meditation
Wait for this all to blow over
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash [IMG the title of the blog with a picture of a grey and white bedspread with an open book and a cup of tea on it underneath is written the title of the post]
Welcome back to my blog, and wow this week has been kind of tough for me both with my mediumship and my health! I really want to get going and keep growing but somehow my body has been asking for me to do nothing and just wait for this all to blow over!
Patience has never been something I have been especially skilled at, and to be honest I would like to be better at it. The problem is when you pray for patience God tends to make you wait for things! However, knowing this I have been praying to have more patience and to accept things will happen in His time, and so he made me wait and grudgingly I went with it!
Week before last I had some antibiotics for an infection, and shortly afterwards I started to get a lot of pain through the middle of my body like I had been impaled or kicked in my back. It has made it so hard to sit or stand for long and has stopped me doing most housework other than light things, and all yoga/physiotherapy!
I thought it was a flare and that was why I focused on that last week, eventually though I couldn’t take it any longer and made an appointment with my GP. I got to see a locum this time, and I am glad I did because she was thorough and so nice. She listened to me which, as other chronic illness warriors will know, is rare and came to the conclusion that after years on medications the antibiotics had been the tipping point.
She explained that they had interfered with another medication I was already on and caused gastritis, which is inflammation of the stomach lining. She took me off one of my meds and sent me to the hospital for blood tests to make sure it hadn’t upset my liver and pancreas as well. This scared me, for a long time I have wanted to lead a more natural life, but somehow medications never seemed an option but now I really wish I could see my regular doctor and see what I need to be on and what I can come off and maybe look into more natural remedies.
This gastritis is so painful and draining, I feel awful so the thought of doing long meditations and working with tarot etc is the last thing I have energy for. It is so frustrating because I really want to progress and have a relationship with my spirit guides, but how can that happen when my pain is so bad I cannot meditate properly? I read so many books and blog posts about connecting with them, but most say it takes time and if you are not connecting there is something holding you back…
Is it my health? I kept thinking it was my fear and lack of self confidence, which it could also be, but I think most of my fellow warriors will understand that it often feels as if our health is always holding us back. I started to get frustrated, I couldn’t even hide it at my psychic class and I worry about this being the thing that stops me finding and achieving my soul’s purpose!
Then I remembered, I had prayed for patience…we are told in the bible and in most sacred texts I have read, that patience is a big part of faith. Everything happens in God’s time, He has a plan for my life and maybe I need to stop trying to get ahead and instead trust that things will happen when they are supposed to.
I guess I just need to make a cup of tea and wait for this all to blow over and for things to fall into place when they are meant to!
Namaste xxx
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Finding my place in the world
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Hey everybody!
So as you probably know by now, I am currently on a spiritual journey and I am excited that I am starting to feel more confident to be sharing more about that both here and on my You Tube channel. It feels so nice to be exploring the world and finding out that I do still have a purpose and a reason to be in the world. I feel like I fell out of society when I became chronically sick, however, now I have been studying about my soul’s purpose I am trying to find my place in the world again.
I am loving the courses I have done so far with my teacher Lynda Bourne, I have done the Working with spirit guides and angels and I am currently doing the Psychic mediumship level 1 course. I love learning how to connect and discovering more about how things work and how to do them safely. However, so far it has not set my heart alight and I still struggle to connect at all with my spirit guides which is a big part of it.
However, I have been studying and working hard on my own, listening to podcasts and reading so much and it feels like I am on the verge of something…
Now what that is I just do not know but I am working hard to improve my confidence and self esteem two things that I never had much of but that really took a bashing when I got sick. Along with that I have been doing a lot of soul searching and looking to my childhood to try and find out what I should be doing. This is because when you are young society has not had time to put it’s constraints on you and the things you loved then can give clues.
So when I was a kid I would spend a lot of time playing in our back garden and collecting stones and I had a few crystals, looking back can really help you to see how to move forward. Now I am an adult and I am most happy in the countryside enjoying nature, I collect crystals and yes I still pick up stones everywhere! So maybe my future has something to do with nature and crystals? Another clue can come from what other people come to you for or what they compliment you about, now my whole life I have had people come to me for advice and to talk. I am very logical and have been told I am really good friend so maybe helping people find their way?
Now of course, my blog and You Tube could be a part of that I do try to give advice and tips on here and in my videos, and perhaps stones and crystals can be a way to help others through healing? Then again I am also a huge fan of meditation and Lynda teaches meditation as well as crystal healing, so you can see how there is a hazy picture coming into view but for right now it is confusing.
I hope you will stick around as I continue on my journey and as always I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below
Namaste xxx
Facing changes as winter approaches
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Hey everybody!
Winter is coming fast and like in the spring I like to take stock and look ahead. Making plans and changing things up, and that is happening on this blog as well. If you have been following me on Instagram recently, you will know that I have been really getting into my psychic classes, and especially I have become interested in Crystals and living more in tune with the Earth.
Now I started this blog to talk about chronic illness and how my faith helps me through, but my faith has changed and so has my outlook. I was a Christian-Buddhist then but now I see man made religion as holding me back from really getting close to God. I love that he provides every kind of plant to heal us, and crystals and rocks that contain energy to help us as well. If we live our lives around the moon then we are more in line…
Now I do not want you thinking I am no longer a Christian because I am, I still read my bible daily, and my faith is still the cornerstone of how I live my life. However, I want to talk more about my beliefs and my psychic class and the things I am learning on here, so from now on I shall be talking about that on a Monday and on a Friday you will get a round up of how my chronic illnesses are going and how my life is going.
Here we go:
So this week I started a book called Moonology the author is an astrologist and she believes that linking up your plans and hopes every month with the moon will help them to happen. Now I am not a Wiccan, I do not have alters or do spells because I believe in the power of prayer. I am new to manifesting myself, but I know that by trusting in God and setting intentions then we can make anything happen. We know that ancient civilisations trusted in the stars and moon, and I think they were right, I think God provided so many simple ways for us to make our prayers more powerful.
I am really enjoying reading and learning about the power of the moon’s influence over prayer and I am going to start using it in my monthly plans from now on. I really would love to see my blog and my You Tube Channel do well and start to grow so I can help others and as the bible says:
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. – Matthew 5:14-16
I have also been studying some crystals and really starting to learn about the ways that crystals can help those of us with chronic illness, for example Howlite is a really calming stone. It helps reduce anxiety and stress, it is great for insomnia and having it by your bedside will help you to sleep, it did for me! It can also clear your mind and so it helps with both meditation and mindfulness and has really become a favourite stone of mine. I am learning about how they can help different illnesses and I even had a bracelet made for my husband by Mighty Moon on Etsy with crystals meant to help with epilepsy.
Now I am not suggesting that they are a cure, but if you use them alongside other forms of care what is the harm? Do you use anything like this? What crystals or books do you recommend for someone wanting to get into more natural remedies and to support their body without so many chemicals that cost so much money!
My psychic week:
So I have been meditating a lot, reading up on so much and spending a lot of time trying to find my way and getting close to my intuition. I have been getting hazy images in my third eye of things changed round in the room while meditating, and after speaking to my psychic teacher I found this was perfectly normal. It was simply my Spirit Guides training and teaching my spiritual mind to learn logic. This was so interesting to me and I find the more I meditate and learn the more I open up to angels and spirit guides.
I have also been having times when I can hijack my dreams and use them, while asleep, to contact people I know who have passed!! I am unsure right now how this will play out, but it has happened three times and I am quite excited to learn more. Right now it kind of feels like the world is opening up to me and I am learning from much older civilisations how to get closer to God and how to open up to this Earth that God gave us.
I hope you will enjoy this change on the blog, and that you will stick with me while I find my way with updating twice and talking about my spiritual side, please let me know down below in the comments if you have any ideas or thoughts.
Namaste xxx
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Resting leads to guilt
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Hey everybody!
Well I have been put on antibiotics this week, hence no post on Monday just gone, and I feel awful on them! I am literally sleeping most of the time and to be honest resting leads to guilt, and I have written about this before but the struggle is real!
My husband is not feeling too well right now either so I want to be looking after him, instead I am staying in bed all morning, needing baths to help my pain, and not managing to do my physiotherapy or yoga or any housework! I am literally a lump on the sofa and it is not a nice feeling at all!
Now I try my best to be positive, I make sure I have my God time every morning, I meditate and I practice mindfulness to try and help my chronic illnesses. However, there are times especially when I am struggling with my pain and fatigue, when I cannot control my thoughts and things can turn negative. This is when I need to dig deep and try to use all the tools in my toolbelt to try and keep my vibration and spirits up.
Now I don’t know about you, but I have a few things that help me and hopefully they can help you sometimes and I would love it if you would hop into the comments and share some of yours:
- Meditation: This is a big one for me, I use the Insight timer on my iPad to find guided meditations focused on self love, raising my vibrations and opening to the Solar Plexus Chakra which is connected to personal identity, self will and how much confidence you have. The Solar Plexus is very much related to energy levels, problems with digestion and metabolism so I am working very hard to connect and open this chakra up at the moment.
- Alternative Therapies: There are a wide range of crystals that can help with energy levels, I recently bought a Bloodstone and I am working with this just holding it and meditating with it to see if it helps. There are a lot of things like essentials oils and crystals that have been used for thousands of years as medicine and I think it is important to investigate and try things to see what works.
- Diet: No I am not talking about losing weight, but just paying attention to what you eat when you have chronic illnesses. There are so many diets recommended for different illnesses and it is important to check out bloggers who are living with those illnesses to find recommendations that actually work. I am trying to stay away from fatty and processed foods and to get back to making things from scratch.
- Listen to your body: The main thing I would say is to be in the moment and listen to your body, it will generally tell you when it needs to rest or eat or when there is pain and it is when we ignore these signals when a flare comes!
- Take a bath: I use some lovely Magnesium salts and a bath bomb, magnesium salts can help pain and resting in warm water if possible for you can really help with aching muscles as well as nerve pain. I sometimes bathe in the evening then go to bed and oh my goodness do I get a good sleep!
- Heating Pad: these are a staple of any chronic illness warrior honestly a heating pad can make all the difference, I use mine a lot in the evening for my back pain and they are a must if you are dealing with long term pain.
Now I am currently watching one of my favourite podcasts on you tube and typing this out, but I cannot stop yawning and honestly I just want to be in bed! However, if I had not done this post I would have felt like I had achieved nothing today and that is such a difficult emotion to deal with. The best advice I can give is to remember that as a chronic illness warrior, we are dealing with so much just to keep going and because of this it is so hard to deal with societies expectations anyway so we need to give ourselves a break. I hadn’t really realised I was feeling guilty until today and I know I have dealt with this before, so I know I need to just let that go and try to remember my worth is more than what I do.
I hope you will post the things that help you down below in the comments and I am hopeful that my experiences this week can help you.
Namaste xxx
Frustration and studying with chronic illness
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Hey everybody!
If you have been following my you tube channel, then you will know that I am currently studying to become a psychic. I have found as the course has progressed however that my chronic illnesses are holding me back and it is so frustrating!
My chronic illnesses are Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Spondylosis, depression and generalised anxiety disorder. They work together to make my life interesting by not only affecting how mobile I am, but also making my memory bad, giving me fatigue, shaking, numbness…the list goes on.
I have suffered with many of these my whole life but they started to change things mainly when it came to studying. So I could never get good grades in my schoolwork and I struggled in my nursing course because a bad memory means that retaining what I am being taught can be extremely difficult.
Over time when I gave up work and stopped needing to remember facts and figures it didn’t bother me as much. However, I am extremely interested in learning how to be a psychic, I am starting to get into crystals and I am even learning about the moon phases and I am finding that nothing is sticking and it is so frustrating! On top of that I have the bonus gift that studying makes my fatigue worse so I am so so tired all the time. The extra fatigue makes it hard to balance resting with studying and my housework that I try to do a little every day but it doesn’t always work out now.
I also have problems with grounding, this is a meditation practice that protects you and you are supposed to do it every morning and every night. However, on my left side my numbness is worse, so I cannot feel the ground below me and my pendulum will not work on that side. These might not seem like big problems but they are, right now I am looking into how crystals and essential oils can help but while I look into that I find I am frustrated and struggling.
I am hopeful that as I progress it will help my illnesses, but until then have you been a student? How do you cope with the side effects that come with studying and having illnesses that will not stop? Any tips or tricks gratefully accepted.
Namaste xxx
Dealing with Loneliness in Summer
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Hey everybody!
Here in England we are having a heatwave, social media is full of people spending time with friends, and almost every night I can hear the sounds of BBQs! Usually this is a time when people get together, and because of this I think my loneliness is making itself known.
As you all know, I am working on myself very hard at the moment, meditating like mad and I am currently reading the bhagavad gita. I am trying my hardest to grow and learn and to come to be content in the moment and with the life I have instead of wanting and yearning for what others have. To be honest, I am changing a lot and I can feel how meditation and mindfulness is really helping my depression and anxiety. I am really proud of myself, but I know I still have a lot to learn but regular readers will know I love to learn new things.
However, I am mainly housebound, and with the heat I cannot take the dog out because I keep having dizzy spells. Just a few days ago my husband took me out for a drive in the car and a short walk and that was the first time I had left the house in nine days! This realisation really showed me that I am so very isolated in a lot of ways by society and that really makes me sad.
Last week, on the blog, I talked about how we all need to be kinder to one another and look out for people around us who need us. I wanted to try and encourage everyone to make sure the neighbours and family members around us are OK, but that is lacking in my life. I see people around me who don’t live far having fun and I need to be honest and say it makes me feel really left out and alone.
I have the most wonderful husband who is home as much as he can be, but he is out of the house 12 hours a day to travel to his job and work an 8 hour shift. This means most of my time is spent alone just me and the dog, who strangely enough keeps me sane. Now I would love it if my husband could be home all the time, but right now that is not really an option. So most of my waking life is spent alone, and I am sure that I am not the only one in the chronic illness community.
Now while doing research on loneliness I found that The Red Cross is running a Get Help with Loneliness Campaign because they have seen how being alone too much can affect a person’s mental health. I checked but there is nothing available in my area, but maybe there is where you live? If you are able to you can also volunteer just a few hours a week to spend with people like me who face loneliness and isolation from society. Let me know below if it is something you would use or if you would like to volunteer with them all the information is on the page above.
Namaste xxx
Feeling guilt with summer fatigue
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Hey everybody!
Feeling guilt with summer fatigue is so hard, it seems to take all the motivation out of me! I am trying so hard to keep up with things but all I want to do is sleep and it is not good at all!
Here in the UK we are having something of a summer heatwave, and though I am sure a lot of people are really enjoying the sunshine and heat that we are having for a change it is very different for me. I have chronic illnesses that cause fatigue anyway, but when the sun comes out it can make my illnesses unstable and it very hard for me to keep up with the day to day tasks that I need to do.
Strong sunshine that pours through my kitchen is lovely, but if I am in there for longer than a few minutes I find myself fighting back a migraine. In fact, at the moment I have a halo of pain all around my head just threatening to hit me with a migraine at a minutes notice! I am having to use sunglasses just to get a glass of water at the moment and forget washing up where the sink overlooks the window!
Now I have been working hard recently on my mental health, on working with a therapist and with my faith to find ways of being kinder to myself. Things like mindfulness and chanting have made a huge difference to my negative thoughts and I am incredibly proud of myself. However, today I have basically slept most of it away and I feel like I have wasted a precious day I could have done some gentle yoga, maybe dusted the living room, but I have done nothing but watch Great British Bake Off like a Zombie!
Guilt is something everyone with chronic illnesses deal with, either it is pressure we put on ourselves or it is family or friends making comments. The pressure in society to be productive and to work, work, work is why most people now are coping with mental health issues I know this logically but when I am alone I still hear that voice in my head saying I should be doing more. I do hate it and I am trying so hard to be kind to myself and look after myself but I really need a little help!
I am determined to cope though because it looks like this hot weather is here to stay, and though I would love to stay inside like a hermit I have doctors and hospital appointments to get to. So I have been thinking about how best to stay cool and here are some of my ideas:
- Drink more water – might seem obvious but as it is hot I need to up my fluids intake and make sure I don’t get dehydrated
- Listen to my body – I need to slow down everything I do, I am not the fastest anyway, but I need to sit down more and make sure to listen when I need to rest
- Wear sunglasses – Yes even if I need them indoors it shouldn’t matter, I have to protect myself from migraines and keeping my eyes from being blasted by this bright sunshine is a great start
- Make sure to wear suncream if going outside – Many medications can make us more sensitive to the sun, but also I am mainly housebound so I need to remember I am not used to the sun and will burn easily
- Be patient – even people who are well are struggling in this heat so why do I think I won’t? I need to remember that and be patient with my body.
So wish me luck in working on the guilt that comes with not being able to help around the house, and if you have any tips and tricks for coping with this heat let me know down below?
Namaste xxx
A change is as good as a rest
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Hey everybody!
Well we have had quite the eventful week and I really thought it would leave me with a lacking in spoons and increased pain and overall feeling dreadful…I am still waiting for the bump! I guess a change is as good as a rest?
Not that my fatigue and pain are not increased, of course they are I still have the same illnesses. However, it is my mood that is different and my outlook, I find myself quite happy to rest instead of feeling like a useless lump and to be honest it is so shocking to me I have to talk about it!
Earlier this week we had a decorator come for three days to wallpaper and pain our hallway, it is now pink with birds all over it and I love it! It has made the hallway so welcoming and warm and it is so cheerful I just love looking up to see it. I will be honest though, having someone in the house did make my anxiety really high, but I managed to make small talk and felt really proud of myself.
I took the week off the computer, I rested and I even went to a Hindu meditation class where they introduced us the the different forms of yoga and it was really inspiring. I loved hearing about the Bhagavad Gita and how to apply it to my life it really helped me to feel grounded with my spiritual journey.
I am enjoying the journey and I am trying so hard to use the things I am learning, like chanting, meditation etc to battle my anxiety as well as feeling God around me much more. I am also really finding myself feeling more in control of my thoughts for the first time in a long time, and I feel actually happy…a strange feeling that I am really not used to and not quite sure how to deal with, which is kind of sad! I mean surely feeling happy should be how we feel most days, but since I was a teenager I have struggled to feel actually deep down contentment, but I have always longed for it.
I have always heard the saying ‘a change is as good as a rest’ but I guess with my anxiety disorder I always shied away from change and in fact usually it makes me lose control. But right now, I feel so much love and support from Lee who is on this spiritual journey with me, and from God who I feel is actually there walking beside me in a way I never felt before. It has been a difficult week I cannot lie about that, it is hard to be open to new things when most of the time the thought of going outside alone gives me a panic attack.
However, here we are, it is Monday and I am sat writing this to my friends and I am smiling! I know it is crazy to imagine because my upper back and neck are very painful and I feel tired but yeah I am smiling. I am incredibly proud of myself for facing these changes with faith and being as open to them as was safe for me. My husband was right by my side every day that the decorator was here, though he did not sit with me and left me alone so I could talk if I wanted to. He also went to the meditation class which I was so thankful for and I felt so supported and loved.
I hope if you all have change to face you can push passed the things that hold you back and keep moving forward so that you can make your dreams and passions a reality. Ill health does make it hard to be happy especially mental health issues, but finding faith, in God, a medication or a person then you can conquer the world!
Namaste xxx
Is meditation and chanting changing my brain?
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Hey everybody!
Well I am starting to feel more like myself and less like someone who just wants to curl up in a ball and do nothing and speak to nobody.
As I have spoken about many times before on here and my You Tube Channel, I suffer a lot with my mental health, namely chronic depression and generalised anxiety disorder. Both of these illnesses conspire against me to keep me inside and lonely and not doing the things I love to do.
However, over the last couple of months, me and my husband have been working hard to learn more about other cultures and other ways of thinking. Here in the West it all feels very overwhelming, there is a lack of kindness and compassion, and people tend to work work work without taking the time to look after themselves properly. Both me and especially Lee had fallen into that trap and we had enough!
Lee started learning about The Secret, and I found out about The Power of I Am and looking more into other religions that are as old as Buddhism which I have been studying for a while now. The realisation that if I put in the work I could be in control of my thoughts and take some control back became something that I greatly wanted to make happen.
After finding a course on the Insight Timer App, I started to learn about Bhakti Yoga, which is a spiritual practice within Hinduism, that concentrates on devotion and love for any endeavour. I found this so beautiful, and started to take mindfulness, gratitude and meditation more seriously. I also discovered chanting could help me stay in the moment and provide short mantras such as I am safe I am protected, which definitely calm my anxiety! As soon as I changed my thinking from what I want and what other people do to gratitude for what I have my whole demeanour changed! I woke up happy, something that has not happened since I was about 14years old! I started to be thankful for the home I live in and to see what I already had instead of focusing on what I wanted to change.
I also found that old emotions and feelings came up that I had stifled years ago, but by chanting or praying through it I found that I coped much better with them. It became so interesting to me that just changing my way of thinking could change things so quickly, I wondered if there was any scientific basis to think that my brain had changed. I found that there were articles about this, but many were not scientifically based which annoyed me because I am experiencing the change surely it can be measured somehow?
I did find this one study on sciencedirect.com which basically confirms what I am feeling and seeing myself, unfortunately the study was only done on small groups. However, it did help me feel like this could be a long term change and not just something that will last a couple of months and then stop working…I mean people have been using these tools for hundreds of years they must have an idea it works right?
Namaste xxx
Pushing passed anxiety
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Hey everybody!
So lets talk about pushing passed anxiety to make your dreams happen and move forward in life. It is something I have been needing to do I have things I want to achieve in life and my anxiety always holds me back and this time I did not let it win!
So I am also a You Tuber and a few weeks ago I messaged one of my favourite You Tubers, Miss Mary Lu and asked her if she wanted to do a video together. I was so excited when she said yes because she is such a wicked cool person and she is someone I look up to because she has more subscribers than me.
However, as the time to upload came up I got scared, I started to doubt myself because my channel is slow growing, I am shy in person and I am not great at promoting myself. So I started to feel like I would look stupid or nobody would want to watch because my editing and lighting etc is not great and yeah it got me doubting myself so much.
BUT!!! Yes there is a but, because I took my time and I kept thinking about it being such a great opportunity and I would regret it if I backed out because of my anxiety. Today the video I posted went live HERE and I am so proud that I pushed through and I have already learned so much from this collaboration and I know that the more I push myself through then the more I will achieve.
My anxiety almost keeps me captive in life and I cannot stand that! I want to be a good blogger, and I want to do well on you tube and help people understand chronic illness and that we are just people living our lives and trying our best just like everyone. So this was a big week and it was hard for me, I realised how much I need to learn and grow and at first it got me down but then I realised that I have only been editing 8 months, I need to be patient with myself and kind to myself.
Now the video is out I am so proud of myself I love what me and Mary produced together and I hope it encourages everyone to go and try new things, and to take care of themselves. Self care is so important it helps both our physical and mental health so let me know down below is anxiety holding you back? And, what is your favourite self care?
