Author Archives: Raquel Brewer

Commitment

I recently went through a very rough time in my relationship. And one thing about divine timing, it’s always right. Today I had a session with an amazing couple. Married 15 “glorious” years, as they put it. So, if you are in a committed relationship, seeking one, preparing for marriage, or are married…this is specifically for you.

“What brought you to the safe space today”, I asked after giving my usual opening statements.

The couple looked at each other and giggled. They had no specific hardship or reason for “needing” a session. They both wanted to give one another a space to talk. Even after 15 years the importance of having a safe space to express was still on the top of their list. I thought to myself, well their communication at home as to be spectacular, I can feel their love for one another through my computer screen. I immediately became intimidated, because how do I “help” when there is no help needed. And then it clicked, proactive not reactive. In relationships we tend to assume that because so much time has passed our partner can express freely. When in reality, as we learn to navigate familiar space, some things can naturally go left unsaid.

I was curious, for my own recent mistakes and wanting to marry my partner, I asked, “How was life before marriage, and the first 3-5 years after”.

This is where the Mrs. took over. She laughed and said as soon as he proposed and she said yes, it took her two weeks to regret it. And in unison they laughed and agreed. She explained that everything that could go wrong, seem to go wrong as soon as they decided on a lifelong commitment. Almost as if it was a test to see if they would make it. In awe, and with some odd comfort, I was curious so I  asked them to tell me more. She explained that when one thing went wrong, their relationship seemed to only focus on what was wrong. Which is natural during most life changing events. He took over and explained how they almost called off the engagement because they argued so much. After a month or two they sat down and reminisced on how they got there in the first place. Why did they want to get married, “the devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy”, she said, “and we didn’t let him”.

At this point I had to turn off my camera. I am sure their session was more for me than them. As I came quite close to losing the very person, I am to spend eternity with. After a few more questions about intimate matters, some role-playing activities, and them sneaking in a few lovely kisses. Our session was ending. Surprising enough I gave them homework.

Their homework is as follows; plan an unimaginable date for the other. Don’t go to your favorite spot, don’t think of something sentimental that you did 10 years ago to the day, nor something you heard the other one say they wanted to do. Literally be unimaginable. Think so outside the box, that they hesitate to even consider it. The goal is to excite them in the thinking, while anticipating the doing. Reigniting that adventure, they decided to embark on together 15 years ago. Lastly, I encouraged them to incorporate meditation sessions together. I am often surprised how many couples don’t do this. You sit either face to face or back-to-back, you say affirmations repeating after each other, but the trick is to say affirmations for your partner and vice versa. It not only reassures your bond and goals, but in such an intimate state you are speaking life and love over them, their goals, and refilling their cup…while they do the same for you.

If you are in a rough patch in your relationship and you know without a doubt that is your person, if you are only a few months in and loving the dynamic, if you are married or engaged, if you are completely happy, if you need to fall in love with you…take this homework with you.

I’ll say it time and time again, happy, and healthy is a journey. Find your person worth taking the adventure with.

-Changed Behavior

Moments

Accountability can be such a challenging task as an adult. Immediately you are probably like, how hard is it to take ownership for your actions? That’s not the hard part, for most of us any way. It’s being accountable for the negative feelings that the actions caused, and the uncontrollable desire to explain yourself.

As usual, life teaches me lessons, and it is my duty to share them. This way, your life is easier, while mine only gets better. All mistakes are teachable moments.

First and foremost, let’s address accountability for feelings. Often when we make mistakes, we will be brought the action of the mistake. Then we address the actions, apologize for them but somehow there is still this disruption in energy. This is where you take charge and sit in very uncomfortable discomfort. Ask the person how the actions made them feel, and how they feel currently. Allow them a space to express safely. Then validate, acknowledge, and apologize for those feelings. The difference is, you can never repeat a mistake, but the way you made the person feel may arise in the most random situations, on the most random days. This is where the safe space of them knowing you acknowledge the emotion and let them express comes to play. Not only will you not feel attacked and defensive because they didn’t bring up what you did, you have open communication to the root…the emotions.

Hurting people, you love is one of the heaviest burdens you will ever carry. You are stuck between “how could I hurt them” and “How can I show them how much I love them” constantly. Unsure of anything, but at the same time knowing no one else deserves your ability to love at full capacity. If I can give you any advice, do the work. Learn their perspective, and only see their emotions from their point of view. They are not yours to rationalize, just take ownership.

Lastly, let’s address the need to be heard. It is natural in any situation where your actions are being called out to want to explain them. In your mind, from your perspective, they make sense. But that’s the thing, it’s not from your view, so it doesn’t make sense. Pro tip… the goal is to have a conversation, not play the blame game. After the version of events are played out, you take accountability for what is accurate and correct any mistakes. Once there is validation of what’s true and false, immediately go back to step one. Ask how they are feeling now, and how the actions made them feel.

As my audience of happy and healthy couples and people seeking healthy relationships continue to grow, I want to give you useful tools and understanding for healthy arguments. You will hurt the person you love in this life, and I promise you the key is taking the attention off the actions, and onto the emotions. Remember, just as much as you love them, they love you. Emotions are fleeting but love is a rare state of existence. No one in love seeks out to harm the person sharing the experience with them.

Focusing on the emotions will protect your emotionally vulnerability with one another. As well making you never want them to feel negative emotion you caused again. Now you will consider all your actions based solely of off their emotions, and not thinking “it’s not the same mistake I made before”. Protect the emotional and the physical will follow. I am always learning and evolving.

Stay teachable.

-Light and Love

Grace

Mistakes are the scariest things about adulthood. Everything quite literally could cause you your life or the quality of it.  The weight of mistakes gets heavier as we get older. We unintentionally pile on everything we have learned, what we think we should know, and the expectations of society with every misstep. Making the preverbal baggage impossible to carry.

If you are like me, life is the best teacher. Learning the hard way has been my specialty. Not always by choice, I might add. Nonetheless any time I make a mistake I drift all the way back to this dark unhealthy place of what I’ve been through, what I put myself through, and what I should be better at by now. Carrying the weight of guilt, shame, disappointment, and loathing. Wondering why I can’t sleep or eat. Wondering why breathing seems to be an impossible task and allowing my baggage to crush me quite literally.

If this resonates listen up…

Happy and healthy is not this trophy you get at the end of the race. It is a state of existence that you get to strive for. Something you never stop seeking. If you could hold on to one thing from me let it be this, you deserve grace. You deserve to be so gentle with yourself. Here’s how…

Isolate events. Nothing you have been through or done deserves to be used against you in the next thing. Fight fair with your mind, be what you require from others. Do not come to battle with a loaded gun, finger in the trigger, pointing at you. You shouldn’t know better, otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to learn the lesson. No situation is the exact same, only feelings are. Feelings trick your mind to see emotionally, you will drown every single time.

Mistakes don’t define you. Make them then make them mean something. Let your mistake take you low, feel that self-pity. Then use it to as fuel to never need to feel it for that reason again.

Mistakes are just that, and as an adult you get to make them. You deserve to keep learning, keep striving, keep being better. Emotions are powerful, and you must master them. The situation isn’t the same, the feelings attached to it are. Making you replay other events, beat yourself up, and tricking you into “I’ve been here before”. Different situations will arise, triggering the same emotion until you master it.

Master who you are at your very core.

Be better, be stronger, be brave enough to admit your emotions to yourself and feel through it. Replay the mistakes and what you would have done different. Then come to peace, and never use it against yourself again. Happy and healthy is your state of existence, and mistakes don’t get to take that away from you. They don’t get to define you. You are the lessoned learn, not the mistake necessary to learn it.

You deserve grace.

-Dark doesn’t exist, it’s only the absence of light. Shine. 

This is easier said than done, with help giving yourself grace visit http://www.raquelsturn.com I’ll see you in the safe space.

Adventure Time

What is your purpose in life? What is your why? What is that thing that drives you? Who are you outside of the societal roles you have bestowed upon yourself?

Seriously, stop what you are doing and answer the questions, or realize you can’t…

The term is Human Being, not Human Doing. You are allowed to just exist, simply because you can. So get rid of the idea that work and children are your purpose. I am going to make a few points that may ruffle some feathers, but none the less will be made to enhance your quality of life.

First on the chopping block, parents/legal guardians. First, parenthood is a societal role, not your purpose in life, your why, nor the thing that drives you. Hear me out, yes they are little tools of motivation, but so is wanting a new car. You existed before children, they enhanced your quality of life, they should never become your life. You live for you, showing up whole to raise and guide them, displaying what it’s like to live a purpose filled life. I always cringe when I hear people say, “My kids are my whole life, I live for them”. How unfair is it to place your quality of life on the shoulders of tiny humans? And then you raise them up to leave the nest, now you are searching for a purpose, because you’ve lost you and lived to be a robotic provider with no driving force. How is it that you can teach kids to have a hobby, passion, focus and drive, but don’t lead by example. If your children are old enough, ask them what do you like to do and what are your hobbies? If your answers are along the lines of “I don’t know, playing with me, watching TV, going to my games etc.” I’ve got bad news. Go find your why. I promise it’s not on the backs of your children, and how dare you put that weight on them.

Next up, students of life. My drifters, transits, and cruisers. The ones who get up and go, never really headed anywhere in particular. The lifestyle is beautiful, way to exist outside of societal judgment and taxes. But listen, what is it all for? Are you teaching or just not doing because rebellion is fun? Did you just not find anything you were good at, had too much pressure at home, no home? I am never here to tell people how to live, the goal is to inspire your why to live. Why is your lifestyle yours? In that you’ll find your purpose. Make it count.

Finally, the people who just don’t know. The people who may have married young, working while they figure it out, in college, or even in between ideas. For the people who dream about their future selves but have no idea how to reach that version of you…get active. You will never find your why by doing the same thing every single day. If you are unconsciously navigating through your day to day, doing the same routine week to week, month to month, you will not find your spark. It’s adventure time.

Regardless of your life circumstance or role in society the message is still the same. Without the thing that makes your life worth living, without fulfilling your purpose and putting the why of your life in the roles you took on, you will never find your true self. God forbid anything happen to you, but if you ever got into an accident and couldn’t perform parent duties or spousal responsibilities, do you see how you would feel like your life is meaningless and pointless. You are so so so much more, go find it.

-Journey

To find a starting place for your adventure

Magnitude

I want to have a serious talk about emotions. I know, I know… you are probably thinking “Raquel, we always have serious talks”, but seriously. One of the main patterns I notice in all gender identities is the inability to feel emotions, and the diminishing of the ones felt. When I tell you nothing hurts my heart more, I mean it. The entire point of life is experiencing the emotions that come along with it. I spent years dissociated and just drifting through, and I refuse to let anyone I impact to live such an empty experience. So, listen closely.

First of all, what do I even mean.

When I talk about the inability to feel emotions, I mean literally experiencing emotions and trying to talk yourself out of them. Let’s say you get your feelings hurt, the first thing you may do is say “it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have let anyone that close”, “toughen up” or my favorite “Life goes on” as if it ever stops. All of these are statement that take away the fact that you are human and are entitled to your emotions. Why is this a big deal?

Emotions are all one muscle. If you don’t exercise them, they get weak. For example, the times you should be feeling good emotions deeply, you will barley enjoy them because you have conditioned your brain to think “life goes on” or “this is an expected accomplishment, on to the next goal”. You can’t pick and choose what emotions you feel in their full capacity, your brain is an all or nothing type of machine. You either want to allow yourself emotional maturity, or you want half the experience of what life feels like.

On to the diminishing. I remember when I spoke to a rape victim and the first thing, they said was “well at least I survived”. Immediately diminishing their experience because it “could be worse”. Or the partner who gets cheated on and immediately says “at least we weren’t married”, as If their amount of hurt shouldn’t be that serious because a marriage certificate wasn’t present.

 Sounds crazy right?

If you grew up lacking praise but being in trouble was a big deal in your household this is for you. If you grew up in a household where the entire family was called when you made mistakes, this is for you. If you grew up and had to raise yourself or siblings this is for you, if you grew up like me in back-to-back traumatic experiences this is, especially, for you.

Emotions are a personal experience. You get to sit through them, all of them. You are entitled to them, and they are valid simply because you feel them. Nothing worse needs to happen to you for you to have a great magnitude of emotions, and no accomplishment needs to be bigger for it to be a big deal. You deserve to feel emotions without having to explain why you have them. They are yours, only sharing them when you want/need to. Feel through it.

You wonder why you feel like you have nothing to celebrate, why you feel stagnant and stuck out of no where? Because you have made yourself think that nothing is a big deal. When you’ve accomplished so much, and if you would just sit back and feel through life, you would be so inspired and chasing the next emotional high. Even the lows make the highs worth living.

Be more than surviving, be more than floating through. Be brave enough to cry and rejoice. Don’t let this world diminish your accomplishments, don’t let anyone tell you that happened too long ago for it to hurt you. Don’t let anyone take away your emotions, they are your biggest power. It’s scary to admit how much some things hurt, intimidating to admit what happened, but I promise, the feeling that comes after is worth the experience.

Life is worth feeling. Go back and celebrate the things you overlooked, go back and cry about the things that deserved your tears.

-Healing is feeling.  

If you need a safe space to relive and feel through what’s needed. Let’s Chat

www.raqueltsturn.com click book now and explore your options

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Doctrine

People often ask me why I still do things like go to church, study various types of scripture, pray etc. As a spiritual guide and leader, I will do my best on explaining what a very complex topic could be, in a few short points. Most leaders will tell you they don’t do church and never get questioned because it seems “right” when in fact, they are who you should ask why.

The first most simple explanation is God is a spirit and I am a scholar. How I believe in God may not be the same as how you believe in God. In my reality the universal laws are perfectly balanced rules set in motion by a divine creator. This is the watchmaker God theory. How can I take the time to teach you the way the universe works, without understanding the why or the who?

Second, the corruption of religion does not take away the power of the rituals, the spell casting, the abilities, and gifts described within holy text. So many spiritual leaders will point out how burning sage and manifesting is in scripture, but then tell you not to study it. Make no mistake, it is a difficult task researching divine works, learning the origin of words, finding the corruption, all so I can teach and live-in truth. Scripture teaches that there will be those with holy gifts on earth. Gifts like prophecy, dreams, and speaking to spirits…sound familiar? And I am blessed enough to be a gifted person. Now ask yourself, would you prefer I didn’t know divine works? Would you prefer I lead you from assumptions or from experience and wisdom?

Third, as a scientist we are taught to look at every single angle. To respect the balance of good and bad. I speak to so many people who left church because of the false teachings, hypocrisy, and drama. The very people who are spiritual just not religious. Which translates to “I believe in a divine creator, I believe in spirits and the ability to pray and manifest the life I want, I just don’t believe If I don’t eat pork or have sex before marriage I am going to hell”. The bad side of spirituality is organized religion and the false indoctrination, not the spirit themselves.

When I do attend a church, it is like lecture hall in one of my courses. I am not sitting there like sheep, I am listening to research, not to be persuaded. My professors do not expect me to write papers and give presentations on what they said. It’s expected to be what I have uncovered from their direction. Have I found something new, have I got a different interpretation? The key to science is discovery.

As a spiritual leader it is our duty to research the shapeshifters, to recognize the bad while picking out the good. Understanding that the hidden truths in all holy scripture will stay hidden if we do not decipher and teach what spirit is actually saying. The very reason there is order in the universe, the very reason you can get a reading based on the time you were born or use energy and the universal laws to create your reality, is because of the cosmic balance. And I would be remiss if I didn’t study who set in motion that very balance.

You can use crystals to source energy and the universe can tell you why. You can manifest the life you want, and the universe can tell you why. You can spell cast and understand with every spell there is a price to pay, and universe can tell you why. You can get a reading by those guided enough to interpret messages and the universe can tell you why.

Now ask yourself this, who is the universe. And why would you follow someone who can’t tell you why.

-Spiritual Scientist

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Voices

“Do not make who or what you want fit the narrative”, I say to each client after each session, before providing a reading and spiritual message.

 I provide a safe space and judgment free zone, a space where I support the choices you make and face the consequences, good or bad, right beside you. Always giving you the freedom to express, shed, and find peace.

However, spiritual guidance is not so kind. While I understand human nature and the limitations of the mind, the spirit realm is not so “gentle”. It is hard to remember that any spiritual messages are not catering to your emotions. Mentally you must remember spirit is what you need to hear, while the safe space we create is what you want and need.

Never will I ever tell you what you want to hear in an unhealthy sense, meaning I will say things like “I understand” and “your reaction is normal” etc. Studying human behavior is my specialty, why we think, act, feel the way we do. So, when I say I understand, it’s genuinely because I do, on a fundamental level.

Sessions are not meant to only give you tough love, it’s a space for you to make mistakes and talk them through, for you to express ideas without fear, and for you to feel safe in every emotion. A space you get to call your own and never have to worry about it being used against you or being looked at crazy. A Safe Space.

The spiritual message that follows is direct advice from beyond me, beyond the person who understands human nature. The spiritual realm knows a version of you that precedes our understanding. Seeing the deepest desires of the reality you crave most, giving you guidance to reach that version of you.

So, I say, listen with your spirit, not the limitations of your mind. Leave your emotions in the safe space. Take your reading for what it is, careful not to twist into what you want.

-Only Human

See you in the safe space.

I understand

I understand.

I understand how the roller coaster of emotions can make you just want to turn them off. Flipping the proverbial switch, to just be numb. I understand how it can be enticing to move though life, never letting anyone close enough to hurt you. Never letting anyone use your secrets against you. I know what it’s like to feel that knot in your stomach, realizing you’ve shared too much. Unsure if you can trust anyone with the deepest parts of you because everybody leaves…

I understand how it feels to wake up and feel alone because for years you’ve never let anyone in. Never letting anyone close enough to know what makes your tears fall, or what makes you giggle out of nowhere. Being so afraid of being left, or feeling that ache again, that somehow when you need someone most, there’s no one there.

I understand what it’s like to be so excited for new friendships and relationships but always leaving one foot on the ground. Only letting people know you from the time they met you, but somehow still wanting them to be proud of how far you’ve come.

I want to tell you…

There is strength in learning how to yield your emotions. Strength in knowing that you are so strong, no one has taken away your power to feel so deeply. The easy way out is turning them off. Giving up how deeply you can feel the good, the great, and the unexpected. There is power in homing in on your intuition, trusting when you are safe, and feeling everything that comes with release.

You are more than what you’ve been through, you have so much to experience. Give yourself the power to laugh from the depths of your stomach, sing with your full diaphragm, dance like no one’s watching, and cry from the deepest parts of your soul.

If you let what you’ve been through, what hurt you, who hurt you, or what you are afraid of make you turn off what makes life worth living, they won. Stay powerful.

-Feel your way through

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I

Five

I realize now how I set the tone for mediocrity in my life. Year after year, friend after friend, relationship after relationship. Don’t get me wrong, it was not intentional, but very much my fault. I did the quiz on my love language and ran with it never knowing the true capacity of love nor the language of it.

“I don’t really care for gifts” I would say, “quality time and physical touch are my love languages”. There I was, setting the tone for “minimal effort and underserving”, innocent and naive. I was too young minded to know that effort in all forms of love is the minimum of what love requires.

Somehow thinking those statements would set me apart from other women who required extravagant gifts or stopped people from assuming I was a gold digger.  I would be left wondering why I didn’t get random flowers and cards, why I didn’t get asked on friend dates, or why I didn’t get those nice gifts on special occasions or exquisite dates. Just hanging out and sex. I was so wrapped up in the surface of what loving me looked like, instead of understanding what love itself looked like, and then how love and I fit together.

 Let’s not forget the standards we set in love, seep into every aspect of life. I sat and realized that friends, my jobs, and even my relationship with myself was built in mediocracy. Furthermore, I had no one to blame but me.

We set the tone for what we allow and endure.

Accepting that love is this all-encompassing verb, the languages of love will have a new meaning. The idea if love is not to be desired in one form. It’s to understand that in your most vulnerable times, in your happiest times, and even in your saddest, the love you require will change. Love is fluid because it is something you experience in real time. No day is the same, no version of you is the same, so how dare you limit what the love you require looks like. Minimizing what you require into popular love quizzes. Realizing that your love language is either what you lacked or received in abundance in your youth, shows you that trying to fill that void is limiting.

Challenge

The next time someone asks you your love language, I want you to say it depends on the day. Explain that physical touch is your favorite form of love because you lacked it in your youth. Yet, you love gifts simply because you deserve it, hearing affirmations because words are powerful, acts of service because life gets hectic, and quality time because life is too short. I dare you let the love you require be all encompassing.

-Love Language

To have a safe space to talk, to book an oracle reading, or to join my monthly group for sexual assault survivors visit

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