Let the Teacher appear…

Image from wallpaper.net.au

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. ~ Henry David Thoreau

If you have a dream, chances are you’ll need help to get there. Whether you want to write a book, climb a mountain, win Olympic Gold, speak a new language or improve your health, your best bet will be to attract a good teacher into your life – one who will believe in you, and have the ability to help you to grow and to shine.

Sometimes the only thing that holds you back from success is not a lack of talent or good ideas, it’s a lack of knowledge, skills or techniques.  But that doesn’t have to be an obstacle – trust that there truly is someone or something out there in the Universe that can help you bridge that knowledge gap. Someone will have walked that road before you, and they’ll be willing to show you how to follow in their footsteps…

Image from personalexcellence.co

You might need a coach, a mentor or a teacher. Maybe a course or a book will help.  It might even be a job, a radio interview you just happen to tune in to, a magazine article or a useful suggestion from a stranger.

Know that the Universe is listening, and that it responds to your call.

Let the Universe know that you’re ready.  Ask for support.  Ask to be shown.  And then trust that the perfect person or information will show up in your life.

Image from thehiyL.com

I’ve created a short guided meditation to faciltate this process, and help you draw that teacher or resource to you.  All you need to do is listen, and stay open to the possibility of help turning up in your life:

Nicole Cody’s Guided Meditation for calling Teachers into your life

 Believe in yourself.  Believe in your dreams.  Allow yourself to be magnetic to change and growth.  Now is your time to shine! ♥ xx

Image from amandacollins.me

The Healing Power of Flowers and Fairy Blessings

Flower fairy by Cicely Mary Barker. Image from eso-garden.com

I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.  ~ Emma Goldman

Flowers are a precious gift from nature.  Their colour, fragrance, shape and texture have a marvellous ability to impart energetic and healing qualities to us.

My beautiful fairy friend Sokli (you can read about her here) and I chose these flower pictures for their energy and how this can positively affect you.  We have also meditated on each image to charge it up for you.

Here’s Sokli’s message to you:

Hiya. Hi Hi Hi! Remember that the Earth is your Mother too, and she loves you very much and so do we. Flowers is always a nice gift for yourselves and you don’t even have to pick them, you can grow them in your garden or go for a nice walk and drink up all their lovely goodness. Even perfumes that smell of flowers are good for you because they still have the magic in them from the flower. Flowers is to make us happy and to give us gifts. I love them very much and I hope you do too, and we made some nice flower presents for you so that you remember how much we love you. It’s a Mothers Day present for EVERYONE. Okay bye and thanks for being our friend. We love love love you Love from your friend Sokli xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Fairy of Flowers by Cathy Delanssay

Instructions for using today’s post

Today I want you to scroll down through the following images and then let yourself come back to the one you are most drawn to.

When you have chosen your flower, scroll further down for that flower’s specific gift to you in your healing journey.

I hope you enjoy this exercise as much as Sokli and I enjoyed putting it together.

Love and Light,

Nicole ♥ xx

White Rose – Image from fanpop.com

Liatris – Blazing Star Flower – Image from flowerinfo.org

Pink Lily – Image by allbestwallpapers.com

Blue Iris – Image from floweringflowers.net

Nasturtium – Image by flowerfinder.net

Daisy – Image from desktopia.net

Hibiscus – Image by arichards63 Flickriver

♥ The Healing Message and Gift of each Flower ♥

Each flower has a message for you. We have also selected a crystal to best support the message and energies of the flower you choose.  You could wear or hold this crystal, pop it in your pocket, under your pillow or beside your bed. (If you’d like to know more about working with crystals click here) The Power Word is a word to remind yourself of the quality you most need and that you are strongly attracting right now.  You can turn it into your own personal mantra by saying “I choose ___________ ” (insert your Power Word). The Australian Bush Flower Essence is a vibrational remedy that holds the energy and essence of a particular flower within it. This remedy will be supportive of you right now, and will help you open to positive change and healing.

♥ White Rose – Messages and love from the spiritual realms, loved ones watching over you, the need for self-care and self nurture in your life. ♥ Best Crystal – Rose Quartz  ♥ Power Word – Love  ♥ Australian Bush Flower Essence – Bottlebrush

 Liatris – Fertility, new creative ideas and partnerships, blooming self confidence and identity.  ♥ Best crystal – Citrine  ♥ Power Word – Becoming  ♥ Australian Bush Flower Essence – Macrocarpa

 Pink Lily – Inner strength, confidence, recognition of your worth, ability to act with grace and courage.  ♥ Best crystal – Tourmaline (any colour)  ♥ Power Word – Confidence  ♥ Australian Bush Flower Essence – Dog Rose

 Blue Iris – Rest, relaxation and unwinding of mental tension, an easing of what troubles you, help is at hand. ♥ Best crystal – Amethyst  ♥ Power Word – Clarity  ♥ Australian Bush Flower Essence – Crowea

 Nasturtium – Joy, sunshine, fun, friendship and laughter. Finding the path back to happiness. ♥ Best crystal – Aventurine  ♥ Power Word – Joy  ♥ Australian Bush Flower Essence – Five Corners

 Daisy – The natural world, nature spirits, fairies, physical healing, seeing the unseen, the healing power of nature. ♥ Best crystal – Jasper  ♥ Power Word – Trust  ♥ Australian Bush Flower Essence – Sunshine Wattle

 Hibiscus – Individuality, freedom to walk your own path, unique voice, flow and vitality. ♥ Best Crystal - Carnelian ♥ Power Word – Energy  ♥ Australian Bush Flower Essence – Little Flannel Flower

When the Muse Whispers in Your Ear…

This beautiful image from josephinewall.com.uk

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
~ William Shakespeare

Inspiration comes to us in many ways, but there is one way almost all creative people have in common – the Muse comes and whispers in your ear.

The Muse knows you – she knows your talents and gifts – she knows what is written in your heart.

So she chooses you, and with Divine Timing she drops her tiny mouth to your ear and whispers an idea that is perfectly matched to your talents, your purpose, your dreams…

All you have to do is listen.

And you’ll know this is something out of the ordinary.  You’ll know you’ve just been given a gift.  Your heart will beat a little faster, you’ll feel a pull right down in your belly, your mind will snap to attention, and with your heart you’ll answer ‘Yes!’

The Muse will sigh contentedly. Then she’ll wait. She’ll wait for you to show her that her whispering is safe with you. All she wants is for this idea to be born. She’ll pour her own energy into it, hoping to co-create with you.

If you pull her idea deep into your heart, and if you nurture this whispering with thought and with action, she’ll happily whisper some more.

Try this, she’ll say.  This is the next part.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if…

But… if you ignore her… if you take her whispering and put it on the shelf, letting it become dusty and dessicated… if her whispered idea becomes a ‘someday’; or if, even worse, you begin to slowly kill the magic by coming up with all the justifications why it won’t work, and why you can’t do it…

She’ll fly off and whisper her idea in someone else’s ear!

And trust me – that won’t be good for you…

One day you’ll be at the markets and you’ll see the thing she whispered to you first, and you’ll think, ‘Hey! That’s MY product!’

You’ll read the book or watch the movie and think, ‘Hey! That’s MY plotline.’

You’ll walk past the shop, or open the newspaper and think, ‘What the? That was MY idea.’

The Muse is endlessly patient and encouraging as long as we honour her inspiration with a little perspiration – if we work at the ideas we’re given, the whole Universe will contrive to support and prosper us!

Her gift to us will be like magic in our hands.

We ignore the Muse at our peril.

So the next time she whispers in your ear, understand that she chose you for a reason.  She chose you because it’s written in your heart, it will make your soul sing, and you have what it takes to bring this idea to life and make it shine!

And isn’t that all you’ve ever wanted to do?

When Divine Inspiration comes calling, say YES. Take your new idea seriously. Nurture it and help it grow.  It might transform your entire life. ♥ It might transform ours too.

Advice for strong people who aren’t coping…

Image from vectorgraphic.com

Strong people are used to coping. They are used to leading.  They are used to taking charge.  Strong people are able to put their own hurt and exhaustion aside when others rely them, or the job needs to get done. They are not good at sharing their pain or asking for help.

You know who I mean. They front up to life each day, often with a smile on their face, and you’d never know how tough it is for them to keep doing that. The single parent juggling two jobs and an impossible ex. The husband living with a wife with severe depression. The mum whose child has an addiction issue; the oncologist who doles out bad news all day; the person with a mountain of debt and a health problem; the teacher motivating kids who come from homes where no-one cares; the manager running a department fraught with problems and no end in sight; the short-handed team trying to meet a crazy deadline; the calm poised person who turns up to work each day, but who goes home to loneliness or a horrid family or spouse.

When strong people keep coping (or appearing to cope) with life’s pain and hardships, it’s easy for others to make demands on you.  They see you standing strong, and they forget what you have been through, what you are going through, what lies ahead of you. They keep looking to you for leadership.

Image from kolorkube.com

And the truth is, most strong people can keep on functioning, even when they feel dead inside, completely broken, and in the deepest despair.

Strong people were built to cope, and when you aren’t coping (even though no-one may know that), it is vital that you get some time out, find some support, or make some decisions that help you move back to your natural state of strength.

When you are a strong and capable person, you shine brightly.  That’s why people turn to you, follow you, ask for your advice. And often when people are leaning on you for strength, they want and need you to be who you always portray yourself as, who you’ve always been for them.  Even if you are affected by the same issue, it’s likely they won’t see how exacting this toll has been on you.

Image from photostock.com

Sometimes, it’s because you hide it so well.

Sometimes it’s because people don’t even realise that you might hurt, that you might need help yourself.

Sometimes it’s because needy people, in their own world of hurt, have no idea that you might be suffering too.

So, my strong friend – look after you. Withdraw if you must, regroup, find your feet. Close the door to others if there is nothing left within you to give. Little birds must sometime fly, no matter how reluctant they may be to leave your nest.

Often some time for self-nurture or a break away from the stress is all you’ll need before you are refreshed and ready to carry on.

Image from freedigitalphotos.net

But you might need greater support, a counsellor, a change of scenery, an ending…

If you do, then seek that support or change. Life is too short and precious to live it on your knees.

Do what gives you relief. Value yourself as much as you value the wants and needs of others.
I hope you find strong arms to support you.  Sometimes that’s family – or friends can often be that support where family fail to measure up.

But I have found over time, as have many of my own dear friends, that there are times when we walk alone except for God.  And that is how we find that strength within that helps us understand that we really can deal with anything life throws at us, no matter how awful or frightening or abhorrent, and that no matter how we might not like it, we can and do deal with it the best we know how, which is always all we are ever asked to do.

As a strong person you’re a bright light in the world for so many gloomy and frightened souls, so many stuck or lonely or directionless beings.  It is your choice to be that bright light, but it is also your calling – you can’t help but be who you are.  When you are the teacher, when you are the Colonel, the Queen, the leader, when you are the one at the front of the class, everyone else looks to you.  They don’t see you as a person any more, they see you as Teacher, Healer, Captain, Wise Woman, Father, Madam Muse.  And you ARE all those things.

But you’re also the person they won’t or can’t acknowledge.  The person who is tired and frightened and battle weary.  They need to see you strong because seeing you strong gives them faith and hope that their own lives will be okay somehow.  When you are championing them, you are helping them to know that there is a light within themselves.  You give them hope to believe in themselves.  It is only after, when they have found their own light within that they will be able to acknowledge your darkness, and your humanity.

Image from freedigitalphotos.net

I know you have the strength to get through this too. It’s okay if you need to pull back for a while. Resting and healing will help you to keep shining one day when you’re ready to be that thing again.

It’s a tough act, being a responsible grown up amongst so many who are still finding their feet.  I’m sending all love your way, and including you in my prayers and meditations. ♥

Working with Crystal Grids – Day Four

Crystals have their own energetic field, just as humans do, and one of the great things about crystals is that you can also use them to create geometric shapes within which you can create an energetic room or field big enough to exert energy and influence over a wider space.  This technique is known as gridding.

Today I’m going to show you the basics of creating simple grids at home.

 How a Crystal Grid Works

Crystals each have their own particular vibration, and an electromagnetic or auric field around them.  All living things also have a unique vibration, and auric as well as etheric fields (This is just the energy field emitted by a living thing).  When a crystal is introduced to a human’s auric field, there is a shift of vibrational energy.  The crystal may be able to accept and transmute the lower or negative vibrations within that person’s auric field, allowing that person to move to a clearer or higher vibration.

Crystal energy can be used to restore order to a chaotic vibrational field, or to increase vibrational level, which helps to move you to a more positive and lighter energy.  Crystals may impart a vibration particular to that type of stone which can help, heal or impart particular vibrational qualities and strengths. Gridding with crystals involves amplifying the vibration of a crystal by using it in conjunction with others.  This is a bit like turning up the volume on your radio, while adding additional radio towers to strengthen the frequency.

Gridding Basics

Gridding involves using a number of similar or complimentary crystals, placed in a configuration.  The most common shape is a square or oblong, but triangles and circles are also common.  Circles are fun to make, and I often make one during equinoxes or full moons. It recharges my stones and when I sit in it, it recharges me!

The grid below, which was made in my backyard for an eclipse, was big enough for several people to lie within.  It was a great place for a nap and I couldn’t keep my dogs out of it!

More intricate grid shapes involve using a larger number of crystals.  A generator crystal can be used in the center of the configuration to amplify the energy of the outer crystals, and to strengthen the vibration.

I have made grids to go in the foundations of houses, and one of my favourite configurations is a Fibonacci Spiral. But that is a fairly complex process, and today I promised I would keep things simple.

A grid of crystals can be placed near you in a room where you work or rest.  However, for maximum effect it is best if you can actually sit or lie within the grid itself.  Common ways to place a grid are to lay the stones out around a chair, bed, meditation space or desk.  You can also grid a room by placing crystals in the room corners, or grid your house by placing crystals at the extreme corners of that house.  (You may need more than four to cover every corner).

Another effective technique is to grid the perimeter of your house, placing the crystals along your fence line.  Larger, more robust crystals are often best for this, and they will be self cleansing and generating.  However, do not judge the energy level of the crystal by size alone!  Some of the most powerful stones can often be no bigger than a pebble.

Additional Gridding Uses

Grids can be used to aid sleep, healing and mental alertness.  They can be used to help with Meditation and for connecting with Higher Self, Guides, and Past Lives.  Grids can assist with creativity, abundance and manifesting and maximizing your natural talents.  They can provide protection and wisdom.

You can use grids to help your garden grow, to vitalize herbs, fruits and vegetables.  Pets often benefit from a grid placed in their sleeping area.  Grids can be discretely placed to encourage harmony, healing or honesty within a situation.  They can also be used to absorb the negativity of others without this energy being passed to you.  People who have experienced problems with psychic attack can often be greatly assisted in this way.  In fact, whatever the natural vibrational properties of the crystal, they will be passed to you.

A Rose Quartz Grid has greatly enhanced my strawberries and tomatoes!

To Build Your Own Crystal Grid:

We are going to work with the most basic shape – a square whose corners are anchored by a crystal. So you will need four crystals to build your grid, and you may like to select a fifth one to hold as you sit in the centre. Use this grid to raise your vibration, and enhance your own energy field. (This is also great done around your bed for helping heal you while you sleep!)

This exercise is based on the principles of sacred geometry.  It will facilitate health, healing, clarity and connection.Set your intent by offering up a prayer or energetic intention that this exercise be for your Highest Good.Set up your Crystal Grid, using the four  crystals, by laying them out in a square.Visualise a pyramid of White Light extending up from the crystals, and one extending down into the floor, creating an energetic three dimensional diamond shape. It should look like this:

Sit, lie or stand inside this Light Grid.

Bring Light in through your Crown Chakra.  Use your intuition as to what colour Light to use.

Flood your body with Light.  On every inhale, draw Light into your body. On every exhale, see wispy grey energy leaving your body via your lungs or Base Chakra, and being drained through the bottom of the Pyramid.

Continue until your body feels light and calm.

Enhance this meditation by holding crystals whose characteristics or properties you wish to assimilate into your energetic field.  Women hold the crystal with hands cupped left on the bottom and right on top, palm upwards.  Men reverse this position, so that the left hand is on top and right underneath.

You may also like to use one of my Guided Meditations from the past three days. Links here, here and here. Then simply rest and relax in this delicious energy, until you feel restored.

Image from fanpop.com

Recharging your Grid

Crystals need to be cleaned and re-energised from time to time, unless they are outside, planted in or on the earth, where they will be self charging.  With practice you will know when your crystals need attention because you will feel their energy decreasing.  There are many ways to cleanse and recharge your crystals.  If you are using your crystals regularly, take care of them and cleanse them often.

Journal for Spiritual Clarity and Connection 4 – All about my Soul

You don’t have a soul.  You are a Soul.  You have a body.  ~C.S. Lewis

Week 4:  All About My Soul

We are all Spiritual Beings.  We cannot separate ourselves from our Spirituality, just as we cannot separate ourselves from our Physicality.  However, just as we can become physically unfit and unhealthy, we can also become disconnected from our awareness of and trust in our Inner Connectedness.

This week we are going to work on connecting into our own Soul Wisdom. So often we let our minds guide and inform us, or the thoughts and opinions of others. But there is a source of great truth and inspiration within us – and by looking within ourselves we can find answers to things we’ve wondered on forever.  We’re going to start this week with a pledge to ourselves.  It’s a daily thing, so if your choose, recommit to it daily.  But the pledge lasts only 24 hours, so it is entirely do-able.

Just for today I will be gentle and generous with myself.  I will allow myself the freedom to think, feel, experience and express the emotions, creativity and soul wisdom I have locked inside me.  Just for today I will put self criticism and self judgement aside and just BE.

 

Just for today I will support and encourage those around me.  I will refrain from criticisms, gossip and unkind words or actions towards myself and others.  Just for today I will be a friend to myself, and to the people I meet.

 

Signed:

 

__________________________________________

 

Journal Exercise:

Spend time journaling to explore your gifts, talents and passions this week.  Work out what you value, and what your personal and professional priorities are.

Try to remember what you were good at as a younger person, and what you enjoyed doing back then. Those things are often clues to a Self we have forgotten or left behind…

Go through old photos, letters and books.  Recapture some lost aspects of yourself. Use all of this, and the following starters to write:

  • I was sure, when I was small, that I wanted to…
  • An area I have always felt passionate about is…
  • A hobby that allows me to express myself well is…
  • Environments I feel really at home in are…
  • Places that always make me uncomfortable are…
  • If I could identify a past life for myself it would surely be…
  • One thing I stand for is…
  • I feel alive when I am…
  • It kills me a little inside every time I have to…
  • When I was at school the thing I really excelled at was…
  • I’ve never been much good at…
  • The things that came naturally to me as a child were…
  • I know it’s not necessarily valued, but I am really good at…
  • When I look at old photographs of myself I realise…
  • When I look into my future I would like to see…
  • I’d forgotten I was so interested in…
  • If I could turn back time and study anything it would be…
  • The strengths in me are…
  • I have always felt a spiritual connection or feeling when…
  • If I was tuned in better to my gut feelings I would…
  • My intuition is telling me…
  • Places that uplift me are…
  • Places that comfort me are…
  • My ideal life would look like this…
  • Realistic changes I can make are…

Activity:

Be kind to yourself and others. Reconnect with people you care about, and who care about you.

Visit a meditation group, church, temple, beach or some place that holds spiritual and replenishing energy for you. Go on your own or with friends, but go!

Make a commitment to yourself to live authentically. Stand up and give voice to what you believe in. Let your values guide you. Live by your principles.  You can do this in a quiet way, by voting with your shopping dollar or writing letters, or in a bigger way.  It’s up to you!

Plan some longer term changes in your career or personal life to better reflect your talents, gifts and values.  Invest in yourself, your education, and your interests. Live your best life!

The Broken Robot Repair Shop

There is an alarming trend I’m seeing, of broken people wanting to be fixed so that they can keep doing the things that broke them.

I call it Broken Robot Syndrome – people so busy, so stretched, so weighed down by debt and responsibility and complexity that they are deep in fatigue, immersed in exhaustion, and no longer capable of recognising that they have become robots.

Does any of the following definition apply to you?

Definition of ROBOT (from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

  1. a : a machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (as walking or talking) of a human being; also : a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized    b : an efficient insensitive person who functions automatically
  2. : a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks
  3. : a mechanism guided by automatic controls

Lack of sleep exhausts us. Having a too-busy schedule with no down time, play time or rest time fatigues us. The combination of the two breaks us.

There are warning signs of being in that robotic place:

  • Lack of libido.  Libido is about joy of life, not just sexual drive. But the two go hand in hand.
  • Creative and original thought dries up. We struggle to be innovative and to come up with fresh ideas.  At worst we think through a fog.
  • Health decline. Vague symptoms of weariness, sleep issues, digestive issues, aches and pains that gradually build into definable illnesses and burnout.
  • Inability to make even simple decisions. Suddenly a menu with 50 choices and a need to pick something satisfying becomes an event capable of reducing you to tears because you no longer recognise what you want, let alone what you need.
  • Everything is scheduled. Everything.
  • Tired all the time, and doing the usual things – coffee, sugar, pick-me-ups, naturopath, gym, diet, counselling – make not a jot of difference.
  • Overwhelm, depression and negativity are regular companions.

So, what to do?

First of all, understand that fixing a broken robot so that they can keep functioning as a robot is really not a suitable solution for a human.

Here are some tools from the Robot Repair First Aid Kit that might work for you:

  1. Get more sleep.  Go to bed earlier.  Create days where you can have sleep-in catch ups, or lie in bed all day reading, resting and relaxing.
  2. Simplify. Cut back on your activities, responsibilities and involvements, and make sure that the kids don’t get caught up in the vicious cycle of over-achievement and over-commitment either.
  3. Get help for the things that are stressing you. When we go to bed worried and wake up worried, and are kept up nights by worry then something has to give. If your worries involve money see what you can do to cut down the debt mountain – speak to your lending organisations or the places you owe and get an easier ‘hardship’ repayment scheme. Sell something. Downsize. Simplify. Put your hand up and ask for help. Make sure that your household are all committed to the same plan.
  4. If your worries involve relationships, get some time on your own, even if this is just a cup of coffee at the local cafe. Use that time to think about where you are, how you got there, and what your next move is. Staying in a relationship that is unloving, unsupportive, or where there are serious issues can be enough to bring any sane person to their knees. Find a good counsellor to help you work through your options. If you’re a carer, find a support group.  If you already know what you need to do, then act.  Staying and not doing or saying anything, hoping for change, has seldom proved to be a winning strategy. Only action brings change.
  5. Ask yourself the big question, “Does this relationship/job/choice/decision honour me?” Maybe it’s time to change jobs, move house, stop studying, start studying, have the conversation…
  6. Know that wherever you’ve ended up, it can change.  There is a road ahead of you to lead you back to yourself and to a place of content and security.

Here are some things to help Robots turn back into humans:

  • Time with friends
  • Time alone
  • Time in nature – walking, surfing, cloud busting, playing with pets in the backyard, gardening
  • Time for yourself and your own interests
  • Sleep
  • Relaxation time with NO expectations, goals or objectives
  • Music
  • Making art
  • Good food and good company
  • Emotional connection
  • Hugs
  • Spiritual connection, meditation, prayer or other practices that help you connect to your inner wisdom and to a Higher power.
  • Movement – not going to the gym because you have to – walking in the rain because it’s fun, dancing in the lounge room in your pyjamas because you love the music, playing with the kids or the dogs in some silly run-around game that makes everybody laugh

Life is short.  Life is precious.  When you become a Robot you miss everything good. Don’t fix yourself up to keep doing the thing that broke you. Allow 2012 to be the year where you create real, lasting and positive change.  Bless xx

 

Opening your Heart to Give and Receive

The Heart Chakra is both a receiver and a transmitter for love and wisdom. The more we open our heart by giving, the more we can connect into receiving.  This positive vibration of flow allows us to live from our hearts as intuitive, clear and compassionate beings.

Every heart is capable of hearing the whisperings of another...

Activity:  Our hearts love to love. Here are some suggestions for expressing that energy in the world this week:

  • Play with your pets, or go feed ducks in the local park. Animals are wonderfully intuitive, loving and giving.  Make a connection that expands your own heart.
  • Read to a child, or even to an adult.
  • Catch up with friends for a coffee, a meal or a movie.
  • Play tennis with a friend, or go to a yoga class together. Do anything athletic that involves someone else, some encouragement, some sharing and some laughing.
  • Visit or call an elderly relative or a family member who’ll be glad to see you!
  • Spend an hour giving random but sincere compliments to strangers. Tell the waitress you like her earings, or the supermarket boy that you’re grateful for the skilful way he packs your bag so your bread doesn’t get squashed. Smile. Leave a kind and supportive message on a pillow, tucked into a pocket, or posted on a blog.
  • Volunteer, and care for others in some way. Humans love to give, and to help, and to be united in the energy of that caring.
  • Plan a party or a special event to bring together people that you love, even if that event doesn’t take happen straight away.
  • Join a retreat, workshop or holiday tour and meet new friends.  Be open to connecting with others.

Journalling:

Meet your heart on the page. Take a minute or two to calm yourself, by closing your eyes and breathing deeply. Focus on your heart, and build that energy within you.  Visualise the colour green.  (If you wish, work with the energy of the meditation below before you begin!)  When you are ready start writing, starting with the words, “The thing my wise heart really needs my conscious mind to know is…”

 

Meditation:

This six minute meditation will help you tap into your heart’s own intuition and wise guidance, opening you up to deeper and deeper levels of spiritual connection.

Nicole Cody’s Guided Meditation for connecting into your Heart Wisdom

PS – Remember to leave a comment, so you can be in the running to win my beautiful Heart Chakra healing necklace. Today is the last day before I choose a winner.  Good luck!    Details and picture here

 

Working with the energy of forgiveness

“Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.”
Suzanne Somers

Negative emotions can disrupt the flow of your heart chakra just as easily as boulders in a stream. How many boulders have piled up in your heart over time? Each boulder represents a major hurt, a major resentment, a major betrayal or disappointment, a deep wounding, shame or grief.

When the flow is disturbed or slowed, stagnation happens. Stagnant heart flow breeds anger and resentment, depression and self-loathing.  It muddies the clear waters of the heart, and that dirty water spills over into everything you do.

So how do we get those boulders out?

Forgiveness.

Forgiveness of others.  Forgiveness of self.

Forgiveness is the gift that sets us free. It’s not about condoning or approving what has been done, it’s about releasing yourself from the pain and the hurt of the past, and allowing yourself to move from stuckness back into flow.

Meditation on forgiveness:

Here’s a link to a simple guided meditation on forgiveness that can help open and clear your heart chakra:

Nicole Cody’s Guided Meditation on Forgiveness

Journalling:

Allow yourself to feel sorry for yourself for a bit.  Just a little bit.

 

 

Or a big bit if that’s what you need.  In that space of reconnecting into misery, start writing, beginning with the words, “If only that had never happened I would have been able to…”

Get it out.  There’s no point keeping it all bottled up.  All this stuff is doing you damage, all these half-truths and misconceptions and limiting beliefs.  Clear your heart stream of these sticks and stones. When you’re done, take a breath. Give yourself a ‘mental’ hug.  Good work. Feel the space you’ve just created in your life.

Activity:

Today, when you feel yourself move into an energy of impatience, resentment, frustration, anger, say in your mind “I forgive you and myself. I wish you well. I send you love. I bless you and I set you free”  

Another useful blessing is “All is well in my world. I am love. Love is what I am attracting.”

Here’s a very short, powerful prayer for forgiveness.  Have a peaceful and blessed day. Love and Light, Nicole xx

PS – Remember to leave a comment, so you can be in the running to win my beautiful Heart Chakra healing necklace. Details and picture here

How to nurture Inner Peace

“Peace of mind is not a goal I need achieve.  It’s a place inside I never want to leave.  Close my eyes, I still my thoughts and then I say I will choose to live in peace today.” – Robert Alan           (Beautiful image by anankkml)

Most of us live bombarded by situations, workplaces, devices and relationships that over-stimulate us.  In fact, this overt stimulation seems ‘normal’ and we don’t realise just how frazzled, stressed and over-extended we are, because that’s how everyone lives!

In this state of bombardment, our bodies produce extra chemicals to hype us up and help us cope as we become more stressed.  And in this place of stress we become less able to hear our own inner guidance systems, and the guidance systems of the universe.  This stress taxes our body and soul.  We also become much more left-brain dominant.  Our left brain analyses and organises and prioritises and schedules and criticises to help us cope with the overwhelming inflow of stimulation and information.  (I feel exhausted just reading that!)  Our creative, emotive, spiritual right brain is used much less.  That aspect of us becomes ignored.

As a result we become depleted, depressed, exhausted and just plain old stuck.

 (Image by graur codrin)

In fact, sometimes we become so depleted or overwhelmed that the universe assists us in our need to hibernate and reconnect by gifting us an illness, accident or other life-altering drama so that we have no choice but to rest and re-evaluate.

If that sounds even remotely like you, it’s time to nurture some inner peace.  Inner Peace is a place of calm connectedness, an energy of stillness and silence that is found deep within you.  It replenishes you, it heals and refreshes you, and it radiates from you to touch, heal and calm others.

Here are some simple suggestions for nurturing Inner peace:

  1. Declare certain days or times of the day to be computer, television and telephone free.
  2. Simplify your life.
  3. Spend less time doing things you don’t want to, and being with people who tax you.
  4. Instead of going to shopping malls and crowded places, try a beach, a park, your garden, or even your lounge or bedroom. (But no TV, phone or computer!)
  5. Let go of some of your extra commitments and activities.
  6. Book a weekend break somewhere in nature where you can eat, sleep, walk, read and rest.  Leave the phone and laptop at home and resist the urge to listen to the radio, read the newspaper or watch TV.  Practice being lazy and indulgent.
  7. Learn to meditate.
  8. Take up yoga, tai chi or qi gung and practice it daily on your own.
  9. Indulge in a regular massage, health or beauty treatment that is relaxing and/or healing.  Ask the practitioner not to talk unless the question or instruction is part of the treatment.
  10. Spend five minutes each day just being mindful of where you are, how you feel, what is happening around you in nature, and what is happening in your body.
  11. Walk.
  12. Go on a retreat.
  13. Start a hobby you can do on your own like art, woodwork, knitting or writing.  Make the hobby a form of meditation.
  14. Dance. It frees and builds energy within the body, and promotes joyfulness.
  15. Sleep. (Yep, that’s right.  It’s a remarkable antidote to fatigue!) 

Many people who are out of balance, or who feel a spiritual calling are telling me right now that they feel a compulsion to drop the drama.  They just don’t feel like being with ‘friends’ who gossip destructively, who drink excessively or who otherwise drain them.  They can feel themselves literally putting up barriers, or going into behaviours such as avoidance by not answering their phone or returning emails.  They feel themselves withdrawing from the complexities and overwhelming interaction of their lives.  They also feel the need to ‘get their house in order’.  For some people this is about doing seven years of overdue taxes.  For other people it is about de-cluttering their home, or even their social calendar so that there is time and space for themselves to transform.

Is that okay?  YES.  Sometimes we need to simplify and create time for ourselves so that we can heal and reconnect.  When we reduce the outside chatter and the need to be organised and involved we are free to spend times with ourselves, in self and spiritual exploration.  Our inner world is rich and filled with delights, directions, ideas and advice.  But we can only connect with this aspect of ourselves through peace, solitude and rest.  And sometimes we need to rest FIRST.  Reconnection can begin after our batteries have recharged enough that we are no longer just in survival mode.

Here is a five minute guided meditation to nurture your connection to inner peace:

Nicole Cody’s Meditation for Inner Peace

 

This beautiful artwork called Inner Flame is by Jet James, an awesome young Australian Artist.  I love the serenity and peace captured in this image.