Author: davidreedwatson

First I would like to say Rabbit! Rabbit! It’s the first day of the month and what a month this is going to be! We’ve got a full moon starting tomorrow and then another one on the 15th! That’s two full moons in one month. So keep your moodiness in check. Believe me, I’m feeling it already. Also, Venus goes retrograde on the 25th in Leo (my sign), then Uranus goes retrograde on the 26th at 20 degrees Aries. What is all of this saying? It’s going to be a weird, flakey month. So when you get down in the dumps know that these aspects are following you around, you and everybody else.

So, why have I called this episode The Glass Half Empty? Well, I’ve noticed myself as of late getting caught up in everything that is going on in the world. Possible war with Russia, Jade Helm, financial crisis in Greece, etc. I consider myself a dreamer, but I’m also a realist. I watch what goes on but I do my best to keep myself in check and not get caught up in it. That does not mean that I ignore it. Being aware of what is going on around the world allows us to change the world. Change ourselves. Change our immediate environment. I believe that when we get caught up in all of this negative energy it compounds and spreads like a virus. It means that you have to be even more positive and, as Monty Python says, Always look on the Bright Side of Life. So approach all of the crap going on around us with a Glass Half Full attitude. When you approach it this way you start noticing the beauty around you and when you start noticing the beauty around you the people around you start changing. It’s the Law of Attraction. What you focus on becomes your reality. So yes, there is a lot of shit going on right now, there is no ignoring it. So what can you do about it? Instead of saying, nothing, focus on the positive and change yourself and your immediate environment.

Have you ever heard about the Tipping Point? I read this book by Malcolm Gladwell back around when 9/11 happened. Malcolm explains in the book that once people believe something individually that at a certain point it will spread like wildfire and eventually everybody will believe this. The news media today believes this 100%. They know that if they feed you enough information that eventually everyone will believe it, even for those that don’t read the news. In other words, gossip. Every one of my friends know that I don’t watch TV or listen to the radio and I will research everything that I am told from several sources. Believe me, the chain mail that my family sends I will send them back a link to Snopes. I know that it’s easy to get caught up in gossip, rumors and just plain bullshit if you hear it enough. It happens to the best of us. I was talking with a few friends the other night about how we’ve lost the art of debate. Everybody wants to be right all of the time and not listen to another persons point of view. We are quick to judge and quick to say that somebody is wrong just because we don’t believe what they believe. Change is the only constant in this world and if you are unwilling to listen to another’s opinion, whether you believe it or not, then they are doing the same thing back at you.

So this month, be open to new ideas. Be open to another persons perspective. Whether you agree or not you might just learn something. And that alone will change your world.
Namaste,
David

First, Happy Fathers Day!

I believe that we choose our parents before we incarnate into this vibration. So, no matter what you think of your parents, remind yourself that YOU chose them for whatever lesson you wanted to learn while you were here. You don’t believe this? Ask yourself if it would hurt or harm you to believe this?

Second, I would like to apologize for not writing for a couple of weeks. We went to an amazing wedding in San Diego and stayed a couple of extra days on the beach in Encinitas. We would get up every morning and walk over to the Pannikin Coffee and Tea House and for me having lived on the beach in California, it was like a home coming. The salt air, the cyclists zooming by, the farmers markets, and the temperature. Oh yeah, the temperature. It was between 65 – 75 degrees the whole time. This time of year its called ‘June Gloom’ where the haze comes over and blocks the sun. I LOVED it! When we got back home to Vegas it was pushing 113 degrees. Ugh!

But this is not what I’m here to talk about today.

What I would like to discuss is Social Media. One of my favorite YouTube personalities is a man named Ralph Smart. He runs the very successful site called Infinite Waters. I always look forward to hearing him say, “Can I get a Hello there! Peace! Infinite Waters diving deep once again.” Well, he was talking about social media and the effects on relationships. Ralph talked about a couple and the jealousy going on because of one of the partners liking scantily clad women. Take a listen to what he had to say about that. The link is above.

I’d like to talk about another aspect of Social Media. Friends, and our role in this new paradigm.

We all want friends. We all want a good friend to talk to when we want some advice but somewhere in Social Media we’ve acquired friends that we don’t even know and have told all of these friends our deepest darkest secrets, our opinions, our fears. We get to the point where we think we actually know these people, and in some ways we have gotten to know them. We’ve gotten to know the part that they want us to see. Their mask. Social media has taken the place of churches, bars, coffee houses… places where we could get into a conversation with someone and get their feedback. The internet is an amazing tool and has done wonders for me as a musician, so don’t think I’m bashing the idea of friends. Not at all.

My concern is this….

I want you to imagine, if you will… The next time you post something imagine the person you are posting to right there in front of you. Is this something you would say to someone standing right there? You see, if we post something mean to another person we don’t see their anger, their frustration or their hurt. We don’t see their eyes. We don’t really know why that person posted what they posted. For the most part, I believe, it’s for attention. Something we aren’t getting in our home life. But that is another blog. 

When I was a child we had 4 TV stations. ABC, NBC, CBC and PBS. We didn’t watch much TV unless it was a Sunday night Disney Special or maybe Happy Days. We used it for entertainment, for the Weather or the news in our immediate vicinity. We didn’t have celphones. We had a home phone, and depending on the size of your house or your economic stature, you only had one for the whole household. We didn’t have the internet. A computer was a pocket calculator that helped you solve equations quicker than writing them out on paper. We relied on nature, our friends in the neighborhood for our entertainment. To me, back then, meditation was very easy. If I wanted quiet I would walk down to the pond and sit underneath a tree. I’d listen to the birds or the squirrels scampering around. If I tried that today I would be jolted back to reality with my phone buzzing. Every generation talks about how much more difficult it was than these kids nowadays. Not anymore. I think it’s much more difficult because there is so much mental chatter going on around us that we can’t even think for ourselves. We can’t shut it off.

What is my point?

My point is this… we’ve come to a time where we have let the immediate gratification of everything around us get to the better part of us. The part that allows us to actually think before we speak. Instead of sitting with ourselves and asking our higher self for an answer we will post on Facebook what we are feeling right in that moment. What we need right at that moment. Who we hate right at that moment. Get where I’m going? There was an old adage that my Mother used to say to us… Stop. Look. Listen. You don’t have to like somebody’s post as soon as it has been posted. I’m betting most of you don’t even read this far in anybody’s posts. We’re liking for the sake of liking. Because if we don’t like it somebody will be mad at us. So what!! That’s their issue. Not yours. Stop second guessing your inner voice. Stop trying to be everybody’s friend or drawing attention to yourself just because you’re lonely, or angry or jealous. Get a grip on yourself first. Talk to yourself. I mentioned that its much harder nowadays to do that, but I didn’t say that it’s impossible. If you have a hard time meditating, find people that meditate. Find people out there that you aspire to be.

What is your role in all of this?

Stop looking outside of yourself for the answers. You are the answer. As Gandhi said, “Be the change that you wish to see in this world”. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get tips and hints from other people on how to be a better person. We all do this. But once we rely on others completely we are losing our self. Today is Father’s Day. I mentioned above that we choose our parents so that we can incarnate into this life to contribute to this game of life. So contribute! Quit posting what you ate for breakfast unless you think it will help somebody with nutritional information. Be the change. Why? Because you are here for a reason. You are not a mistake. There are no mistakes. Everything happens for a reason.

So Stop The Mental Chatter!!!! 🙂

Ok… being that it is Father’s Day…. CALL your father. Yes, on the phone.

Namaste,
David

A few years ago I was hit while on my motorcycle. I wasn’t going that fast, but when I went down I landed directly on my knee. OUCH! I was super bummed out that I had to be on crutches for awhile but at the same time I found the perfect opportunity to use myself as a guinea pig. I decided that I was going to heal myself. The only thing I would do at the doctor was get an initial x-ray and then when I felt the need I would go get another x-ray. Fortunately I am a veteran, so I would head over to the VA in Los Angeles, where I lived at the time, and have them do these procedures at minimal cost.

So what did I do to heal myself?

Every morning before I started my day I would use Reiki over the wounded area. I knew where the area was because of the x-ray from the hospital. I would see it as healed. I could feel the soothing heat of my hands over the wound and then as my hands cooled I knew the session was over. Some days it was half an hour, other days it was 10 minutes. The next thing I would do was to tell others what I was doing. Why? This made me more determined when people would tell me it was impossible, or people who believed I could do it would encourage me more. I would do two sessions a day on myself. One in the morning and one at night before I slept. Each time, again, I saw it as healed. One of my friends had given me a bag of Shark Cartilage to chew on while I was healing and other friends would come by with food for me. I am extremely blessed to have all of these awesome souls around me, especially then.

After 3 weeks I went back to the VA to get another batch of x-rays. The doctor was a bit baffled because he couldn’t find the fractures. There were two little fractures on top of my tibia right behind the knee cap. Look at the photo. It’s not at the exact same angle so I’m sure there are skeptics out there. That’s ok. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. After about 6 months I could run and cycle again with minimal pain and after 9 months there was zero pain. Today I forget which leg it was. 🙂

We all have the capability to heal ourselves. Reiki only helps the process along. The biggest part of the process is to believe that you can do it. If you can envision the results in your mind then you are well on your way. If you can’t, I understand. It’s not that easy. We have been taught that pills or operations are the only way to heal ourselves. This is an old paradigm. By no means am I saying that there isn’t a use for doctors. Sometimes they can be a placebo for health because we have a tendency to look outside of ourselves for the answers. I’m encouraging you to believe in yourself. If you don’t, nobody else will. Remember my little message about the mirror? We can only see what we reflect. 🙂

Namaste,
David

For many years I thought something was wrong with me. Slowly, over time I read more and talked to others about being an Empath. At first I didn’t believe it and thought of it as a poor excuse for the way I felt. But being an empath is a real thing. From feeling others emotions to just ‘knowing’ stuff to not watching TV or reading newspapers because all of that information made me depressed… it can seem like an isolated world. A lot of empaths are depressed and don’t know why. When I learned this it was like a lightbulb going on in my head because I ALWAYS felt this way and could never put my finger on it. Being around negative people has always been very difficult. Why? Because I just ‘know’ why they are negative. Generally speaking, I ‘know’ that if they focus on themselves instead of others and really do the dirty work of getting to the root of the problem then they wouldn’t be that way. How do I ‘know’ this? I wouldn’t be able to explain. I just know. It’s not that being around negative people bums me out… not at all. I don’t take it personally. What bums me out is ‘knowing’ how to fix the problem and them not willing to do it. And I NEVER tell people how to ‘fix’ themselves unless they ask. I’ve learned the hard way with this. Does it mean that I’m smarter than everybody else? No. Does it mean that I’m better? No. I still have a lot of work to do on myself and sometimes ‘knowing’ this and not doing the work myself is worse.

I do my best to ground myself before Reiki sessions so I don’t take on the other persons emotions and pain… in the past it took me a couple of days to process and filter it out of my system. I still forget to ground myself though, so its a daily practice. It has to be or I will get so bummed out that I just can’t be around people and need to be alone. Believe me, its tough. I can’t just turn it off like other people can. Jobs can be this way for me… like my last one. The negative ‘vibes’ around me on a daily basis were unbearable and it would effect every aspect of my being. As much as I would focus on the positive and try to get others around me to do the same it just didn’t work. Like Ying and Yang, the more negative they were the more positive I had to be until I would just come home completely wiped out.

So…. how does this work with being a front man in a Rock band? Again, grounding myself, meditation and being aware of the negative ‘vibes’ that I might encounter during a gig. Reminding myself that its not about me and to just let it go. I have to do this because I feel the audience. The positive side of this is that people who come to shows get 100% interaction and they always walk out with a sense that something was different. And that is something that I am proud of. 🙂

Anyway, enough about me…. lets focus on you. Are you an empath?

Take a look at 30 of the most common traits that I found on one of my favorite blogs;  The Spirit Science.

30 of the most common traits of an Empath:

1. Knowing: Empaths just know stuff, without being told. It’s a knowing that goes way beyond intuition or gut feelings, even though that is how many would describe the knowing. The more attuned they are the stronger this gift becomes.
2. Being in public places can be overwhelming: Places like shopping malls, supermarkets or stadiums where there are lots of people around can fill the empath with turbulently vexed emotions that are coming from others.
3. Feeling others emotions and taking them on as your own: This is a huge one for empaths. To some they will feel emotions off those near by and with others they will feel emotions from those a vast distance away, or both. The more adept empath will know if someone is having bad thoughts about them, even from great distance.
4. Watching violence, cruelty or tragedy on the TV is unbearable: The more attuned an empath becomes the worse it is and may make it so they eventually have to stop watching TV and reading newspapers altogether.
5. You know when someone is not being honest: If a friend or a loved one is telling you lies you know it (although many empaths try not to focus on this because knowing a loved one is lying can be painful). Or if someone is saying one thing but feeling/thinking another, you know.

6. Picking up physical symptoms off another: An empath will almost always develop the ailments off another (colds, eye infections, body aches and pains) especially those they’re closest to, somewhat like sympathy pains.

7. Digestive disorders and lower back problems: The solar plexus chakra is based in the centre of the abdomen and it’s known as the seat of emotions. This is where empaths feel the incoming emotion of another, which can weaken the area and eventually lead to anything from stomach ulcers to IBS (too many other conditions to list here). Lower back problems can develop from being ungrounded (amongst other things) and one, who has no knowledge of them being an empath, will almost always be ungrounded.

8. Always looking out for the underdog: Anyone whose suffering, in emotional pain or being bullied draws an empath’s attention and compassion.

9. Others will want to offload their problems on you, even strangers: An empath can become a dumping ground for everyone else’s issues and problems, which, if they’re not careful can end up as their own.

10. Constant fatigue: Empaths often get drained of energy, either from energy vampires or just taking on too much from others, which even sleep will not cure. Many get diagnosed with ME.

11. Addictive personality: Alcohol, drugs, sex, are to name but a few addictions that empaths turn to, to block out the emotions of others. It is a form of self protection in order to hide from someone or something.

12. Drawn to healing, holistic therapies and all things metaphysical: Although many empaths would love to heal others they can end up turning away from being healers (even though they have a natural ability for it), after they’ve studied and qualified, because they take on too much from the one they are trying to heal. Especially if they are unaware of their empathy. Anything of a supernatural nature is of interest to empaths and they don’t surprise or get shocked easily. Even at the revelation of what many others would consider unthinkable, for example, empaths would have known the world was round when others believed it was flat.

13. Creative: From singing, dancing, acting, drawing or writing an empath will have a strong creative streak and a vivid imagination.

14. Love of nature and animals: Being outdoors in nature is a must for empaths and pets are an essential part of their life.

15. Need for solitude: An empath will go stir-crazy if they don’t get quiet time. This is even obvious in empathic children.

16. Gets bored or distracted easily if not stimulated: Work, school and home life has to be kept interesting for an empath or they switch off from it and end up daydreaming or doodling.

17. Finds it impossible to do things they don’t enjoy: As above. Feels like they are living a lie by doing so. To force an empath to do something they dislike through guilt or labelling them as idle will only serve in making them unhappy. It’s for this reason many empaths get labelled as being lazy.

18. Strives for the truth: This becomes more prevalent when an empath discovers his/her gifts and birthright. Anything untruthful feels plain wrong.

19. Always looking for the answers and knowledge: To have unanswered questions can be frustrating for an empath and they will endeavour to find an explanation. If they have a knowing about something they will look for confirmation. The downside to this is an information overload.

20. Likes adventure, freedom and travel: Empaths are free spirits.

21. Abhors clutter: It makes an empath feel weighed down and blocks the flow of energy.

22. Loves to daydream: An empath can stare into space for hours, in a world of their own and blissfully happy.

23. Finds routine, rules or control, imprisoning: Anything that takes away their freedom is debilitating to an empath even poisoning.

24. Prone to carry weight without necessarily overeating: The excess weight is a form of protection to stop the negative incoming energies having as much impact.

25. Excellent listener: An empath won’t talk about themselves much unless it’s to someone they really trust. They love to learn and know about others and genuinely care.

26. Intolerance to narcissism: Although kind and often very tolerant of others, empaths do not like to be around overly egotistical people, who put themselves first and refuse to consider another’s feelings or points of view other than their own.

27. The ability to feel the days of the week: An empath will get the ‘Friday Feeling’ if they work Fridays or not. They pick up on how the collective are feeling. The first couple of days of a long, bank holiday weekend (Easter for example) can feel, to them, like the world is smiling, calm and relaxed. Sunday evenings, Mondays and Tuesdays, of a working week, have a very heavy feeling.

28. Will not choose to buy antiques, vintage or second-hand: Anything that’s been pre-owned carries the energy of the previous owner. An empath will even prefer to have a brand new car or house (if they are in the financial situation to do so) with no residual energy.

29. Sense the energy of food: Many empaths don’t like to eat meat or poultry because they can feel the vibrations of the animal (especially if the animal suffered), even if they like the taste.

30. Can appear moody, shy, aloof, disconnected: Depending on how an empath is feeling will depend on what face they show to the world. They can be prone to mood swings and if they’ve taken on too much negative will appear quiet and unsociable, even miserable. An empath detests having to pretend to be happy when they’re sad, this only adds to their load (makes working in the service industry, when it’s service with a smile, very challenging) and can make them feel like scuttling under a stone.

Namaste,
David

Welcome to June 1st and what an exciting June it is going to be. Why? Because we’ve said so. It’s that simple!

Have you ever heard the expression, Rabbit Rabbit? It’s an old expression that was started, we think, in England. You of course know about the lucky Rabbit’s foot. Well, Rabbit, Rabbit is pretty much the same. It is said every 1st of the month and it’s intent is to ‘Leap us into the future’. That’s what we are doing, leaping into the future with zest and zeal (If you are not then you might want to start looking at that).  And I know what you’re saying already….. “Dave… you don’t get it… my life is hard. I’m sick, my work sucks, I’m in a bad marriage, blah blah blah….” Now, I’m not belittling you. Everybody has problems and issues in life that sometimes seem impossible to deal with. Believe me, I know. Been there, done that. What can you do to change that?

Pretend.

I’ve said it a million times and I’ll probably say it a million more. Pretend. Pretend. Pretend. Or a more grown up way to say it, if you prefer….

Fake it until you make it.

It’s only hard because you said so. From mystics to financial moguls, from preachers to self help guru’s… they’ve all said it. See it first in your mind then you’ll believe it. Now this might be a bunch of hippy guru nonsense to some but the reality of it all is this… When you focus on something and you can see it in your mind then your attitude changes. When your attitude changes then you’ll muster up the motivation to move towards that goal. There is a science behind all of this. Like when you run… how do you feel? You feel great, right? Why do you feel great? Because certain chemicals react in your body. You’ve heard people tell you to visualize before, haven’t you? For myself, before a gig, I visualize the whole show in my head. I see me hitting perfect notes and see the crowd cheering and enjoying the show. When I don’t do this, 9 times out of 10 I’ll have a bad gig. That’s no joke.

We have to see it to be it. If you don’t see yourself as that person you will never be that person.

It’s really that simple.

If you would like some coaching on this, I can help. Set up a Reiki session or a coaching session with me… I’ll come to you or you can come to me, whatever is most comfortable for you.

I’m leaving you today with another song by my friend and mentor, Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith called ‘In This Love Together’.

https://soultone.bandcamp.com/track/in-this-love-together

Namaste,
David