some natural living lifestyle changes

Some of you might know that I have an infrequently-updated other blog about crunchy living. It's called "Crunchy by Accident" because for us it really was an accident that we ended up living a crunchy lifestyle.

But the crunchy lifestyle happens to be awesome and I wanted to take a minute and write about some recent changes you guys might be interested in.

1. Natural Deodorant





I've experimented with DIY natural deodorant before, and have never been too thrilled with it. But this time around, I am a huge fan!! I can't remember my exact recipe... it was something inspired by an internet find but I tweaked it. I believe it was:

4 tbsp coconut oil
4 tbsp baking soda
2 tbsp bentonite clay
2 tbsp cornstarch
10 drops each of spearmint, lemon, orange, and lavender essential oils

Heat it all up on a stove and then add the essential oils.

I keep mine in a jar and just rub some on every morning. This doesn't work like an antiperspirant, so it's been weird getting used to being wetter under the arms. However, the scent is really nice and it lasts through the day and into the following morning.

Here is a good article on armpit detox. I have experienced some detoxing. But I think it's over now. Yay!

2. Handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues

I bought an old king-size flannel sheet from a thrift store and turned it into a few dozen hankies to replace our paper tissues.

I LOVE IT.

I'm used to getting a horrible rash on my philtrum every winter from chronic nose-blowing. Right now we are all sick, though, and... no rash.

I fold up the hankies like cloth tissues and keep them in an empty Kleenex box. They pop up one at a time like a normal tissue. My 4yo can fold them up for me. I bought a PUL-lined wet bag in colors that match my kitchen and that's where used ones go. I just toss them in the normal laundry, wet bag and all. I actually have two wet bags so I can immediately put up the other one while the first washes and then dries on the line.

3. Big Berkey water filter

Big Berkey on my
counter.

I'm in love with my Big Berkey.

I got it a few months ago, the kind with both black and white filters. LOVE IT. A few weeks ago a pipe burst in our neighborhood and all the water became brown sewer water.

Except, my family pretty much didn't even notice because we just drink from the Berkey. Yum.


Conclusion

We've been doing way more crunchy things than that but those are a few things we've been up to lately. Living the crunchy life!

Fortingall Yew's transition to the feminine age

I saw this article on the news a few days ago and made a mental note to blog about it. From the article:

Fortingall Yew. Public domain.

You'd think after thousands of years on earth, the Fortingall Yew wouldn't be up for a major life change. Well, you're wrong. 

This ancient Scottish tree -- estimated to be 5,000 years old and among Europe's oldest living organisms -- is changing sexes from male to female, according to Botanist Max Coleman with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

 Basically, an ancient tree is changing genders from male to female, and I saw that and thought immediately of our current transition into what the yogis call "the Aquarian Age."

Where, yogically and astrologically speaking, we have been in the so-called Piscean Age for several thousand years, in 2012 we made the shift into the Aquarian Age, and we are still kind of transitioning into it. While the Piscean Age was masculine, the Aquarian Age is feminine in nature. And we see this transition happening, apparently, even in nature, with the Fortingall Yew.

spirit rips

I recently discovered a thing called "spirit rips." I've never heard of it before, so I thought I would write about it.

The first thing that came up when I Google-imaged "energy
leakage." Similar to a house, there are lots of ways human
energy can leak! Image here.

I was working with someone whose energy had chronically felt "leaky." Like, no matter what she did, it felt like she was leaking energy all over the place. 

Typically when that happens, it can be solved with a couple of different techniques. Often, leaking energy involves holes in the aura or arcline, which are easily healed. Sometimes you might find an energetic shunt, a type of energetic weapon meant to drain a person's energy, and then you could just pull out the shunt and heal the affected area. Sometimes the drain is a literal drain that you can plug. Sometimes there's a hole in a chakra that needs to be healed up and shielded.

So I was working with this person for leaking energy, and I couldn't figure out why she kept leaking. Finally I thought to ask God about it (duh) and got the answer: a spirit rip.

I called up the image of the rip, and saw a close up of it. It looked like a piece of silky, ethereal white shiny fabric had been ripped, and the rip was seeping kind of star-like, sparkly dust. Like glitter, but more star-shaped.

I commanded for the rip to heal, and the person I was working on said that it felt like mud or a mask or something had been placed on her nose and third eye, sort of patching up the hole.

The mud over the eyes reference reminded me of this story from the Bible.

Image here.

Anyway, sealing up the rip seemed to solve the problem. After the session, I scanned myself for spirit rips and found two of them which I subsequently patched back together. I haven't noticed a giant difference in myself yet, but clearly they weren't very significant problems to me or else I would have noticed the rips sooner.

You may have a spirit rip if:

A. You muscle test positive for one

B. You see one with your spiritual eyes

C. You intuitively feel that you have one.

These can be healed through theta healing or probably just by praying in faith that the rips will be healed immediately.

confronting the inner saboteur

Lately I've gotten to witness a lot of self-sabotage--fortunately, mostly not from myself! Everyone has an inner Saboteur that works hard to keep them from progressing. This post is just an introduction to the concept of the Saboteur.

Archetypally Speaking

Image here.

Archetypes are basically psychological patterns that form the basis of the personality. A brief intro to archetypes can be found here.

Every person has twelve primary archetypes--eight that differ from person to person, and four that are found in everyone. The Common Four are: the Inner Child, the Victim, the Sell-Out (or Prostitute, but I prefer Sell-Out for its wider connotations), and the Saboteur. Today I want to talk about the Saboteur.

The Saboteur

The Saboteur. The one who sabotages. This archetype is about self-sabotage, the part of us that actively works against our happiness and higher good. Typically the Saboteur goes unrecognized--unless a person becomes intentionally aware of its influence.

Caroline Myss writes:

The Saboteur archetype is made up of the fears and issues related to low self-esteem that cause you to make choices in life that block your own empowerment and success. As with the Victim and Prostitute, you need to face this powerful archetype that we all possess and make it an ally. When you do, you will find that it calls your attention to situations in which you are in danger of being sabotaged, or of sabotaging yourself. Once you are comfortable with the Saboteur, you learn to hear and heed these warnings, saving yourself untold grief from making the same mistakes over and over. Ignore it, and the shadow Saboteur will manifest in the form of self-destructive behavior or the desire to undermine others.

Like all archetypes, the Saboteur is neither inherently good or inherently bad. It all depends on how we allow it to work in our lives. Being aware of the inner Saboteur turns it from an enemy into an ally; when we realize how we are in danger of being sabotaged, we can prevent said sabotage. Particularly if we are the ones behind our own sabotage.

Recognizing the Saboteur

Image here.

For me, it was helpful to run my own archetype chart. Essentially, all 12 archetypes fall into "houses." I was not surprised to discover when I ran my chart that my Saboteur fell in the House of Good Fortune--the house of creativity and making money. I am a very creative person--buy my novel The Body Electric here--but I routinely failed to meet my own expectations for myself. Once I realized my Saboteur was there, I was able to see the ways I had sabotaged my own success. Being aware of my self-destructive tendencies when it came to finances helped me prevent future sabotage. My life now looks very different than it did when I was allowing my Saboteur to rule me.

Again, from Caroline Myss, the 12 Houses of the archetype wheel:

Personality, Ego: the face you present to the outside world

Life Values: ownership, finances, your relationship to earthly power

Self-expression, Siblings: the power of choice

Home: establishing your emotional foundation

Creativity, Good Fortune: erotic energies, including creativity, sexuality, and synchronicity/chance

Occupation and Health: seeking security in the physical world

Relationships: marriage and partnerships

Other People's Resources: stocks, inheritance, death and closure

Spirituality: wisdom, publishing, travel

Highest Potential: completing the integration of the self

Interaction with the World: relating your creativity to humanity

The Unconscious

Where does your Saboteur fall? This is something you can pray about or muscle test on.

Conclusion

We all have an inborn tendency to sabotage our own success. Being aware of this tendency helps us proactively avoid self-sabotage.

stop, look, and listen: warning signs, and raising frequency

Feeling like you might be on the wrong path?

Our trials are our friends: they show us in which ways we are walking the wrong path. They are our warning signs, inviting us to make course corrections.

I just came across an article entitled 10 Warning Signs From the Universe. The list from the article includes things like stubbing your toe, arguments, injuries, and unexpected bills. The article avers that these are "an indication that you need to center yourself and adjust your frequency."

Stoplight courtesy of clipart.

When we experience negative events, it is often a reminder that we need to change up what we're doing--and more importantly, how we're thinking.

Coming from a low-frequency mindset attracts negativity into life. The more "off" the frequency, the more negative life becomes.

Do you know anyone like that? They don't just have a negative mindset--they also have major health problems, un- or underemployment problems, relationship problems, reputation problems. All of these problems are signals that are really only trying to help. Every external problem stems from an internal frequency problem, and the external results are there to help us realize what we need to change. An easy example would be, perhaps, obesity: overweight is a signal that we may not be treating our bodies appropriately. The course correction might involve a more healthful diet, more exercise, more sleep, or more love and self-acceptance.

Everything in the world works together for our good if we let it, and that means allowing our trials to act as our sentinels.

What trials are showing up in your life right now? What changes do they indicate may need to be made for you to be happy, healthy, wealthy, glad? I invite you to set aside some time to truly ponder these things and write them down.

Raising your frequency

If you have a lot of problems going on in your life right now, it might seem overwhelming to pinpoint specifics and start the course corrections. The good news is that generally raising your vibration will help clear these issues.

There are plenty of ways to raise your vibrational frequency, but here are just a few:

1. Meditate daily.
2. Ground yourself regularly (this may mean multiple times in a day).
3. Read your scriptures, go to the temple, pray.
4. Hydrate--drink up!
5. Commit to nourishing yourself with healthful foods.
6. Use the "Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" to help you clear your home of things that do not spark joy.
7. Forgive. Forgive people especially when they don't deserve it.
8. Eliminate blame from your life.
9. Spend time in nature.
10. Exercise.

Conclusion

The negative things that happen in life are helpful signals to us that something needs to change--either our choices or our thinking patterns. You have control over your own vibration. You can control your thoughts and you can control your choices. If you feel like you can't, it's time to raise your vibration by taking better care of your body and your spirit. Meeting with someone who works with subconscious programs can also make a big difference in your life.

on approaching life as your experiment

For a significant portion of my life, I was overweight.

Me in high school, age 16. Eek!

I remember feeling elated when I fit into a size 8. EIGHT.

For all the time that I, at about 5'4, hovered around 150-160 lbs, I didn't love my weight and I didn't love how I looked. But being that weight was comfortable and familiar to me. Getting in shape--eating differently, exercising--ah! It was so intimidating. Overwhelming. Easier to just keep on keeping on the way I was.


One day, though, I had a thought.

I thought: this is the youngest I will ever be. This is the prime of my life. And wouldn't it be a shame to live and die and never know what it feels like to be fit? To be thin and in shape and actually healthy?

And so, that day, I committed: I was going to experiment with being healthy.

No pressure, I told myself. I'll only commit to being healthy for a few months. I'll get down to my body's ideal weight and then see what happens. If I love it, I can keep on being healthy. If I don't, well, no one ever complains about how hard it is to get fat! I can always come back to this weight, no problem. I already have all the clothes in this size that I'd need.

Me in college, age 18. Size 10.

By framing my weight loss as a temporary experiment, I took the pressure off myself. When things got hard, I told myself: I can always go back to being unhealthy tomorrow. Today is just one day. This experiment is just a few months. This is not a big deal.

And the weight came off. I didn't take good records at the time but as I recall I went from about 160+ lbs down to 126 lbs in maybe a few months. I was shocked and thrilled when I got down to smaller than a size 2. And I did it all by altering my perspective: giving myself permission to make my life changes temporary, and additionally by realizing that I was only at 160 lbs because I was living the lifestyle of someone who weighs 160 lbs. Once I realized this and committed to temporarily assume the lifestyle of someone who weighs 120 lbs, things just changed.

I share this story because I feel there is so much power in giving yourself permission to try things out. I feel that so many people shy away from things that would really bless their lives, because they're afraid that once they make a choice to try something out, it has to be FOREVER.

Well, not true!

You can agree to try losing weight for six months and get into the best shape of your life. You can always choose to be fat again later.

Me in college, during
one experimental health
stint. Size 8-10.

You can try sacrificing to save a relationship that matters to you. You can sacrifice today and not have to sacrifice tomorrow.

You can experiment with how you look: cut your hair. It'll grow back. Try a new shade of lipstick. You never need to wear it again. Talk to a stranger in the grocery store. They don't know who you are and you may never meet again anyway.

You can try reading the Book of Mormon and meeting with the missionaries. Reading a book doesn't have to mean a permanent life change.

And that's just it: none of our choices mandate a permanent life change. None of them do. Some of them theoretically do--when we make covenants we really should plan on keeping them forever. But let's face it: some people just don't keep their covenants.

People change every day. You change every day. I change every day. It is a folly to expect to be the same person next year as you are today.

But if you can count on the fact that you'll be a different person next year--what does that mean?

Me 13 months ago, prior to
pregnancy! Size < 2. A result of
a health stint.

It means that you can influence who that person next year will be. And you influence your future self by experimenting today.

"Experimentation" has a connotation that I don't mean to endorse. Please don't think I'm advocating for sexual experimentation in any way, or experimentation with drugs or alcohol or anything like that. I'm focused on the kind of experiments that could have a lasting positive effect on your life.

Experiment with a 40-day kundalini meditation.

Experiment with diet and exercise: experiment ingesting the typical daily caloric intake of someone the size you want to be.

Experiment with studying the scriptures every day.

Experiment with studying other people's scriptures too: In my normal life, I study the Book of Mormon and the Holy Bible every day, and then the Tao Te Ching regularly and I just picked up a copy of the Bhagavad Gita a week or two ago. A few years back I read the Koran and recently I started the Analects of Confucius, although I still need to finish. So many people seem terrified to read other people's religious texts but I don't understand why. What if there's a nugget in there that will bless your life? Why would you intentionally avoid that?

Today I invite you to take the pressure off yourself. Read a new book. Study something new. Try a new lifestyle when it comes to diet and exercise. Give yourself parameters (ex: this will only last 2 weeks! or This will only last 6 months!) and just give something a try. Experiment with something you've thought about that could make your life better.

Be open. Expand. If you don't try something new, you'll never know how it could have blessed your life. If it doesn't bless your life, at least you won't have to wonder if it would have.

explaining soul fragmentation

Image here.

One thing I run across with some frequency in my energy work is soul fragmentation. I know: even the name of it is weird.

Doctrine and Soul Fragmentation

A lot of times in energy work, there are things like this that pop up and seem weird--don't automatically fit into our preset ideas about doctrine. When this kind of thing pops up with a client, I just explain: this is the framework that we're working in. You don't need to believe any of it, but if working from that paradigm clears up the problem, that's the important thing.

So I want to explain soul fragmentation with the mutual understanding that the important thing here is that approaching certain issues from this perspective can make a positive difference in people's lives. To me, that's the important thing. There's a ton about the nature of souls that we don't understand. There is not a lot of official Church doctrine about the precise nature of souls, besides the verse in D&C 88:15:

And the spirit and the body are the soul of man.

That's kind of a definition, but it doesn't explain anything such as what souls are precisely made of, atomically speaking, or how they unite a body, or anything like that.

The issue of soul fragmentation is emphatically not outlined in official Church doctrine, but it is also emphatically not against Church doctrine. There is just a lot we don't know. The doctrine we have is the stuff necessary to eternal salvation. What I'm talking about is just not something that has outlined doctrinally.

The scriptures have to do with the spirit and the soul--but they are not an anatomy textbook of the soul or spirit. Just as the scriptures talk a lot about our bodies--who created them, why, what we're supposed to do and not do with them--but are not physical anatomy textbooks. The Bible doesn't explain how the body digests food, but it does explain kosher law, and the D&C explains the Word of Wisdom even though it doesn't explain the physical workings of the body it affects. Similarly, the scriptures teach us the do's and don't's for a healthy spirit, but don't explain how the spirit works exactly.  You wouldn't turn to the scriptures for instructions on how to set a broken bone, probably, but that doesn't mean understanding broken bones and how to set them is wrong. The scriptures exist to provide knowledge essential to our salvation. Anatomical knowledge, for either spirit or body, is just not essential to salvation.

Recap: I'm not making any doctrinal claims here, and I'm not making any anti-doctrinal claims here. I'm writing about something our doctrine does not really cover--which means it's not necessarily correct, but also means it's not necessarily incorrect, either.

For me, I use it as a useful paradigm. If, in a session, it comes up for a person, addressing the issue typically results in physical, felt changes, as well as changes in mindset and emotion and temperament. For me it is a tool. Whether or not soul fragmentation is "true"or doctrinal is, to me, secondary to the fact that when it seems to come up, fixing it causes a noticeable, beneficial change in those I work with.

So: Soul Fragmentation. What is it?

Image here.

Soul fragmentation can happen in times of trauma. Essentially, an event is so traumatic, the spirit itself fractures somehow and becomes kind of separate from the body.

If that happens, a typical person would experience some of these sensations:
- not feeling "all there"

- inability to get grounded or stay grounded
- feeling chronically empty or unable to be filled--both spiritually and even physically. This inability to feel filled can lead to overeating and obesity as the body attempts to compensate for feelings of not being close to the ground.
- feelings of missing something, an undefined something
- chronically reliving the same traumatic experience over and over
- lots of anger, feeling like you have given your power away to a person or experience

Often, in cases where we say or think things like, "S/he took a part of my heart with her/him when..." or "part of me died that day" or something like that, that is a verbal acknowledgement of the subconsciously understood case of soul fragmentation that happened as a result of a particular event.

How do you discover it?

You might discover a soul fragmentation through intuition. If, right now, you are reading this and you have a sudden insight or knowledge, "this is me!! My soul is fragmented!!," I would trust that as an indication that you are dealing with soul fragmentation.

Muscle testing is an easy and accurate way to determine soul fragmentation. You can muscle test:

- Is my soul intact? (If no, you have fragmentation.)
- Do I have more than half my soul united with my body? (After confirming fragmentation, it can be helpful to discover a percentage that has fragmented. You can muscle test to find out how much soul is unconnected to the body.)
- Did this happen more than X units ago? (Ten days, four years, etc. Narrow it down to a time frame if desired or necessary.)

You can ask how many pieces the soul has fragmented into, as well.

Finally, sometimes I can see if someone is fragmented because their spirit looks more transparent to me than it should. Healing the soul fixes that. So those are three ways to identify soul fragmentation.

Healing the Soul

To recover from this, you need to do a soul retrieval. This can be done in a theta state. This writer writes about experience with soul retrieval, and it looks like that person is pretty slow at it. I can usually witness a complete soul retrieval in maybe ten minutes or so. Often shorter, occasionally longer.

Important steps when retrieving soul fragments:

1. Call 100% of the person's soul fragments to one place. 

2. Clean them thoroughly and kick out any imposters--negative entities posing as soul fragments in the hopes of getting into the person. 

Image here.

3. Grow all the fragments into the current age of the person--if a fragment broke off 10 years ago, it will look like the person looked 10 years ago. Grow all the pieces into the person's current age, so they all look the same. 

4. Unite them all into one single fragment.  

5. Upload to that fragment all the lessons and wisdom the person has learned up until this point. I like to go ahead and add any information God wants placed there. I just ask for God to add whatever else is important to be added at the time. 

6. Ask if there is anything else that needs to be done. If yes, do that thing. If no, move on and: 

7. Unite the fragment to the remnant of the soul still in the person's body. 

I don't recommend trying this yourself unless you are very skilled at entering and maintaining a theta state. But you could try just praying for this process to be done and it could very well go through.

Everyone's situation is different. No two soul retrievals are alike. If you suspect a need for soul retrieval and reintegration, I recommend seeking a skilled and experienced soul retrieval practitioner.

Conclusion

Feeling not all there? Like something is missing? Can't help reliving the same experiences over and over again? You may be dealing with a case of soul fragmentation. Call someone who knows how to handle it and get reintegrated once again for greater feelings of peace and togetherness.

shielding against negative energy

People give and send energy all the time. Every interaction you have with someone else is an energetic transaction--but even more than that, just thinking of someone creates an energetic transaction. This is one reason why it is so important to guard our thoughts.

Thinking negative thoughts about people actually sends them negative energy (often via etheric cords). This can manifest in a lot of ways, from physical injuries to depression to things just going wrong.

In my opinion, this is one reason why so many Hollywood people are so messed up--particularly young women. Female chakras are more absorbent than male chakras--the female energy body is receptive while the male energy body is emanating. So when a bunch of people hate an actresses's body of work, or even just her body, those negative thoughts and that negative energy are projected to her and absorbed by her, in a way completely different from how a man's energy would react. These young women become train wrecks. The effect of negative energy projections are far more pronounced in women than in men.

Thanks to spooky action at a distance, negative (and positive!) thoughts about others and objects don't just exist in our energy fields; a mirror of them is created in the other person's field as well. It's kind of like every negative thought exists twice--once in your space, and once in their space (or once in their space, once in yours, if they are the ones thinking about you). Reducing negative energy in your life involves reducing negative thoughts about others, and additionally shielding yourself against the power of other people's negative thoughts about you.

Shielding

Shield! Image here.

One of the best things a person can do for themselves every day is pray for a shield against the negativity of others. Ask and ye shall receive. If you have trouble absorbing other people's negative energy, this is the number one place to start. Shield yourself through prayer and putting on the armor of God through scripture study, faith, and acting on the Spirit, as outlined in Ephesians 6.

Participating in a daily kundalini meditation practice will also help shield you by strengthening the energetic body and making it more resistant to attack.

When things come through the shield

First off: if you're not shielding and meditating, you are partially responsible for it when other people's negative energies get through to you.

However, sometimes things come through the shield even when you are on top of shielding and meditation. One person has been remarkably consistent in sending me personally vast amounts of hate energy, and every time I find myself thinking something unkind about this person, I know now it's because that person is busy thinking about me. I have to cut the energetic cord that this person created to me, and then redirect it and shield again. An effective form of shield is one with the properties of a mirror--the mirror bounces the energy off you. You need to be clear about where the bounced-off energy goes, though--it can bounce off you and lodge just about anywhere without direction. For me, I program my mirror-shield to "return to sender" with a message of, "that's not very nice!" The intention is that the sender will pay greater attention to the effects of their negative thinking.

Engaging with negative thoughts about others just strengthens the negative energetic cords that have formed. It is best to let those types of thoughts go if you can, rather than entertain them. Take a deep breath and let them go.

Sometimes even strong shields are not effective when the other person involved is someone you actively love. At some level, the subconscious is invested in helping those you love, and so is receptive to even negative cords being formed with them (a cord is a cord, right?). Set the intention to stay free and clear of negative energetic cords and follow up with a refusal to engage in negative thinking of others... no matter how much you may feel they deserve it!

Conclusion

If you find yourself thinking negative thoughts, you are generating negative energy. Time to nix it and shield! Whenever a negative thought is thought, it exists in the space of everything that the thought is about. Shielding with a mirror-shield can be very effective.