Ep164: Accepting Your Thoughts of Caution

Note: This is a computer-generated transcript. That means it's pretty good, but not perfect. If you read something weird or confusing, first laugh, then use the time stamp to hop into the podcast to find out what I REALLY said. 🙂

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Welcome to another episode of Finding My Way, a podcast dedicated to helping you shift your perspective about the good, the bad, and the bad things in your life. Each week, I'll be calling upon the wisdom of the universe to help you find magic in the mundane. This is episode 164, and I'm your host, Donna Doyon. Recently I learned about something called sentence stems, which can be used as a coaching tool. These stems come from a book titled The Art of Self Discovery by Nathaniel Brandon.

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So what a sentence stem is it's a starting point for something that you can reflect on and you can start to discover something more about yourself. The general format of these statements, these sentence stem is something like, if I do something, what will happen as an example, if I bring more awareness to my life today? Dot, dot, dot. And then you fill in the rest of the sentence. The way Nathaniel Brandon suggests using these is you have a group of four to six sentence stems and they're seemingly unrelated.

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And what you do is every day you write four to six responses to each sentence stem. So here's an example. He has a 30 week plan that you can do. And so week one, the four questions are If I bring more awareness to my life today, so you would write a response to that four or six times. And then the next question is, If I take more responsibility for my choices and actions today, and you would write four to six responses to that stem.

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The third one, if I pay more attention to how I deal with people today, what's your answer? Four to six times. And then the final one final sentence stem for week one is if I boost my energy level by 5% today, dot, dot, dot. And what he recommends doing as a journaling practice is every day, Monday through Friday. Early in the morning is practice this exercise.

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So for each of the four questions, you're going to write four to six responses that will complete the sentence. Now you don't have to overthink this. He said it should be a very quick activity, taking no more than 10 minutes, because if you're taking more than 10 minutes, you are overthinking it. And then at the weekend, oh, and by the way, expect there to be repetition as you're going through the week. But you are making your brain a little curious about this and your brain is going to start thinking, if I were to boost my energy level by 5% today, what could I do?

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And so you may be surprised by the end of the week, the different answers you come up with. And then over the weekend, he encourages you to sit down and just review what you've written, look to see if you see any patterns, and then ask yourself the question, if any of what I wrote this week is true, it might be helpful if I because you can start to see the patterns of what you're thinking and what you're wanting. And then over the weekend, you start thinking, if this were true, what could I do to make it happen? So that is the background on sentence stems. And I decided to use a sentence stem as the question for this week's Oracle card reading for you.

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So the deck that I'm using is called The Enchanted Map by Collette. Baron Reed. And it's a beautiful deck. And of course, I'm going to post a picture of the cards on my website, Donnadoyon/164. And you can see these beautiful cards.

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So the first card that I pulled in response to the question or the sentence stem, if I am more accepting of my thoughts. Interesting question. Right? Well, this week we have a warning, warning, warning, danger. Will Robinson, each of the three cards that I pulled told me there's something going on here for you.

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And I'll be honest, this reading really resonated for me as well. I have things going on in my life, and I am taking these cards, this reading, to heart. The first card I pulled is Protecting Treasure in Reverse. Now, when it's upright, this card is kind of sad. Yes, it makes me feel sad.

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So in the center, there is a woman who is curled over on top of a treasure chest. And there is a Crown at her feet. There's an umbrella over her head shielding most of her body. And a little bird, and she's kind of hanging her hair is draped down over the top edge of this hope chest. There are some bright red mushrooms in the foreground, and there are some autumn trees kind of off to the edges of the card.

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It's raining, it's cloudy. But then there's also a rainbow, but it's a rainbow that the colors are spread out. It's not a real refined rainbow, but it definitely has the colors there. But the card, it makes me feel sad. And this card was in reverse.

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So the meaning from Colette's guidebook on this card, when it's in reverse, is that you may be experiencing the illusion of safety and cautions, that you may be showing strong loyalty to someone who doesn't deserve it. It points out that some relationships, you go into them and you know that you're getting more than you're giving, or sometimes you go in and you know that you're giving more than you'll get in return. And as long as your eyes are open to that, it's okay. But sometimes we go in with greater expectations and we feel let down. We feel somewhat betrayed by it.

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When I first saw the card, also when I saw the treasure chest, I thought of Pandora, and she opened the box with all of the rotten things that came to the world in ancient mythology. But at the bottom of the chest was Hope, which was also released to the world. And the rainbow suggests that message of hope. So with this card, remember to be true to your dream and trust that the Angels are going to bring you the right people and the resources that you need. So if your thoughts going back to that sentence stem, if your thoughts, if you were more accepting of your thoughts, not resisting the warning bells that are going on in regard to a relationship and you're more accepting of them, trust.

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And remember that your Angels and your guides are there to help you and protect you. So that was the first card. The second card that I drew in response to this question, I am more accepting of my thoughts. Was the commitment card also reversed? Now this card has hearts flying through the sky, and there are some hands that are clasping.

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It looks like when a woman has an engagement ring put on her finger and she and her partner, they're holding hands just gently so they can show off the ring. And this card also has the rainbow, which is hope. But again, it was reversed. And so this suggests that you may be walking into a commitment or a contract that you're going to regret. So don't rush into anything.

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I know the world is very unsettled right now. Things are kind of going crazy. This is not the time to make a big commitment, because under ordinary circumstances, you might not. You may be feeling the anxiety and the stress of this situation. Kind of the doomsday thing, like in the movies when everyone seems to be having sex, just as the world is ready to end because we want to survive and we want that closeness, that connection with people.

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But this may not be the best connection for you. Just know that something better awaits you. Now, the thing that came to me as I was looking at these two cards, one was number 39, and the protecting treasure is number 39 and commitment is 36. Yesterday, I was reading cards and I was getting a lot of cards that were in the 30s. And so I picked up on the number three.

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So I had to do a little bit of exploring and say, okay, so what's going on with the number three? And when I was seeing that three pattern yesterday, I did a little bit of Google search on it. And the number three connects us with the ascended Masters. These are the higher Angels. These are the guides, the ones that are really watching out for humanity.

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So remember, just like the commitment card says, and like the protecting treasure card says, your Angels are there. They've got your back. It's okay. You don't have to rush into anything right now. You are safe.

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You are protected. Yesterday, I also was listening to a podcast about tarot readings, and the woman was talking about the three of swords, and she said that she hated pulling that card. It was the worst card from her perspective because the three of Swords represents betrayal and it represents relationships that have gone sour. So how fitting that also ties in with this warning that we're getting this week. The third card that I drew was number 19.

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So we broke away from the threes. And this card is Dragon's Lair. And it has kind of an island and it has kind of an icy facade over a building, kind of like a Lighthouse with steps going up there. And there's a Dragon flying to the entrance and there's some eyes creeping out from the base near the water. And even though it's night time, there's a nice reflective light on the stairs going up into the Dragon's Lair.

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The Dragon's Lair. It's an internal warning and it lets you know that things are out of alignment. You already feel this. Now remember, the sentence stem we're working with is if I am more accepting of my thoughts, if I am more accepting of my thoughts, I can listen to my internal warning system that's letting me know that things are out of alignment. I can recognize and accept that I'm about to enter some dangerous territory and so I have to be careful.

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And this is the card that answers the hope that we saw droplets of in the form of rainbows in the first two cards. Because this card reminds us that even though something may be challenging, it may be a little scary. It can also be exciting and exhilarating. Can you imagine how it would feel riding on the back of a Dragon? Now I'm talking about riding on the back of a friendly Dragon.

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A Dragon that has invited you to fly with it. Not one who's going to try to shake you off over some ocean or Rocky cliff, but a friendly Dragon. Just think how exciting and exhilarating that would be. But if you stand on the ground and you say, Nope, not getting on a Dragon, oh, how much excitement you would be missing out on perhaps the opportunity of your lifetime. So this card reminds us that in order to live your life fully, you're going to have to take some risks.

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And so right now, if you are more accepting of your thoughts, the ones that are telling you things aren't right, something is out of whack with this relationship. Instead of trying to talk yourself out of what you're thinking, allow yourself to accept it and process it. Look for the dangers, look for the warnings, and then you can respond with more clarity. You can actually make a decision and be more empowered rather than allowing things to happen in your world to collapse around you because you didn't step up and say, okay, this is the choice I make to either continue or to change things. And the Dragon's Lair card is reminding you it's okay to change things.

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What's the worst thing that can happen? Allow yourself to think that. Ask yourself the question. Accept the answer that you come up with. Don't just try to discount it.

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Ask yourself the best case scenario. Think about it, accept your thoughts and then you're able to make a wiser choice. So this week's message is a warning. It's about accepting your thoughts of caution. Be aware of the risks, be willing to accept some of those risks and live a little bit outside of your comfort zone.

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Remember, all three cards had symbols of hope. Your Guardian Angels, the ascended Masters are all here to support you. So this week I invite you, I encourage you, I challenge you. Do some journaling around the sentence stem. If I am more accepting of my thoughts, how might your life change?

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If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you can become a patron of it. For as little as a dollar a month, you can support these ongoing inspirational messages that are transforming the lives of people around the world. Visit Donadoyon.com Patron to learn more. The music for this podcast is Drifting Upstream by Hyson.