Did you get my e-mail or why didn’t you write?

English: icon for mailing lists

As Empaths, we may often find that we are picking up on feelings that are not connected to us, but misinterpreting them as though they are.

A comment was made to me recently by someone who thought I didn’t like them, and curiously enough, I was thinking the same thing about them.

I’ve realized that many times, over the years, I’ve actually stressed over someone’s respond to my e-mails… or rather, their lack of response.

The problem then becomes, do you try and reach out or do you just let things drop, assuming that you’ve somehow offended them?

Fact is, e-mail (and to a lesser extent letters) are a really horrible way to create friendships, or even maintain them, because life gets in the way.

And by that I mean, we get busy, we forget, or put off responses or worse, miss them completely.

Have you ever thought you sent an e-mail, only to find it still sitting in your draft box months later?

Have you ever read an e-mail, and then totally forgotten to answer it because you had so much else going on?

Have you ever stopping e-mailing someone because they never responded to you last e-mail?

I’m pretty sure that many people have experienced just that.

Problem is that we cease contact because other people have not responded, but the other person might have done the same, simply because they think that you have not responded.

Or they got busy, or they simply forgot because their memory sucks. (Just like mine does.)

I can’t recall the 100s of people who have e-mailed me over the years who have just suddenly stopped doing so without any apparent reason.

Did they miss an e-mail? Did they feel they were bothering me? Did I maybe offend them? Did we misunderstand  or misread what was said? Is their reply still sitting in their draft box?

So many ifs, and we assume the worst.

And if too much time passes, you feel awkward about trying to reconnect or see if they are still interested.

Personally, I have a policy to always respond to all e-mails, comments and feedback, even if it’s just a quick Thank You.

If you don’t get a response from me, it means something has gone wrong.

What is important is some kind of acknowledgement, good or bad. At least you get a sense of what is going on.

No answer or reaction is often much worse than any, and generally, as an Empath, you tend to assume the worst.

I guess, the best thing you can do, if you want to see where someone is at is a quick: So, how’s it going? e-mail .

Of course, you might also find yourself stuck with someone who might end up driving you crazy!

Paranormal series: This story is copyright or how exactly do I do that?

Copyright Mark Wallpaper

I’ve written a few novels over the years. I’m a compulsive writer.

Always have been.

When I wasn’t writing a detailed diary, I’d be working on science fiction or fantasy novels.

Apart from one book, I consider all my stuff from the 80s and 90s to be really cringe worthy, however at the time I had dreams of being published and wanted to know how to make my work copyright.

As the net just wasn’t around back in those days (and I refused to buy a modem until they became reliable and used something more advanced than KERMIT as software, I didn’t have the means to find this out very easily.

I asked several people I knew, but they didn’t know. I asked people at work, and a couple of friends (my friend Paul) and a lady called Karin. We played Dungeon and Dragons with her and her husband every second weekend or so. (Got to love the old pen and paper games!)

It was during one of those sessions that Paul asked Karin on my behalf if she could find out about copyright since she worked for a law firm as a secretary.  She said that she would do that for me.

Around three weeks later,  a letter from a law firm  called  Law Partners  Barristers  & Solicitors arrived in the mail.  The envelope was addressed directly to me.  I stared at it in puzzlement and wondered what it was about.  I opened it up and found  a Client Newsletter for Winter 1989.

To  the  best of my knowledge,  I wasn’t  a  client  and neither was anyone else I knew.  There was no note of explanation attached and it certainly wasn’t advertisement.   Later on in my bedroom, for some reason, I picked it up once more. I had the nagging feeling that I should know something in connection with law firms. Then the penny dropped: Karin. It could only be her. I skimmed the newsletter and sure enough, on page three was a column entitled: Protecting Your Ideas.

In the second paragraph it went on to read:

If you are the author of any artistic or literary work, such as design drawings for a prototype of an   invention, you automatically have a right to copyright or the exclusive right to use of the work.

To protect this right, you must mark your work â€™copyright’, use the symbol Â©, name the author/owner and state the year first published.  A witness’s signature is also a  good idea.  Copyright generally exists for a period of 50 years after the author of the work dies.

Well that was the information I needed.  Knowing the type of personality she was, I thought it was typical of Karin not to include some sort of note.  She obviously thought that If I didn’t read the leaflet, I would be my own fault!

I rang up Paul the next day and told him about it.  Then the day after, he rang me at work.

He said:  Karin and Anthony just came in to (his place of) work. I thanked her for the letter she sent you on behalf of you which I felt was the right thing to do.  She said ‘What letter?’

The letter you sent Gary or got someone to send to Gary about  Copyright.’ 

 ‘I never sent him anything.’ she told me.

“What!” I practically screeched. “That’s impossible!”

“Well that’s what she said.”

“Was she joking?”

“No. She was serious.”

And in my experience, Karin wasn’t exactly a person who was thick on humour or did much joking. She tended to be very forthright.

So I asked everybody over the next few days if it was they who sent the letter. Everyone denied it and most people didn’t even know I was trying to Copyright my book, anyway. Karin confirmed that it wasn’t her when I saw her, claiming that she wouldn’t send something to me, she would just give it.

And that made sense, as it was much easier to just pass it on rather than go to the trouble of finding my address and posting it out, and it wasn’t as though she had arranged for that information to be in their newsletter so she could give it to me.

I’ve never received another newsletter from this firm, nor did I ever find out why my name suddenly appeared on their distribution list for just that one time.

As far as synchronicities go, that one has always been beyond me.

Paranormal series: Calling forth answers or who is that girl?

Picture of the concept of synchronicity by CG ...

I’ve noticed that during my life, when I go seeking for information, the answers tend to find me and practically fall into my lap.

On one level, it’s amazingly cool, on another, it’s incredibly disturbing.

It’s not as though I even go looking for the answers. I just set the intention, often in passing, and I will get it. Sometimes it could take weeks, other times it could be the next day.

For example, back in 1981, I would leave the house to walk to the tram for school, and more often than not, I’d see a girl who lived at the end of my street leave at the same time and head in the same route I was taking.

There wasn’t anything particularly compelling about her, but I would often wonder who she was and how I might obtain that information.

I wasn’t a stalker, mind you. I was far too insecure for that type of thing back then!  I was sixteen and paranoid, but had just started on this current path, so I had yet to come into my own power. (Which is not to say I ever was a stalker!)

I never said anything to anyone. Never even spoke to the girl, and for weeks I would end up walking fifty meters behind her.

Then one day, I got a knock at the front door, and it was a lady who was collecting for a charity.

As it happened, she was a teacher called Nancy from my previous school, and while I was never her student, she did recognize me.  Then she said: You live down the road from Pinna and gave me the girl’s full name and where she lived and I found she was a year younger than me.

You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Now, you might be thinking, oh, okay, if she was a teacher, she’d know who was who around the neighbourhood, right, so nothing all that mysterious about it.

Well, yes, that is so; however it was the timing of it all. It was the only time I ever saw Nancy and she was quite qualified to answer my unspoken question.  Also, as I said, it happened very soon after I wanted to know who the girl was.

Also, importantly, that type of incident never occurred again.

As it was, it wasn’t the only time her name came up. After that, people would call her out by name just as I was passing her by, and her name was also brought up by a then friend’s sister (who I was very attracted to at the time, but it never went anywhere) who happened to be a friend of hers.

All without me ever bringing up the subject.

Now, you might ask what the point of me finding out Pinna’s name was, and really, there was none. We never spoke, and the closest we ever got to meeting was when I passed her and my friend’s sister, who said: Hi Gazza.  (Gaz or Gazza is a nick name for Gary.)

I have found that if I want to find out information, it would seem events around me almost conspire to give me what I want.

Next: How to find out about

Copyright.

Poll: How often should I blog? or a moment of your time, please.

How often should one blog?

Lately I’ve been pondering how often I should be blogging on this blog.

While I try to keep my pieces short (around a page or so) I also wonder if posting five days a week might be too overwhelming for subscribers.

For those who read this blog regularly, do you find it hard to keep up? Would a slower feed or articles suit you better?

So, I’m doing a quick survey to see what you, the readers, would prefer.

It would really help me out if you could take a moment to answer the poll.

Thanks,

Gary

Guest blog: Nattie from “Love Light Learn” on Balancing your chakras.

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This picture depicts the seven major Chakras w...

From time to time, I get asked the question on how to open or close your chakras. I know the basics behind it but I’ve never had the fuller understanding or energy to explain it in full.

So, I’m taking the lazy way out and I’ve asked Nattie from Love Light Learn  to help out.

Thank you Nattie for agreeing to do a guest post.

Hi to all,

My name is Nattie and Gary has asked me to do a guest blog on closing and controlling your chakras. I would like to thank Gary very much for this opportunity to guest post on such an amazing blog.

Exposed

It doesn’t really matter whether you have become empathic (or developed other abilities) because you have consciously started an awakening or because somehow your brow chakra opened up with out your conscious help. At first we are all a bit the same. Lost. It can be great to discover an ability with-in yourself that is not commonly used. That is until it starts to intrude rudely on your life and leaves you feeling exposed to things you feel are out of your control.

Opened

Your brow, or third eye chakra may open as a defense mechanism because you need it to and this may become permanent, or it may last for as long as you need it and then close by itself. If activated as a child it will usually stay open but if activated for the first time an adult, it will very likely go back to it’s default state and re-close.

Now maybe you opened it on purpose with many of the helpful articles written on the subject of opening. But I must admit, that until recently I was just as guilty of the common problem of leaving the closing and controlling part out. It’s because we don’t know.

Being empathic especially can be a very intrusive ability if you are walking around ‘on’ all the time. Any ability will eventually wear you out if you can’t turn it off. The effects that follow can lead to depression and anxiety. The good news is you can turn them off.

Switching Off

Now when I say turn them off I do mean your chakras but I don’t mean off. Your Chakras are always on even if they work only in a limited capacity. But when you turn them off you are stopping them from receiving outside energies. It is in fact possible to keep them on and just limit what energy is allowed to come through.

We will work on control in a minute. First, closing. If you opened up consciously you will be familiar with the visualizations used to do so. Closing involves visualizing the opposite. Choose an appropriate representation of your chakras e.g. a light or flower are common.

Now opening the flower or turning on the light will turn them on, closing the flower or switching off the light turns them off. I bring my visualizations down to a pinpoint of light to remind me they are always on. Just like with switching on you want to start at the top or bottom and visualize them one at a time turning off.

All or Nothing

It is important that you deal with all your chakras, one at a time. Whilst our connection with others and the source of most of our abilities comes from that third eye chakra, each ability may use other chakras in the process. Channeling also uses the crown chakra (Crown = I understand), I will take an educated guess in saying that the corresponding chakra for empathy will be your Sacral chakra. (Sacral = I feel.) This is is the orange Chakra just below your navel and is also the source of your ‘gut’ feelings.

If just one of your main chakras is blocked or inhibited, the energy flow will be obstructed and the imbalance will result in too much of something and/or not enough of another. You can help to repair them by drawing white light into them from the earth upwards and/or the universe downwards. See what feels right for you.

Colors

Another way to tell what chakras need help and another way to help them is through colors. For years when my brow chakra was shut I was drawn to my favorite color at the time which was indigo. Usually a bright form of dark blue for me. Surrounding yourself with the color of the chakra you would like to heal or open will help.  Wear the color and put it around your office and home until you feel your chakra is healed then remove it. Too much will have the opposite effect, opening the chakra and making it hard to shut down, overloading it.

Control

Usually when you are protecting yourself you will surround your self in a bubble of white light. This will help on a larger scale but you can do this to each of your chakras too. Either surround it in a bubble of white light or imagine it is aglow with white light. Then just like you would specify that only positive energy may come through your bubble, you do the same for the chakra. One at a time protect them and specify that only positive energy may enter this chakra as it is protected by light.

Once you have done this you can also direct where you would like to receive your energy from. This is done with thought. You concentrate on the source of the energy you want to receive as in the person or entity. When you are done close them again. The more you do this the better you will become and the more effective it will be. Don’t give up if it is hard or only minimally effective at first.

Visualizations

When you first start to use visualizations, they will be weak and hard to project. The more you do it the easier it will become, the more vivid they will be and the more effective and powerful they will be in the non-physical realm. Any visualizations you use will help to develop this ability and you will find it invaluable in work with energy and the non-physical. Good luck and have fun.

Thanks again
Nattie