Why Be Spiritual

Spirituality and religion are two very different things. You can be very religious and not at all spiritual. AND you can be very spiritual and not believe in any religion. 

What makes them different?

Rev. Ali Bierman explores their basic differences. She then goes on to describe her life in each realm finally arriving at the reasons she became an ordained metaphysical minister.

She speaks of knowings and the invisible forces at work that cause all events and circumstances in one’s life. By sharing her life story she clues you in on how to awaken your own spirituality leading to a more conscious awareness of life’s every moment and resulting outcomes.

Transcript

Why do you live your spirituality as opposed to the real world - as scientists call it? There's a difference between spirituality and religion. And it's a huge, huge difference.

In religion, there's somebody who decides, "These are the rules. These are your thoughts. These are the stories that you're gonna believe because I'm telling you to believe that, and this is how you're gonna practice them."

Period. So there's a boss who makes all your choices. The spirituality is what's going on inside. It's what's going on in your heart and how you choose to live your life.

When you look back across time, whether it's Eastern philosophies or Western philosophies, and people long before either of those civilizations - before people were recording their histories, their philosophies, or passing it down from one generation to the next verbally - there is always a feeling of connecting to the earth, to the heavens.

By the way, I have a question for you...
If you are someone who worships this thing called God that has a long white beard and passes judgment - how come that's up there? (Pointing upward) Did you ever notice when people are praying they're looking up like their god is up there in some realm?

Well, where I come from and what I live by, there's only one energy in the world. Me, you, the earth, the space, the millions - there are actually millions of pieces of debris showering down on earth every single day...

Well, for me, I believe there's only one energy. And I'm part of that, energy. And so are you. So is everything in your environment. So is other stuff that you can't see - all the invisible forces that I talk about all the time. Science is creating more and more devices that pick it up so you can see it.

There's so such thing as empty space. There's no such thing as empty space.
Everything is alive with different energies. They vibrate on different frequencies.

So where did I get tuned into all this stuff? And why did this happen for me?

Well, when I was a little kid, I would know things. I knew that I preferred being up in trees or climbing on rocks to being with people. I just love being in nature. And as I grew older, I learned well, yeah, because of the plant life has actually superior intelligence to us. Their communication is phenomenal.

In the book I recommended recently, Braiding Sweet Grass, is a really, really great source for discovering and understanding that fact as are many books I've recommended.

It's the giving economy. As opposed to a "Let's destroy the land to make money" economy which is what destroyed our environment and created climate change.

When I was a little kid  I had all these knowings. I was a little kid in the 1950s. You couldn't talk about that - that kind of knowing, those kinds of feelings, those kinds of experiences that I had.

In fact, in the 1960s you still couldn't talk about it because people would have thought you were mental. Of course, when you're that way, you're actually the healthy ones  not blindly following something that somebody decided is the truth and tell you what you have to believe because it's their truth.

Live from your heart. Your choice is in your truth. Live in your heart, not in somebody's who's standing on a pulpit and telling you what and how to believe in their practice.

Okay. Everything happens within - the only way you can experience life. Everything is an electro-magnetic force.  And you can't feel or touch or see or taste anything outside of you. It happens because those energies go within your physical body where they're changed into whatever the experience is.

This is why I really needed to become a metaphysical minister.

The first time I became keenly aware that I was having experiences that I couldn't share was the day that my dad left Earth.

I was sitting in the classroom. I was 8 years old. And the Universe told me to look at the clock and I looked at the clock. It was 11:20 AM. And I had just learned that I was going to get the chance to study violin in school. I raised my hand and I told the teacher excitedly, "This is so cool because my dad plays the violin. We have one at home."

Only that was the moment he left. But I didn't know that as a little kid. So looking back, I would say he was letting me know he was leaving and it was his way of being present that was important and meaningful.

And also, my dad had been very religious, Judaism-wise. So it became really super important to me to be very religious because I felt I was connecting with him when he was in another realm.

This happened a couple days after after the funeral. I was looking up in the sky. I spend a lot of time looking at the sky. I love to watch birds. I love to watch planes. I love to watch anything that's flying.

And I see this silver flash. Literally, it's so fast, way up high in the sky. The silver flash  came out of nowhere. It went back into nowhere. It wasn't like it was a plane flying in and out of a cloud. It was just a blue sky. Silver flash and then gone. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that was my dad. And later when my mom left, I had an experience of seeing her leave her body as a golden ball. So I knew whenever I saw the golden ball, that was my mom.

When you allow yourself to be open to these different experiences you're gonna recognize how often they come to you and the deep impact that they can have on your life.

Some time, I don't recall if it was in the 1960s or 1970s, there were a lot of talk shows that I used to watch on TV.  Because I love to learn and there were actually shows worth listening to as there are today, you can find a lot of documentaries and interviews that really are educational.
as opposed to, "let's see how many views we can get." And that happens by being nasty or rude or somethings that I wouldn't watch.

I watched Shirley MacLaine in an interview talking about her book Out On a Limb and she was saying all the things I had been experiencing in my life. So her book gave people - for the first time - people like me, the opportunity to speak of our experiences without people saying, "You're nuts."

That was my first step and I went on to read most of her books. Because she experienced some things that I had. But a whole lot of what was happening in her world happened to me.

I had this very strange experience of knowing.  And I didn't even have to know the person I was walking by. I would just feel. Like something would hit me, that her father was going to have a heart attack. And sometimes die. But in any case, have a heart attack in the next few days. I often didn't even know the people, but I knew that was happening.

Here is another incident when the Universe yelled at me to get my attention.

I was traveling one weekend.  At the time I lived in Virginia and I was going down to, I think it was Atlanta, Georgia. It was someplace down South. And I had the choice of taking the route along the coast or going over the mountains.

I love mountains. So I took off. I went the mountain route.

And what I didn't know was there was a blizzard going on in the mountains.
There were cars off the road the whole way. I mean off the road as in down ditches and as I rode very slowly and inched along I hoped there was nobody in those cars down the ditches.

So I'm going along and it's surprising  - trucks went zipping by me as if it's a perfectly clear sunny dry day. And I just kept focusing on poking along being safe. And suddenly I hit some ice. And my car went spinning round and round.

I was heading over to the top of a ditch. And my car stopped before getting to the edge where I would have fallen into the ditch. The car stopped with me facing the direction forward I needed to be facing so that I could get going again.

That's one thing about that experience.

The other thing...

There were zero cars and zero trucks going down the road just for that period of time while I was spinning round and round!

I got out of my car. I had a snow shovel in the car. It was March. I was going South. I shouldn't have had a snow shovel, right? However, the Universe told me to leave the snow shovel in the car.

I don't ask when I get feelings. I just follow them.

So I got out of the car.

I'm wearing open shoes. I'm going sSuth and it's March. And I shovel off a path so I can drive back up on the road. I make sure the car is clear so I can see everything.  And that whole time I'm doing that no cars are coming down the road. No trucks are coming down the road. I'm perfectly safe.

I do what I need to do. And when I finished all of that along came a car.  A young man stopped and asked if I needed help. By then I didn't need help.

I knew that was just one more knowing. Good to know the Universe is taking care of us in each moment. When we allow ourselves to be open to the messages and to the experience our lives become so much richer. And easier. They become a whole lot easier when you stop fighting.

Oh, what happened after all of that stuff or actually chronologically it happened years before...

When I was pregnant with my daughter, oh boy, I wanted a daughter. I already had the most wonderful son, right? I really wanted a daughter.

So I had 2 dreams. Okay, I had a daughter growing inside. I didn't tell anybody cause I tend not to share my experiences with people. Okay, and one dream she had red hair. I didn't know that my grandfather had red hair. I knew my father-in-law had red hair. You need the gene on both sides for it appear.

When she was born I wondered why there was so much blood on her head. It wasn't blood. It was her red hair.

The other dream - she came out easily.  She basically climbed out wearing a diaper and an under shirt. It was the easiest, fastest birth. Which it was incredibly fast - how fast she came out.

So those are 2 more reasons for me to follow the feelings in my heart. The knowings.

Going ahead.

When I had the brain surgery,  if you've been following me for a while, you know I had a brain tumor. And it was located in a really, really dangerous place for doing surgery. And, okay, ready for this?

I was living in the Boise, Idaho area at the time. And this surgeon, who was actually rated number one in the country for this very particular very specific type of brain surgery, he was living in Boise, Idaho. Like me, he came from Brooklyn. I was born in Brooklyn. He was raising his family in Brooklyn, New York and wanted to find a different kind of place for his kids to grow up. So exactly the person I needed was there where I had chosen to live exactly at that time when I needed him.

Because of the danger of this particular location he described to me the surgery that was going to take at least 10 hours.  And he said it was so dangerous that there was a good chance it would take 2 days: one day to go in and take it out and then wait until the next day to close it up.  So he was saying expect a minimum of 10 hours for the surgery.

Which is what I passed on to my daughter. So when the phone call came after only 4 hours she later told me she was scared that I had died during the surgery.

The surgery was done in 4 hours.

I had asked the Universe and my friends to see the tumor slide out easily like it was on a nonstick surface. And it came out and I was out of there in 4 hours.

There are so many reasons - I could go on and on.  What I want you to know is when you look across your life,  when you really pay attention to your experiences, you can discover you have knowings too. You just know the things that are going on in your world.

I know lots of things about other people. And often they're strangers who I don't even know.

I know lots of things about me. I can continue to know I'm guided. There are so many times and still are today when my body goes into a state. And I'm very far from home. And there's no one to help me and I need to get home. The Universe, and I ask my car too, to keep me safe and get me home. And I know I'm not driving. My hands are on the wheel, but I'm not controlling it. And if you saw the movie, Out On a Limb that Shirley MacLaine made (and you can find on YouTube), you'll see an experience like that. Then you'll have an understanding of how real it is for your car to know how to take care of you.

Quick break here. To let you know. When the brain tumor was removed, and because of where it was located, it took out key nerves in my brain that control all kinds of really important functions in the body, and also a main blood vessel on that side

For 10 years more than half my face and inside my mouth was paralyzed. I couldn't blow my nose because I had no feeling, no control up here.(points to sinuses)

It was really hard for me to speak clearly.  It's still really challenging for me to swallow so that I don't choke.

Breathing, speaking, there are all kinds of things from all kinds of paralysis. And fortunately, I knew a naturopath who uses and sells  patches - non-drug and non-transdermal (nothing goes into my skin or digestive tract). What are they? They're non drugs. They're not putting anything in my body.
It simply tells my body, "Here's some energy. Wake up and make your own healing happen." And in 2 weeks time the paralysis was gone. It was gone. I could speak clearly. I could blow my nose. I could breathe. All these things were happening because the Universe directed me to that particular Naturopath.

Everyone can benefit from making their own healing energies. And not having to worry about what's going in or on their systems.

Contact me. Link is in the show notes. And we'll talk and I'll show you exactly what's going to be helpful for you. Whether it's something that's hurting, something is not functioning, whether you have vision stuff or hearing stuff, whatever's going on for you. Suffering is optional. Just contact me. Let's talk. And we'll set it up.

Now, here's the next thing that I found really, really, really exciting. When I had grandchildren and I was living in Idaho I didn't get to see my family very often.

So I decided to move  back and live on the East Coast in New York. My son and daughter and my first grandchild lived in New York.

I had this most extraordinary dear friend - when I need help she's there. She flew out to help me pack up, drove the truck, cause I was afraid to drive - I never drove a 26 foot truck before. And we were towing my car - never did that before either. I drove the 24 foot trucks. I drove those lots. And we came back across the country.

I did not have a place to live. And I trusted the Universe to show me the place. Now, fortunately, my daughter had a high school friend and both the friend and his parents lived out in the area to which I was moving. And they offered for me to stay in their home for a few weeks until their guests came from out of the country.

Well, my son told me I was nuts because he'd say, "Look, Mom, here's a place you can go.  And you're not going to find a better deal." I saw, no, that's not where I want to live.
It wasn't speaking to me. I wasn't feeling inside like the place I wanted to go.

I knew what I wanted. And along came the little house I wanted to see from the time I was a little kid.

I said to the Universe, "I don't care if I live in a shack" which wasn't a wise thing to say, "Just so long as I have land and water." So here comes this little house, which was really a little better than a shack. It was a cottage. And right across the street was a huge lake. Outside the door from my home was the Appalachian Trail - all the land I could ever want.  So the Universe knew what I wanted and brought me to that place.

See, when see and you know in your heart what you want and why you want it, you let the Universe know. Can you do that? Picture it in your heart. And add emotions. FEEL it. Use all your 5 senses. Imagine yourself in the home. "What am I seeing? Touching? Smelling?" Go the refrigerator. Take out a cold drink.

At my house, going out the door to go hiking - there were 6 different entries to the Appalachian Trail. Right outside my door.

And on the Appalachian Trail, there's no cell phone coverage.  And I didn't have a friend, unfortunately, the people I knew out there, none were hikers. So I'd go by myself on the trail. And I trusted the Universe would always take care of me.

And I trusted I wouldn't get hurt. Because sometimes they're very dangerous trails. On some of those trails it's one thing to go up and another thing to come down. The Universe always led me safely back to the house. Oh, and so you know that really good friend of mine, I would always take a picture.

And send it to her, right?  I'd text it to her with a note, " This is the entry to the trail that I'm taking now." And I'll be back and I would always go out for a half hour because I knew I needed another half hour to come back.

So I'm not dumb. I do take care of myself. And I know it's the Universe taking care of me.  Just as the Universe is always taking care of you.

I thank you so much for joining us here today. So that I could share with you why it is so important for me to be a metaphysical minister.  And frankly, many, many years ago when I first started doing energy work, I thought, okay, I got to be a minister so I can put my hands on people.

And for some of the work I used to do I needed to do to put my hands in the mouth.  And you can go online and become a minister instantly. And you can do that and it doesn't cost you anything.  But that wasn't teaching me how to be a metaphysical minister.

When I lived in Idaho I had an opportunity to go into an ordination class. And I got to learn and get all the documentation and everything so that I could become a metaphysical minister as I say I really, really wanted to be.  And in fact, you're joining me here today for Let's Get Metaphysical: Connecting Heart And Mind.

Remember to join our Facebook group where you can get some extras - pieces of information. You can ask questions. You can make a friend.

Go ahead and join our community.  When you do, you get to get on a live video call with me every single month. I love to know who you are and where you're listening from. I know we're listened to in 36 countries. But I don't know who's listening. And I don't know where you live in those countries. And in case you haven't figured it out, I love conducting with people.
I love to connect with you. So let's make it mutual. Tell me who you are and where you are when you're listening or watching.

Go to our website. You can see or listen to any of our well over 100 episodes.

Follow my link to get the audible book of your choice from Audible..
I recommended this before and I'm recommending it again because it's about knowing, it's about tuning in. It's Braiding Sweet Grass.
And it's all about the whole indigenous cultures who always lived off the land and that's why they lived for a hundreds and thousands of years without leaving a carbon footprint, without damaging the earth, without polluting the water or the land. It's a way of life and you'll find indigenous cultures like that all over the world.

And I recommend it highly. Grab your copy for your free copy with your 30 day trial. Learn about being a protector and a supporter. It's our world. Our world is being destroyed.
There are some places that it's not even certain they can be repaired. All because of what industry did.
Educate yourself. Live knowing you're connected to the land. And Nature is gifting you with everything that you need to sustain yourself. 

Remember to InJoy! Every Moment because nothing happens outside of you. It all happens within.