The Power Of A Love Note To Yourself

Photo by Viktor Hanacek.

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance" said playwright, poet and novelist, Oscar Wilde. Today one of my massage therapy clients introduced me to a revolutionary concept. They had just shared with me their courageous story about how they overcame unimaginable trauma. One of the things among many that they did to regain their sense of self-worth was that they began writing them self a love letter every day. The letter could be as simple as them describing all the amazing things they did that day or as detailed as writing a letter to a part of their body that they were insecure about and describing how much that part of their body benefited them in everyday life. For instance they remarked upon how they used to be ashamed of the size of their arms and they would write how their arms helped them to carry their children or were attached to hands that allowed them to create beautiful art. I was very inspired by this idea of writing a love letter to yourself -- of giving yourself this act of unconditional love and showing gratitude for the person you are and the gifts that you give to the world. So I decided to write one for myself.

Dear Adina,

How did you make it so far in your life? I am amazed by your strength and your endurance! You could haven't given up so many times, when you went through the hell of being raised in a cult throughout your abusive, dysfunctional childhood,  when you fought chronic fatigue for 2 years, when you spiraled into a crippled depression for years and struggled with thoughts of suicide, when several of your family members and best friends passed away, or even on the day your ten-year relationship ended and you didn't know if you were going to face homelessness. But you didn't. You persevered. And now you've accomplished so much! You are pursuing your creative pursuits such as singing and writing, you are healing people through massage and energy work daily, you have manifested a wonderful life partner and you are healing the spaces that still ache within you along the way. God you are so damn beautiful! I am so lucky to have you and to be able to love you for a lifetime! I am so happy that you decided to come into being in this time and space of the universe so that I am able to learn and grow with you.

With All My Heart,

xoxo

Your Home Girl A.P.


I would like to extend the suggestion to whoever is reading this blog, that they right themselves a love letter -- the one that they would wish someone to send them. Write it for yourself. Take a few minutes in the morning upon waking or in the evening before bed or on that 30 minute coffee break in your favorite cafe and sit down and write yourself a love letter on your tablet, laptop, cellphone, or in a notebook if you're kickin' it old school. Better yet go out and buy some pretty paper and seal your letter up in a envelope the mail it to yourself. Or get a lovely moleskin or fancy notebook simply to write yourself love letters on a regular basis and jot down all of the things you are grateful for each day, starting with the beauty of your unique self.

Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All"

Reflections On The New Moon In Gemini

For those who have the astrological sign of Gemini either as their sun, moon, rising, or a combo of those within their natal chart, the energies that launched with the new Moon that occurred on June 3rd will will have far reaching effects that span throughout the remainder of the year. Now this is not to say that other signs won't be affected but Gemini's will definitely affected most. I have a Gemini rising sign. For those who don't know what all that means. My rising sign is how I present to the world or how others see me, my moon sign is how I respond emotionally to the world and my sun sign is who I am.

That being said the energies that I'm talking about have to do with those associated with the Gemini, which is ruled by the planet Mercury, and relates to all things that have to do with well... relating. Communicating through speech, the written word, emails, relationship dynamics, and all things that have to do with travel, transportation and that bring you from point A to point B -- i.e. closer together.

Chances to manifest your soul mate, twin flame, a new relationship, a newer way of relating to your existing relationships are high right now. Gemini energies are all about duality, light and dark, bitter and sweet, the earthly and the non-physical realms and on the mental plane, your conscious (the thinking processes your are aware of ) and subconscious mind  (the hidden side of your mind or shadow side). But Gemini brings enough light-heartedness to the party to offer a positive spin to even the deepest, darkest revelations. So if you do decide to do shadow work, (in other words dealing with the parts of yourself you fear or emotions that are heavy) now is a good time to do so.

What the new moon brings to the Gemini energy is a chance to set new intentions in our life. This could be about anything, but it is a particularly auspicious time set the intention to finally write that novel, heal a broken relationship, start a new one or fortify an existing one. It's a wonderful time to make travel plans, set an intention to finish that list of books you've been meaning to read, flourish on social media platforms or start a new social media presence (like I plan to do :-)), create new art, vision boards, or anything else that involves communication or expression.

So today has me reflecting on my creative goals, many of which involve communication. On June 3rd, I had my own new moon ritual around my intentions for what I want to create into my life. My new intentions actually started about a week before when I retook a test found in an old standby textbook I used for manifestation work called "The Passion Test".  "The Passion Test" by Chris Attwood and Janet Bray Attwood is a book I've mentioned in this blog before. I've manifested so much with this book, and have been recently retaking the test at least once per year. They recommend you take the test once every 6 months. I plan on retaking it again in January 2020. According to the test you choose five passions.

My passions involve pursuing my creative outlets such as music, becoming a social media presence for healing and creativity, traveling, and relationship goals. It seems tailor made for  the new moon in Gemini vibes. Curiously  one hour before I even began the ritual, a musician and composer that I know called me to ask if I wanted to start singing his original material again. I was so excited that it seemed that the ritual was starting itself based off of my intentions and universal manifestation before I even lit a candle. That same week four people said they would subscribe to my social media outlet on Facebook and on this blog for That Healing Girl. I felt so inspired that I have begun to establish a plan for launching a social media presence. This past weekend I spent an awesome time with my partner and his friends just having fun and doing the thing that Gemini's do best - talking and laughing. I have a really good feeling about how this will all turn out for me based on my positive intentions in tandem with working with the universal energies available to me around this new moon to provide that extra punch to help me make things happen! I must say that things have really felt magical for me this week.

For those curious about the ritual I did, I simply used my intuition. I am a crystal healer and enthusiast, and so I selected crystals that vibrate with the frequency of communication and colors that correspond to the sign of Gemini and the planet Mercury and the moon, lots of blue and white. I took a bath to cleanse my energies with two cups of sea salt, and a few drops of lemon essential oil (really helpful to cleanse  your aura so that you can have a fresh space to manifest from).  I used the ideas in this new moon intention ritual as a guideline:

https://foreverconscious.com/intuitive-astrology-june-new-moon-2019

I also used this meditation off Youtube instead of the the one at foreverconscious.com.

https://youtu.be/ebtyffR6GR4


Of course as with anything else follow your own intuition and only use what feels right to you. Your ritual could be as simple as lighting a white candle, writing  down your intentions on a piece of paper  and either burning the paper to release the intentions or folding the paper and placing it under the candle holder as the candle burns down throughout the day. Sidenote: Please don't leave a candle unattended or blow out a candle. Use a snuffer or put out the flame between two moistened fingers so as not to burn yourself. When all is said and done, holding the intention that what you want is on it's way to you and then releasing that intention to the universe or whoever you pray to is all that is needed. If you don't want to use a candle you can write down you intentions on a piece of paper, meditate on them and seem them happening in your minds eye as you hold the paper and then place that paper under a crystal or in your wallet or pocket and take it out each day and remember your intentions. As you can see there are countless ways to do this. I like to meditation with crystals while my ritual candles are burning. The picture above is my actual alter and the candles and crystals I used in my ritual. I even practiced yoga before my cleansing bath to calm my busy mind so that I could fully focus on what I wanted to bring into my world.

Hitting The Restart Button

Image byAnna Armbrust  on Pixabay

I decided to hit the restart button on my diet and recharge. I have been eating less than optimally over the summer and I that might have caused some havoc on my health and energy levels. So I am relying on an old standby that I use when I want to detox,The Master/Lemon Cleanse. I have blogged about the Master/Lemon Cleanse in detail in a previous blog from years ago. Essentially when I do a Master/Lemon Cleanse Detox, I ingest nothing but a mixture of cayenne, maple syrup, lemon juice and spring water in measured quantities for a duration of 3 or more days. The Master or Lemon Cleanse as some call it, was created by Stanley Burroughs, and can be followed for up to 20 days safely. My goal this time is to cleanse for 14 days. I think it's the perfect solution for a fall reset. There is a wealth of information online about this cleanse to which I will include some links below. You can also order the book online through Amazon.

http://themastercleanse.com/

https://maplevalleysyrup.coop/how-to-do-the-master-cleanse-lemonade-diet/

Taking A Day To Regroup

So I did an energetic Walk Away The Pounds session with Leslie Sansone and then followed that up with this yoga session for tired feet. Today is about regrouping, and getting things done, running errands, reassessing my commitments, taking out a little time for TLC, some skincare and hopefully getting my nails done too. My feet were pretty achy from standing on them during long massage sessions throughout the week and they are going to receive some much needed self-care. I'm taking another stab at my ever-evolving home organizational project. It's pretty much a total mess in my room. I need to do laundry, vacuum, clean my crystals, and get some blood labs taken at the hospital to confirm that my kidneys are in working order from last week's infection. It should be nice. I'm cleaning up my diet too. More smoothies, greens and clean protein are getting thrown into the mix. Less caffeine and processed foods are also in order. In short, spring cleaning and preparation for my summer body are in full effect!

How Do I Feel?

That's the question I've been asking myself. It's been about three days since I last wrote in my blog. Although I still kept up my yoga practice, my meditation and journaling as definitely suffered from my current set of events. On Monday just before the last rehearsal for the Jazz Club I helped form (we performed yesterday on May 30th at Bird & Beckett Books in San Francisco) I found our that my friend Rhonnel had been taken off life support despite the news that he was originally going to be given another week. I had mentally prepared myself, although emotionally it was much harder to. I knew that his chances of recovery were almost nonexistent, so the news didn't come to me as a major shock. Still, I was left sad and numb and emotionally fatigued in its wake. Honestly, I didn't know what to do, so I went on to my rehearsal and laughed and smiled and practiced parts of our two hour set even though I felt listless at points and at times filled with gratitude for the music and fellowship I enjoy with the Jazz Club.

The next day on Tuesday, possibly because of stress and the overload of emotions, I came down with a kidney infection. I was in so much pain and I listened a ton of isochronic tones on YouTube and drink copious amounts of water, tea with tulsi, turmeric and ginger in it, and drank almost an entire bottle of cranberry juice. I was still in a lot of pain when I went to sleep that evening before the performance and was up to four a.m. in the morning because of the discomfort. Finally I managed to slump to a side that was more bearable and dose off. The tones and fluids must have worked because when I woke up I was in much less pain than the previous day. I ended up taking two 800 mg strength ibuprofen that I had from a doctor's visit a while back. They worked to take away the pain.

The performance went off without a hitch and was actually one of the happiest moments of my life. Even though there were technical difficulties with the microphones giving feedback, the logistics of the number of people on such a small stage and fact the the power went out right in the middle of my solo, we all soldiered on and the event was a total success. We were invited back to play again.  I will remember it when I'm old and gray. It was truly and amazing event. And at the end of it, Jay who had cheered me on was there for me to tell about the trials and joys of my week. This afternoon I have a doctor's appointment scheduled to check myself out and hopefully if all goes well, a hot date this evening. Yes I'm still dealing with grief and emotional trauma, but I'm working through it as opposed to going around it or over it. I am laughing, crying, working out and sweating, making love and loving, waking up and living.

Getting Active Again

Today I'm taking a step forward to get moving and active again. I realize that I can accomplish nothing by moping around all day long. I need to make my emotions work for me rather than against me. Of course this is easier said than done, and at the end of the day some emotions are just too damn hard to power through. With that said, I will do what I can to survive them, process them, work through them and to keep moving as I experience them so that I don't go into an emotional atrophy and get stuck replaying them over and over again. There is nothing better to shake up stagnant feelings than some yoga, some movement and some meditation. It's Sunday, and I'm taking stock of my goals, recharging and restructuring for the future. All I can do is stop, pause, take a mindful moment and keep on going.

On And On by Erykah Badu

Letting It All Out

Letting It All Out

I've just been riding the rollercoaster of emotions lately and they have been many and varied. Sometimes I'm numb to it all, others I'm anxious, at other times I'm balling my eyes out. And now I just don't know how to feel anymore. I've been pondering the merits of gratitude lately and even with the events of the past few days, I'm grateful for the support system and the friends that I have left. I just found out that my friend is still on life support for another week. I don't know how I feel about that either. No matter what happens, I'm going to try and find the moments of joy where I can even in the darkest moments -- realizing that life can't always be clear-cut with everything tied up neatly in a bow. It's messy, it's challenging, it's painful, it's miraculous and its paths are often uncertain. Abd that is both the frustration and the beauty of it. So I am going to let the laughter and the tears flow.