February 23, 2025

Why Intuition Fails You and What To Do About It

Intuition may fail us because we don’t know how to access it or we think it’s “divine” or just for “special” people. It is, however, is a practical skill we all have. It answers specific questions in nonlinear and non-empirical ways. Once we learn how intuition gives us information, simple tips can help us begin to tap its power in our lives, from determining what intuitive abilities are to tracking practical, intuitive experiments.

What Is Intuition?

Guess what? Intuition isn’t divine, isn’t limited to “special” people, and isn’t always right. What is it exactly? It’s our innate ability to gather information that answers a specific question in nonlinear and non-empirical ways. When we use it, we are not following Steps A to B to C in the scientific method because the objective measurement is not intuitive.

Why Doesn’t Intuition Work?

Our firm belief in an empirical scientific method is precisely why most of us fail to tap our intuition. Intuitive information often doesn’t make sense to us the way we’ve been told to access the world, so we give up trying. Or we’re taught that it is somehow divine, just because sometimes we use our intuition to connect with spiritual teams, angels, or soul purpose, and the “divine” isn’t the first thing we turn to for practical decision-making.

If we get past those blocks, we’re stymied because it looks like intuition is limited to “special” people, the psychics who tune in and get guidance for us. But we are all born intuitive, because intuition is a real sense just like our ability to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. It doesn’t work because we talk ourselves out of it by insisting we can’t do it or “that isn’t how things are done” (i.e., the “rational” scientific method).

Once we’re past our blocks and actually accessing our intuition we have another problem: intuition isn’t always right.

Nothing is, but it’s usually because we aren’t accessing it correctly. We mistake a gut-ache for an intuitive hit, or we get information that isn’t relevant to the question we’re asking (because we’ve tapped into somebody else’s answers, or don’t know how to analyze what we get). We’ve been brainwashed to think it’s too hard or esoteric, so we’ve lost touch with the simple, intuitive ways that came naturally to our ancestors. That means we now have to look at it as a foreign language and find a way to learn it.

How Intuition Works

To tap our intuition, we first have to let go of our judgment and the logical, linear way we’ve been taught to think. Intuition is only new to us because we’ve been ignoring it for generations. If we think about it as a practical skill we can re-learn, we’re releasing the blocks to learning. That is, if we don’t think we can do something, we can’t—not because of skill or ability, but because we end up not bothering.

Finding out how our particular intuitive ability works are key. Just as some people taste foods as too salty or sweet, each person’s natural skill is uniquely theirs.

There are four necessary intuitive abilities:

Seeing. People see pictures, auras, even nonphysical beings like the dead or angels. Their visual sense is heightened or sharpened.

Hearing. Yes, people will hear things and other people talking to them—in their heads. Since everything has a soul and is alive, that could mean our homes and businesses, animals, and even rain clouds are connecting with us. Really.

Feeling. Commonly mistaken as empathy, intuitive sense means people experience the feelings and emotions of others around them, including humans, animals, and so on.

Knowing. Intuitive knowing is the toughest because it means recognizing something when there is no physical evidence. These people are great in emergencies because they seem to know what is coming or react to a situation “one step ahead.”

Simple Tips to Access Intuition

Understanding and accessing our intuition takes a while. However, here are simple tips to start locating it right away. Yes, “homework.”

Practice each intuitive ability. We are all a combination of those four primary intuitive skills, and they combine differently on any given day. It takes practice to identify our most active ability, and more training until the others click in. What “hits” are common sense, emotional, factual, experiential … and intuitive?

Practice random hits. Intuition kept our ancestors alive, alerting them to predators sneaking up on them. We can make intuition practical by tuning into our environment. During the day randomly ask what time it is, and then find out. Eventually, you will be spot on—because your intuition is working with you for environmental awareness.

Hit the supermarket. Walk into a grocery’s produce section and grab the first fruit that appeals to you and the first one that doesn’t. Buy them. Take them home and examine and eat them, using all your physical senses and your intuition.

Keep a journal. Record intuitive experiments, from what worked to what didn’t, including how the body felt at the time, how information arrived, what happened next. Over time patterns emerge. Remember, intuition is always giving us the information we need to survive.

These simple first steps will help develop your intuition. Save the life-changing decisions for later, when it becomes second nature.

Remember, intuition is our birthright. Work it. Record experiments. Notice patterns. It’s telling you what you need to know.

Originally published in OMTimes.com Magazine: Why Intuition Fails You and What to Do About It – OMTimes Magazine

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt is an OM Times Expert and hosts the OM Times radio show, The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World. She offers personal and business intuition, mediumship, animal communication, soul regression hypnotherapy, and shamanic modalities. An award-winning author, she provides webinars, workshops, and talks on intuitive development. Find her at RobynFritz.com.

Working and Healing with Crystals

Perfect Crystals and the Right Mindset

Curious about working with crystals but don’t know where to start? I have good news! It can be easy for even a ‘crystal newbie’ to collaborate with crystals. In fact, they are useful for so many things that many people miss out by not exploring how to work and heal with them. It all begins with the right crystal and the right mindset.

Most people think of crystals as tools, which is treating them like servants. Instead, collaborate with them as partners. Like all things, they are alive—they have souls, consciousness, rights, responsibilities, free choice, and opinions. Treating a crystal as a partner, just like we would humans, put us on the practical and spiritual path of doing great things together as we each grow as souls.

How we regard crystals affects how we choose to work with them—and how they choose to work with us. Crystals are ancient beings we have partnered with for eons to promote physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. There is a perfect crystal for any need we have, and often more than one.

How to Purchase the Right Crystal

Mining, transporting, and storing crystals can be shocking and toxic to the crystals and the energies they hold. So, when purchasing, choose quality over quantity and price. Buy from merchants who are reputable and kind to their crystals; this will be evident. Damaged crystals may never function properly to help themselves, let alone us. They can take months to recover if they ever do. Even the most damaged crystal may look pretty, but it will not be able to partner with our work fully.

Begin searching by doing research with a good book on crystals, like Judy Hall’s Crystal Bible series. This helps to determine the types of crystal we need for its intended purpose. For instance, if grounding and protection are the goals, research the given properties and uses of different crystals, look at pictures, then examine them intuitively, either in person or online. There may be a large variety to choose from, but some crystals have even more refined uses. It would help, for example, to know wulfenite is good for energy, while apophyllite helps vision.

Clearing the Crystal, or Preparing for Use

It is good practice to clear our crystals first after purchase, then after each use. Energy clings to crystals in much the same way it clings to us. So, clean or clear the crystal to prepare it for use. Check them regularly to monitor the health of your crystals, and get to know the crystal’s physical properties.

Methods of clearing the crystals include rinsing them in cold water or setting them in the sun, or in sea salt. Do this only if you are sure they will not melt or be damaged. Incense, clearing sprays, and energy healing can also work—using kyanite, a clearing crystal, rapidly clears anything and anyone.

Intention and Working with Your Crystal

In researching, you may uncover directions or advice on how to program your crystal. There can be elaborate ways to do this, but crystals carry their own opinions. It is easiest and most effective to set an intention to create an effective and respectful partnership, and go from there, much the same process as its purchase.

When there is alignment between our intuition and the crystal, we intend to use, simply pick it up or sit next to it and invite it to join in whatever the intention is. Yes, it is really that easy—assuming, of course, that have full awareness of how your intuition works. Some of us intuitively “know” how to work with a crystal and what it would like to do. We sense its energies, see mental pictures, or feel its power. Experiment a bit; a healthy crystal will help indicate how best to use it.

Crystals for Grounding and Protection

Continued use of crystals often draws us to the ones we need to use most. Grounding and protection are two needs most of us have. Everyone and everything on Earth has a need to be solidly in our bodies, so we are clear-minded and healthy.

When we are scattered, anxious, ill, or otherwise ungrounded, we do not feel or act well and can make mistakes. Frustrations, like getting stuck in traffic or having a tough day at work can affect us negatively. Counteract difficult situations by carrying or wearing grounding and protection crystals.

Columbite: Columbite is one of the most powerful grounding and protection stones available, and is sometimes hard to find. It is an ore and heavy for its size. Columbite rapidly clears chakras, clearly convincing us what “grounded” means. It also protects us from unfriendly energies and entities.

White Quartz with Tourmaline Wands: White quartz is a grounding and clearing stone enhanced by naturally occurring black tourmaline wands. White and clear quartz are obtained easily. These may be some of the first pieces to buy because they are effective, all-around helpers.

Crystals for Clearing and Healing

Clearing and healing crystals work in mind, body, and spirit, sometimes all at once. This includes emotional and mental health, from setting boundaries to self-esteem; physical health, from eye issues to arthritis or chronic disease; and spiritual health, from clearing attachments and negativity to advancing on your spiritual path, including past life regression and spiritual purpose.

Carnelian: Since most crystals have multiple uses, experiment to discover their unique abilities. For example, carnelian is an orange-red stone traditionally considered to be a root chakra stone. Yet, it also works largely as a heart chakra stone

Auralite: Many people adore amethyst for its ties to the heart and love, but it is often too sensitive to support deep, healing work. It is an emotional stone and shatters easily. Consider auralite instead, which is a type of amethyst mined in Canada and contains as many as 23 different minerals. Auralite often includes strong grounding crystals, like hematite, so it is tough and facilitates deep healing.

Kyanite: Raw pieces of Kyanite are gorgeous, and co-workers will admire their beauty and may not realize they are being cleared— bonus! Consider buying small tumbled pieces to carry with you. Everyone should have kyanite to keep themselves, crystals, possessions, and spaces cleared. It quickly sweeps away stuck energy.

Crystals are fascinating and useful partners in the business of living. In my webinar, Working, and Healing with Crystals, we explore much more and explain how to work with them. I guide participants through a working session with a chosen crystal.

Originally published in OMTimes.com Magazine: Working and Healing with Crystals – OMTimes Magazine

About the Author

Robyn M. Fritz, MA MBA CHt, is a tested and certified intuitive and spiritual consultant and past life regression specialist with an international practice based in Seattle, Washington. An OM Times Expert and award-winning author, teacher, and speaker, she hosts “The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World” each Monday at 2 pm PST/5 EST on OM Times Radio. http://www.robynfritz.com

What’s Up with Spirit Guides?

What’s Up with Spirit Guides?

BY OMTIMES MAGAZINE

Are you familiar with your spirit guides?

Who do you turn to for spiritual guidance? When? Why?

One constant throughout human history is our need and desire for spiritual guidance. Yes, we often turn to fellow humans for that, from friends to counselors and spiritual advisors, but we also yearn for the presumed authority, skill, and 24/7 protection of ethereal or nonphysical advisors, from guardian angels to modern spirituality’s spiritual team, or spirit guides.

Since we’re asking these beings for help, it’s a good thing they’re real, then, isn’t it? The problem is, many people know very little about their spiritual team, or, as I’ll call them from this point, spirit guides, so we can’t work well with them and don’t benefit from their support as much as we could.

What’s the solution? Like most things in life, being proactive. Instead of sitting around and waiting for our spirit guides to pop in and explain the universe to us, we should invite them in to work with us and treat them as respectfully as we would treat any guest.

Intuition and Spirit Guides

We can start to connect with our spirit guides by first learning how our intuition works. While everyone is eventually a combination of the four main “clairs” (intuitive seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing), most of us have a dominant intuitive ability. Experimenting with our intuition and documenting our findings will help fine-tune it. Many people think intuition alone solves a problem, but in fact, it needs to be combined with what our belief, intellect, emotions, and experience tell us. That includes believing in our spirit guides, learning what is known about them, understanding our emotional response to them, and experimenting until (eureka!) we connect.

What Spirit Guides Do

Does everyone have a spirit guide? Yes, every single one of us has at least one spirit guide to be with us and support us in our personal lives as we grow our souls, which is why we take bodies in the first place. However, we also do many things throughout the day and our lifetime, and that determines how many guides we have and their jobs. For example, writers and other creatives have guides who are also called muses; so when people say their muse inspired them, that’s literally true. Other spirit guides support health, relationships, self-esteem, and motivation. While some of these issues might be the job of our main guide, sometimes people can have a guide for a particular issue or special life circumstance; for example, the death of a loved one can result in a guide showing up to simply hold us in our grief.

We can also have different spirit guides for different times in our lives. For example, spirit guides “train up” to different jobs, so children often have less experienced guides who are “learning the ropes,” so to speak, because children don’t usually face the variety of issues that adults do. When they do, they’ll often require more seasoned guides.

Here’s an example: I’ve seen children as young as seven and eight who are what I call “mediums by default,” children who are talking with or seeing dead people who come to them for help, not realizing (or caring) how young they are. The children and their parents are rightfully perplexed, even frightened. Because the children’s spirit guides are clearly not up to mediumship, I have replaced them with more experienced ones who can actively protect the children and more directly interact with them. But please note: “firing” or replacing a guide is a sensitive issue, one best handled by an experienced professional intuitive who is also a healer.

Adults may also need new guides when our lives or careers dramatically change. Guides usually sort themselves out with little input from us, which is generally a good thing, since we aren’t always as aware of what we need as we should or could be. A guide’s help can be simple daily things like an intuitive nudge to try something different to deep contemplation that can give insights on new directions for personal or professional growth.

Beyond our personal spirit guides, there are specialist guides. These include gardening guides and advanced medical guides who can advise on health care and even step into a direct role in surgeries.

Working with Spirit Guides

The key to working with spirit guides is to actively engage them. We have to ask for help, we can’t be passive observers in the spirit guide experience. We also need to monitor them to make sure they are on the ball and doing the job they committed to, which is supporting us. We must be aware of what they are doing, ask for help when we need it, and actively work to create a useful and inspiring partnership.

Just like us, spirit guides can and do make mistakes, so the best partnership is a give-and-take one that allows both sides to learn and grow together. As in real life, sometimes the partnership needs to end, and the best person to know that is you. Being respectful, curious, open, thoughtful, and precise about our needs allows us to help our guides help us. Which is why we have them in the first place.

My webinar “What’s Up with Spirit Guides?” covers how they work and how to create the best partnership with them, including what to do when things go wrong. Participants will join in a guided meditation to meet the spirit guide who assists in their daily life and will leave having established a solid working relationship with their guide.

Originally published in OMTimes.com Magazine: What’s Up with Spirit Guides? – OMTimes Magazine

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt is a tested and certified intuitive and spiritual consultant and past life regression specialist with an international practice based in Seattle, Washington. An OM Times Expert and award-winning author, teacher, and speaker, she hosts “The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World” each Monday at 2 pm PST/5 EST on OMTimes Radio.

Preparing Families for a Beloved’s Death

In this two-part series on preparing for death and grief, we’re covering how to prepare others, and yourself, for a beloved’s death.

Preparing for Death and Grief

You’ve just learned a family member is dying. Whether they’re human or animal, the feeling is the same: you’re stunned by grief and struggling to decide how to help yourself, your family, and your dying beloved get through it.

Yes, it’s hard to say goodbye, harder yet to live the goodbye, but it’s possible. Be practical, careful, sensible, loving, wildly intuitive, spiritual—and follow these tips.

You’re a Family

Remember that you’re a family, even if it’s just you. Yes, the dying person or animal comes first, as any proper hospice model should tell you, but prepare the family by seeing to individual needs. Barring a sudden, unexpected death, they all know it’s coming. Guilt, worry, concern, fear, and jealousy can all show up—and amazing compassion as well.

Build Community

Yes, ask for help, but be clear that anyone can refuse—and some will. It’s interesting, painful, and exhilarating to see who shows up, who doesn’t, and what new connections you make. People often mean well, but our culture is big on avoiding feelings, and dying well requires feelings. Your community will feel with you. The rest, well, you’ll be surprised by those who don’t, especially when it’s dying animals. Remember: that’s their mindset, not yours. Forgive and move on. Or out.

Do Your Homework

Help yourself, and your beloveds understand and accept the dying process. Figure out what it takes to care for your dying and what makes sense, decide what to do, and see that it gets done. Do whatever you have to do so you, and yours can live with it afterward.

You and your family, human and animal, get to decide what death looks like, from how you meet it to how you carry on afterward. Nobody else. Yes, listen to others, but only hang on to what makes sense to you and to your dying beloveds at the moment. That’s all any of us can do—and all the dying really ask of us.

Having experienced my brother’s death with absolutely no warning, I’m a strong advocate for preparing children for their own and a sibling’s death—for any death, human or animal. It’s gut-wrenching but necessary. For example, did you know that a common feeling among surviving children is that they were responsible for a sibling’s death, even if it was an illness? Learn from my unnecessary and debilitating angst: I knew better, even at nine, but that peculiar, unearned guilt haunted me for at least fifteen years. You have to choose how you face dying and death, and if you’re a parent, you’re choosing for everyone. So wise up.

With luck, you’ll get to accompany an animal through old age. What can you manage, afford, and stand? How do you explain it to your animal, the family, and yourself? Before you even get an animal, consider how and why your family will walk that last road together, because it always ends one way—in heartbreak. If that makes you flinch, excellent: it means you’re thinking. You’ll figure out a way to get through it because that’s what life is all about. Life with an aging animal is magnificent. You will experience mystery, frustration, exhaustion, and grief, but if you’re looking for grace in action, this is it.

Get a Great Team

Dying can and should be a community event, starting with your own support team. That includes your medical and veterinary team, spiritual counselors, social workers, psychotherapists, intuitive, energy healers, hospice and grief support professionals, ministers, family, friends, and sitters—yes, people who can be with your dying so you can get a break (and a nap). Always remember that the team is your partner, but you and your dying beloved are in charge. If you’re in charge, either as the animal owner or as the medical power of attorney, you make the decisions for and with your dying, if they are lucid. Fire anyone who thinks otherwise.

I believe your team should include an energy healer and a professional intuitive, and not just because I am one. While there are many energy healing modalities to choose from, you can also put hands on your beloved and yourself and invite healing energy to support the dying and those left behind. There are also many intuitive out there, but not many who are practical, spiritual, and well balanced, which is what you need.

If you are a healer and/or an intuitive, hire someone else: you need a compassionate, objective outsider. I hired an intuitive for the deaths of each of my animals. She gave me an additional perspective on the tough issues and enriched my family’s last days together. I know that neither I nor my beloveds would have done as well without that loving woman who confirmed my own insights, added others, helped us say goodbye, and was simply there as I howled with grief and loss. You hear the medical from the medical team, what you want (or not) from family and friends, what you fear from yourself, and what love has to say from your heart—and an intuitive and healer.

 These are the basics of helping your living and dying beloveds. Use your common sense, intuition, and loving heart to add to them, so when the time comes, true grace surrounds all of you.

Originally published in OMTimes.com magazine: Preparing Families for a Beloved’s Death – OMTimes Magazine

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt hosts the OM Times radio show, “The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World.” An intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist, she is an award-winning author whose next book is “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side.” Find her at RobynFritz.com. The second part of this article covers taking care of yourself. The material presented is condensed from my upcoming book, “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side. https://www.robynfritz.com

The How-to’s of Self-Care as Beloveds Die

In the first article of this two-part series on preparing for death and grief, Preparing Families for a Beloved’s Death, I covered how to prepare others for a beloved’s death. Here I’m offering simple but necessary things you need to do to keep yourself healthy and balanced as you support the living—and the dying. These are things we don’t usually think about, so let’s get to them.

Whether a human or animal family member is dying, the living has work to do you’re grieving, possibly in shock, and trying to figure out what to do to help yourself, your family, and your dying beloved get through it.

Don’t Buy into the Guilt

The current medical establishment believes that fighting death, no matter the odds or the suffering involved, is more important than a life well-lived, and a death gently met. Someday the system will grow up. In the meantime, you are a grown-up for it. Pain, suffering, and disability are cruel things. You will know when enough is enough. You cannot beat death. You can make it acceptable—even glorious.

If you live somewhere where humans can choose to end their lives, discuss this option with beloveds, and support their choice. For your animals, yes, you’ll feel bad if you resort to euthanasia, and you haven’t sorted through the whys and why-not with them, yourself, and the rest of the family. You’ll feel bad if you don’t and drag out an ending that causes misery for no good reason. You’ll feel bad, regardless.

Take steps to support yourself by figuring out what the limits are for both the dying and the living. Walk away from anyone who tries to make you feel guilty for choosing to meet death on your own terms and supporting your dying beloveds the same way. Hospice is learning, even with animals, but be careful of animal hospice, because some of those people still don’t understand mercy.

Figure out what love looks like to you and to the rest of the family, from the first day to the last. Cling to it.

Stay Present

We can get caught up in thinking about the past and the future—about what life was like before dying showed up and what it will be like afterward. That’s normal but be careful: don’t miss the “now” of the dying process. Walk the mystery with your beloveds. You’ll be exhilarated and crushed, but you’ll also never regret it. And you know what? I’m a medium, so I can assure you that your dead beloved won’t, either.

Schedule Self-Care

Caught up in our beloved’s dying process, we often forget to take care of ourselves first, a mistake that can lead to illness and despair. We can’t help ourselves, our dying, or others, especially children, if we’re worn out. Take time for yourself, whatever that means at the moment: take a walk, a nap, or time to think; light a candle; dance; read a book; sleep; eat. It’s important. Put aside your ego, that part of you that thinks you can tough it out and go it alone or ignore your needs. It’s not just okay to be vulnerable, to need support, to bolster mind, body, and spirit—it’s part of the job of being human, especially when a beloved is dying.

Remember: everyone involved, including you, needs you to put yourself first, if for no other reason than you can’t help them, or yourself, if you don’t.

Schedule Venting

You stay sane by letting out the fear, anger, grief, and everything else you feel as you helplessly watch a beloved die, so schedule time to do just that. Try starting with twenty-minute blowouts: set a timer and scream, yell, cry, throw things, whatever it takes to vent. When the buzzer goes off, dry your eyes, buck up, and get back to your living and dying beloveds. Yes, it works, before and after a death. I’m proof.

Did these tips surprise you? They’re so basic you probably realized they’re part of your consciousness. Also, realize you can easily bypass them when you’re caught in a crushing moment, and there are few things more crushing than a beloved’s impending death. It’s hard to think straight when the experience is before you, so take some time to consider it now, while there’s time. I promise it will help.

Originally published in OMTimes.com magazine: Tips for Self-Care as Beloveds Die – OMTimes Magazine

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt hosts the OMTimes radio show, “The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World.” An intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist, she is an award-winning author whose next book is “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side.” http://RobynFritz.com.

New Ways to Deal with Grief in the Pandemic

With loss all around us, we’re tempted to withdraw deeper into ourselves, to keep love at bay, to not feel pain. Ironically, that’s when grief can support us. Yes, grief.

Grief is an emotion that helps us process change. In the pandemic, we are grieving our loss of freedom and fear and deceased loved ones. Mourning our dead is more challenging because we can’t have ordinary funerals. But our dead are still waiting for us to honor and celebrate them—with them—some tips on dealing with grief in the pandemic.

When we think about grief, our first thoughts are usually about the devastation we feel when our human and animal beloveds die. But grief is an emotion that helps us process change. What we’re going through with the pandemic is a global change that has ripped away from the basic assumptions of how we live in community, from how we work to how we love.

With loss all around us, we’re tempted to withdraw deeper into ourselves, to keep love at bay, to not feel pain. Ironically, that’s when grief can support us. Yes, grief.

Grief in a Time of Crisis

As an emotion that helps us process change, grief is cathartic, allowing us to release pent-up feelings that keep us frozen in place, unable to move forward. The problem right now is that many people are reluctant to acknowledge their feelings. They’re living on the edge, lost in a newly dangerous world, fearing a tsunami of emotion that could incapacitate them. They believe that being strong—for themselves and their families—means bottling it up: if the feelings can’t get out, things can’t worsen.

We can deal with these feelings first by calmly recognizing them. Many people right now just want things to get back to normal, whatever that is for them. Yes, we all do—and that feeling is grief.

We want to freely move in public without fear. An invisible enemy will kill us, to gather with friends and loved ones, to go back to work, to just be safe. We’re grieving for a way of life, freedom of movement, a lack of fear that we don’t have anymore, and may not have again for weeks or months.

That’s okay. We should be grieving the disruptions we’ve experienced.

We’re also grieving, feeling fear. We fear that loved ones, or we will get sick and even die. We fear lost income and even lost purpose. We are afraid because things are so different: in the U.S., wearing face masks and protective gloves, being confined, standing in grocery store lines, and finding empty shelves are abnormal. It’s okay to grieve these changes. Grieving helps to acknowledge the loss, grieving it, and allowing it to move through us helps us move on.

Grief and Death in the Pandemic

There is another aspect to grieving in the pandemic: how we are forced to acknowledge the deaths of our beloveds. Funerals are necessary rites of passage in our society, allowing the community to honor the deceased—and life moving on. But in the pandemic, families either can’t hold physical funerals or just leave people out. Yes, alternatives are cropping up, from delaying funerals entirely to making them virtual.

For many, though, that means grief is on hold. But it doesn’t have to be. Why? Because the dead don’t care when you have a funeral—or what it looks like. They simply need the occasion to come together with the living to honor the change that death brings. As a medium, I know that the dead attend their funerals and that anything goes. That means, no matter how long ago a beloved died, you can honor their memory with a ritual that works for you. It can be as simple as, “Hey, you, I miss you,” to an elaborate ceremony—even if it’s just you, or the people you’re quarantined with.

Creating Rituals to Resolve Grief

Grief sticks around longer than it needs to if it is not acknowledged. While there isn’t a time table for when grieving should end (because it doesn’t, it merely blends into our lives), try creating a ritual to help process grief, whether it’s for a beloved dead or the times we’re living in.

If it’s for the dead, first set time, tell your beloveds when it will be, and invite their spiritual teams and yours to join you. Then decide what honoring the dead (and the living) looks like. It can be reading a poem, or recounting memories, playing music, dancing, a meal with toasts—something you know the dead would have appreciated when they’re alive. (I guarantee they’ll love it, even the cranky ones which might have said they didn’t want a funeral.) Create something that brings the body, mind, and spirit together. And repeat it as many times, and with as many variations, as you want.

Whether you’re grieving a beloved or the circumstances of the pandemic, set a time and invite your spiritual team to join you. When you’re ready, simply say out loud what you’re grieving, think about it, and feel it in body, mind, and spirit. Sit with those feelings. When it’s time to end the ritual, invite the grief to move through you and out. As it leaves, thank your spiritual team for joining you—and you’re done.

Here is what happens in body, mind, and spirit when we allow ourselves to grieve: we help energy keep moving. When energy is stuck, grief becomes what people dread: something that weighs us down and keeps us moving forward. Acknowledging that it’s okay to feel grief helps us to process change and will help us keep energy moving. And us moving forward.

Originally published in OMTimes.com magazine: https://omtimes.com/2020/10/grief-during-pandemic/

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz, MA MBA CHt, is an intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist. An award-winning author, her next book is “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side.” Find her at RobynFritz.com and on Facebook at The Practical Intuitive.

Understanding the Five Stages of Dying

We all know that death will ultimately claim our loved ones and us. In modern times we’ve removed ourselves from the process, so neither we nor our dying beloveds understand how our bodies and souls separate in death. In this article, we will explore the five stages of dying by relating them to ancient mystical traditions that connected our lives with the planet’s through the five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and spirit.

While we all know that death is inevitable, and many of us have lost beloveds, most of us are not familiar with the actual process of dying. A common theme in my mediumship practice is how confusion about the dying process compounds grief—for the living and the dead.

Mystical Tradition and the Dying Process

It is understandable since death has been hidden away from us for decades. Fortunately, we are now encouraged to be present with our beloveds as they die, as our ancestors were with theirs: they knew that it helps the dying on their journey to the afterlife and helps us live on without them.

Our ancestors also understood how we die, recognizing death as a sacred process tied to mystical traditions that connect our lives with the planets through the five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and spirit. These elements are incorporated into our bodies when we are born and separate of us in stages when we die. Death, then, is the separation of the soul from the body, or the dissolution of the body as the soul leaves. Yes, it can be scary to see this happening to a beloved, but it is the process, both stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking to witness.

I learned about the five stages of dying from research, from Betsy Bergstrom, a Buddhist shamanic practitioner in Seattle, and from being present with my dying father. As we review the five stages here, remember that death isn’t a lockstep process: we don’t always experience real boundaries between stages, especially in sudden death. However, if you’re with a dying beloved, understanding the stages will help them, you, and other survivors.

Stage 1: Earth

The earth stage is connected to our skeleton, our physical body. In the early stages of dying, the body weakens. Your beloved may be shaky, unable to fully stand up, or may slide down in bed, even when supported. Pay attention.

Stage 2: Water

When your beloved starts having trouble communicating, the water stage has arrived. As water dissolves the body dries out, and even acts thirsty, resulting in chapped lips, papery skin, dull hair, and flat eyes with an opaque or filmy appearance.

Stage 3: Fire

The fire stage is connected to blood—the circulatory system, including the heart. Here the hands and feet become cold as the body tries to keep its organs warm by pulling heat back to the torso. The dying begins to lose consciousness, either becoming unconscious or losing receptivity.

It’s critical to be prepared for death at this stage because this is when “existential angst” can set in: as the emotional body begins to die, worries and fears arise, and cultural conditioning, or cosmology, can be tested and broken. Doubt tests faith, so whatever our beliefs in spirit guides, guardian angels, deities, or religious traditions maybe when we’re fully functioning, this stage challenges belief and certainty. If this happens, the likelihood of becoming stuck after death, and not making it to the afterlife, dramatically increases.

While we can and should offer body, mind, and spiritual support throughout the dying process, in the fire stage we should get proactive and ask our spiritual team and our dying beloveds to step in and help (yes, we can all do this). Dying is confusing: the dying may refuse their team’s support because they no longer recognize them (if they ever did), so it’s critical to get all-hands-on-deck because this is when active dying begins.

Stage 4: Air

As the element air recedes, the dying person cannot breathe normally. The time between breaths increases, breathing is intermittent, or it is shallow and fast paced for a few beats before it slows. Very little air is going in at this point, and it leaves in gasps or gentle waves. It ends in a final exhalation: death.

Stage 5: Spirit

The body is dead, but the soul may temporarily remain, perhaps for hours or even days, even though in the spirit stage there is a complete dissolution of the body and soul. However, our work as survivors isn’t over, because the soul may need guidance. In my mediumship practice many of the dead tell me they were still able to see and hear the living, so they didn’t realize they had died, or they were conflicted, both relieved to be free of the dying process, but grieving that they died.

Whether your beloveds have just died, or you’re reading this year later, you can still help guide them to their afterlives by telling them point blank that they are dead: explain what happened, tell them you love them, urge them to accept their spiritual team, which is surrounding them to help, and encourage them to move on.

You can do this while performing whatever death ritual works for you, especially if it’s one you worked out with your beloveds ahead of time. The ritual will help both sides by offering closure to the dying process and hope for an eventual reunion. It matters to them and you.

 Originally published at OMTimes.com magazine: Understanding the Five Stages of Dying – OMTimes Magazine

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt hosts the OM Times radio show, “The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World.” An intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist, she is an award-winning author whose next book is “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side.” Find her at RobynFritz.com.

When Souls Face Tough Choices

When we or our families, human or animal, face tough circumstances, how does that affect our souls? Here we look at physical and emotional impairment and opt-out points and how a soul could view them as challenges or opportunities on its eternal journey to grow in love.

 Here’s the good news: our souls are eternal and always on a journey to grow in love. The bad news is our bodies are not eternal and can frequently “malfunction,” so to speak, becoming so damaged or chronically impaired that the soul must choose how to stay on course to deepen love. Here’s how that can play out.

 When Body, Mind, and Spirit Are Challenged

Despite all the metaphysical flapdoodle out there, this is how life really goes: we’re born, crap happens, fun happens, we die. In short, life can suck. Relying on feel good catchalls like “It’s what’s meant to be” is disempowering. It also keeps us from understanding what our soul may be up to at any given time and, perhaps, from making the best of life, with all its ups and downs. The “ups” are easy, but what happens when things go wrong?

 How Comas and Mental and Physical Impairment Can Affect the Soul

Life can be very hard. Suffering, pain, and disability can happen. However, we can choose how to respond, from making the best of a tough situation to letting it destroy us.

Some situations appear to allow people to work on soul issues or to accomplish that lifetime’s chosen work without having to deal with bodily issues. They include severe mental or physical disability, crippling autism, and comas, all situations where the body simply does not function in what we consider a normal way.

Sometimes people adapt well to difficult situations: we all know of people who faced what most would consider unacceptable and cruel disabilities and blossomed into beautiful, fulfilling, and inspiring lives. More controversially, it appears that some people plan these catastrophic events before they’re born. Intuitives who converse with the deceased have learned that sometimes these choices were meant to allow huge leaps in world work that would have been impossible if the body was occupied with all that a healthy human faces. Fascinating, thought-provoking—and troubling.

Of course, these conditions are devastating. We struggle to accept them, in ourselves or others, but what we don’t always know is how the soul uses them to engage in deep soul work—something we hardly know in good times. If you’re observing loved ones (or yourself) undergoing severe mind, body, or spirit impairment, be aware there could be more going on than you suspect, and decide for yourself if that’s comforting—or not.

As an example, I conversed with a deceased woman who had been vibrantly healthy her entire life until she suffered a massive stroke in her 70s and spent years bedridden and largely unconscious before she died. While the circumstances were appalling, she told me she’d used that time in a coma to resolve issues with her spiritual team so she could have a jump start on soul growth in the afterlife. For her next soul experience, she’s chosen to stay in the afterlife to guide newly arrived souls. You see? We just don’t know.

Opt-Out Points: When Life Is Just Too Difficult

Before souls take new bodies (yes, before they reincarnate), they create opt-out points for their life, from none to however many they want. Opt-out points allow us to choose to die when we hit a physical, emotional, or spiritual crisis; we don’t think we can handle without suffering serious soul damage. The choice involves how difficult the soul expects its body’s choices will be and how equipped it is to handle them, and can include revisiting situations from previous lives or serious mind, body, spirit challenges.

I learned about opt-out points from my dog, Murphy. As I discovered early on with her, we had reincarnated together many times, and currently shared debilitating health issues. Besides, our energy bodies (our individual energy fields) were so intertwined that we would physically feel or know what was going on with each other (this is never a good idea). For example, I would experience symptoms of a bladder infection and finally realize it was her problem, not mine.

That’s how Murphy’s spiritual team taught me about opt-out points: if we’ve built them into our lives, we can literally choose, on a soul level, how to confront a life crisis. Would the soul’s journey to love be derailed or seriously impaired if the crisis continued, or would it be an opportunity for growth? Choosing a response to a crisis is a job like any other, with massive soul consequences. In this case, the body lives—or dies.

Eventually, I knew when Murphy was considering an opt-out point during major illnesses. Each time I’d explain what was happening and what to expect and remind her we’d chosen to come together, in a safe time and place, to heal crap from our previous lives. Each time she chose to stay and tough it out—until the last crisis hit, and her next job required her to leave.

As you reflect on how a soul meets severe body, mind, or spirit impairment, how does that inform your thinking about your own or a loved one’s situation? If you’ve faced an opt-out point, what did you learn from choosing to stay and confront whatever difficulty it presented?

Remember, only the soulfully knows what it’s up to, and it’s often difficult for us to comprehend it. Our job is to do the best we can with what we’ve got, to help when we can, and to keep on learning and growing our souls. Right into the afterlife, and back again.

Originally published in OMTimes.com magazine: https://omtimes.com/2020/06/souls-tough-choices/

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt is an intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist. An award-winning author, her next book is “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side.” Find her at RobynFritz.com and on Facebook at The Practical Intuitive.

Creating a Culture that Acknowledges Death

So, how do we create a culture that acknowledges death?

While death frequently takes us by surprise, creating a culture that acknowledges its inevitability offers mind, body, and spiritual support to both the dying and their grieving survivors. What could it look like to live healthy, balanced, intuitive lives that recognize they will end?

Gratitude and Previewing Goodbye

It may seem trite, and even a predictable run-around, but it really does help to practice gratitude every day for every little thing that goes well. Or is at least all right, or just plain over. Gratitude doesn’t mean everything is rosy. It means that we notice and move on. Acknowledging the simple, benign details gets us through the days—and to the far side of grief after death occurs.

Gratitude includes appreciating those who are in our lives, even if they occasionally, or usually, aggravate us, because, hello, human! Make sure you always let your beloveds know you appreciate and will miss them when you die, even if you’re just fine because you never know.

I learned this as a kid from my dad’s parents. After every annual visit, they made a point of saying, “We’re getting older and may die before we see you again, so know that we love you.” I used to giggle at this quirky ritual: I didn’t know what to make of it, and it made me uncomfortable. Then my brother died unexpectedly, followed by several beloved adults, and I realized that my grandparents were crazy smart to say their goodbyes in person. As it turned out, they both died when I wasn’t around, and all I got was a funeral—and the memories of those savvy childhood farewells. So please, say goodbye before you can’t, and encourage your beloveds to do the same thing.

How We Can Acknowledge Death

So, how do we create a culture that acknowledges death? A Mexican tradition that has its roots in pre-Hispanic history is Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which is celebrated between October 31 and November 2, the days that also lump together Halloween and the Christian holidays of All Saints Day and All Souls Day. During the Day of the Dead celebration, people invite their dead back to be remembered and honored, thus keeping them part of the community.

Great idea, right? Each country could build on that concept by declaring a national holiday that celebrates life and death with our living and dead beloveds. A declared holiday can create a cultural tradition in the same way that Christmas is an international tradition and the Fourth of July an American one. This holiday could free people from the religious connotations surrounding death and help us have a better relationship with it, even normalize it, instead of ignoring it or shutting it away in hospice.

What could it look like? A day off from work, a family and friends gathering, a nice meal with a place set for everyone, including the dead, and a simple ritual to say hello and goodbye. It would take the time—an entire day in our over-packed lives—to acknowledge death as part of life, honor our dead, and celebrate our mortality while contemplating what we, the living, still want to accomplish. Yes, imagine the Day of the Dead, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and life coaching all rolled into one holiday where we preview goodbye while relishing the time we still have together.

Losing beloveds is never easy. If we made recognizing the fragility of life part of our operating philosophy, then when death occurs, especially if it takes us by surprise, we would at least remember that we previewed goodbye. I’ve done this with my own beloveds, human and animal. I swear it works.

Originally published in OMTimes.com magazine: https://omtimes.com/2019/05/creating-culture-acknowledges-death/

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt hosts the OM Times radio show, “The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World.” An intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist, she is an award-winning author whose next book is “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side.” Find her at RobynFritz.com.

Nurturing Our Animal Families Through the Pandemic

We’ve been so busy adjusting to our new reality in this pandemic, that we might not have considered how it’s affecting our animal families.  Here are some tips on helping them through it, which will help us as well.

 We’ve been so busy adjusting to our new reality in this pandemic that we might not have considered how it’s affecting our animal families in body, mind, and spirit. That’s a mistake since a crisis that affects us affects them as well. Here’s what we can do about it.

 How the Pandemic Affects Our Animals

The pandemic has heightened everyday misunderstandings. Our animal families live intimately with us; they know when something is up and respond to our emotions. They not only get upset and worried when we are, but they also try to comfort us. Plus, if they don’t understand what’s up, they may think they’ve done something wrong and don’t know what to do about it. Mindfully dealing with them supports the entire family.

 Animal Communication in Crisis

Yes, animal communication is real. Even when you think that you can’t intuitively connect with your animals, they absolutely can understand you. You already know this: for example, when you tell them it’s time for dinner or a walk, they come running.

Turn that awareness up a notch when communicating with them about the pandemic. Approach your animals the same way you deal with your human family: tell them what’s going on and reassure them that you’re taking care of them the best way you can. Assure them they haven’t done anything wrong, but a human illness has changed how we all live. Be precise and straightforward. Reassure. Repeat. Keep it up as long as the pandemic lasts.

It’s important to ask your animals what they want to do to help out. No one likes feeling helpless, and our animals are no exception, so give them a job. My dog Ollie was grumpy when I went grocery shopping before breakfast. “We all have to pitch in and help,” I said, and asked what he would do. He promptly chose the most relevant job he could think of: “I’ll do the eating,” he said.

Humor works, and Ollie relaxed, but do get serious with your animals. Tell them you’ve made plans for someone to take care of them if you get sick—and then make those plans. Now is not the time for complacency.

 Body, Mind, and Spirit Tips for Our Animals in the Pandemic

Attending to our animals’ body, mind, and spirit in the pandemic requires more patience, a lot of calm, a bit of “what if,” and a solid understanding of their personalities. How do they routinely react to storms, late meals, your moods, and household disruption? Take that times a billion and know that keeping yourself balanced and grounded will help them, too. Then get—and stay—that way.

 Body Tips: Keep your animals clean and well-fed, play with and exercise them, and create enhanced family time. That means sticking to your regular routine while adding whatever your new normal is (and more fun). A new daily activity can keep them (and you) fit. Walk your dogs (leashed, please!), but don’t allow them to socialize with people or animals outside the family.

 Mind Tips: If you’re stressed, they’re stressed. And worried. And concerned. They’ve also been specially bred to be our companions, so be their companions. It’s emotionally tough right now for us—and for them. Tell them what you’re doing, from staying home more to worrying. Dig deep to make sure they’re emotionally healthy and encourage patience and trust. Deal with their feelings: given a chance, they’ll make them clear.

Spirit Tips: First and foremost, remember that we are all eternal souls. We choose the bodies we need for a particular incarnation. In this lifetime, you’re human, and they’re animals, but we’re all souls. Respect the divinity and the equality in those souls. Ask their spiritual team members for extra care and support, and remind your animals to ask, too—and to count on their teams.

As souls, our animals are also energy healers. Remind them to use energy healing to keep themselves grounded and balanced, and demonstrate how to do that (yes, they’ll pay attention, and most are already active healers). As you go about your daily life with them, extend an energy line or “bubble” around them and other family members. Invite them to pitch in and add their own energy to the bubble for protection and support. Keep that energy moving. It matters.

Finally, remind your animals (and yourself) that all things pass, including pandemics. Staying healthy in body, mind, and spirit will help us all get through it together. When we do, remember what you learned from and with your animal families, and build on that. It will help you in good times—and in tough ones.

Originally published in OMTimes.com magazine: https://omtimes.com/2020/09/animal-families-pandemic/

About the Author

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt is an intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist. An award-winning author, her next book is “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side.” Find her at RobynFritz.com and on Facebook at The Practical Intuitive.