Workforce; I salute you!

As you will know, I have been interested in self development for quite some years and I have watched the fashions come and go; TM, yoga, vegan raw diets, pilates, and mindfulness have all been flavour of the month at some point or another.  I have to say though that the latest one has started to leave a very bitter taste in my mouth - entrepreneurship.

Now, I am fully aware that the fact that I have this reaction to this shows that there is work I need to do on myself.  It is clearly pushing buttons in me that need to be addressed, and this blog is me attempting to address one of them.

I believe the love of entrepreneurship started with the "do what you love" movement.  The message came through that you couldn't be happy unless you were doing exactly what you wanted to do.  From there people realised they didn't want to be working for the man but wanted to follow their own paths and make a living doing what they wanted.  Fuelled by the global crash where millions of people lost their jobs the fascination with being self employed began.

At this stage I thought it was wonderful.  So many people were following their dreams and creating new things and earning a living doing it.  Of course, as is often the case, it went too far.

Yesterday I watched a Youtube titled How to build self esteem - The six pillars of self esteem and it was all going really well until it got to number 5.  This pillar is about living purposefully; a noble trait and one we can all learn, however, it appears that the only way to live purposefully is to be an entrepreneur.

Here we find the nub of my problem.  It seems there is a growing subtle message throughout the wellbeing and self development communities that if you are not an entrepreneur you are somehow failing yourself.  That somehow you are not following your dream or living purposefully.

So, I wanted to write this blog to personally thank and salute those of us who get up every morning and do the things that need to be done.  I look through my friends and I see nurses, lorry drivers, steel erectors, train engineers, packaging designers, social workers, teachers, bin lorry drivers, window fitters, need I go on?  People who keep the world running.  People who you don't see making a fuss, they just get up every morning and go and do what they do.  What if they all decided to be yoga teachers?*

Do you think these people are living without purpose simply because they are employed rather than self employed?  Is it not possible to have a sense of purpose and be employed, either from the thing you do to pay the bills or what you do outside of work?

In one of my favourite books, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a whole planet decided to take all the people they didn't really value and put them on a space ship that is set to crash land elsewhere.  At the end of that part of the story the original population die out because they got rid of all the telephone sanitisers.  Do we really want to make the people we need feel so unloved that no-one wants to do the job?  Just how much will we suffer if we do that?
  
I for one would like to say thank you, I appreciate the work you do!

Visit my website to learn about my healing practice  

http://www.crystaloaktherapies.co.uk/

*And just in case you think I am being hypocritical because surely I am self employed being a complementary therapist.. actually no, in my day job I am a bookkeeper for a bearing company.  I keep the company that fixes the machines that makes your breakfast cereal running.  Healing is my passion, but I know I need a full time job.  My reasons for this are another blog yet to be written.

How long will your New Year's resolution last?

Now that all the Christmas festivities are over we hear the common phrase; "What new year
resolutions will you be making?" and we tend to roll out the same old thing, eat less, exercise more, read more, facebook less, but in reality we know by the middle of January we will be making the same calls to the chinese while sitting staring at facebook when we should be at the gym.

So why does this happen, why do we get so disillusioned so quickly?

Personally I think we expect too much too quickly.  Living in this fast paced world we expect instant results and when we don't see them we give up.  I know I am guilty of this at times.  This is where I like to look to Pagan beliefs and apply them to the concept of new year's resolutions.

Many Pagans follow the cycle of the seasons as part of their spirituality, and with this comes the concept of there being a time for everything.  This can easily be connected to these promises we make to ourselves.

If we cast back thousands of years to a time when our lives were governed more by the growing season we can see where the concept of a yearly new start may have begun.
 

The time of new beginnings starts with the darkest time of the year; the longest night or Winter Solstice on or around December 21st. Metaphorically this can be seen as an end, the darkest time for the soul where only faith says that the light will return.  As the dawn breaks on the morning after the long night we are reborn into a new year.  At this time slates are wiped clean and we start afresh.  This is the time to make plans for the coming year.

However, anyone who has tried to grow anything in the depths of winter will know, now is not the time to be sowing seeds.

In the winter farmers are looking to prepare the land.  They may be growing a green manure crop; plants that will simply be ploughed back into the land to fertilise it, or they may be ploughing and leaving the ground bare for the frosts to turn large hard lumps into a fine tilth.  

It is not until the earth starts to warm weeks later that seeds are even sown.  The surface of the soil is turned over and the seeds are lost into the darkness; only faith and experience tell that they will grow.  From there there is much waiting before the tiny signs of growth appear around March when we reach the equinox.  These are still only the smallest of frail shoots that could be knocked back or killed by a late frost.  Gentle nurturing, fair weather and the winter's preparation all add to the chances of the seeds growing into strong plants.  

Once there are signs of growth watering and weeding is needed to ensure that by the time we get to midsummer the plants are strong and vital.   However, it is not until after the summer solstice in June that finally the fruits of all this work can be harvested.

Looking at this as a metaphor we can see why New Year's resolutions so easily fail.  Where is the preparation and the patience?  The nurturing and care?

So when New Year arrives in the next few days, think about how you can make your new plans more sustainable.  Rather than signing up for the gym now how about starting with going for a walk and work your way up to being able to make good use of gym membership.  Rather than going on a crash diet that you can't maintain; start looking at where gentle changes can be made that will add up to better lifestyle choices.  If you want to learn a new craft spend the start of the year learning about what you plan to do, which equipment is best and who is the best teacher.

Now is a time to prepare the ground, seeds sown now may never grow.  Give yourself the best chance.

Happy new year everyone!

Visit my website to learn about my healing practice  

http://www.crystaloak.moonfruit.co.uk/

Surviving Christmas day with Bach Remedies

We all hope for a joyous Christmas filled with magic and laughter but sadly for some it never quite meets expectations or hopes.  For those times, as always, there are Bach Remedies that can help with every situation.

Elm - Do you find that the cooking, presents, noise, and people just a little too much to deal with?  Elm is the remedy for being overwhelmed, helping us focus on the task at hand with a gentle knowledge that we can cope with whatever happens.

Rock Water - If your dinner isn't cooked to perfection or the gift wrapping isn't just right Rock Water can help calm the inner perfectionist allowing things to be as they are, perfect in their imperfection.

Holly - Often you hear about feuds and disagreements that come to the fore when the family is crowded together in one place.  Holly helps us put aside resentment or jealousy and begin to build bridges.

Beech - Is there one family member that just annoys you?  Not in any major way, they just rub you up the wrong way.  Beech helps us be more tolerant of differences and allows us to accept people as they are.

Centaury - Are you always the one that does the cooking?  Or maybe you always seem to end up the designated driver when really it would be nice to let your hair down and have a drink.  Centaury can help you stand firm and ask for what you need without causing conflict.

Heather or Water Violet - For some Christmas is a lonely time and these two remedies can help us reach out in a healthy way and come together with other people.

Sweet Chestnut - We don't like to think of people in deep despair at a time when there is so much laughter and fun, but for some this is a reality.  The festive season can be a dark and depressing time when we look ahead in our lives and see nothing but darkness.  Sweet Chestnut holds a light in that darkness allowing us to see that we are able to carry on and better times will come.

Christmas doesn't have to be a difficult time and the remedies are here to hold your hand as you navigate the pitfalls.

Wishing you a blessed Christmas and a peaceful New Year from all at Crystaloak.

Visit my website to learn about my healing practice  

http://www.crystaloak.moonfruit.co.uk/

Elm - A remedy for the season

Are Christmas preparations getting too much?  Do you feel that you have taken too much on once again?  Is it possible that if there was less to do you would be able to handle each of the tasks well?

This is where the remedy Elm is helpful.

The Bach Centre say about this remedy; "[Elm]...is the remedy for people suffering a temporary loss of confidence
due to the overwhelming amount of responsibility they have taken on."

When you are struggling with the number of things you have to get done and that fear is stopping you getting anything done a few drops on your tongue could make all the difference.

Bach remedies are safe to take with medication and have no negative side effects.

Visit my website to learn about my healing practice  

http://www.crystaloak.moonfruit.co.uk/

We can all do something, no matter what we are told

I saw this meme today and, although I have no idea whether the beloved Jim Henson said this it got me thinking...

We live in a time when we are bombarded with the woes of the world.  Whether it is the horrific acts of Daesh, the ever present threat of global warming, or problems closer to home in our own country with financial and housing problems.  Our news feeds are filled with big problems and it can become overwhelming.  We fall into "what can I do?  It's all too much" and because of that we are paralysed from doing anything.

Me being a lover of food I tend to think of these issues as being like a burger (veggie in my case) that is just too big to get into your mouth.  It's full of lovely things that you would love to get to but there is just no way.  What do we tend to do in these situations?  Well, you could get a knife and fork but, for some reasons, burgers just don't taste the same that way.  No, we start to take it apart and we eat smaller pieces.  Maybe a bit of the burger with some bread.  Then we have some of the pickle (yes, I am one of those that likes the pickle) with a bit of lettuce and slowly but surely you are able to eat the delicious meal.

We can do this with the world too.  Of course we can't solve the refugee crisis, of course we can't fight Daesh or change the tax evaders, but we can do something small.  At the very very least we can smile at a passer by, we can donate just a pound or two to a charity, we can volunteer with charities or we can make sure that every message we give out over social media is one of hope.

One small ant can't make much of a difference... but how much do we fear a swarm of ants entering our home...

Visit my website to learn more about my healing practice  

www.CrystaloakTherapies.co.uk/

 

Accepting our reality - we are here, we need to accept it

When I first started on this spiritual path and learnt about being a lightworker I became aware of a deep and desperate need to "go home"; to return to Spirit.  I found the place I connected to in meditation and when I was doing healing work was so blissful and held so much love for me at a time when I was surrounded by toxic people and a world intent on destroying itself.  Why wouldn't I prefer to be "up there" rather than "down here".

I struggled for years with this homesickness, I just couldn't handle being in such a harsh environment when I knew somewhere else was so much nicer, but the only way to get there was to end it all... and I knew that would not solve the problem.  Believing in reincarnation does that to you, I knew I'd only be back and would have to face it all again.  So I realised I had better get on with learning how to be down here.

So what has changed?

Looking back I realise that there was a paradox at play.  In having a strong desire to be elsewhere I was metaphorically hiding under the bed.  I was using my connection to Spirit to take myself off the earth energetically in the hope of not having to deal with the problems around me.  Rather than helping this actually made me weak and even less able to cope with what life threw at me.

For maybe 5 years now I have been working on being more grounded, more connected to the earth.  I didn't want to do it, I wanted to escape, but I knew that if I was going to progress I needed accept it.  It has been a tough journey at times, many buttons have been pushed and many fears triggered.  I know I have a lot of work still to do, but I realise it has dulled the desperate need to go home.

It seems crazy, working to get closer to the thing that challenges you the most.  When something hurts we are programmed to recoil, to move away from it as fast as possible.  With this we have to face the fear and learn that we are stronger than it.

So how do we do this?  How do we find a way to make being down here easier?

Step 1 - Turn off the news and put the magazine down.... just for a while
Every day we are flooded with messages about how terrible the world is.  We are also led to believe that in taking this on we are somehow helping make a difference. 

I want you to think about one particular thing that is bothering you at the moment in the world.  Maybe it's the immigrant crisis; people drowning in the Med or dying in lorries.  It could be the war in Syria and Iraq or it could be the shrinking of the ice in Alaska.  What are you going to do today that will make a tangible difference to that problem?  How are you going to solve it?  Are you going to donate live changing amounts of money, go and protest, sign up to fight oppression? I don't mean to be harsh but I doubt you will be doing anything.  So what does knowing about it actually achieve other than making you miserable?

I understand we need to know what is happening around us but when it paralyses us with fear it is not helping.  So, for 1 month unplug.  I promise, in that time you won't have made any situation worse but it gives you a clear space to start work.

Step 2 - Remove as many toxic people from your life as possible.
There will always be those people that we are stuck with such as family members and work colleagues, but there are others that we do have a choice about.

This can be a tough one, many lightworkers don't believe they have the right to stand up for themselves and have low self esteem but it is something that has to be done.  You have every right to choose your friends and walk away from anyone who hurts you or makes you feel inferior.  If you can't remove them, like the media, take some time out to give you breathing space.

Step 3 - Start looking for the positive things in life; they are there if you look hard enough.  Websites such as Positive News only report good news and it's quite an eye opener seeing what is happening that the mainstream media is ignoring.

Step 4 - Work on grounding and your lower chakras.
Most lightworkers live in their upper chakras and the chakras below the heart are almost completely forgotten.  It sounds counter intuitive but in working on these and using other grounding techniques we become stronger in our presence down here and more able to handle what the world throws at us.

One of the first things I did was meditate to meet Gaia; the Earth Mother.  In the past my meditations had always focussed on reaching up to that blissful Spirit energy where I could hide from the horrors.  The grounding process had always been a simple hand shake, a necessity because I was taught to do it, there was never any desire to linger before I dashed up out of my body and into that blissful light. 

In meeting, embracing and truly accepting Gaia I found loving, safe energy that I didn't expect.  It was like being held by the most compassionate mother and it brought me to tears.  Although Spirit energy is still the most amazing feeling, knowing Gaia is on my team made a big difference.


I also believe that in starting to learn tai chi and chi kung has helped as that most definitely focusses on being grounded, connected to the earth energy and becoming immovable.

Just recently my guide has changed from my beloved "boy next door" who has been with me all this time to a strong female African warrior.   She challenges me to embrace my strength and physicality in a loving but strong way.

I still have a lot of work to do before I can say I am fully in my body and happy to be here.  Learning to stay grounded and connected to the earth brings challenges but at least I am no longer hiding under the bed desperate to go home.

Visit my website to learn more about my healing practice  

www.CrystaloakTherapies.co.uk/

 

Working with crystals... throw those books away

I have written about this before but I thought I would revisit the subject to possibly explain why I don't work with books that list the attributes of crystals.

Some years ago I joined an online group run but an amazing guy called Fabeku Fatumise.  His passion for working with crystals on a deep level inspired me and I set to learn from him.  Although he used to write at great length about the energies and attributes of what he called "stone spirits" his underlying message was that your personal intuition was more important than anything anyone else could tell you, including books.

You see, we have been brought up to trust the wisdom of others, teachers, doctors, scientists, and gurus and in doing so we have lost the most important trust; trust in our own wisdom and inner knowing. We have given our power to these people and forgotten that we are know ourselves best. In this instance we look to those we consider wiser to tell us which crystals we should use for our own personal situation.

There is one major flaw in this; not only do the books give us a tiny piece of information about the extent of work that can be done with any one crystal but the book doesn't really know what we are working on on a deeper level or what we need to make progress.

Take an example; we are struggling to sleep.  Books will suggest you use amethyst to help you sleep.  But there are so many causes of sleeplessness, the writer doesn't know what is causing your problem so how can they suggest the correct stone?

Another issue with looking to authors for guidance on which crystal to work with is that the writer is only sharing their personal experience of a stone, through their own personal filters and energies.  What another person experiences might be completely different.  You will notice that so many people love amethyst; it must be the biggest seller in the crystal "range" and yet I don't see what all the fuss is about.  Show me a fluorite and now we're talking.  I won't let myself pick up fluorite in shops because I guarantee it will come home with me.  Amethyst... meh?  It's pretty and it has it's value, but I'm no more fussed about it than a pebble on the beach (which I love btw, remember, I love working with all stones).

So, if the writer can't know everything about the stone, doesn't know what we are really dealing with and is writing only about their personal experience, how can we know which crystals we should work with at any given time?

Throw away the books and trust our own intuition!!

We all have an inner wisdom, an intuition about what we need and what won't help us.  The trick is to remember this and learn to use it.  It takes time to learn to trust our intuition and it can be very hard at times to take back the power we have given the "experts" but it really is worth it.

On a practical level, if you are either adopting new stone spirits or intending to work with the ones you already caretake, rather than reach for a book, simply spend a moment with your stones, think about what it is you would like to achieve and clear your mind.  Simply gaze at them, pick them up or listen with your inner ear to see which ones you are drawn to.  Some hear a strong "me me meeee!" from their stones, others simply pick one up and find it feel calming or they don't want to put it down.  That's the one.  Trust it, trust that feeling and open up to the stone that has spoken to you.  Work with it and see what happens.  You might just find something wonderful happens.

Before you actually bin your books though.. if you really want to use them, use them as a tool AFTER you have picked your stone friend for the day.  Look it up and use it as you would the book that comes with a tarot or oracle deck.  Look up your stone and see what the book says, but remember, if it doesn't mention the issue you are dealing with that doesn't mean your choice is wrong, it simply means the author hasn't experienced that aspect of the stone.  If you think you will lose faith in yourself leave your books to one side until you are able to trust yourself more than the book.

In the end, what have you got to lose?  Give it a go and see what happens.

Visit my website to learn more about my healing practice  

www.CrystaloakTherapies.co.uk/