Readings by the River

Readings by the River QHHT practitioner L2, tarot reader for 25+ years, Reiki Master, Soul Speak certified Terry Yohnka has had an interest in new age topics for more than 50 years.

She does private and small group tarot readings by appointment.

03/07/2026

Wisdom does not always come from books.
Sometimes it comes from years of quietly observing life.

An old monk once shared these simple truths:

1️⃣ You don’t lose people when they walk away.
You lose them when you keep pretending
They are still worth holding onto.

Sometimes the hardest part is not losing someone —
It is accepting that they were never meant
To stay in your life forever.

2️⃣ Most people are not truly busy.
They simply don’t care enough to make time.

People make time for what matters to them.
Attention reveals priority.

3️⃣ The older you get, the more you understand
That silence protects you better than anger.

Anger burns energy.
Silence protects peace.

Not every opinion needs a response.
Not every misunderstanding needs correction.

4️⃣ Trust is like glass.
Once broken, it can sometimes be repaired —
But it will never return to its original form.

Respect for trust is the foundation of every meaningful relationship.

5️⃣ If someone wants to leave, let them.
Staying where you are not respected
Is the slowest way to die inside.

In Buddhist wisdom, attachment to what does not honor us
Creates unnecessary suffering.

Sometimes letting go
Is the beginning of freedom.

🌿 Accept what leaves.
🌿 Value what stays.
🌿 Protect your peace.

Because life becomes lighter
When you stop holding onto
What no longer belongs in your path.

🪷 Some lessons hurt.
🪷 But they also make us wiser.

This is just wonderful! Women, in particular, are taught to “take care” of everyone. But what we all need to do is help ...
03/04/2026

This is just wonderful! Women, in particular, are taught to “take care” of everyone. But what we all need to do is help others learn to take care of themselves - sometimes by letting them stumble

https://www.facebook.com/share/1GCkKb9Rrm/?mibextid=wwXIfr

For the soul completely exhausted from trying to fix everyone else, see Buddha’s fierce wisdom 🎋

You are the "fixer."
When your friends have drama, you step in to solve it. When your family is struggling, you carry their emotional weight. You run yourself ragged trying to keep everyone around you happy, comfortable, and at peace.

Society calls you "selfless." Modern culture praises you for being such a giving person.
But behind closed doors, you are totally drained. You feel empty. You are starting to realize that while you are busy managing everyone else's life, your own foundation is crumbling. You want to step back, but that soft, guilty voice whispers: “If I don't help them, who will? Setting a boundary means I am selfish.”

🛑 The Teaching: The Bamboo Pole

The Buddha recognized this exact trap. He knew that well-meaning people often destroy their own peace by over-extending themselves. He addressed it in the Sedaka Sutta using a brilliant, simple story.

There was a master acrobat and his young assistant who performed a delicate, difficult balancing act on top of a tall bamboo pole.
Before the performance, the master told the young girl: "You look out for my balance, and I will look out for your balance. That way, we will protect each other and come down safely."

But the wise young assistant shook her head and replied:
"No, master. That will not work. You must look after your own balance, and I must look after my own balance. By protecting ourselves and staying centered, we protect each other."

The Buddha praised the young girl. He declared that she was absolutely right.

⚖️ The Shift: The Illusion of "Fixing"

Here is the fierce truth.
You cannot keep someone else steady if you are constantly falling over.

We confuse "enabling" with "helping." When you constantly step in to fix other people's mistakes, manage their emotions, or absorb their stress, you are not actually saving them. You are just robbing them of the chance to learn how to balance their own lives.

"Toxic selflessness" is when you drain your own cup completely dry to water someone else's garden, and then wonder why you are withering away. The Buddha taught that protecting your own mental and spiritual foundation is not selfish—it is the fundamental requirement for being truly useful to the world.

🔥 The Instruction: How to Step Back

So, how do you stop carrying the weight of the world without feeling guilty?

1. Watch Your Own Balance: Stop staring at everyone else's feet. Bring your focus back to your own life. Are you sleeping? Are you at peace? If your own foundation is shaky, you have no business trying to direct someone else's path. Focus on your own center first.

2. Let People Carry Their Own Weight: It is deeply uncomfortable to watch someone you care about struggle. But struggle is how we grow. Offer them advice if they ask, offer them love, but absolutely refuse to carry their backpack for them.

3. Boundaries are an Act of Love: Saying "No" does not mean you lack compassion. It means you have the wisdom to know your limits. A sturdy fence makes a good neighbor.

The Lesson: You cannot pour from an empty cup. Guard your own energy. By maintaining your own balance, you give others the quiet permission to finally find theirs.

You never know which friend is scrolling right now, secretly exhausted and burning out because they are carrying everyone else's problems. Don't let them collapse under the weight. Click Share. Be their permission to rest today. 🎋

Words by: ✍🏻 Sahan Vishvajith

Did you need to hear this today? Follow The Mindful Walk for more daily wisdom. 🙏

This is not just about religion, although some use that as an excuse. It’s about how you treat others, including animals...
03/01/2026

This is not just about religion, although some use that as an excuse. It’s about how you treat others, including animals and all of nature.

A Hard Spiritual Truth...

If your spirituality teaches you to hate,
it is not awakening you —
it is hardening you.

The Buddha never taught superiority.
He taught liberation.

And liberation begins the moment
you stop dividing the world
into “worthy” and “unworthy,”
“us” and “them,”
“pure” and “impure.”

Hatred has never been holy.
Cruelty has never been sacred.
And dehumanizing another being
has never been an act of truth.

Because in Buddhist understanding,
every being you meet
is another mind seeking happiness
and trying to escape suffering —
just like you.

🌿 When a belief makes you feel above others,
it is feeding ego, not wisdom.

🌿 When a doctrine asks you to exclude,
it is strengthening fear, not compassion.

🌿 When faith is used to justify harm,
it has already drifted from awakening
into identity.

True Dharma humbles you.
It softens you.
It widens your circle of care
until no being stands outside it.

You know your path is wholesome
not by how fiercely you defend it,
but by how gently you walk within it.

So pause and ask honestly:

Does my belief make me more kind?
More patient?
More compassionate?

Or merely more certain
that I am right?

Because any path that leads away from compassion
is not leading toward freedom —
no matter what name it carries.

And in the end,
awakening is not proven
by what you believe.

It is revealed
by how you treat others.

If this speaks to you, reflect quietly today:
Does my spirituality expand my heart — or my ego? 🪷

3 meaningful steps …
02/19/2026

3 meaningful steps …

I think this is so profound and helpful! ❤️ Our emotions are our teachers.
02/15/2026

I think this is so profound and helpful! ❤️ Our emotions are our teachers.

Understand your emotions and what they show you...

Oh my, this is just too perfect and timely!
01/28/2026

Oh my, this is just too perfect and timely!

Here’s how inner gaps quietly reveal themselves...
🔍 If they lack accountability
They will never own their mistakes. Everything is someone else’s fault — circumstances, timing, you. Admitting wrongdoing feels like an attack to them, so blame becomes their shield.

🗣️ If they lack communication skills
They’ll say “you’re arguing” when you’re simply expressing a concern. Healthy dialogue feels threatening because they don’t know how to listen without defending.

🧠 If they lack emotional intelligence
They’ll call you “too sensitive.” Instead of recognizing emotions as valid information, they dismiss them — because acknowledging feelings requires awareness they haven’t developed.

🪞 If they lack self-awareness
They’ll criticize others for the exact traits they refuse to see in themselves. Projection becomes their way of avoiding inner work.

🎭 If they lack honesty
They’ll bend facts, twist stories, and rewrite events to protect their image. Truth becomes flexible when integrity is missing.

🚧 If they lack boundaries
They’ll overstep yours and call it closeness, care, or concern. When you speak up, they’ll accuse you of being cold — because they don’t understand respect without control.

⚖️ If they lack integrity
They’ll always find a reason to justify harmful actions. Wrong becomes necessary, betrayal becomes circumstance, and harm becomes misunderstanding.

🌱 The lesson isn’t to judge — it’s to observe.
People reveal who they are through patterns, not promises.

Wisdom is learning when to explain…
and when to simply step back.

Not everyone is meant to grow with you.
Some are meant to teach you what to walk away from.

This is just lovely! ❤️
01/27/2026

This is just lovely! ❤️

Message from White Eagle, Hopi:

“This moment humanity is going through can now be seen as a portal and as a hole.

The decision to fall into the hole or go through the portal is up to you.

If you repent of the problem and consume the news 24 hours a day, with little energy, nervous all the time, with pessimism, you will fall into the hole. But if you take this opportunity to look at yourself, rethink life and death, take care of yourself and others, you will cross the portal.

Take care of your homes, take care of your body. Connect with your spiritual House.

When you are taking care of yourselves, you are taking care of everything else. Do not lose the spiritual dimension of this crisis, have the eagle aspect, that from above, and see the whole; see more broadly.

There is a social demand in this crisis, but there is also a spiritual demand. The two go hand in hand. Without the social dimension, we fall into fanaticism. But without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and lack of meaning.

You were prepared to go through this crisis. Take your toolbox and use all the tools available to you.

Learn about resistance of the indigenous and African peoples: we have always been and continue to be exterminated. But we still haven't stopped singing, dancing, lighting a fire and having fun. Don't feel guilty about being happy during this difficult time.
You do not help at all being sad and without energy. You help if good things emanate from the Universe now. It is through joy that one resists. Also, when the storm passes, each of you will be very important in the reconstruction of this new world.

You need to be well and strong. And, for that, there is no other way than to maintain a beautiful, happy and bright vibration. This has nothing to do with alienation.

This is a resistance strategy. In shamanism, there is a rite of passage called the quest for vision. You spend a few days alone in the forest, without water, without food, without protection. When you cross this portal, you get a new vision of the world, because you have faced your fears, your difficulties ...

This is what is asked of you:

Allow yourself to take advantage of this time to perform your vision seeking rituals. What world do you want to build for you? For now, this is what you can do: serenity in the storm. Calm down, pray every day. Establish a routine to meet the sacred every day.
Good things emanate; what you emanate now is the most important thing. And sing, dance, resist through art, joy, faith and love. "

Resist - Be reborn

I find this scale very interesting, and I can see deficits and excesses in myself. What do you think? Is it a good tool ...
12/06/2025

I find this scale very interesting, and I can see deficits and excesses in myself. What do you think? Is it a good tool for reflection?

👀COMMENTARY: In times when virtue is obscure, here is a 2007 illustration by graphic designer Jim Lancet depicting Aristotle’s ethical framework from the Nicomachean Ethics called the "Golden Mean." The infographic below depicts the “golden mean” principle, where virtue is the balanced midpoint between two extremes of vice—one of deficiency and one of excess.

The virtuous action or character trait, relative to the individual and the circumstance, is the appropriate "balanced midpoint" that fits a specific situation, determined by practical reason and applies primarily to emotions and actions.

📜Mario Lotmore, Lynnwood Times

I will be reading tarot at Cork Wine Bar with some other readers. Please mark your calendars for Friday, Sept. 19th. Fro...
09/10/2025

I will be reading tarot at Cork Wine Bar with some other readers. Please mark your calendars for Friday, Sept. 19th. From 6-9 p.m.

THIS! It is life in a nutshell!
09/05/2025

THIS! It is life in a nutshell!

🍀🙌🪐 11 Unavoidable Rules of Life:
Joy comes from being present.
Guidance comes from intuition.
Peace comes from wanting less.
Fulfillment comes from service.
Abundance comes from giving.
Growth comes from good habits.
Happiness comes from letting go.
Connection comes from mutual care.
Alignment comes from slowing down.
Healing comes from feeling your truth.
Wisdom comes from embracing change.

I’ve not heard this before, but I just love it!
09/05/2025

I’ve not heard this before, but I just love it!

I love this message! Stop caring about other people’s judgments. Do what makes you happy. Be who you truly are. Forget t...
07/27/2025

I love this message! Stop caring about other people’s judgments. Do what makes you happy. Be who you truly are. Forget the critics. Their unhappiness is their problem to resolve.

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