Tag: selfcare

Protect yourself and your energy in the Summer months

Protecting yourself is an essential concept to Self-care and wellness. As summer is approaching and the lockdown is coming to an end, we naturally will venture out and resume our normal lives. We might get carried away and become complacent with the joy that comes with excellent weather. However, there is something wonderfully refreshing about the summer’s months within the UK, where the sun is warm, inviting and energising. It is also a time for play, fun, and joy as we bask in the heat. As we gathered outdoors in the sunlight, our mental health improves with the ambience as vitamin D production increases, lowers blood pressure, improves moods, and promotes mental wellness.

Thus, summer is the time of life and living.

Nonetheless, we still need to take care of our subtle energy body, even though our physical and mental bodies may improve. I am referring to protecting your energy and spirit body just as the precaution that most of us will take to protect our physical body from the blazing heat. Energy protection is a form of protection that anyone can do and incorporate into their daily life with minimal effort.

We recognised that taking care of our physical body is essential to physical and mental wellness. It is also equally important to take care of our energetic body and our spirit body.

Our physical body is made up of energy. Our emotions are energy. Everything is energy, and energy is everywhere. Emotions have energy. Our thoughts, whether it is conscious or unconscious, have an energy signature. Science has indicated that the human body is made up of atoms, protons and molecules. It may be difficult for some to comprehend, but the evidence is clear. It is a matter of whether you choose to believe it or not. Of course, there are always disbelievers when it comes to something that one cannot see. But, just like the air you breathe, energy is also invisible, and nonetheless, it exists.

“Energy is everything and everywhere. You are made up of energy. Your emotions have an energy signature. You thoughts have an energy frequency. Energy cannot be eliminated and nor can you get rid of it. It can only be transformed.”

However, if you are remotely curious, please read on. Energy healing and energy work is something that I have embraced quite by chance for a logical and analytical person. As with most people, I was certainly taught to be logical within the educational establishments where our knowledge and skills are measured by grades. If I could scientifically and clinically prove it, then it was believable. But, as I continued into further studies, I realised that there are things that one cannot explain with science.

However, energy can be explained by science. Energy is generated when there is an exertion of power or force, according to physicists. The quantitative law determines the exchanges of dynamic force in a reaction to cause and effect.

Thus, according to thermodynamics, energy cannot be destroyed or created. But, it will naturally change state. We gain energy through chemical reactions and emotional responses. But, we also lose energy through eliminating waste, changes in temperature and heat loss. Energy will be transformed, transferred, distributed or dispersed to dissolve its form. The energy within our bodies can become lodged and stuck within our energy field when we are in distress. Therefore, protecting ourselves from energy interferences are essentials for physical, emotional, psychological, mental wellbeing.

So, with summers coming, I want to share some of the ways you can protect your energy that has proven useful to me.

  • Get in touch with your emotions – state your feelings and emotions by naming them. Acknowledge your emotions and feelings and bear with them. If you suppress or repress it, they will come back time and time again.
  • Say a little prayer. I found it most helpful to ask for help. I say a silent prayer just before bedtime, during a stroll, or while sitting or contemplating to ask for divine guidance. Ask for a sign that will help you in your healing journey or ask for a sign to show you what you need to do to eliminate energy zapper.
  • Aura sweeping – Try this method from YouTube.
  • Ground yourself with meditation – seek to recharge your energy by tapping into the Earth’s energy with this meditation.
  • Energy clearing practice – take some time to get yourself recharged with this energy clearing technique.
  • Stay healthy, eat well and live long – eat a balanced and nutritional diet. Avoid excess processed food, junk food, caffeine, excess sugar or salt or food high in calories.
  • Make sure you get enough sleep – an adult requires about seven hours of sleep per night. A good nights sleep is essential for our mental, emotional and physical health.
  • Make sure you exercise regularly – try twenty minutes of exercise per day.
  • Limit your alcohol intake.
  • Take up leisure activities or hobbies – having that interest you will help you recharge an energetic battery. Doing something joyful or fun have a positive effect on your soul.
  • Stay hydrated – make sure that you stay cool and hydrated by drinking plenty of water. Water is the elixir of life.
  • Smudge your energetic body and your environment. You can either use a smudge herb stick or spray.

It might be helpful if you can incorporate an energy cleansing activity into your daily ritual. You will find it easier to do and you won’t need to think of it as a chore if you build the activity in your life. You can begin to see subtle differences over time, or you might see a dramatic difference rightaway if your energy is stagnant.

When you are doing energy work, you will feel the sensations such as a wave of heat through your body as you are recharged. You might feel a surge of tingling, prickly sensation or a rush of goosebumps in a specific area or all over the body as you bathe in the energy field.

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Heal while you sleep

Generally, it is recommended that we have at least eight hours of sleep a night. That’s a third of our 24-hours day. I don’t know about you, but I don’t always get eight hours, even if I get to bed at a reasonable time. Why do many of us have trouble sleeping? I want to address this a little closer.

“Sleep is the best medicine.” – Dalia Lama.

Sleep is essential, and there are many health benefits. There are lots of literature on this topic and many helpful articles. Some of the advantages of a good night sleep include; rested body and rested mind, improve memory, concentration and cognitive functions, lower your blood pressure, reduces heart diseases, stress, depression and increase immunity. You will also be happy to know that a restful sleep can lead to weight loss as your body continues to produce hormones ghrelin and leptin while you enjoy your slumber.

During the nocturnal hours, your body’s naturally crave sleep because your internal biological clock or the circadian rhythm is synchronised with the day/night cycle of the diurnal rhythm. The circadian rhythms determine our physical, mental and behaviour changes in the flow of the 24-hour cycle. It is essentially your internal biological body clock. Whereas the diurnal cycle is any environmental pattern that recurs every 24 hours as one full rotation, such as the day/night or the high/low tide. Thus, it can be seen as an external environmental clock.

When these two rhythms are synchronised, your mind, body and state will benefit from nature therapy. As you sleep, your body works to repair your internal organs, muscles, cells and regenerates. Melatonin is a hormone naturally produced by the pineal gland during sleep. Deep in the brain, near the epithalamus, situated above the thalamus, is the pineal gland, also known as the ‘third eye’. Melatonin also helps to control your circadian rhythm and regulates health and healing hormones. Thus, you can heal yourself during your sleep.

There are many reasons why people experience sleeping problems from mild, acute to chronic sleep disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome or REM sleep behaviour disorder such as sleepwalking.

The inability to sleep or sleep well at night depends on your internal and external stressors, mental states, food that you have eaten and health condition. Many other factors also prevent us from sleeping, include anxieties, traumas and crises can interfere with our sleep habit as we lay down to rest. Unfortunately, this cacophony rings in our mind, and it can ruminate in the psyche as we sleep, becoming a nightmare that disrupts our natural healing process. If you take your woes to bed, when you close your eyes and managed to get a wink of sleep, it won’t be long before the problem invades your dreams. What you mentally think about will become your mental reality within the dream state.

Many of us have trouble sleeping because we take these problems to bed with us. I’ve done it. I had a bad day and could not shake off something that happened that day. As I replayed these in my mind, in bed, they became my nightmare.

Have you ever gone to bed after an argument? Or, after emotional distress such as being made redundant, how did you sleep? Restless, I wager.

How to heal yourself in your sleep? Let me share what works for me.

  • Pre-bedtime slow down

Have a goal in mind for your bedtime (sleep time). This is a time that you want to be in bed, lights out, eyes shut and breathing easily.

Make your preparation for slowing down and winding down. Begin to relax.

Have a glass or bottle of water ready for bedtime, if required.

Keep other electronics blue lights out of the bedroom, as this disrupts the sleep cycle. Turn off electronic devices.

Brush your teeth and have your comfort break. I often find that washing my face often help. If you are a night-time shower person, this works, as water is soothing and calming.

Get into your PJ if you wear clothes to bed.

  • Build a bedtime ritual that works for you

I firmly believe that rituals are helpful. Have a bedtime routine and pattern that you stick to help you build a structure around your sleeping habit. I cannot stress the importance of sticking to your routines and think positively about enjoying the mundane.

For me, I have a bedtime alarm set daily at 22.00 hour. This gives me half an hour of downtime before I get in bed at 22.30.

  • Make time for relaxation or meditation before bedtime

I give myself around 10-15 minutes for relaxation. In that time, I may mediate or listen to soothing, relaxing music to ease myself to sleep. You might find my Evening Review meditation script helpful. Some people watch TV in bed, I think it is a personal choice for everyone. Some people read to relax. The trick here is not to be engrossed in the activity.

  • Self-Hypnosis and breathing

By 23.00, lights out for me, regardless of whether my husband or I am ready. I turned off the light.

I have trained myself to sleep as soon as my head is on the pillow. I can be fast asleep almost immediately in bed. But occasionally, might not be able to get to sleep. I noticed that I had ruminated over some event during the day or upcoming. In this instance, I recite my script and begin self-hypnosis or observe my breathing. I focused on my breathing, the rise and fall of each breath, and counted backwards from 100 to 1. I have never reached number one because I was always asleep way before this.

Then, you simply allow the body to do the rest. The more you relax when you are in bed, the more your body heal. God bless, sleep tight.

However, I am aware that some people have adverse experiences due to historical trauma and wounding. If this is your case, I would recommend seeking further help through counselling, as these bedbugs will continue to disrupt your sleep.

“Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together..” – Thomas Dekker.

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Raise your emotional frequency for wellness

In my blog last month, I discussed making emotions and feelings our friends rather than the enemy. I want to add to that further by looking at the emotional frequency and their importance.

In the 11th century, a Benedictine monk called Guido d’Arezzo pioneered frequency scales from specific tones of musical sound which became known as the Solfeggio frequencies. The frequencies have been used throughout history, both in Western Christianity and Eastern religions by Buddhist monks and Indian Sanskrit in prayer and chants.

Research has proved that the OM Mantra, for example, was made up of frequencies that induce gamma waves which support mental wellness. In this peaceful waking state, we are receptive to cognitive processing, problem-solving and heightened perception.

Growing up with traditional Buddhist practices, I often thought that attending the temple for prayer was tedious. However, as I sat through the Thai Buddhist monks chanting, I instantly felt mentally relaxed, peaceful and calmed. The melodic sounds of the chant were mesmerising.

The sound frequency has a powerful effect on our emotional body. Thus, the emotional frequency will inevitably have an influence on the body-mind.

The body, feelings and mind are connected to the soul (or spirit) as wholeness.

I found that when feeling overwhelmed, I am unable to think logically or clearly. My body will react in response to the mental shut down. Physiologically, my heart would beat furiously, quickening the breath. My muscles tighten, and the body becomes hot and flush. Emotionally, I feel panicky, stressed, anxious and possibly fearful and embarrassed by the reaction of the body. This was when I realised that the emotions have gotten ‘hold’ on me. In this state, it feels like I a drowning. The body-feelings-mind interact in a wholistic system governed by the laws of cause and effect.

I’m here to share that, in whatever state, mood, or disposition that you find yourself in, you do have a choice. Amongst feeling overwhelmed, there will be a quiet, soothing ‘inner voice’ that asks whether you want any help. Some may say that this inner voice is your intuition. I know this part of myself as my ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’.

Recently, while working with a highly emotional client, I learnt to accept that some people DO not want help, even though a part of them got them to my therapy room. The client is simply not ready, willing or able to give up on their subconscious gain. This is fine by me, as I realised that I am not a rescuer. As a therapist, I am a facilitator. I facilitate healing, wellness and holistic processes.

With that in mind, I learnt to let go and just trust. Trust that I will simply know.

What is emotional frequency?

An emotion is a ball of energy, varying in size and shapes. Energy moves around the body as vibrational frequency. It forms and transforms, it changes, interchange and impermanent. It flows around your body around your morphic field, also known as the aura. Depending on the situation, circumstance or experience that you are facing, the emotional energy may circulate around an organ or meridians. If the emotions are suppressed, repressed or disrupted from expressing, it will become lodged within a specific area in the body.

Emotional frequency or emotional resonance is the vibrational frequency that emotion generates, which I came to know as energy frequency. Each emotion has an energy which generates and measurable as a frequency in Hz (hertz), used in connection to energetic currents, electromagnetic waves (light, radar etc.) and sound.

Love, for example, has a high frequency around 500Hz, whereas, fear has a low frequency at 100Hz. When you feel love for yourself or others, you cannot and will not feel the fear. Thus, it is worth choosing a positive feeling or emotion, which is better for health and wellness.

How to raise your emotional frequency?

I recently became qualified as an Emotion Code Practitioner and found that emotions can be released quickly and effortlessly.

Here are ways to raise your emotional frequency.

  1. Be open-minded

Being open-minded is a willingness to consider new ideas or concepts without prejudices. An open-minded person will have the ability to considered other perspective, can be empathetic, to others, even if you disagree. In this state, you are flexible in your approach to learning and accepting new options, opportunities, suggestions, and inspirations. With an open mind, you will see things start to manifest, as you become receptive, you will attract like for like.

  1. Stay hydrated

Have you noticed when you are very upset, your mouth dries up? To raise your emotional vibration, you need to remain hydrated so that your body as flush out toxicity.

  1. Feel the love

Love has high frequencies which are beneficial to instantly lift your moods and emotional frequencies. When you feel love and appreciation, negative or low frequencies cannot exist at the same moment. If you find it difficult to ‘feel love’ trying doing something that you truly love. A loving feeling is a feeling of immense happiness, joy, connection, fulfilment, fondness, warmth, and tenderness. It is a blissful feeling towards someone or something. A true loving feeling is unconditional and unbounded. For me personally, I love water, nature and the sounds of a Wren singing in the distant, as I bathed in the warm sunny sky. You get the picture.

“Love is all there is. Let love be the driving force in your life.” – Unknown.

  1. Feel the gratitude

Gratitude has high frequencies also, which can instantly transcend your emotions. It can instantly lift your low moods to a good mood. But, you have to really believe and be grateful. There has to be an element of humbleness within this process in order to feel thankful for something. For example, showing appreciation for your good health, being appreciative of your partner, be thankful to your family and friends by simply saying it out loud. I feel grateful for my good health. I feel grateful to my partner for his love and support. I feel grateful for my family. If you find it hard to say that you are grateful to the person, say it in your mind – they will receive the feeling all the same. Make a list of the things that make you grateful.

  1. Find your Mantra and Affirmation

You can build a mantra, an affirmation or prayer into your daily life that includes feeling love for yourself and others. A mantra can be something that you repeat during meditations, walking, exercising or when doing a mundane task. An affirmation is a statement that you keep repeating until it becomes second nature. A prayer can be anything that you say with closed eyes to God, The Higher Power, Holy Spirit or the Universe.

Example of a mantra might be: Letting go is easy, Emotions are friends, Emotions are energy, and like all energy – it too will pass.

Example of an affirmation might be: I express my emotions healthily and freely, I am free to express how I feel, I am responsible for the way I feel.

Example of prayer might be: Dear God/The Higher Power/Holy Spirit/Universe, please give me the strength to be with my emotions, to process my emotions healthily, to heal.

  1. Have fun, smile and laugh

Laughing is potent and instantly uplifting. It has many health benefits, physically and emotionally. Most essentially, it is contagious, so be warned.

Some of the things that make me smile include looking at pictures of my loving children, looking at a picture of myself as a toddler and listening to soothing music. Having fun for me simply mean doing fun stuff such as making a dress, getting my hands dirty working with clay pottery or playing charades. The thing that made me laugh is a slap-stick comedy, but not something like ‘Jackass’ or ‘YBF’ where someone or something is being hurt or falling. Find your laughter. Find your smile and find what is fun for you.

I have not included the usual practical approaches such as meditation, exercises, eating healthily to the list above on purpose because they are all common practices that everyone should regularly adhere to for positive mental health and wellness.

If you would like a personal experience of an energy healing session, please visit Energy Works for more details.

“Love is the only force capable of transforming enermy into friend.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

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Stay Connected for Mental Wellness

Establishing a connection is essential for many reasons. Whether that connection is with yourself, others, or nature?

According to psychologists, making a connection is extremely important for our overall sense of self, our emotional and physical health. Dozen of clinical researches have shown that people are generally ‘happier’ when connected in any form of relationships.

Therefore, connecting to others, ourselves and the world give us a sense of importance and belonging. Plus, it also helps to improve our mental wellbeing and building self-esteem in communication.

As human beings are a social animal, we thrive in social connection, whether in family, groups, community or society. A strong sense of connectivity with others is vital to our mental stability and survival tendency.

Having a connection in a relationship helps us build resilience, shared interests between two or more people, shared love, support, and encouragement.

Physiologically, people with strong ties or connections in a relationship have fewer health problems, less stressed, less depressed and improved mental wellness. Adverse to the effect, people who lack connection with themselves, others or their community have increased stress and depression, accelerated cardiovascular risks, loneliness, isolation and a higher chance of suicidal tendency.

Here are some simple ways to keep a healthy connection with the people around you to improve your mental wellness and reduce isolation and loneliness.

  • Regularly reaching out and maintain a regular contact

Swallow those pride and reaching out. Reaching out means making the first move. In so doing, you make a conscious and considerable effort to contact the person. You do so regularly while maintaining a healthy boundary within the relationship. It also means having a sense of how often you should reach out, unobtrusively. If it seems like you are the one doing all the reaching out at the majority of times, try to stay positive. You are reaching out to promote your sense of wellness by showing someone that you care. It is not a chore.

  • Plan a get-together

Make plans for a get-together or planning ahead is a great way to have something to look forward to. Planning ahead for an event gives us joyful feelings as our mind is excited by the future-focused possibility. The anticipation of the upcoming event encourages hope and optimism. These positive thoughts promote healthy mindset and reduce stress and anxieties.

  • Say that you care by showing gratitude

We love to hear positive feedback and words of affirmation. Say that you care, say that love someone makes a massive difference to the person receiving the kind words. Showing gratitude for the relationship by expressing kind words of affirmation. Say thank you is music to the ears. Be the first to say sorry for a small measure of differences or disagreements, without compromising your sense of self. Say you like about the person. Say what think is great about being in the relationship with them. Say that you appreciate their time, and talking to you is soothing to the soul.

  • Have a respectable boundary – give them space

Having a reasonable boundary for yourself and others is extremely important within any social interaction. Establish what you think is an appropriate boundary for you, and then check with the other person, what is a safe and comfortable boundary for them. A boundary is a two-way thing. It is not something that you can guess. It is safer to ask. It shows that you consider their needs. Then, act on it and put in practise by giving the person the space that they need.

  • Use a medium that is most comfortable for both of you

We may take for granted what is the best medium for us, but, it may not be the best medium of contact for the other person. Check what is their preference, whether this is via phone, Skype, Zoom, Email, SMS, Facetime, WhatsApp, Snapchat etc. Agree with each other when you first make contact, how the person wants to be connected.

  • Take advantage of social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr etc.)

Sometimes, social media is the best method to stay connected with someone distant. Take advantage of the social media application that you both preferred and keep the channel of communication open this way is another great way to stay in touch with multiple people, family, friends and the community. The interactions with social media is a great way to make special announcements or reaching out to a group of people for a response.

However, you decide to stay connected with the essential people around you, think about the good that you are doing in staying in touch. It shows that you care. And when we do something nice for others, even the smallest of thing such as staying connected to the person makes a huge difference to both your mental wellness and physical health.

Think of the joy in giving and enjoy.