Here we are, again a month with a fifth week.

In months with five weeks, on the fifth Thursday there is no channeled blog or Dear Guides Journal. This way subscriptions to Dear Guides Journal are always four to a month.

However, the great news is that people who subscribe to Dear Guides Journal or who are signed up to receive the Beauty & Spirit Note will get a special message e-mailed to them on the fifth Thursday of the month.

Wink wink nod nod, go ahead and sign up! (See sign-up box at right.)

You can view past issues at:
http://www.julieengelmann.com/Beauty&spiritTOC.html

Enjoy!

In the spirit of love,
Minda & Julie

Photo (c) 2010 Amber Engelmann

Dear Guides,

To me, my life feels hard. But compared to others experiencing war, sickness and starvation, it seems easy. Are my struggles as significant spiritually as theirs?

Excerpt from Minda’s channeling on 7.13.2010:

Dear Ones,

. . . It is less a matter of which challenges you face than it is of how you choose to face them. That is where the “significance” comes in. If you can learn to choose peace in your heart when faced with whatever seems challenging that appears in your life, then you are taking the steps you have programmed as challenges for yourself.

The circumstances of the challenges can range from war to internal disruption. There is a vast difference between these in your world to the outer eye, and you can enjoy your gratitude that you are not struggling with the former; but at the same time, you do not need to feel guilty or under-challenged or like you are getting off the hook in this lifetime.

Each soul has certain tasks that you have laid out for yourselves. If you did not require of yourself to face the great worldly outer life-and-death struggles, it does not mean that you have not chosen other equally important inner struggles.
. . .

Let yourself be open to learning from whatever you present yourself with in this lifetime. With the intention to move forward on the path you have set out for yourself, you will be given the opportunity to choose how you do it. Set your sights on destinations before you, and how you want to feel once you arrive. This is a wonderful practice, leaving much room for variety.

It is you, yourself, who will bring the evaluation of your work or accomplishments to the tasks in front of you. None other.

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

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

Painting title: “Easy” vs. “Hard” Problems 7.13.2010

Dear Guides,

When my business failed, was it because I didn’t follow my inner guidance; I had a soul lesson to learn, for example about compassion; or I was simply “stupid,” lacking common sense or expertise?

Excerpt from Minda’s channeling on 6.28.2010:

Dear Ones,

You are launching a question that will bring you to the essence of judgment as you can see it from the various sides of the fence.

On your side, you see your lives from your present vantage point. You see things as obvious black and white tones, winning or losing, success or failure. From our side, these things are all nuanced; sometimes they are barely distinguishable from each other.

It is almost as if the gradients of color or definition are so “forced” in your world that they create a whole other set of criteria that adds a layer of intensity, drama, significance to the game of life in which you participate. It does create excitement, color, lots of emotional investment and thrills. It ups the ante and puts you immediately into the thick of the action. That is its main benefit.

From our view, these are the minor details, as if you have many choices and any one will do. Whatever is appealing to you, you will learn the lessons through that medium. If you are committed to experiencing situations which will bring to the fore certain types of challenges in order to round out your soul experience, to strengthen some core learnings or structural weaknesses that you have chosen to deal with in this lifetime, then you can create the situations in many various choices or arenas or situations which will deal with these same issues.

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: Why Do We Fail? 6.28.2010

Dear Guides,

When we review our life from the other worlds after we die, what will we consider our successes, and what will we deem we could have done better?

Excerpt from Minda’s channeling on 6.21.2010:

Dear Ones,

We love you jumping to the heart of the question! If you can grasp the perspective which you will have in your review position after death and implement it during your lives, you will give yourself the gift of always jumping to the heart of the issue in this manner.

This is the kind of perspective which we are constantly striving to share with you, and the more you can adopt this in your everyday thinking and decision-making, the more clearly you are in tune with the choices you set out for yourselves before you came into this life.

And then, as a consequence, you will be more happy with the results when you review, seeing the many times you “hit the nail on the head” and satisfied the exercises which you wished to master in this life.

How to describe this process? It is like you set up a certain obstacle course that you thought would be fun and a learning experience for your soul. You knew, as a result of counsel and review of other lives, the areas where you were soft or unformed or missing a substantial piece.

. . .

Similarly, you looked at your soul shape and saw the areas which you considered as missing some attention, strength, support, muscle, structure. You can choose any of a myriad of words to describe this.

But if you imagine this visual description we have made above, you see that it is not a question of judgment, of saying, “Gee, you are really weak in this area!” and being condemning towards yourself or another. You would simply say, “Oh, I notice a spot which needs support. Add that to the list of challenges I’d like to work on next time around.”

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: Viewing Our Life From Beyond 6.21.2010

Dear Guides,

What happens when we die?

Excerpt from Minda’s channeling on 6.14.2010:

Dear ones,

You each choose long in advance the moment which you foresee will be a good time for your passing over back into pure Source Energy. This “moment” is extremely flexible, and your decision and soul direction on this event can change many times during the day-to-day events of your life.

Things are not fixed and required, but much flexibility is always there, so that the soul can adjust to the myriad of influences and situations which call your attention, things you may want to include in your lifetime as part of your fulfillment plan.

When the time comes when all things converge to underline that this is the opportune time for you to cross over, you have an agreement between the multiple levels of your soul’s activities, those that are more or less conscious on the Earthly plane and those on the higher planes.

When all of these are in harmony on this decision, the territory is prepared and the choice is made as to how it will occur. Then all things align to invite this blessed moment to occur.

While the moment can hold much fear for you on Earth since it represents the unknown and you can only conjecture about what may occur after death, it is a much more simple and joyful moment than most give it credit for.

It is much like when you come back from a run and you feel hot and sticky and then you take a refreshing shower. You appreciate that the sweat and grime is washed from your outer shell and even if you find you need to make a slight adjustment to adapt to the unexpected water temperature, it doesn’t take long before you are glorying in the refreshing qualities that it brings to you.

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: Death Transition 6.14.2010