Dear Guides,

I’m watching my elderly relative go downhill in a nursing home, only perking up when I visit. How important is it that I try to spend more time with her?

Excerpt from Minda’s channeling on 6.9.2010:

Dear ones,

The elderly are on a timeline of their own. Actual moments, hours, weeks, months do not have the importance you may be attaching to them. Here is where the phrase “give or take a little” comes to the fore.

There is a wide range of possible moments to exit from the Earth experience, and it is not so precise as you are looking at it. If the person goes now or if they hang on for more months or years, it does not change tremendously their outcome and learning.

Yes, certainly if events occur, things shift for the soul. But it is a lot like when you are preparing something and have a number of tasks to accomplish. . . .

On the one hand, you may be thinking everything has to get done today (in this lifetime, before death), but maybe there are things that can be done on future occasions you can’t be aware of, or perhaps they don’t even need to be accomplished at all.

All this to say that your lives are much less driven by things you “should” and “need to” complete than you may be aware of.

When you decide how much to be involved in someone’s life, such as this elderly person, it is much more important to weigh the impact it has on your own sense of self than on theirs. Do you enjoy the meetings? Do you feel it is important for you to fulfill what you consider to be a choice you make because of your belief system? Do you feel a more whole and complete and fulfilled person by carrying out visits that you feel support your value system?

. . .

We would love it if we could inspire you to cut yourselves some slack and reduce the expectations you place on yourselves to impact your world, your lives and those lives around you. Know that you will succeed in inner ways even more when you relieve the stress you place on yourselves to accomplish, achieve, be everything to everyone, etc.

. . .

You life will develop its own vitality, which is much more important for you to achieve than attempting to affect others’ vitality.

This answer continues in Minda’s “Dear Guides” Journal. For full channeling, please join “Dear Guides” by clicking button at right.

Channeling (c) 2010 Minda Bernstein

Painting (c) 2010 Julie Bernstein Engelmann
Painting title: Visiting the Elderly 6.9.2010

Dear Guides,

What is the best way to handle being with someone who is in a bad mood or who doesn’t like us or who is angry with us?

Excerpt from Minda’s channeling on 5.31.2010:

Dear ones,

This is a difficult situation you describe, one which challenges your very ability to stay centered in your world. You are always longing for love and acceptance, the reflection of the environment you recall from the realms of soul from whence you came. And feeling alone and unsure of so many pieces of your lives on Earth, you are already so vulnerable to the difficulties.

When this is compounded by being in the presence of negative vibrations it can feel like you are in the wrong experiment, one that is counter-productive and altogether missing the point.

You may wish you could get out of this situation as soon as possible, flee to better conditions and try to re-establish your feelings of belonging and inner stability. And perhaps you can do just that.

But when you find yourselves in these positions . . . and it seems to you that you cannot just separate yourself from the situation, or it doesn’t feel right to do so, then this is a moment when you can work on your inner attitude.

Here you can cultivate your inner garden, your inner beauty, regardless of what is going on around you.

. . .

For whatever their reasons to sojourn in that less-than-positive energy, it is not beneficial to you to have it creep into your space. It is theirs to choose, live with, learn to transform, and release. You have your own challenges, but dealing with or fixing their energy is not one of them.

You cannot change them, and it is not a constructive use of your intention to do so. However, you can be very clear with yourself that this belongs to them, and not to you.

. . .

In fact, there will come a day when your garden will shine in its own beauty regardless of those around you – whether they are negative or positive towards you. You will feel more and more the close support within you and know that the inner well never dries up. That is the greatest truth of all.

This answer continues in Minda’s “Dear Guides” Journal. For full channeling, please join “Dear Guides” by clicking button at right.

Channeling (c) 2010 Minda Bernstein
Painting (c) 2010 Julie Bernstein Engelmann

Painting title: Being With Someone Resistant 5.31.2010

Dear Guides,

When it comes to diligence about everyday responsibilities, procedures and schedules, how is it that some people operate with simplicity, somehow enlisting help or getting by, while others see no alternative but to juggle a multitude of details with great effort?

Excerpt from Minda’s channeling on 5.25.2010:

Dear ones,

You receive our compassion in the roles you have chosen in a context which appears to run like a watch, full of precision, interlocking gears, dependencies upon sequences and a support system to surround you in order to respond to the various surprises and challenges that arise.

It is easy to see how some souls sensitized to this level of order of your world can feel inundated with this kind of an operation which seems to require constant vigilance and alertness. Yes, it seems to demand so much attention just to function on a day-to-day basis that it can easily be overwhelming, stretching the limits of your capabilities.

Does it in fact require more than you have to give? Is it up to some people to carry the weight of the system and others more or less get pulled into the jet stream created by them? And what is the role of joy in this scenario?
. . .
In the ideal, most smooth-running model of the machine of your lives, you are intertwined and some are leaders and others followers in a given situation, then reversing the roles for other types of situations, or with other people and their various expertise and experiences becoming valued and precious for the whole.
. . .
Here is where you can ask for help on all sides. From us, from the Universe, from the grace of God, from your fellow man.

This is perhaps why you or others are in the position to feel much responsibility shunted onto your shoulders – in order to develop this very ability to share the “wealth” and feel the support of others. Look to cultivate the feeling that you are not alone, not overcharged with duties. Aim to see yourself in an interwoven well-functioning system of mutual support.
. . .
And know that this exact process of encouraging the participation of others is a major challenge and ability that you wish to achieve in this lifetime.

Do not gloss over it as a means to an end. No, it is the end in itself.

This answer continues in Minda’s “Dear Guides” Journal. For full channeling, please join “Dear Guides” by clicking button at right.

Channeling (c) 2010 Minda Bernstein
Painting (c) 2010 Julie Bernstein Engelmann

Painting title: Handling Life’s Details 5.25.2010

Dear Guides,

Can we judge whether we are being of true service by interpreting people’s reactions? Or is that the wrong measurement system?

Excerpt from Minda’s channeling on 5.18.2010:

Dearest ones,

You are living in a world of reflections. Everywhere you go, you see images of yourselves reflected back to you, giving you that perspective of how you appear in the world.

In fact, most of you have a certain fascination with discovering all the permutations of how you appear, how you fit in, how others think of you, view you, like or love you, admire you, respect you, how they see you fitting into the big picture.

No wonder it is fascinating to you, because part of the reason you are on Earth in the first place is so God can see Him/Herself, to put it into one type of language, or so the Great can experience the many or so the Whole can enjoy all the parts which together make the sum of the whole.

Given this backdrop, you can understand and have compassion for your desire to always examine this phenomenon: how you fit in to the greater picture. It is a wholesome and natural question.

Where it can befuddle you and become detrimental to you, out of proportion, is when you begin adjusting your own actions and feelings about yourselves based on how you judge these reflections from the outside.
. . .

When you find yourself questioning whether you are on the right track, achieving what you intend - especially with a service which aims to help someone else - be very aware and open to the possibility that you may receive inner feedback, an inner nudge, as to the value of what is happening. There may be a deeper lesson in this instance that is coming to serve you or both of you, as to what you are to learn from each other, or who is helping whom, or what is the meaning of this interaction or exchange.
. . .

There is a lot of room to move, room for error, leeway as you may receive all kinds of reactions and impressions from others. In the end, none of these are hugely important, and if you can remove yourselves from close scrutiny of these kinds of feedback, you will, in fact, be freer in your movement forward. This will feel just a little lighter and more fluid.

This answer continues in Minda’s “Dear Guides” Journal. For full channeling, please join “Dear Guides” by clicking button at right.

Channeling (c) 2010 Minda Bernstein
Painting (c) 2010 Julie Bernstein Engelmann

Painting title: Judging Our Service 5.18.2010