The "Just Fold it in" Series: Raising Your Vibration

Hey everyone it's Amanda and I'm back this week with another update to the, "Just Fold it in" series. So that's what I've been calling this series, where I'm defining more clearly some spiritual terms that are used often, but I find are often left kind of hanging and left not clearly defined. I'm calling it the, "Just Fold it in" series (for anyone who's not familiar), there's a tv series called Schitt's Creek, and the mother and adult son are making a recipe together. The mother just keeps telling him to "Just fold it in" and he doesn't know what she means and she doesn't know what it means either, so she just keeps saying, "Just fold it in". So that's what I'm relating to these spiritual terms that people keep repeating but not always necessarily knowing exactly what they mean. So far in this series, we have covered grounding and clearing your energy. If you've missed those you can look back in the other previous videos. Also, this week I wanted to add in, "raise your vibration". I think that's another term that gets thrown out there a lot in the spiritual world.

So what exactly does this mean? We have to remember that we're all energy ... everyone is energy, everything is made up of energy. Everything and everyone has its own vibrational frequency that it is emitting out into the world and that they're operating in. This can fluctuate and change, which is the good news, that we have some control over our energetic frequency and state. So, when we're in a high vibrational state, this can be described as light and easy, and peaceful. However, when in a lower vibrational state, this will feel heavier, darker and feels more difficult and stuck. When we're finding ourselves in those lower vibrational frequencies, this is a time for us to raise our vibration. So, what can we do now, when we realize that we're in this lower vibrational energy? What can we do now to raise our vibration?

One of the best ways to raise your vibration is through, gratitude. At the top of the emotional frequency chart is gratitude. It is one of the top emotions on the scale. So, if we can catch ourselves in those moments where we're feeling in that lower vibrational frequency and flip our thoughts to gratitude in the moment or implement a routine practice of gratitude at a certain time each day, we can immediate raise our vibrational frequency. I really like the book, 1000 gifts, where the author speaks about noticing all the things throughout daily life that we have to be grateful for ... all those beautiful small things that we overlook. For example, how the light hits soap bubble in the sink and creates a rainbow, how dewdrops look on the leaves in the morning, or the sound of a crackling fire. All those small moments that we can stop and anchor ourselves in the moment, adding to our mindfulness, adding to our presence in the moment, and raising our vibration with this gratitude.

Some other ways to raise your vibration is to surround yourself with beautiful nature, such as taking a walk in nature (adding in the exercise piece as well), surround yourself with positive media (TV, books, music, videos) and surrounding ourselves with positive relationships that nurture us. I think that's something that we maybe need to take a look at sometimes is, what are we allowing into our space, what types of media, are we consuming, and raising our vibration by carefully selecting what we're letting in.

Additional ways to raise your vibration include clearing methods such as: Palo Santo or Sage, clearing out physical clutter, or clearing out clutter from your calendar, taking a bath, a shower, or being in natural waters.

Looking at your diet is another great way to raise your vibration. So looking at reducing alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and any of those things that are in the lower vibration and adding in more of those high vibrational foods (fruits and vegetables and things that we know nourish our bodies).

Lastly, looking at the toxins that are we're letting into our life. Are there any areas of our life that we can reduce our toxic load and clean it up a little bit.

I hope that this was helpful for you to learn a little bit more about raising your vibration and hopefully there's some more clarity around what that means. Maybe you can try to incorporate one or more of these ideas into your life now. If there are any other terms that you'd like to see defined more clearly, please let me know!

If you're ready to take a look at your energy, and maybe you needed a little bit of time for yourself ... some clearing out and balancing you can schedule your Reiki appointment yourself right on my website, amandakugler.com.

The "Just Fold it in" Series: Clearing Your Energy

Hey everyone it's Amanda, and I'm back this week with another video for you in the "Just fold it in" series. If you missed last week, we talked about grounding your energy. I used the example from the show, Schitt's Creek. There was a scene where the mother was telling the son to "just fold it in", when they were cooking, and he had no idea what she meant and she just kept saying just fold it in. I feel like there are many terms in the spiritual/self help arena that people use that aren't very clear and I'm not sure that they're ever really well defined. So, I was hoping to do this series to shed a little more clarity on some of these terms. For this week, I was hoping to talk a little bit about "clearing your energy" or "cleansing your energy".

So, when might you need to clear your energy? When you're feeling a little bit heavy, you're feeling a little bit scattered, a little bit sad, or a little bit anxious. Sometimes you may be experiencing these undesirable feelings and maybe you're not even sure why you're feeling some of these. Sometimes what can happen is we can pick up energy from others around us. When you're in a crowded environment around a lot of people, you may pick up the energy from others (the frequency that they are putting out into the world), and some of the emotions that they are feeling. It can be helpful from time to time to clear your energy, as well as the energy of a room or a house or an environment.

There are several ways that you can do this, and one of them is using sage or Palo Santo. Sage is sold in little dried bundles and you can buy them anywhere in local natural shops or on Amazon even. What you'll do is burn the end of the bundle for just a short period and blow it out, and then spread the smoke around the environment. It's good to have the windows open during this process to help with the clearing. Palo Santo is another option for clearing out a space. Palo Santo is a considered a holy wood, and this wood is only harvested once the tree has naturally fallen. They don't cut down the trees to harvest the wood. I personally prefer the scent of the Palo Santo better than sage, it has a really nice sweet scent to it, and both will help to cleanse or clear the energy of a space or yourself. You can also use the smoke (carefully!) around yourself with the intention of clearing your energy as well.

Another method you can use for clearing your energy or cleansing your energy is using crystals. A really great one is Selenite. Selenite is a really nice cleansing, clearing crystal. You will just pass the crystal over your body while holding the intention to clear your energy. You can also keep them around your home to help cleanse the energy of your space.

Another one is water. Water is a very cleansing, clearing element. Taking a bath with Epsom salt or sea salt can also be really cleansing and clearing. Other ways to utilize water to cleanse or clear your energy is through a shower or swimming in the ocean or other natural waters.

Next, meditations can be a great cleansing practice. There are many meditations that are meant for clearing your energy. I have one that I've recorded (I can attach below) that visits each of the seven chakras and sets the intention of clearing each one, helping the energy to flow through each, so that the energy flows through your system as it's supposed to.

Lastly, the practice of Reiki can be an excellent way to clear your energy. Reiki is an energy healing modality that works to re-establish balance within your energetic system. Negative stored energy is released and your chakra system is cleared so that energy can flow through the system. Following a Reiki session, you will feel lighter, balanced and more grounded.

So those are some ideas for cleansing and clearing your energy. After clearing your energy, you'll notice lightness ... lightness in the room ... lightness in your body ... an overall feeling of balance and lightness.

So that's what the phrase "clear your energy" means ... to let go of any energy that's not your own ... let go of energy that is negative ... let go of any energy that's not serving you and keeping you moving forward in a positive manner.

The "Just Fold it in" Series: Grounding

This week I wanted to start a new series. I'm going to call it the, "Just fold it in" series. So if you're not familiar, there's a show called Schitt's Creek. In this show there's a scene where the mother is telling the son to just "fold in" the cheese into the dish that they're making. He didn't understand what she meant by "just fold it in" and she kept saying "just fold it in". This was a very funny scene, but I feel like it relates to a lot of these spiritual terms that people throw out, and a lot of times we're not always exactly sure what they're talking about. Most of the time they don't actually ever get defined well enough and we're left confused and unsure. So one of those terms for me was grounding. People would say you need to ground yourself or you have to ground your energy. I felt like in the beginning of my journey, everyone kept saying, "just ground your energy" and I was like, Okay? What? So it felt like that "just fold it in" scene for me. So I was hoping to do this series to hopefully bring a little more clarity to some of these terms.

For today, I want to talk about grounding, or grounding your energy. This practice is very important and helpful and it's not as complicated or involved as it sounds. So first I'll start with why what grounding is, why you might want to do it, and when you might need to do it. So grounding basically means to bring yourself back to the present moment, to immediately connect within, and to connect with your physical environment and your physical body. Grounding is pulling your mind back down, out of that other time/other place where it is. It's about balancing your energy between the spiritual, emotional, mental, and the physical. So, anchoring is another good word for it, anchoring yourself here in the physical body in the physical environment where you are.

Sometimes we can find ourselves getting lost in our mind and in our thoughts. Even possibly our spiritual connection can at times leave us feeling disconnected. We also need to make sure that we are balancing our energy and connecting back with the physical because we are here on Earth and in our physical bodies.

The question now is, when might you want to do this? You might want to do some grounding exercises when you feel scattered, or disorganized. When you notice that you are all over the place, when you're making mistakes left and right, when you can't get yourself together, it may be time for some grounding. Also, when you're feeling anxious or you're focusing too much on the future grounding will be helpful. Also, when you're feeling really disconnected from reality, or disconnected from others. Any kind of disconnection is a sign that it's time for some grounding. Lastly, if you're feeling really depressed, or really stuck on past experiences, and you find you are continuing to ruminate over and over, you might want to bring in a grounding exercise.

There are several different ways that you can ground your energy and there's no wrong way. Find what resonates for you and what feels right, or just doing whatever you can remember in the moment. I think sometimes we don't do practices that can be helpful for us because we get stuck on trying to do things perfectly.

The first way you can ground your energy is to connect with nature. Whenever you're in nature, that's a great start. Feeling your bare feet on the earth is a really great way, feeling the grass, or the dirt. Being in the ocean. Being at any natural water source, listening to the sounds of nature, or observing nature, just getting out there is the number one way you can start to ground yourself and bring yourself back to this physical connection with the physical.

The second way to ground your energy is through visualization exercises. This is one that I often do and is really my go to. I use this a lot as part of my Reiki sessions for others too. When I am working with a person who has a lot of anxiety, or has a very busy mind, I'll try to help by doing some visualization exercises during our session to ground them. These exercises will help to bring them back down, keep them feeling stable and steady. When we're anxious we're not feeling safe or secure. That's part of what grounding is about. So one type of visualization you can do is to picture roots growing from the bottom of your the soles of your feet, and then the visualizing those roots growing deeper through the building, down through the floor of the building, down through the ground underneath, and all the way to the core of the Earth. I sometimes visualize those roots going out connecting to all living beings. This exercise will also help us to remember that we're all one and that we're all connected. When you visualize that nice, deep root system, it helps to give a feeling of security, that we're connected to this earth, and that we have a nice stable wide base to help us be steady.

The next exercise you can use to ground your energy is a one-minute, 5...4...3...2...1 countdown. When we do this we're going to use our five senses, which are always here in the physical. For this exercise you will start by noticing five things that you can see in your immediate environment. Then noticing four things that you can hear in the present moment. Then noticing three things that you can feel in that moment. Then noticing two things that you can smell, and then ending with one deep breath. Don't worry if you mix up which number goes with which sense! It doesn't matter! This is another great exercise to pull you out of your mind and into the present moment, and help you to connect with your immediate physical environment. This is a great strategy because it only takes one minute to do, you can do it anywhere, and you can do with your eyes open. So, whenever you're feeling scattered or anxious, just do a quick 5,4,3,2,1.

Another way is holding, carrying or meditating with grounding crystals. So there are certain crystals that are really great for grounding. One that I used a lot in the beginning of my journey that I really like is, hematite. Hematite is a darker gray crystal that is usually very shiny. Black Tourmaline and obsidian are two other crystals that are great for grounding. Those are just three, but there are many other grounding crystals. Usually you'll find that they are a darker color. They're going to be gray, black, or dark reds. You can put them in your pocket and keep them with you (my favorite), you can sleep with them under your pillow, or you can do some kind of meditation while holding them.

Lastly, physical exercise, outdoors would be better because you can connect with nature at the same time.

So, those are five ways that you can ground your energy. I'm hoping that this, "Just fold it in series" will be helpful for you.

The first term in this series that we talked about was grounding. Basically I am trying to bring some clarity to these spiritual terms that get thrown out a lot. Grounding again is, pulling your energy back to center, back to the present moment, feeling connected with your physical body, your physical environment, and feeling safe, stable and secure.

I hope that that is helpful for you, and please let me know if you have any more terms that you would like to see explained or talked about further. Also, let me know in the comments if you have any other grounding exercises that you'd like to do.

Worthiness ... Time for Healing

We've talked previously about the awareness of our body, our physical body, emotional, energetic bodies, all that it entails. I talked a little bit about how Reiki can help on all levels on all three of those levels and even in ways that we don't realize. In addition to awareness, we also need to feel worthy. I think many of us struggle with the worthiness of healing. Do we deserve to have this healing? This may not be on a conscious level, but if we felt worthy, then would we put the time aside for it? So I feel like that's the first part of the worthiness right is using our time. How do we prioritize our time? What are we allocating time for and who or what is at the top of the list? If we really are in search of healing ... if we really are in search of something more and better for ourselves ... if we want to be free of pain ... if we want to move forward with goals ... if we want to heal from past issues that we've been hanging on to, then maybe worthiness is the place to visit. Are we worthy enough to receive healing for ourselves? Do we deserve to put this time aside for ourselves every day, every week, every month towards our healing?

Addressing our healing can take place in many forms. I just wanted to put that out there today and see your thoughts. Maybe it's time to check in with your worthiness, check in with what might be stopping you for prioritizing your healing, prioritizing time for yourself each day. It might be time to schedule a doctor's visit, schedule a massage, an counseling appointment or maybe an appointment with an energetic Reiki healing practitioner ... whatever it is that you feel like might be on your healing path right now. Are you putting that time aside for you and what you need? If not, maybe it is something to think about in terms of worthiness. Do I feel worthy enough for this or are others more important than my own healing than my own well being? This might be a tough question. I send this message out with all the love in the world, because it is something that I also need to constantly look at and address myself. I know that you nurturing, loving, giving people want everyone else to be well and we want them to feel loved.

There was a message that came through on one of my morning messages from spirit ... "Heal thyself, heal the world". I think a very important message to remember that if we do want to heal the world and help everyone starting from within, is first. Really starting to address our issues, give ourselves the love and compassion that we deserve, and provide ourselves with the time to do this work and to refuel, refocus, reset and heal.

Symptoms of an Imbalance in the Chakra System

Last time we spoke, we spoke about the our energetic system (The Chakra System) of our body. We talked about the seven main chakras that run down the midline of our body, and they are just another level of our body. We have our physical body, our emotional, mental and our energetic body. I think that we oftentimes underestimate how much of an impact our life force energy has on our lives. Today I'd like to talk about how we can know if there is an imbalance in our energetic system. So that's the ultimate goal ... to be balanced. Ideally we want each of our chakras to be spinning freely with no blockages. Often if there is a blockage, if one of our chakras is blocked or underactive, it can throw off the whole system and can cause another chakra to be overactive. You'll see different symptoms when they're over or under active, but ultimately we want them all flowing freely, the whole system working as one, working as a whole. Today I'd like to go through each of the chakras and talk about some symptoms (physical and or emotional symptoms) that you may see in your body if you have an imbalance in that chakra.

So, first we have number one, our root chakra down at the base of our spine. For this chakra, some of the symptoms of an imbalance you may see are: financial worry, some stress over money, not feeling connected to others, difficulty with the male reproductive organs (if you're a male), the prostate, and/or constipation.

Next is the sacral chakra, which is the, the second chakra right under our navel. Symptoms you may see if there is an imbalance in this chakra are: issues with the female reproductive organs, difficulty with hip, pelvic, or lower back pain, urinary problems or kidneys issues, lack of passion for anything. Also, you may have sexual or reproductive health issues, difficulty expressing your emotions or desires ... since this is the center for our passion, creativity, and sexuality.

The next chakra is our solar plexus, which is our third chakra. That is located in our abdominal area right above our belly button. So, because of its location, you may see difficulties with digestion, any digestive issues, problems with pancreas or gallbladder, and issues with fatigue. Also, you may have a strong fear of rejection or be overly critical of yourself and have a really poor self image. This center deals with our personal power, confidence, and self esteem.

The next is our heart, our fourth chakra. Symptoms of an imbalance in this area include: upper back, shoulders, arm and wrist pain. You may have issues with jealousy, with being overly clingy in relationships, or have a fear of being alone. Also, you may experience difficulty letting others in (difficulty receiving love).

Next is our throat chakra, the fifth chakra. An imbalanced throat chakra may show symptoms of: issues with the thyroid, issues with sore throats, ear infections, neck and shoulder pain. Emotionally you may have a fear of not being in control of things, you may have difficulty expressing yourself (specifically, expressing your truth, what's truly inside your heart and what you really think).

Then there is our third eye chakra, which is the sixth chakra. Physically you may see headaches, you may see sinus pain, or any sinus issues. In terms of emotional symptoms, you may have difficulty trusting yourself (frequently looking outside of yourself for answers), or have frequent moodiness.

Lastly, there is our crown chakra, at the top of our head, our seventh chakra. If there is an imbalance here you may see, lack of inspiration, you might feel a sense of isolation or separation from others, and also may have some learning difficulties.

So those are the main seven chakras and signs that they may be out of balance ... signs that you may need to address your energetic system in some way. So I encourage you to just consider your energetic system, consider if your energy is a little off, if you're a little unbalanced in some ways. I would love for you to reach out if you have any further questions about this.

The Chakra System

Today I’d like to talk to you about our energetic body. Over the past couple months we've been talking about our physical bodies and our mental and emotional bodies. We discussed how our emotions and our thought patterns all have an energetic frequency to them. Our energetic body consists of many things, but one of the main components is the chakra system. So chakras are our main energy centers that are located along the midline of our body, and they run along the line of the vagus nerve, which is the main nerve of our body. I find that very interesting that there's an acknowledgement of the energetic effect on our physical body and our physical well being. The vagus nerve innervates all the organs of our body and that also is something that we'll see in the patterns of our chakra centers. Each chakra will correspond with a physical part of our body as well as the emotional side. Today I wanted to just talk a little bit about each of them and what they govern ... what are the areas that they oversee.

So, the first chakra, the root chakra, is at the base of our spine. It is represented by the color red. This deals with our safety, stability, connection to nature, and connection to our tribe. Financial security would be under this this chakra as well. So, if we're seeing any disturbances in any of those areas there may be blockages in our root chakra.

Next is our sacral chakra, which is represented by the color orange. It is located right below the belly button. This center involves our creativity , our passion, and our sexuality. This is our birthing center ... birthing literally or birthing ideas and and projects. Each chakra also has a physical area that you could see some disturbances in if they aren't functioning. In Sacral Chakra we're talking about the organs of reproductive organs.

Then we have our solar plexus chakra, which is represented by the color yellow. It is located right above the belly button, and physically it governs our digestive system. The emotional counterpart deals with our personal power, our self esteem or self worth. You may see someone who's struggling with self worth ... struggling with self esteem, will also have issues with their digestion.

The next is our heart chakra, represented by the color green, and located at the heart center. This is our love center ... self love ... love for others ... giving and receiving love. It involves feeling worthy of love, easily letting our guard down and letting people love us freely and giving love to others without fear.

The next is our throat chakra, and is represented by the color blue. This area involves our true expression of ourselves ... the genuine, authentic expression of us. It involves speaking up for ourselves ... holding boundaries that we need for our well being. Expressing our true selves is the key there. Speaking up when we need to and not always biting our tongue and keeping the peace. Physically this chakra governs the structures of the throat (i.e. thyroid, etc.).

The next is the third eye chakra, located between the eyebrows, and that is represented by the color indigo. This centers around our intuition, that's is ... trusting ourselves, trusting that what we have inside of us, trusting the messages that we hear, trusting our gut instincts. Physically this area governs the pituitary gland, eyes, head, and lower part of the brain.

The last is our crown chakra, that's our seventh chakra, up at the crown of our head, and it's represented by the color violet or white. It is our connection to the divine, our connections to Universal Consciousness ... to God. It is that connection to divine and feeling connected, feeling like there's that communication.

So those are our seven main chakras, that run the midline of our body. The idea is that we want all of these to be functioning as a system. We want the energy to be flowing through the whole system without any impediment, without any blockage. What you'll see, it's like the circulatory system where we want our blood to flow freely through all of our veins. It's the same concept with our energetic system. We want this energy flowing through our body to promote optimal wellness. If there any blockages, if there's an area that we're not taking care of, then that's when we'll see some manifestations of physical or emotional unwellness.

If you have any questions about the energetic system please let me know!

Thoughts are Energy

We have been talking previously about energy in terms of the physical body and physical wellness. Now I'd like to shift a little bit to talking about how energy can help with our mental wellness and emotional wellness. So everything is made of energy ... our thoughts are energy and therefore have an energetic frequency attached to them. If we want to bring good things into our life (i.e. good experiences, good opportunities), we need to have those thoughts that are a match for that. We need high vibrational thoughts that are a match for those high vibration experiences that we want to bring into our lives. That's the first way that thoughts can be really powerful. When we're constantly thinking these negative thoughts (i.e. thoughts of self-doubt, worrying thoughts, thoughts projecting the negative possibilities), then that's the vibration we're operating at and therefore unconsciously bringing in those low vibration experiences that we don't want in our life. Unfortunately, creating this loop now where we're being validated that these bad things always happen to us. If we want to take control of our lives then that's where we need to start ... with our thoughts. Everything starts with a thought. Everything that's ever been created, starts with a thought. So, if we want to create the life that we want ... we want to create happiness ... we want to create good experiences. Then we need to start with those thoughts. The scary part is that data shows that the majority of our thoughts are negative, and they're on this unconscious loop in our mind. So, to take control and be back in control, we need to have, choose a conscious thought to replace with.

Secondly, our thoughts are powerful in that we can create a filter through which we see our life. This is also a scientific concept that there is a component to our brain that is called the reticular activating system. This is a bundle of nerves that are located at the base of our brainstem, and its job is to filter out all the unnecessary information so that we can zero in on what we're focusing on. If we are consciously choosing these high vibration positive thoughts, then our brain is going to help us filter out and focus on finding those good opportunities ... finding those high vibration experiences. If we want those good experiences, it's going to start with our thoughts. It's going to start with us taking control and consciously choosing positive thoughts. This is something that I need to remind myself of frequently because the unconscious habit is is so ingrained in us that it does take some reminding.

I'm hoping that this today can serve as a reminder to get back in those habits of you CHOOSING your thoughts. I think sometimes we can be influenced by those around us, (because their thoughts and their feelings have energy that they're sending out). So we need to be careful that we're not taking on those by those frequencies from others. the news that we watch the, the movies. I'd like to encourage you to be careful about what we surround ourselves with ... the people that we surround ourselves with, the type of media that we consume.

I'd like to encourage you for this week (and hopefully forever), is to choose a positive, conscious thought that you're going to have running through your mind this week and see what happens. I think you'd be surprised. One that I really love is, "Everything always works out for me." That phrase can apply to so many different situations, in so many different ways. The great part is that we don't have to have it all figured out. We have this support system, we have the universe conspiring with us, that is waiting to help us. So, let's just put that out there ... "Everything always works out for me." Another simple, but powerful statement is, "I deserve good things." I think so often, we have this underlying worthiness problem at the at the root of a lot of our issues. Let's get into that frame of mind ... "I deserve good things", because we all do. Remembering the power of our thoughts, the power of being in control and consciously choosing our positive thoughts. Give one of those three (or your own) a try! Your reticular activating system will be looking for all those opportunities ... all those times that things are working out for you, and you'll continue to prove that to yourself.

Stress Stored in our Body

Our stress can be stored in our bodies and if this is not addressed if it's not released, then this can lead to those long term health effects such as illnesses, pain or other ailments that begin to develop or persist. This can include physical stress. For example, this could be a physical incident, such as where you were involved in an accident or suffered an injury of some sort or your body underwent surgery. This can also involve other emotional stress that we encounter such as a specific instance or the long term day to day stress that begins to build up.

I find it very interesting to consider two different things when you're talking about this stored stress in our bodies. The first one is looking at the chakra system, our energetic system. We have seven main chakras that run down the midline of our body and if you're looking at a certain area that you're having issues with, for instance, if you're having digestive issues, you can look at the solar plexus chakra, and the associated emotional areas that it governs. So for the solar plexus, that's where where our personal power is held, our self esteem and our self worth. So, if you're having those digestive issues, you may consider looking at those emotional counterparts, and seeing if some work that can be done in those areas. That goes for all the other areas as well. If you're interested and you'd like some more information, please let me know and I can send information to you about what area chakra covers. Sometimes you'll see a connection between that physical ailment that you're experiencing, and maybe you will recognize that there's some work to be done on the emotional side as well.

Then the other area that I'd like you to consider is looking at the time in your life when this ailment began. Was there an incident or some major stress that you were under when it began? Then maybe looking into working through that issue.

Lastly, I'd like you to consider energy work as a piece of that puzzle ... a piece to the puzzle of the healing process. So, I would love to help you in that area, but I want to first say that I'm not a mental health professional. First, I'd like to make sure that that is covered for you. If there are any emotional stressors or any traumas that you're dealing with, that you have the appropriate support in that area. But there also can be the energetic piece where some of this stress, some of this trauma maybe being stored in your body. Energy work can help to release that ... to help stuck energy, that toxic energy, be released from your body, making room for more positive energy to come in ... making room for more of what you want to receive into your life and help you to move forward and away from some of that stress that you want to let go of.

I encourage you to really start thinking about these physical ailments and realizing that we don't have to accept always not feeling well. We can look at putting all the pieces together to help with our healing and help move us forward.

Affirmations … What are you sending out to the universe?

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.” ― Mahatma Gandhi.

As we go through our days we have a running loop of thoughts.  The question is, are these thoughts supporting you or bringing you down?  This is where affirmations come in.

What are affirmations?  Affirmations are positively phrased statements that are reviewed in your mind, stated out loud or written down to reinforce a new belief that you desire to hold about yourself or about the way the world works.  

Affirmations work in two ways.  

First, using affirmations is like a filter for your mindset.   When you affirm something such as, “Everything always works out well for me”, your mind will automatically start to look for evidence to prove this statement.  Unfortunately, it also works the opposite way.  For example, if you are saying to yourself, “This is not my day!”, your mind will have a filter on that looks for the bad parts of your day and you will easily overlook all the good parts of your day.  This also encourages us to interpret all events in a negative way.  There is a quote from Eckhart Tolle that states that it is not what happens to us that causes suffering but the story we tell ourselves about what happened to us.  

Secondly, affirmations work with the laws of energy.  It is scientifically known that thoughts are energy.  When we have a thought we are putting out a certain vibrational frequency depending on the type of thought.  Every thought has an influence on us and everything around us; therefore, we need to be very aware of what it is that we are sending out into the universe. 

We are able to choose one thought over another.  What are you going to choose?  Let’s choose to support ourselves.  Let’s choose to bring in good energy into our lives!

- Amanda 

The Chakra System

We are not just a physical body! Just as important as it is to keep our physical body healthy, it is equally important to check in with the health of our energetic system! There are 7 main chakras that make up our energetic system and each one governs the functioning of different physical and emotional areas. Chakra is Sanskrit for “wheel of light”. These energy centers work in partnership with your life force energy (in different traditions named: “Chi”, “ki”, “prana”). The chakras are aligned vertically from the base of the spine to the crown of the head aligning with our body’s endocrine system and nervous system. Each chakra positioned at one of the endocrine glands and running along the vagus nerve (the main component of our parasympathetic nervous system - “rest & digest”). The connection of the chakras with these systems is support of the idea that health is holistic, where the system is working together as a whole to maintain health. When there is a blockage of the energy flow or the particular chakra is under-active or over-active you can see a manifestation in the physical body and/or in our emotional well being.

1st - Root Chakra

Associated Endocrine Gland: Adrenal

Color: Red

Element: Earth

2nd - Sacral Chakra

Associated Endocrine Gland: Ovaries/Testicles

Color: Orange

Element: Water

3rd - Solar Plexus Chakra

Associated Endocrine Gland: Pancreas

Color: Yellow

Element: Fire

4th - Heart Chakra

Associated Endocrine Gland: Thymus

Color: Green

Element: Air

5th - Throat Chakra

Associated Endocrine Gland: Thyroid

Color: Blue

Element: Ether

6th - Third Eye Chakra

Associated Endocrine Gland: Pineal

Color: Indigo

Element: Light

7th - Crown Chakra

Associated Endocrine Gland: Pituitary

Color: Violet

Element: Cosmic Energy/Thought