guides and to receive their messages.

Connecting with spirit guides – and living any type of spiritual life – requires us to let go of logic, let go of our need to analyze, and our preoccupation with concrete proof of our experiences. Plain and simple, it is spirit. It is not material. So hard evidence will never exist except as a deep inner knowing as you learn to trust your higher self and intuition in a new way.

In the beginning, it takes faith. As you connect more, what begins as a belief or maybe only a hope soon turns into a knowing.

4. Overcoming Ego and Listening to Higher Self

Our ego is designed to keep us safe. It loves our comfort zone and it will do anything in its power to keep us right where we are, playing safe, holding ourselves back, and doing what we have survived every day of our lives doing. Above all, it fears change. But change is essential when we want to move ourselves from the comfort zone of our current existence to progressing on our spiritual journey.

Our ego uses fear and logic not to intentionally hold us back, but to keep us safe. It keeps us in our comfort zone because it perceives change as scary and dangerous. And this keeps us from connecting to our guides.

Our higher self, however, simply knows what we’re meant to do. As we learn to re-establish and trust the communication lines with our higher self, we learn to safely move past that place where our ego has been keeping us. So, how do we do this? With intention. Through meditation, mindset practices, and hypnosis.

5. Practice Receiving

One of the very first and most powerful ways to really embrace the guidance of your spirit guides is allow yourself to receive it! As I learned from coach Andrea Quinn in her book, The Quinn Essentials, we are so accustomed to doing all the time, getting as much done as we possibly can, checking everything off our to-do list, and often doing everything for everyone else that we forget to allow ourselves to receive.

That’s part of why we so often don’t hear the guidance of our higher self, from our intuition and from our spirit guides. We don’t recognize it because we’re not allowing ourselves to receive it fully.

We’re used to doing, giving and sometimes taking, but allowing and receiving are where the real magic happens. Here’s the thing about receiving…women are literally designed to receive. But after thousands of years of fitting ourselves into a patriarchal society, many of us have become the doers and the givers. Not the receivers.

Look for other opportunities in your daily life to practice receiving. This may be receiving compliments without immediately feeling the need to reciprocate (aka giving), or perhaps its in receiving help or favors from friends or family or even strangers. It can even be as simple as spending a few minutes each day receiving breath, rather than taking breath…and noticing how different it feels!

Find these opportunities and allow yourself to receive them. As you open yourself to the idea of receiving in the physical sense, you will also open yourself up to receiving guidance that your spirit guides have been trying to give you.

As you prepare your mindset to receive your guides, your guides will know you are ready to meet with them and hear their messages, and begin letting their presence known in a number of ways! And that is a post for another day 🙂

Month: April 2023