Tips for Everyday Wellbeing

On April 23, 2015April 23, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, Gaia & Elementals3 Comments

I am often asked by friends and clients about ways to stay grounded, protected and present in their lives. In essence, what they are asking for is how to stay in touch with the true essence of who they are, and to retrieve that place of inner wellbeing when its interrupted by life events and circumstances. These days I’ve been struggling a little with staying balanced and aligned with my inner harmony, so I thought I’d post some of my favorite tips and exercises.

Many things can make us feel ungrounded, as though we are not wholly present inside of our bodies. If you find yourself ungrounded, try the following and add to them your own variations:

Becoming a Tree: Stop what you are doing and pull your awareness back to your body. Take some deep breaths in through your nose and bring the air deep into your belly before your exhale. After 2 or 3 breaths, begin to imagine you are a tree. Your feet are your roots and you are extending and growing these roots deep into the heart of Earth. Visualize and feel this if you can. When you have reached the heart of Earth, begin to draw, with your breath and intention, the healing and grounding energy (I like to imagine it as a red color) of Earth up through your extended roots, through the soles of our feet, and into every cell in your body. Keep breathing the energy in until you feel grounded and balanced.

Activating the Earth Star Chakra: The Earth Star Chakra exists below the base of your spine (where your Root Chakra is) and acts to ground you to the energy of the earth. To ground yourself through the Earth Star Chakra, simply close your eyes, and with intention, mentally say the words “Earth Star Chakra Activate.” This is simple, but should be done with intention, and a few seconds of concentrated breath and mental imagery if you are a visual person.

Eating: We often become ungrounded when we are hungry. If you feel that this is the reason for feeling irritable or light-headed, choose a healthy, grounding food, such as nuts, lean meats, root vegetables or dark chocolate.

Stones and Crystals: If you feel that you are frequently ungrounded, consider carrying or wearing the following stones or crystals: black tourmaline, black obsidian, or moss agate.

Our bodies, just like the Earth, are constantly seeking a balanced and harmonious state, but many forces can off-set this. Here are some techniques for bringing balance back to your being:

Time in Nature’s Classroom: Time spent outdoors in nature will help your body realign into its natural rhythm. Of course, the more time, the better. In particular, I find walking in the woods to be incredibly healing and balancing. Other techniques include: walking barefoot over the substrate of Earth, doing yoga or tai chi outdoors (or indoors), mediating outside, and hugging or sitting under a tree (I like the energy of pines and maples for balancing).

Regular Exercise: Especially outdoors. Balancing exercises including walking, swimming, yoga and tai chi, which work to gently open and align our energy centers.

Eating Well: Everyone’s body is different, so learning what types of healing foods best balance your body is beneficial. It’s also important to drink water throughout the day. I find smaller meals more balancing than a couple of large meals. Also, try not to woof your food down, but chew thoroughly and add gratitude to your meals directed to the life sources you have derived your food from.

Stones and Crystals: There are lots to choose from. Some of my favorites are: rose quartz, amethyst, hematite and clear quartz. Choose the stone that you are drawn to. For example, you may be drawn to a red stone, indicating that your root chakra is out of balance, or a green stone because your heart chakra is closed off.

Art: I am using this term in the broadest possible way. Art comes in so many forms, and we are each born with our own unique expressions of it. Your art is what makes your heart and soul sing. For me, this is writing. What makes your heart sing? Try to nurture this energy through creative expression every day.

Water: Water is a natural balancer. It is the element of our emotions. Swimming, especially in a natural body of water, can be incredibly balancing, especially with gentle strokes or floating. Baths are also balancing. I try to take a cleansing/balancing bath at least once a month and always feel more peaceful afterwards.

Daily Meditation/Mindfulness: Spending even just a few minutes a day in mindfulness or the quite space of a meditative state can do wonders for our emotional and physical wellbeing. There are many resources available to assist you with this practice online and in bookstores. But, it need not be complicated. Closing your eyes, sitting comfortably, and relaxing with deep, belly breathing, will help bring you to a state of inner harmony. When thoughts pester your mind, allow them to flow through.

Many of us, unintentionally, pick up emotions and energies that are not ours, or are not in alignment with our inner harmony, throughout our days. These energies can make us irritable, anxious, angry, tired and argumentative. Here are some simple ways to cleanse these energies:

Imagine a Waterfall: Close your eyes, if you are able to (e.g., don’t do this while driving) and imagine you are standing under a beautiful waterfall. Feel the energy of the water pounding like a drumbeat over your body, vibrating your cells back into alignment. Stay in this energy for as long as you feel you need cleansing and give gratitude for the element of water.

Standing under Falling Water: Standing under an actual waterfall outside, or the waterfall of your shower, will naturally cleanse your body of impurities, including emotional ones, especially when done with intention. Ask the water to help cleanse you of emotional baggage, and feel the unwanted energies leave your body, carried with gratitude by water into Earth where they are recycled into new growth. Give thanks to the water and Earth. Since many of us shower or bathe everyday, this is a great opportunity cleanse emotional energies.

Cleansing Baths: Take a cleansing bath at least once a month, to which you might add: sea or epsom salts, apple cider vinegar, baking soda, and/or essential oils. There are many recipes online for cleansing and detox baths. Choose what feels right for you, while being cautious not to over-due it.

Cutting cords: I like to call in the energy and assistance of AA Michael and his Sword of Truth when I feel that I have energetic cords that need to be cut. This could include attachments of energies that you know exist between you and another person that are based on fear, and not love, or cords that you feel binding you, but are unsure where they come from. To cut cords, try to enter into a quiet, meditative-like state, and visualize or feel the energy of AA Michael as you call in his presence. Feel and visualize his sword gently, but decisively, cutting the etheric cord(s) that are not wanted. Feel and visualize your energy returning whole to yourself, with the unwanted energy returning to source. Ask for non beneficial energies to be transmuted into the energy of “love, light, peace and happiness,” and give thanks.

As mentioned above, some of us, especially empaths, take on energies that are not harmonious to our wellbeing. There are various ways we can protect our energy fields from these absorptions. Here are a few:

Calling in the Cloak of Archangel Michael: AA Michael wears the blue cloak of protection and carries the shield of truth. You may call in this energy at any time, or perhaps you want to start each day by evoking it. You may also call it in for your children, or other minors, to help shield them. To do this, ask AA Michael to cover you (or your child) with his blue cloak. Imagine and/or feel this blue, shielding energy moving up from your feet, your legs and torso, and over the back of your head, like a cloak. Give thanks.

The Gold Energy of Source and Metatron: I like to use AA Metatron’s energy and/or the gold energy of source to shield myself, groups of people, and even the planet. It’s a powerful, gold energy comprised of the highest frequencies of love/light. This is a shielding of absolute love, and should be done with this intention. Imagine this energy as a golden ball of light, and extend it out as large as needed. Again, give gratitude.

Stone and Crystals: For extra protection, you may want to wear or carry close to you, shielding stones or crystals, or make a medicine bag of small stones to wear around your neck. These may include: amethyst, rock quartz, bloodstone, black onyx, black tourmaline and citrine. Use, with intention, what stones feel right for you.

The Imprint of Fear

On April 21, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, Memoir4 Comments

The pain I was trying to release was jagged and sharp. Imagine light trapped behind clouds for 40 years. Imagine the imprint of a hand on a face that wasn’t mine. A memory only a young, open child can create and trap, even though she didn’t see the hand. Ah, but that tangled cord that binds a child to her mother’s womb is hard to break, and some of us walk the path of our mother’s darkness for years before we free our own light.

We carry our mothers’ wounds like armor. We carry them with the fierce loyalty of guarded love, until we realize that the burden is not ours to harbor. I thought I had let the memory go. I no longer felt the quickening of heart when I thought about my parents’ rage clashing into lightening. I no longer felt the paralysis of fear when I recalled my impulse to save her.

But, the imprint of the memory still lingered, embedded so deeply inside the right side of my head, I grappled physical pain as I worked to release it. With the the memory, my young mind had also sheltered darkness, and the notion that any expression of my inner light/truth would result in pain and harm.

I was born into a legacy of silencing, my fears fed with her stories of abuses and incest. There was no surprise that I had trapped my earliest memory and almost made it my soul’s truth, a shadow that would hover for decades over my light.

The letting go is almost as painful as the holding on.

Why do we fear light? Why do we doubt the power of love? We live in a world of abundance, yet we trap ourselves in our fears, even when they are not ours. We turn to war and conflict more easily than we turn to love. Thus we fight to keep our fears alive, instead of letting them go, even though our souls crave light. We long for it not only in ourselves, but in others. We crave union, we crave harmony and balance, but chaos is allowed to reign. Fear is a shadow that blinds our inner truths, but we may choose whether to walk the path of its darkness.

Open

On April 3, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn Poems2 Comments

Open

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you” – Rumi

I enter the womb to release

rejection. Love sings through blood

to churn this muddied river. Her mother

was a bastard-child born into hunger

fed on want and the dust of lies

but she gave me the name Truth

forgetting what I would remember

to wash the film of hate

Indifference is a rip

-tide. Despair, the sandy

floor. Light is the sky

of the heart and I rock

my body

open

A Re-union of Self

On March 20, 2015March 20, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn PoemsLeave a comment

She danced into spring

in a red dress

She was fire

catching life. Unbounded

Unbridled. And he watched

from the center, steady

yielding to her energy

as it spread, opening

to the rise of need

A red bud

unfolding into wings

They met at the center

where he waited

becoming one

an expansion of flame

dancing

against night

Visions of Change

On March 19, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn Memoir2 Comments

Last night, before falling into sleep, memories from high school returned to me, one in particular. The day I was asked to be year book editor. See, despite everything, you still shined, was the message I received with the memory, and the idea that someone saw a gift I embodied to fill this role. A voice worth hearing.

The truth is, I swallowed my voice the vast majority of the time. People thought of me as shy and reserved, if they did not really know me. Some considered me a snob. Most did not see the scared, paranoid child living inside. And, there were the few (but it was enough) that fed upon my insecurities and caused a great deal of torment, anguish and paranoia.

Yet, still I shined. This is the message I was being asked to hear, to see, last night. Despite the internal and external battles I felt I was waging both at home and at school, I persevered. I never gave up. I never gave in. Instead I shined my light to the best of my abilities.

So today I am remembering the light, and the “Visions of Change” I held onto. I am remembering the steady voice of the accomplished young lady who stood above a crowd of gatherers and talked about how the past can become a marker, but not a place to stay. I am remembering the beauty of her soul and her truth. I am remembering her strength.

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Twinned Flame

On March 13, 2015March 14, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn Poems6 Comments

Twinned flame

I unfolded the black body
of night to find light
in the center. Warmth
spun a silk cocoon
around my heart, uniting
the orange fire we share

Twin soul, I see you
mirrored in flame. Me.
You. Black. White. Yin.
Yang. Darkness. Light.
The half of a whole
that is me. You, though,
are the side that wavers,
too light for solid form

Intangible, switching sides
I see you best unfocused
The light within, now without
until I bring the hood atop
our flame and solitude falls
like a brick, crashing
density into this body
called life

And then there was Peace

On February 19, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Memoir6 Comments

Hers was the only aura I saw without trying. Violet, like the energy of St. Germain, extending from the tips of her fur in soft flames. It was four years ago, and we were walking in the woods. I began our daily journey together distraught. My physical and emotional worlds were burning in a dark chasm I’ll call fear. It was February, that month that tests the limits of endurance. Within the span of a few short days, every heating system in my home and in my body went on overload. The ancient furnace in the basement stopped breathing warmth and started emitting the poisonous gas that silently consumes the oxygen of life. The wood stove followed suit, deciding to search down, rather than up, for air, filling the house in a matter of panicked seconds with thick gray smoke. Fearing flames, I rushed my children, coatless, outside with Daisy and called the fire department. Then, the pellet stove decided it wanted to play the same game, vomiting an over-abundance of fuel that caught a fire that decided to breath in, instead of out, filling the house, again, with gray, suffocating smoke.

Sometimes the world outside mirrors the world inside, testing our ability to heal and release to the point of near collapse. That February day, after I safely shuttled the kids on the bus to school, I desperately sought release. Daisy, my faithful companion and guide, calmly led the way to the forest. Although it would have been impossible for her not to feel the fires raging through me, she was the epitome of peace.

It was the walk of dreams, where time stands sentinel to bare witness. Sound disappeared into the blanket of snow and waited for me to emerge whole again. Yet, the air was electric, so alive I could feel each silent heartbeat I passed, and the Earth held me in reverence, as I walked her body in sorrow.

Each footstep brought with it a memory of the little girl afraid of forests and the secrets hidden in shadows. I wept memory to release her, and in my pure and open need, Nature held me in the full, unconditional embrace of love.

I can recall the moment my eyes turned down to gaze upon my guide and caught the purple fire of her aura. She had quietly, with the energy of pure love, led me along the path of peace until the forest outside replaced the fear-filled forest of memory.

This is the energy that filled the space when she passed 8 days ago. When her soul released from her tired body, peace took over, filling the sorrow that pervaded our home and bodies. My children stopped weeping and quietly entered the energy they saw mirrored on my face. In those moments after release, we were filled with the joy of her surrendering to pure love. “Can you feel it,” I asked them, “can you feel it in your heart.” “Yes,” they whispered as they clutched their hands to their chests. She was there already, always, our Daisy, restoring us to peace as she had some many times before.

The house as body

On February 18, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

It seems I cannot decide which house to claim as my own. This is clear in my dreams. Too much clutter leaves the residue of frustration and anxiety. Unstable walls and floors, the fear of collapse. Some nights I build palaces that rival Versailles. I walk gilded halls and call them my own. The rooms are endless, each floor more brilliant than the one before. I am a vessel of unlimited creation, before I crumble back into a buried fear.

Last night, my house made me uncomfortable. The bedrooms extended into living rooms without doors. The kitchen needed updating. There was a graveyard outside my son’s window. My own bedroom opened into a balcony of trees, and my heart filled with joy as I imagined waking to the ever-changing scene of wildlife, until I saw the gaps under the floor, and the futile attempts to secure a house against the elements that would inevitably pervade the constructed space. Who was I fooling? I could not live here.

Yet, I could not leave. This was the house I had chosen. It was mine. So, I began to clear the rooms, freeing them of the energy called fear. I did it alone, using my hand to feel the unwanted vibrations, my breath to clear the energy into light. There was no sense of discontent. I was not discouraged that each room seemed to hold pockets of energy that needed to be cleared. I simply did what I needed to do to make my house my home.

Perhaps tonight I will build a palace again. I’ll use my hand to paint the forest on the walls, upon the ceilings I’ll map infinity in stars. When I am done, when my hand is tired and my palace is complete, I’ll let it crumble. I’ll watch the walls recede into the body of the Earth, the ceiling dissolve into the heavens, and then I’ll know I’ve come home.

Taking the lead #loss #grief

On February 16, 2015March 22, 2025 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Memoir3 Comments

Recall the Bird of Spring who appeared to me on the the 24th of January. I have not forgotten her, nor have I forgotten how she appeared in the days before the 11th. She often watched in silent vigil from the bush filled with winter berries in the neighbor’s front yard, while I waited for Alex to get off the bus. You were usually inside.

There was the flock of robins, Dad said there must have been 20, if not more, outside his office. Did you send them after you came to him in a dream, telling him you were leaving? I already knew. How could I not? I felt you release the tug on the orange nylon that bound us together months before you finally let go. I knew last summer you were patiently urging me to take the lead, knowing well before I did that I was ready. In the heartbeat of 5.5 years, you showed me how to walk the path of love, and to take the lead. The last 6 months were a gradual letting go, your final gift to me in your physical form.

Oh, but you knew I would weep and rage. You knew I would cling fiercely to the memory of the brown silk of your fur pressed against my lips, and feel of home when I wrapped my arms around your body. You knew that I would miss the tug-of-war, the constant test of who was in charge.

You knew I would hold on, even after I let you go. So you sent me robins and hearts. I saw the love that you wore on your face everywhere, in the days before you left, and even more now that you have crossed the rainbow bridge without me. One thought, and you are back. I see the symbol of your love burned into snow, etched in ice on windows and carved into the lifelines of wood. I saw your love two nights ago, when you sent me the barn owl (whose face is a heart) in the cypress tree. I see it each time I remember your face.

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Your rebirth into pure spirit was my letting go. To become my own spring and bloom new. Even though I still shed the waters of sorrow, my garden is ready to birth strength. How many nights, as I was preparing to let you go, did I dream of a home, my home, surrounded by the rebirth of life? I woke happy, filled with hope. Filled with promise.

Even the 3 crows that caught my eye, circling the invisible wheel, made me think of the magic of birth and not death. You were the 3rd, though, in a close trinity of passings. My days and nights were filled with the numbers 3 and 7, even when they appeared with the numbers 10 and 11. The 10th was the day I knew for sure you were leaving, the 11th, when I opened the door to let you go.

On the 8th, two days before I decided it was time, I saw two robins. That evening I fell into dreams of rebirth. I played through the game of life, recording scores, which reduced to the number 9, the cycle for birth. I searched tables of food and ate. I took the driver’s seat and drove, with the top open, over a bridge where above me a green wheel turned. I watched my child (who looks so much like me) let go and felt only peace as he released his hold. I turned back time and became a young woman again. It was summer, 74 degrees (reduces to 11), and I was among a crowd of peers heading down a hill to swim. At the intersection of paths, I decided to walk alone. I went to the rocky shore, instead of the sandy, sun-filled beach, and stripped bare of my white shorts and flowered blouse before I lay my body on the pebbles and let the water wash me clean. Here, I felt freedom. I felt release. I shouted back, fearless, to the girls who taunted me, calling them out for who they really were. I swam away from the boys who followed my naked form through the water, and pulled my clothes over my wet body before I walked back up the hill, alone. Later, in another dream, a messenger hugged me and told me it was time to surrender. To let [you] go. So I did.