How to Choose the Right Crystal for You

On June 20, 2019June 20, 2019 By jennaferfmIn Intuition Development, Spiritual Growth, UncategorizedLeave a comment

If you’re shopping for a crystal, but aren’t sure which one is the right one for you, here’s three ways to help you tell.

Tip #1: Choose a crystal by sight. When you’re browsing for gemstones and one catches your eye, it could be for you. You may also find yourself continuing to come back to it, or admiring it or thinking it is lovely, so purchase it and take it home.

Tip #2: Choose a crystal by how it feels. Touch is a terrific way to find the right crystal for yourself. If you pick up a crystal and you feel connected to it, or it makes you feel warmer or calmer or happier, then it might be for you.

Tip #3: Do research for the right crystal. Sometimes you need a crystal for a particular need–to help you relax, to strengthen your intuition, to aid in public speaking, etc.–and that’s when research will be your friend. Check out online sources for the kind of crystal that meets your needs, so you can choose the right one for you.

handful of crystals

Check out Jennafer’s video explaining this as well.

Use Your Imagination

On April 20, 2016 By jennaferfmIn Make a Difference, Moving Forward, Spiritual Growth, Uncategorized

imagination quote

Previously, I challenged you to accentuate the positive, with one of the ways to do that being describing what you’d like to see happen. But sometimes that’s a challenge if you haven’t done that before. And it all starts with your imagination.

Every invention began in someone’s imagination. Someone wondered “what if…?” and started the process of creating something no one had created before simply by imagining. We can do the same thing with our lives. What do you want? More energy? Balance? Time for yourself? Imagine it and give it energy. Even if you’re concerned that you’ll never get it or think the likelihood of getting it is low, try it and see how it goes.

“Instead of imagining the best [outcome], many people are in fear and imagine all the things that can go wrong.” – Rhonda Byrne

Thoughts have energy just like words. And your imagination is your thoughts with pizazz. Too often we use our imaginations to give life to our fears. But I’d like to give you three steps to using your imagination to give life to your dreams and creating a better life:

1. Picture it. When he was starting out as a comic, Jim Carrey shares in a 2014 commencement address that he made a practice of imagining himself being successful every day. That practice, along with his tenacity, set the energy for his realizing his dreams. That practice is not something that only Jim Carrey can do. Whatever you want, sit for five minutes and imagine what it would be like if you had it. What images do you see? What colors come up? What sounds do you hear? If blocks or challenges come up, set them aside and continue.

2. Feel it. Now that you’ve pictured it, what feelings come up during your imaginings? Did you feel peaceful? Happy? Strong? Pay attention to the feelings that come up and hold onto them. The sights you picture are important, but feelings can energize those thoughts in a way that pictures alone cannot do.

“It’s not what you know, but how you feel about what you know, that motivates you.” – Unknown

3. Create it. Now that you’ve imagined it, set out to create it. Keep in mind the pictures you imagined and keep the feelings you imagined in your heart. Then plan small, realistic steps you can take to make it happen, keeping focused on what you imagined. It may not be everything you imagined—in fact, the outcome could surprise you because it could turn out to be even more than what you imagined. But you will have created something that shortly before had only been in your mind. And your life will be enriched because of it.

What can you imagine today to make your life more what you want it to be? Try it and see.

“The world is but a canvas to our imagination.” – Henry David Thoreau

2 Tips to Help You Enjoy Each Moment

On May 20, 2015May 20, 2015 By jennaferfmIn Spiritual Growth, Stress Reduction

By nature, I’m a planner, list maker, and goal maker, so it’s not uncommon for me to be working on or thinking about more than one thing at a time. With my brain going in different directions, I often miss living in the present, let alone enjoying it. I’ve been working on improving this, and I’ve found that I’m a lot less stressed and much happier when I do. But it’s easy to slip back into multi-tasking mode. So how do you live in the moment when there are so many things demanding your time and attention? Here are two tips you can try today to not just live in the moment but enjoy it too.

1. Try doing just one thing at a time. Enjoying the moment means focusing on it, and that’s difficult to do when you’re doing more than one thing at a time. Try leaving the multitasking madness behind just for an afternoon or evening. Let go of the need to do a few things at once, and focus on each task individually. Relax and relish the moment simply by focusing on it. You’ll find yourself enjoying even the most mundane tasks more, and you’ll find that attention makes the end results all the better for your efforts. As Todd Henry says, “The greatest efforts in life are done with singular attention.”

2. Shut out thoughts about the future temporarily. Even if your body is only doing one task at a time, that doesn’t mean your mind is following suit. It’s pretty normal for our thoughts to wander. But to truly enjoy the now, your mind needs to be there as much as your body. How do you keep that mind on the now? According to Richard Moss, when we recognize we’re not in the present, concentrating on what we see, hear and experience in that precise moment will bring us back. This is also the way we can tame our egos and not let them take us out of the present into Worry Land. Once our brains are experiencing the moment, it’s much easier to enjoy it. Try it once or twice today when you catch your mind wandering or concentrating on worries. See if it helps you enjoy the moment more.

Silence Your Inner Critic

On April 27, 2015 By jennaferfmIn Moving Forward, Spiritual Growth, Uncategorized

I confess that I’m very hard on myself. Whether it’s because I’m the oldest child or a Capricorn or any myriad of other things, it’s just a fact of me. And because of this, when I fail to meet my own (often ridiculously) high expectations, I sometimes say unkind things to myself. I use mean, rude, awful words that I’d never dream of saying to anyone else. And I don’t just say these things once, let it all go and walk away. I often repeat them, berating and punishing myself.

During one berating spree, I happened to catch the television drama, Parenthood, and a character said something I needed to hear: “Life will knock you down more times than you can possibly imagine. Don’t knock yourself down.”

Why is it that we are almost always harder on ourselves than we are on others? Why can’t we give ourselves the same compassion and understanding that we give others so freely? And why do we even listen to ourselves when we get like that? Author Natalie Goldberg said “We follow that voice inside us as if it were God. But it’s really just a thought.” It’s so true: those awful things we tell ourselves really are just thoughts. So how can we silence them? I don’t know all the answers, but here’s what I’ve been trying.

Realize you’re being critical. Sometimes these reactions are so automatic we don’t even know we’re doing it. Like breaking any bad habit, realizing you’re doing it is the first step.

Tell yourself it’s just a thought and tell yourself to stop it. Just because you’re saying it to yourself—and just because you’re buying it—doesn’t mean it’s true. When you realize it’s just a thought, it deflates the intensity and the power it has over you and it’s easier to tell yourself to stop. By the way, I recommend telling yourself these things aloud if doing it silently doesn’t work. You may feel a little crazy at first talking to yourself, but it brings a conscious awareness that’s sometimes more effective than saying it silently.

Imagine what you’d say to a friend and say it to yourself. When you change the words you say, you change the energy being directed at yourself. That inner critic cannot thrive in that more loving kind of energy. And I recommend doing this one out loud for effectiveness too if needed. The weird stares you may get are totally worth the effectiveness.

These are the steps I’ve been trying that are helping me silence my inner critic and grow on my spiritual and emotional journey. I hope these tips help you too.

Be Open to Spiritual Guidance

On April 13, 2015 By jennaferfmIn Intuition Development, Moving Forward, Psychic Reading Benefits, Spiritual Growth, Stress Reduction, Uncategorized

It’s only human to feel stuck every once and a while. Life gets difficult and perspectives narrow, and we need a little help now and then. I know when that happens to me, I need a little guidance to help me widen my perspective.

When you feel stuck, where do you turn for help? Do you read an inspirational memoir or a self-help book? Talk to a relative, family member or a good friend? All of these are wonderful options to give you some needed perspective. But sometimes, the guidance I need is something beyond even the best friends or books. That’s when I’ve found being open to spiritual guidance can give me much-needed answers, direction, and peace.

You don’t have to be uber-religious or a Zen master to be receive spiritual guidance. You don’t even have to be certain what you think or believe about the metaphysical world. I’ve found that just have to be open to it for it to come. You just have to do three things:

1. Get quiet. It’s hard to receive answers when your mind is buzzing or you’re stressed or preoccupied with all of the noise that vies for our attention every day. Unplug and sit quietly. Go on a walk. Go to nature. Just remove yourself from your to-do list and the hustle and bustle long enough to hear something besides all of that.

2. Get centered. Get out of your head and into your body so when the answers come you can really recognize them. Here are 5 tips to help you.

3. Ask and listen. I’m not going to guarantee that you’ll physically hear a voice or you’ll see angels or a light or anything, because it’s not always like that. More often than not, when you really need answers and ask honestly, and when you’re quiet and centered, they come in various ways. Maybe they’ll come from inside of you and you’ll feel them suddenly or gradually. Or maybe the next time you talk to that friend or read that book or get a reading, the next thing you hear or read will be just what you need. But when you sincerely need something and are open to it, I believe the answers come.

The next time you feel stuck, be open to spiritual guidance. Whether it’s something with work or life, whether it’s something seemingly small or a pivotal life decision, spiritual guidance can help you navigate it with peace and assurance.

Like clouds parting, spiritual guidance gives you clarity and perspective.

3 Ways Intuition Speaks to You

On March 18, 2015January 22, 2021 By jennaferfmIn Intuition Development, Spiritual Growth, Uncategorized2 Comments

“But I want the big, booming voice,” my client, Kristen, protested. She’d come to me for a psychic reading, and during it, I’d shared messages and advice from her spirit guides. And while Kristen had confirmed that the messages had resonated with her, she admitted to being puzzled. She had received many of the same messages before her reading, but she had questioned them because they didn’t come in the form she expected: a big, booming voice telling her plainly what she needed to know.

I explained that I don’t hear a big, booming voice, either, that messages come to me in a variety of bits and pieces of impressions, pictures, feelings and words, rather than fully formed ideas. I then get to interpret them, putting them together like a puzzle picture coming together.

Kristen was amazed, because that’s the kind of tidbits of info she receives as well. She thought the absence of a big, booming voice meant her antenna for messages was somehow weak or out of order, but she was right in tune. She just didn’t know it.

Understanding how intuition speaks to you is the first step towards following and trusting it. Here are three ways intuition communicates.

1. Intuition speaks to us through synchronicities.

Not just the title to an album from The Police in the 80s, synchronicities are “meaningful coincidences of outer and inner events that are not themselves causally connected. The emphasis lies on the word ‘meaningful’. (Marie Louise von Franz)

Whenever two or more independent incidences of a theme/topic repeat, it could be a synchronicity. They can come from a phrase or sentence jumping out when reading to a friend saying just what you need to hear… anything. Intuition speaks through these meaningful coincidences, so being mindful of synchonicities is key to getting an answer you’re looking for. As Carl Jung said, “Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world.”

Try it: Put synchronicities to the test through this exercise:

After getting quiet and asking the divine/your guides/your higher self/your intuition a question, pay close attention for the next 24-48 hours to the conversation you have with others, the entertainment you watch/listen to, and the things you read. If you notice repeats of the same theme or topic happening independently of one another, then it could be an answer for you.

2. Intuition speaks to us through “clairs”.

A prefix meaning “clearly or clear”, “clair” is added onto other sensory words to describe the intuitive ways we receive information, guidance, or answers. Whether you clearly hear, see, feel, or know something without explanation, such as just knowing someone isn’t being honest or hearing a voice telling you to take a class to learn something new, this is another key way your intuition speaks to you.

clairvoyance = clearly seeing

clairaudience = clearly hearing

clairsentience = clearly feeling

claircognizence = clearly knowing

clairalience = clearly smelling

clairgustance = clearly tasting

Try it: Not sure which “clair” your intuition speaks through? Try this exercise to find out.

Get quiet. Take a few deep breaths. Ask the divine/your guides/your higher self/your intuition a question. Then pay attention to what you hear, see, feel, etc. to experience an answer. Which clair comes through for you?

3. Intuition speaks through symbols/dreams.

Dreams can hold the keys to our unconscious and are often the language of intuition. Look for recurring items and symbols in your dreams in terms of

1) what they actually do (for example, a car is a mode of transportation),

2) what they mean to you (a car may mean freedom, independence, mobility, etc.),

3) what they may represent in society or mythology (a car can mean status, industry, performance, etc), and

4) how they make you feel.

Then see what that item or symbol is doing in your dream to see what your intuition could be telling you.

Try it: Try this exercise to consciously call on your dreams to speak to you.

As you get ready for bed, take a few moments to get quiet. Take a few deep breaths. Ask the divine/your guides/your higher self/your intuition a question. Then pay attention to what dreams you have that night and write them down first thing the next morning. Did anything in your dream serve as an answer?

Want to learn more about trusting your intuition? Join Jennafer’s free class, 5 Tips to Trust Your Intuition.

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Category: Spiritual Growth