This is Me

Tags

Animals, Coaching, Vision

I just watched a video that took my breath away.

A little background: Along with my husband, I have a small business, Harmony’s Heart LLC. For me, that business is all about talking with people’s animals and helping them navigate things like “When is it time to put my elder cat down?” or “My dog is so nervous – I wish he’d calm down.” These conversations often take on the aspect of coaching, as over time I’ve found that our animal friends are more interested in helping us be better humans than whether or not they have the best kibble.

For years, I worked in Information Technology in large corporations. This is not even close to what I do now. It was technical. It was serious. It was “important”. It was also borrrrrr-ing.  For me, one of the best parts of the job was interpreting what was going on with a machine and putting it into words that the uneducated or technology-challenged user could understand, so they’d get along better with that application or printer.

Hmm, when I look at it that way, maybe it was a bit like what I do these days. I was an interpreter, and I still am. It’s just that now, I’m assisting a living, breathing entity (or what once was living and breathing, since I also connect with animals who have passed) be understood, much like I assisted people in understanding that printer, or that application.

Where I’m going with this is the thought that what I do can be construed as “strange.” “Weird”. Definitely a long way from what most of the U.S. considers “normal.” On my darker days, I feel like an outcast, as though my passion for the animals, and what they have to say to us and want to help us with, is something that is useless. So I’ll become frozen, and not want to make phone calls, or put myself out there. Better to be safe in my little cocoon instead of the object of ridicule or hate.

When all of my fears and insecurities have taken their rightful place at the back of the bus, and my passion and purpose for this lifetime have taken over the driving, I know that’s hogwash. What I do is what I was meant to do. It’s taken me a long time to get to the party. Now that I’m here, though, this is my gift. Interpreter of animal wisdom. Teacher of those who want to open themselves to that gift themselves. Cheerleader for a better world, starting with our relationship with the animals and nature around us.

This is me.

Watch the video. Be inspired. Remember who YOU are. In your authentic self, you are making a difference, no matter how large, no matter how small. You matter.

Ashara Morris is the President and CEO of Harmony’s Heart LLC, where she assists animals and their people to have the best relationship ever. For more information, visit http://www.harmonysheartanimals.com, or contact Ashara by phone (720-737-0495) or email (ashara@harmonysheartcoaching.com).

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The Necessity of Nature

Tags

Animals, Health, nature, Self-Care

As I’m writing this, it is the first day of Spring. Here in Colorado, on our farm, there is snow on the ground, left over from a storm that quite literally blew through a couple of days ago. We need the moisture, so I’m grateful that it is slowly melting into the ground, inspiring the grass to peek out and providing a much needed drink for the pine and aspen trees around the grounds.

One of the most pleasant harbingers of Spring is the return of the Meadowlark. I love their song. I imagine they were a bit surprised to find their return also included a snow storm, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve heard Meadowlark song before and after a big snow.

Listen:  https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Meadowlark/sounds

Meadowlark

Not everyone is as lucky as I, surrounded by open fields, grand vistas of the Rocky Mountains, and our many household pets. Back in the day, in what we might call a kinder, gentler time, access to nature, whether it was in a park or by taking a drive in “the country”, was much more common. There’s something about spending some time watching the ripples on a pond, or the breeze gently blowing the grass that soothes a human’s soul, and we re-establish the connection that we inherently know – that we are all one.

These days, most people live in cities. The cities may have parks, but they are not as safe as they used to be. Even in the smaller towns through the U.S., danger seems to show up. People are spending more time indoors, plugged into their computers, talking to one another through text instead of in person, and having nary a whiff of fresh air. Our disconnection with one another, and with nature, is taking its toll.

In order to survive as a species, we need to establish a bond with the planet that nurtures and protects us. If we don’t, if we pillage and use up all resources, if we ignore the pain in our hearts, we are going to find ourselves in, as they say, deep weeds. Except there won’t be any weeds.

Our psyches need nature. Just watch inner city children introduced to farm animals. They can’t do it; they can’t maintain their protective shells around the gentle beings who only want to be petted and loved. They melt, and they find themselves. They may have to go back to their environment; they may have to put the mantle of protection back on – but they will not forget the look in the horse’s eyes that said “I acknowledge you for who you are; a fellow traveler on this planet like me. And I love and accept you for that.” (for more information about the impact of farms on inner-city children, check out these resources: http://environmentreport.org/?p=2814, http://blog.theanimalrescuesite.com/comptonposse/

What can you do today to touch nature?

 

Ashara Morris is the CEO of Harmony’s Heart LLC, of which Harmony’s Heart Animals is a part. Learn more about her and the way Harmony’s Heart is changing the world at http://www.harmonysheartanimals.com / http://www.harmonysheartcoaching.com / http://www.thewindriderproject.com

Growth – a Never Ending Process

Tags

animal communication, Animals, Coaching, Horses, power

From Ashara Morris, one of the bloggers on this site:

Last night I attended a women’s networking group in Denver, sponsored by one of the coaches I’ve worked with over the years. Let me digress for just a moment to say that I own my own business, and it has taken me a while to put on the CEO hat and really own the fact that I own the business. But I still don’t feel that much like a CEO. In my mind, that’s Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, or some other high-powered executive. My little 1 person show often, in my mind, doesn’t seem like it should even require a CEO. But that’s my title – along with Pet Psychic, certified EGCMethod(r) Coach, and Reiki Master. Many hats. The CEO one still doesn’t fit too well, but I’ve recently started embracing it a teeny bit more.

But back to that gathering. It is a group of executives and CEO entrepreneurs who are really making a difference in the world. The movers and the shakers, as it were, at least here in Denver. When I heard about it, I felt like that wasn’t my group of people, and I wasn’t going to go. Then I talked with a few women with whom I’d spent a year in a Mastermind. One has a business that is doing really well. A couple are still in startup mode. One is retiring from her day job the middle of February. All of them were attending. I gave this some more thought. My resistance was really up, and that’s when I realized I actually needed to attend. My inner gremlins were trying to keep me safe by telling me this was not my tribe. Well, let’s just set that gremlin straight. I paid my money, found something CEO-ish in my closet to wear, and headed to Denver.

I was easily the oldest woman in the room. That felt….strange. I’d never given it much thought before, but last night I noticed. (Oh, it’s the old lady gremlin!) When I arrived, I was given my name badge and told about the two stars on the front, that denoted the table I was to sit at to start the evening (color coded, very creative) and the one I would sit at for the break out session. I spoke with my friends, and the strangers at my table. I’m sure my vibe was a little off. After all, I’m “just” an animal communicator. This was, once again, those dang gremlins trying to keep me safe. And getting louder.

The breakout was in two parts. I got a glass of water and sat at what I thought was my designated table. But it wasn’t. Round one was back at the original table. I don’t know what it was about that, probably my “you must be PERFECT” gremlin, but I was mortified. I felt like an old lady who couldn’t keep a simple instruction in her head, and at the same time like I was 5 years old and couldn’t keep a simple instruction in my head. WOW. Thing is, I know what I was told at the door, and it didn’t jibe with what was actually happening. But rather than decide “oh well, it was just a misunderstanding” I folded into myself and was so upset I was almost in tears. Geeeeez.

Then a fairly good thing happened. At our table, we said what we did, what our hopes and dreams are for 2018, and then what the people at the table could help us with. I did that. I explained about how I help people understand their animals, how I wanted to change as many pet/people relationships as possible in 2018 and teach other people to do what I do, and then asked for help around the confidence to step into a lot of money coming my way. A woman at the table started asking about the problems I work on and the solutions I use. What? In the past, I would have been “the good girl” and just let her give me advice I didn’t really need. Last night, I stopped her, told her I did have a problem/solution statement (which was not what we were talking about), and that the help I was looking for was for my INTERNAL dialogue. The CEO in me pushed aside the gremlin who would have just let me sit there like a lump, very briefly raised her head and did what was needed to bring the conversation back to my actual appeal for help.

The bottom line: I will probably go again. It was uncomfortable hanging out with all that power, because I’m not used to it. But I won’t get used to it if I don’t hang out with it. On an empowerment call the next day, someone in the group posted this about someone else lamenting her many gremlins: “They get louder the closer you get to your own greatness.”

I must be getting close.

Ashara Morris is the CEO of Harmony’s Heart LLC, of which Harmony’s Heart Animals is a part. Learn more about her and the way Harmony’s Heart is changing the world at http://www.harmonysheartanimals.com / http://www.harmonysheartcoaching.com / http://www.thewindriderproject.com

Reincarnation

Tags

change, Time and Space, Vision

Posted by Ashara Morris, one of the writers of this Blog.

I seem to write a great deal about my family. They are a wonderful source of fodder for this blog; I’ve learned so much about myself through them over the years. My childhood was what one might call fairly idyllic; protected, loved, and while I was sent some messages that I’ve had to work through over the years, I was blessed with a general sense of well-being and goodness that has carried me in dark times.

I grew up in a fairly religious setting, and reincarnation wasn’t a topic of discussion at our table; however, my work with animals has certainly shown me the possibility, and I now embrace the concept fully. It is a complex topic, and one about which I have no complete answer. But I do believe that after we are finished with our current body, we DO continue, in one form or another. I’m pretty certain I was a horse in my most immediate past life – why else would I have such a knowing of what it felt like to be a horse? It was so much so that as a kid I walked like a horse, I ran like a horse, and when I competed in foot races I couldn’t just “trot” – I had to canter or gallop. which in a human body is actually pretty slow (with the result that I usually lost the race, even though I may have been ahead at the “trot”). It took me years to let go of that feeling.

I’ve only had a few of what I will call “deep-ish” conversations with my dad. One of them involved his philosophy about where we go after we die. He had decided somewhere along the line that when we kick the bucket, that’s it. He only went to church because it pleased my mom. I’m pretty sure he never shared that with her, and I certainly didn’t say anything.

So imagine my surprise when, a few days before his passing, I got a message through the ether from him, letting me know that he was on his way to the other side. We had a lovely conversation while I removed manure from our horse paddocks. I decided I was either crazy or actually “talking” with my dad, 1500 miles away. He left his body within 36 hours of that little talk. Huh.

After he passed, I came home for the funeral, and sitting in their former master bedroom, the hangers in what had been his closet started to jingle – the door to that closet was closed, and there was no air stirring. When I said it was freaking me out, it stopped. Papa was sending me messages.

Dad passed in 2005. Fast forward to about a year ago. I had a booth as a reader at a Body Mind Spirit Expo, my first, and a lovely couple stopped by my booth. After much trying and being told it would never happen, they were pregnant with their first child, a girl who was already named: Juliana. They wanted to make sure their two dogs understood that the birth of Juliana a few months in the future would impact everyone, but would not lessen their love for their canine friends. They were hoping the dogs would embrace their new human sister as she became part of the family. The dogs were of course thrilled to be involved in this process and said they would greet her with open paws.

I read for a lot of people and their animals at the expos, and very often someone will sit down in front of me and I don’t remember them. That was the case with this

My Papa

family, who stopped by my booth again at the fall event. This time there were three of them; mom, dad, and their little girl. We chit-chattted a bit, I asked when their daughter had been born, and they said in January. “Oh, how sweet,” I replied, “I have two puppies who were born in January, so she must be about 9 months old. What is her birth day?”

January 13.

“Wow,” I said, “that’s my dad’s birthday.” It was then I noticed that this 9-month old child was doing an inordinate amount of staring at me. I paused. “Nahhhhh,” my brain whispered. “That’s just a coincidence.”

She stared harder, little Juliana. Her eyes looked brown. My dad’s eyes were brown. The more we gazed at each other, the more the layers peeled away. I saw my dad’s face in hers. I know that Spirit always makes it easy for us to connect the dots, if we will just let go of our notions of “how things work” and allow the magic. There he was! This beautiful little girl was the essence of my father. I started to cry.  Miracle child, indeed.

Her parents were thrilled, and told me that although their dogs were doing great with Juliana, they had been compelled to seek me out and say hello. I felt twenty times blessed.

As they prepared to leave, they handed Juliana to me. I have never been comfortable holding small children, but I embraced her as the friend and teacher that she always has been, and always will be. I noticed that her eyes are not brown at all; they’re blue. The spirit she is showed me what I needed to see to connect the dots, and then settled back into her Juliana body, which doesn’t actually look like my dad at all.

As I’ve opened my heart, it has opened my eyes and my entire being to possibility. It is a journey I never thought I would take, and one that I wouldn’t miss for anything. What next?

If you would like to know more about Ashara, visit http://www.harmonysheartanimals.com. If you want to explore how she can help you have the Best Life Ever with your Pet, register for a free 30-minute consultation at: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=13755877&appointmentType=4343895

Wake Up Call

Tags

balance, change, Health

In my earlier days, I was a serious hypochondriac. Start talking about the symptoms of some disease, and I was sure to be convinced in a fairly short time that I was a walking advertisement for that particular malady.

Over the years, I’ve gotten my hypochondria pretty well under control, so I can mostly now chide myself out of this time-waster. I realized something else, too. Despite lots of personal work around my own “stuff”, I still sometimes lack the courage to step out into my power and own the gifts I’ve been given. So what I do is use potential dis-ease as an excuse to not do my life’s work – when the going gets tough (or close to success, or busy), Ashara develops symptoms. However, they can also be used as a wake-up call.

At my yearly checkup, my doc was listening to the blood flowing through my veins. She’s very thorough – she listens everywhere, to make sure it’s all moving along as it should. When she got to the joint where my right leg meets the rest of my body, she hesitated. Hmmmm, something strange there, it sounded a little off, like maybe there was a blockage. So she scheduled a test for me, a CT scan, so we could get it checked out.

Except my insurance company first wanted an ultrasound, so they denied the CT scan and sent me this really scary denial letter with a page all about Aortal Aneurisms. What??? Madam Hypochondria went into full fear mode. That sounded dire. A call to my doc didn’t help, because she couldn’t really tell me if what she had heard was life threatening or not, and that’s why she wanted to do the test – to find out. I did quite a bit of hyperventilating that day. I’m a healthy person for the most part, so this was going to the dark side at warp factor 9.

Long story short, ultrasound didn’t show anything, and since it’s hard to see the area in question with an ultrasound, we did eventually get around to the CT scan, which showed….also nothing. Veins look good. Teeny bit of plaque in one area which would not have caused the sound the doc heard. The freeway that is my vascular system was clear and all of the platelets and blood cells and whatever else were flowing easily.

What this taught me is two-fold:

• Keep my head out of the health game. I’m pretty in tune with my body, and when my head is out of the way, I know in my heart I’m fine.
• Stop hesitating about what fires me up and just do it, for crying out loud. I love my work with the animals and their people – why do I back away from success, and from being of massive service to those beings on this planet who so want to help us? That is a question I continue to ask and work on daily. Meanwhile, time’s a wastin’, my ass is once more in gear and I’m doing what I was put here to do – be a mouthpiece for the animals. Sometimes I just need those little wake up calls to help me remember what’s important.

If you would like to know more about Ashara, visit http://www.harmonysheartanimals.com. If you want to explore how she can help you have the Best Life Ever with your Pet, register for a free 30-minute consultation at: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=13755877&appointmentType=4343895

 

The Blahs

Tags

Animals, passion, Vision

Yesterday I was in the serious doldrums. Oh my gosh, I haven’t felt that depressed since….well, I can’t really remember when. I’ve had dips in my sunny disposition, but nothing like the raincloud following me around, much like Joe Btfsplk from the Li’l Abner comic strip – and yes, I’m dating myself. You young ones, check Wikipedia, or click HERE to learn more about the clever, sartorial world of Dogpatch, USA.

Maybe it was something in the air; maybe it had to do with Uranus going retrograde, or the fact that there are two eclipses on the horizon in August, or Mercury scheduled to go retrograde August 12th. All I know is I had a very dark night of the soul for the entire day. Here I am, 67 years old, building a business. The question foremost on my mind yesterday was “Why?” Why am I putting myself out there, when I could be playing with my puppies and horses, and weeding the yard, and learning to cook really good meals and can cherry preserves, and reading good books? Yesterday I didn’t really have an answer.

Today, however, Joe Btfsplk and his cloud seem to have moved a little further away, and thankful that my doldrums were only the 24-hour variety, clarity has returned.  Here’s “Why”.

1. I would go stark raving bonkers if I didn’t have some sort of purpose other than trying for the stay-at-home-worker-bee-of-the-century award.
2. I love animals. All animals, even bugs and snakes.
3. Said animals have a lot to teach us, and they need spokespeople (the more the better).
4. I can hear/see/feel them. It’s a gift. And this is one gift I feel compelled to use, and share with others.
5. My greatest joy comes in interacting with animals and their people, and sharing an animal’s insights with their caretaker. Those are some fantastic conversations, and I don’t want to miss them, or miss being able to facilitate them.
6. If one conversation changes one person’s thoughts for the better about what animals are all about, I’ve fulfilled my mission, and the world just achieved a little extra glitter. This is my purpose; this is my passion. I am so blessed.

I forgot all that yesterday, while I was wallowing. I am so grateful that today it has all come back to me, and I can once again move forward.

Everyone has a purpose, whether it is being the best mom of the century, running a multi-million dollar company, or reading to children. If it is what makes our heart beat, has us jumping out of bed eager for the day and happy to be alive, then that is what we are meant to do. Let’s do it.

ASHARA MORRIS IS THE CEO AND PRESIDENT OF HARMONY’S HEART, LLC, A COMPANY THAT CHANGES LIVES THROUGH THE LOVE OF ANIMALS AND THE DESIRE OF THEIR CARETAKERS TO STEP THROUGH JUDGEMENT AND EXPECTATION TO A RELATIONSHIP BASED ON LOVE, LEADERSHIP AND CONNECTION. CONTACT HER AT HTTP://WWW.HARMONYSHEARTANIMALS.COM OR ASHARA@HARMONYSHEARTCOACHING.COM.

History

My belief system carries with it the idea that we live multiple lives. From my perspective, the idea of the perfect, idyllic heaven, while sounding wonderful, would become after time a bit of a bore. So we live, we learn, we die, we mull it over for a while, and then decide what we’re going to do with our next lifetime. We live again, we learn more stuff, have experiences, we die, and on and on.

I never fully understood why I’ve been obsessed with horses since birth. When I put it in the context of multiple lives, perhaps it is because I had horses, or even was a horse, in a previous life.

What other aspects of myself are the product of that sort of history? I really don’t like having my head under water – I mean really. I’ve never much enjoyed the water, and only learned to swim after my brother did. He’s four years my junior, so he was six and I was ten. So when did I acquire that fear of water, and having my head under it? I’ve never quite figured that one out. Over the years I’ve worked on this little quirk. I even learned to dive off of a pier (sloppily, but my head went in the water first, a big deal from my point of view), and did some swimming in the Atlantic. It was actually easier than the river where I originally learned the dog paddle – with all that salt in the water, I was much more buoyant. These days, though, I have no desire to go much farther into water than my knees.

And then there’s mediocrity. I have lived a singularly safe life, for the most part. I’ve done some crazy things, but I’ve always had the feeling that there was something inside me that was tucked away, safe. I kept a medium profile – B to B+ student, in the middle of my graduating class in terms of academics, a good employee at the companies for whom I worked, but not any sort of award winner. This mediocre attitude seems even more deeply engrained than my love of horses and my fear of water. It has permeated me. To release myself from this habit of the soul has been a challenge, so I’ve drifted, drifted, drifted in this life.

A few weeks ago I attended a three-day business event, and during the event we went through a process where we looked at what our life would be like in a year or five years or 10 years from that moment if we continued down the trail we were on. It was very experiential and visceral. I found myself in a prison of my own making, looking through bars and feeling as though I had wasted my life. The sounds that escaped from my throat were not human. I was one of the most powerful animals on earth, the Cougar, and was completely lost. I growled, I shrieked, I felt the pain of never being free, never reaching my potential, never, never, never….in that moment, lifetimes of mediocrity were released  into the cosmos.

It’s not easy letting go of lifetimes of habit. Sometimes I slip back into the fear. But every day I move forward, one step at a time, and I know that what I’m doing in my life, the passion I feel for people and their pets and making their relationships better, is changing lives and is, without a doubt, what I’m here to do. It’s taken a long time to get here. Lifetimes. But it’s been worth every lesson learned, and every step. What is it time to change in your life?

Ashara Morris is the CEO and President of Harmony’s Heart, LLC, a company that changes lives through the love of animals and the desire of their caretakers to step through judgement and expectation to a relationship based on love, leadership and connection. Contact her at http://www.harmonysheartanimals.com or ashara@harmonysheartcoaching.com.

I Am Fearless

I recently did some work around my shadow side. You know, that part of you that you don’t really want to look at? The grumpy, scaredy, unkind part? As it turns out, our shadows aren’t just black – there are many shades of gray in there, and some things are more shadowed than others. In the work, we didn’t go to the black – we hung out in the gray areas. For my first time doing major shadow work, that was fine.

The way we got there seems backwards, but not really. I thought about people I admired, and wrote down words that described them – successful, caring, supportive. Fearless. Then we looked at the words that had the most charge for us, got into groups, and stated “our word.” We had to say it like this: I am <your word goes here>. Mine was Fearless.

“I am Fearless.” Just saying it gave me the heebie-jeebies because it was such a lie. I know I’m not fearless. But I want to be. My group mates encouraged me to say it again. And again. And again. Each time, I went deeper into what I was feeling around that statement, and it brought up anxiety, the need to be safe, and tears. Lots and lots of tears. It took a while for a breakthrough.

As often happens, it was what I felt that gave me the answer. I realized, somewhere along the line, that the fear was old, very old, before-I-was-born old. The basis for all of my fear wasn’t even MY fear. It was my mother’s.

She wanted, more than anything, to have lots of kids. It took her four years to get pregnant with me, so imagine the fear she felt at possibly losing that precious being she had waited so long to greet. Once I was born, she wanted to protect me. I could feel that desire to keep me safe from all things evil, the admonition over and over to be careful, to not die. All of these messages came to me in utero and as an infant, and even though we don’t consciously remember them, they are there, deep in our hearts and souls. Mine was Be Safe And Don’t Die.

It occurred to me that my brother got the same message. Between our births there was a miscarriage, so once again, when my brother was on his way, mom was ultra, ultra careful, not wanting her precious bundle to die. This explained to me so deeply why both he and I have had, all our lives, a deep abiding fear of death. Why I wouldn’t put myself out there, why I rode my bike, and my horses, so carefully. Be Safe And Don’t Die. Other souls may have reacted differently to this message, but bro and I took it to heart.

I’ve chipped away at it over the years as I grew into my 20’s and beyond, but there was always the underlying message that had been there since before I was born. Going through this process has helped me to release a lot of that terror that wasn’t even my own, so I can now say “I am Fearless” and be comfortable in knowing it’s not such a big lie anymore.

Ashara Morris is an Animal and Life Intuitive, helping people find closure, discuss and solve issues, and increase the beauty of their relationship with their animal friends. Find her at www.harmonysheartanimals.com.

Transition

Recently, I went to my home town in Wisconsin to say my goodbyes to my mother. She was almost 92. She had been ill before, but there was something about this situation that told me it was time to take action and go home for a couple of days.

Mom and Future Me 1950

The last time I saw her was in July 2016, and we had a beautiful visit. She was feeling good, and in fact when I showed up at the Brookdale facility she wasn’t even there – she had gone on an outing for a few hours to a music event. She was a huge music lover, and sang with the local Sweet Adelines barbershop music group for many years, in addition to the church choir and, probably, the shower. I came back later, and she even recognized me, but not until she heard my voice – I’ve been gone from my home town for 40 years, and in that time we’ve seen one another in person off and on, but it has mostly been letters and phone calls. Since her memory has been faulty the last few years, I was grateful that she recognized my voice and we were able to have a lovely time together. The year before, she hadn’t known me.

Christmas 1962

While I was in town, I decided to see the movie “A Dog’s Purpose”. I actually had several movies on my list to chose from, and was hesitant to go to this one in particular – when I first saw the movie trailer I cried from start to finish because the subject resonated with me so strongly, and I didn’t want to spend two hours sobbing and then go visit my ailing mom – but it kept beckoning to me. I listened to my intuition, and spent a couple of hours with a reincarnating dog.

It was exactly what I needed. As an affirmation of my belief system, it was priceless, and helped me immeasurably to cope as I bore witness to the beginning of my mom’s transition. I sat and read to her, even though she was pretty much unconscious, and during that time I was very aware of three beings at the foot of her bed, keeping a silent and invisible vigil. I thanked them for being there and felt comforted.

Christmas 1986

My brother arrived in the early evening and we sat and talked, more deeply than we have in some time. I’ve always kept my “special gifts” under a bushel basket with my immediate family, because we were raised in a very practical fashion and woo-woo wasn’t really part of our training growing up. However, in recent months I’ve been more who I really am with my family than ever before. This evening was no exception. I told my brother about the beings I had seen. He remarked that he had never seen anything like that, and he almost sounded regretful about it. I also found out that he, like me, had grown up with a pretty massive fear of dying. I’m not sure where that came from for us, but how interesting that we would reveal this fear to each other while our mother was doing exactly that. As we’ve gotten older, the fear has subsided somewhat. There are times when I can feel some curiosity about the “next thing”, and even hope. He feels the same way.

As we prepared to leave for the night, I stroked mom’s hair and marveled at how soft and silky it was. I’ll never forget that. Her body was failing, but her hair was like angel floss. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Me, best friend Judy (mom’s daughter from another mother), and mom circa 2014

The next morning, my brother called me early to say that mom had passed during the night. It was as though she had waited for the two of us to be present at her side, our little family, and for peace and love to surround her. She knew her kids would watch out for one another; her job at last was complete.

Mom defied family convention by saying that she wanted to be cremated, and her ashes spread over the farm where she spent the last almost-50 years of her life. No pine box for her! She loved that place, and I feel so grateful that it has remained in our family; my nephew lives there now, with his wife and children. It is a great place to grow up. I’ll travel back in the Spring, when the flowers are blooming and the trees coming to life, to join in the ritual of finalizing mom’s wishes.

My family was conventional but weird in its own way. My mom, who looked like the epitome of conventionality, chose her exit in a way that was totally unconventional to her upbringing. She had an open mind, a wisdom about her, a hands-off way of loving her children once we were grown, that I strive to emulate. All she ever wanted was to have a passel of kids – she ended up with two, and filled in the big family gaps with my cousins and the neighbors. Everyone loved coming to our house. Her heart was huge, and I always enjoyed having her come with me on my teenage adventures (yes, I did, and I invited her!) She was fun without ever losing sight of the fact that she was the mom. I always felt safe.

As I grew to adulthood and moved away, she let me go, but she never, ever judged me or stopped loving me, even when my life was chaos, sometimes heartache, a revolving door with men and husbands, as I strove to find myself. She treated every one of the people I dragged home with respect and love. I’m sure she was as pleased as I when I finally grew up enough to realize that I deserved all of the happiness I’ve found with my husband of 26 years, Glenn. It took me quite a while to get there, but she always hung in and cheered me on from the sidelines. She was the Best. Mom. Ever.

Rose Gertrude Zauner Neuens – Born November 5, 1925 – passed to the next life January 27, 2017. Fly with the angels, mom.

Glenn, me, and my wonderful, wacky, wise mama

 

What’s In A Story?

A while back, I attended some training for my Animal Communication / Coaching business. One of the things the trainer talked about was using story when marketing, especially stories from our childhood, that could be focused on some aspect of the point being made in the sales copy. He said to write down every day a title for a story from childhood; not the whole story, just the title. One could write something around that title and use it.

As I sat listening to him, all of that sounded great, except for one thing. I had a lot of gaps in my childhood. I’ve always felt that there was so much about my childhood that was missing, and that the things I did remember were in some way not so happy. And then I decided that I would, as an experiment, write down a title every day and see where it took me.

Amazingly, it took me a lot of places. Memories flooded back in. When I wrote the title “Gas Wars”, it took me not only to sitting in the basement painting numbers on boards for my dad to use at his gas station to advertise prices going up and down, but to the time I spent in that same basement trying to get my mind around decimal equivalents. And roller skating down there with my cousins. There were three rooms, so we had a slick method of indicating which room we were going into that avoided a lot of collisions. Then there were the roller skates themselves. “Skate keys”. There’s a title. Another memory that surfaced was a day when my mom was doing laundry, in the basement.  I asked if I could have a carrot, and she burst into tears. Never did figure that out. Wow, and more – taking showers down there, cutting my hair into a Beatles cut over the wash basins, the roll top desk and it’s secret hiding places, riding the rocking horse my dad made for me, practicing piano on our old upright that my dad took apart, refinished, and put back together.

All of those memories sprang from “Gas Wars”, like branches of a tree, spreading and blossoming on the trunk that started from being in the basement, to all of the other things that happened in the basement. And that is just one tiny bit of what I’ve come up with over the last six months.

Whether these memories will ever make useful stories to launch information about my business is irrelevant. I do this exercise daily, and what it has shown me is that I have a rich set of memories about my childhood. Not all of them are angsty or sad. There are the sweet memories of time spent with my cousins, of fun, laughter and adventure (remember that rocking horse). I recall a lot more than I thought I did. Worlds have opened up, worlds that not only give me an anchor to that growing up time, but give me an understanding of how the dynamics of our family, in concert with who we are fundamentally, shaped me. I can look at my past with love and compassion. It also shows me how those beginnings were on the path to finding my true purpose, and how they helped me grow into who I was meant to be.

Ashara Morris is an Animal Communicator, helping people find closure, discuss and solve issues, and increase the beauty of their relationship with their animal friends. Find her at www.harmonysheartanimals.com.