faith Archives - Carolyn McGee ~ Sacred Haven Living

Courage can be defined in many ways. It is standing for what we know is right even when we are afraid. It can be walking away from an unhealthy situation. It can be advocating for someone else. It may be speaking an uncomfortable truth. At the root of courage is heart centered action.

For me, it is always easiest to take heart centered action from a grounded and centered energy. As I meditated on writing this blog about courage my awareness focused on this coffee and tea set in my living room. I realized I also unconsciously find a focal point to help me direct my energy.

The set had a place of honor on top of the buffet in my parent’s dining area for as long as I can remember. My parents brought it back from Europe where they lived before I was born. It’s been a focal point and energy anchor intuitively for me forever.

As a small child I remember walking through the dining area thinking how pretty that set looked but knowing that touching it would get me in trouble. I would gravitate towards it when life around me got crazy. It was pretty and solid. It helped me feel brave and safe.

It made me happy to see the shiny pieces that looked like a happy family. They all were on a solid foundation together and stayed together no matter what. I gained courage and peace whenever I looked at it.

As a teenager I remember it being there through all the angst of growing up. Again, the set stayed together and shiny. It was my calm in the middle of many storms. I didn’t understand meditation yet but often found myself staring at the set when I needed to make a decision or have a tough conversation. It allowed me to find the courage in myself to speak and do things that I found scary.

Once I moved out and started my journey on my own the set became a subconscious centering point whenever I returned to my parents’ home. We would gather around the dining table and I always wanted to be facing the set. I would take a breath and look at the set before responding to a difficult question or comment.

As I expanded more into my true self in my life‘s journey there was always something grounding to me about that set sitting on top of the buffet in my parents dining room. When I started my own family and returned to my parents’ home to visit it always brought a smile to my face. The consistency of the set and the never changing location on the buffet gave me comfort, clarity, and direction.

I re-created this set by finding little teapot sets and purchasing them on my own. At some level I knew I was trying to fill a void in my life by bringing these sets into my home, but I didn’t quite understand what it was. I knew that having the sets centered me and helped me move through many challenges along the way. I would stare at them as I found courage to make difficult choices or take new risks.

When we sold my childhood home my sister and I were dividing up belongings between my mom, her, and me. I teared up when I asked for the set. My sister hesitated for a moment, saw my genuine need, and agreed that it was mine. I still didn’t know why I need it and the full power of that set. I just knew that I needed to have the courage to ask for it.

When I brought it to my home and gave it a place of honor in my living room, I realized that my courage and faith had come full circle. I had centered my focus on who I was and my value. The shiny set reflected back a strong woman who confidently connected into divine guidance, trusted it, made choices and took action. I didn’t need the set to see or center my energy or to have courage. I now could value the set for its beauty and memories.

The set still has a place of honor and I often pause near it to enjoy its bright beauty. What I see reflecting back is the value and courage that I put out daily. I show up authentically for me, my children, and my clients.

I have the courage to tap into my own energy to make centered choices and take the right next step. I also know that there is power in staring at a centering point to ground myself and connect even deeper to inner wisdom.

Those five beautiful pieces of shining metal provide confidence, clarity, comfort, courage, and the baseline connection that supports them all.

Originally posted on Brave Healer Blog.

Hello everyone. Carolyn McGee, Intuitive Coach and Teacher here for your Tip of the Week Video. It is the week of March 15th, 2020 and there is a lot going on this week. I want to talk to you about being centered and focusing on what you can control.

So first of all, like always, I like to pull a card. We are using the Dragon Oracle cards and the card that came out for us is the Earth Dragon. Now I know that the card is reversed from the way that I can see it, but this dragon is looking back, looking into the past. So the invitation for all of us is to let go of the past, to let go of what we think we know, to focus on being present. You know, this quarantine that we’re in, this social distancing with the coronavirus is giving us an opportunity to, in some ways, yes, step back into an older way of being.

You know, we are very fortunate as a society where we have the ability to do things like video conferencing, to do FaceTime, Skype, just pick up the phone and have a conversation. We have TV, we’ve got Twitter. There’s all of these different ways for us to connect. It’s very different than it was back in 1918 when we had the Spanish flu pandemic.

So what can we learn about that? One of the things that they learned during that time period was the criticality of being outside in nature. There’s been information on Facebook recently showing that the people who healed quicker were the ones who they put outside. I’ve even seen pictures of rows and rows of tents of with patients on stretchers that are outside in the sun.

They’re absorbing the light. So one of the ways to build your immunity and help you recover faster or help your immunity build up so you’re not affected by all of this is just continue to get outside. If you have somebody in your household that that you want to take a walk with, take a walk. Otherwise just get outside yourself, maintain that suggested six feet of space and take a walk. Take your dog for a walk. Go to the dog park, but just don’t engage at a close proximity, but still get yourself outside. Take yourself for a drive. Get in your car and go outside. Put the windows down, if it makes sense, and just get yourself out of the space that you’re in because it can get a little bit claustrophobic.

If it’s safe for you to continue to work, that’s great. If you’re working from home, try to keep your same routine. You get up, get yourself dressed, you get your coffee. If that’s, if that’s your thing, it certainly is mine. And go to work. If you are getting paid, keep the same support systems that you have. If you’ve got a dog walker, have them come to walk the dog as long as everybody’s healthy. If you have somebody who comes to mow the grass or clean your house or does other support for you continue to do that as long as you can. It’s keeping the economy going. It’s supporting others. It’s that sense of community which is extremely important. And one of the things that I have been noticing and that my angels keep whispering in my ear about is we have lost that tribal sense of community.

If you think about just even a couple hundred years ago, if we were isolated from the tribe, the way they punished people is that they would excommunicate them, excommunicate them from the church, they would put them outside the stockade fence. They would just socially ostracize people if they didn’t follow the rules.

And we’re taking a step back into the sensation of that, even though it’s not real. It’s not real, but the energy of it, the way our root chakra, our safety center feels. We are going to react to that old paradigm of it’s not safe. It’s not safe to be alone. And that’s going to amplify the fear. That’s part of what’s running the energy with the cleaning out the stores, there’s this pervasive feeling of it’s not safe.

It’s not safe to be me. It’s not safe in my home. It’s not safe in general. So taking a deep breath and realizing that you are safe. Yes, we all have to take precautions. We need to be aware. We need to wash our hands thoroughly. If we don’t feel well, we do need to stay home and not muscle through it. We’ve been taught in the past that if is just a little cold it’s okay to go to work. That’s that old energy. This is the energy of taking care of ourselves and taking of others in our community because we are not alone. We are not isolated.

We are all in this together. It’s a worldwide situation and we each have a responsibility and the power to make a difference. So for this week, my invitation to you is reach out and see if you can support somebody. Earlier in my town there was an elderly woman who posted on Facebook that that she was out of milk and asked if somebody could help her. There was at least 20 people that said, what kind of milk do you want? Do you have any restrictions? And I’ll get you one and I’ll drop it off on your doorstep. That’s community. Another thing that happened is that the town has an emergency food fund. And in order to help support the restaurants in town, they’re using those funds, buying food, and then they’re going to have it available for individuals to schedule a time because they’re trying to be very aware of not having a crowd schedule a time to come and pick up a meal.

So again, it’s a community. It’s reaching out, it’s being of service. And that’s the way we support each other. That’s the way we support ourselves. It’s so important to get into that energy of supporting others. So my invitation to you is how can you support somebody else and what can you do to be kinder to yourself to make things a little bit more fun for yourself while you are taking care of yourself while you are pulling back and not engaging as much with the outside world.

Do you have a book that you’ve been putting off reading? Can you schedule yourself some time, do your work from home or whatever you have to do, and then give yourself the pleasure of reading that book? Are you writing a book and you’ve been procrastinating it? I fall into that category. Schedule time, work on it.

If you love to draw, get a coloring book and give yourself that joy. There are all kinds of online programs to keep engaged. I’m seeing some beautiful things where people are waiving programs fees so that you can do it at home. All kinds of subscriptions. They’re really encouraging people to do self care. And that’s something you can do at home. That’s something you can do with your family. Do a yoga class in your living room. Turn on some crazy music and dance. Have fun. Bring a little joy into your life.

And because I like to be of service what my commitment to everyone is that I’m going to do a Facebook Live every day for an undetermined of time. We’re going to play this all just by ear, just like everything else in the beginning.

It will be a different time each day. On Monday it’s going to be a five o’clock in my Facebook group. The Facebook group is called Enhance Your Intuition. You have to answer a few questions in order to join, but they’re all real easy questions and I would love to see you there. I will be there giving tips, holding space. We can all have a virtual tea. I’ll pull cards, I’ll answer questions, whatever I can do to help keep the community vibe alive. I hope to see you there and have a fabulous week. Bye bye for now.

Courage of a Coffee & Tea Set

Tip of the Week: 03-15-20