Awareness of Thoughts

Mind-watching is a simple method of starting to become aware of the activities of the mind. It focuses awareness on the moment and introduces objectivity and detachment. It is a simple technique which can be done several times a day.

Noticing your thoughts is a preliminary step towards meditation. Watching the movement of your thoughts and becoming aware of your thinking process is a first step in gaining insight.

Make yourself comfortable in a place where there are minimal outside stimuli. Settle your body. Relax and become aware of your breathing. Close your eyes.
Sit quietly and focus inward. Feel your body. Feel the movement in your chest as you breathe.
Thoughts will rise up in your mind. Allow this to happen with an attitude of detachment. Remain an observer. Simply notice what you are thinking.
If you do not engage with the thoughts, they will come and go. Allow them to move in and out of your field of focus. Notice the type of thought. Name it to yourself, planning, remembering, worrying, imagining, criticizing, and fantasizing.
Remain objective. Be aware of when you are starting to participate in the thought. Let go when you notice this happening. Return to simply observing.
When you are pulled into an obsessive thought, focus on your breathing. Take a couple of slow, deep breaths. Feel your chest expand. Feel your chest contract. Release the breath. Feel your body. Check that it is relaxed.
Sit quietly. Notice the next thought that arises. Name the thought. Sit quietly. Notice the next thought. Name it.
Continue watching your thoughts for at least five minutes at a time. Allow the process to happen without any judgement or interference. Just watch.

Ceremony for Success

Use an orange candle for this ritual because orange is associated with success, goals and ambition. It has the power of attraction and to change luck. Anoint the candle with oil to charge it with your personal vibrations and make it more effective. Using a few drops of bergamot essential oil wipe the candle from the base to the middle and then from the wick to the middle – concentrate on your desire as you do this so that it is transmitted to the candle, and hold the candle so that you make the strokes towards your body expressing drawing success towards you.

Place the candle in the centre of the altar. Arrange basil leaves around its base like the rays of the sun, and use cloves to make a spiral pattern around the candle, symbolizing growth and energy.

As you stand before the altar and light the candle, focus all your thoughts on achieving the result you desire. You can also write down your wish on a piece of paper, fold it twice and leave it under the candle, or burn the paper in the candle flame so that the wish is carried away on the smoke, all the time thinking clearly about what you want. Empowered by your magical efforts, you can follow them up with practical strategies to achieve the right outcome.

Herbs and Spices for Success
Basil: gives protection, repels negativity and brings wealth. Leaves carried in the pocket bring luck in gambling, scattered on the shop floor bring business success.

Bergamot: attracts success and prosperity. Rubbing the oil on money before it is spent will ensure the return of riches; the leaves in a purse attract money.

Cinnamon: draws money, protection and success.

Clove: banishes any hostile or negative forces and helps to gain whatever is sought.

Vervain: attracts money, protection and transforms enemies into friends.

Beach and Sea Visualization Exercise

Beach and Sea Visualization Exercise

This exercise is excellent for calming the mind, and also focuses your attention and stimulates your creative energies. As an aid to this exercise, try vaporizing a combination of essential oils in a diffuser; 2 drops each of lemon, juniper and cardamom is very uplifting. These aromas have a positive effect on mood and help to improve concentration.

Sit comfortably in an armchair, resting your hands on your lap, and your head on a cushion, dim the lights and relax.

Imagine that you are walking on a long stretch of white sandy beach, which you can see curving away towards the distant horizon. The temperature is warm and there is a gentle sea-breeze. The sun is shining brightly and you feel very comfortable. You walk slowly, and first you become aware of the sand through your toes. It is warm and silky soft to the touch; and every step you take is like a caress. Tiny grains glisten on your skin as you walk along.

You turn to look at the sea. It is quite calm, and a deep aquamarine blue, shining with lighter flecks of sunlight. You gaze for a few moments at the stunning blue colour, feeling it bathe your eyes. Then you walk down to the water, smelling the tang of salt, hearing the cry of seabirds and the sound of the waves. Pause foe a few moments and let the scene build in your imagination, let your senses create the impressions.

Now imagine that you are going into the water, tasting the salt on your tongue and feeling the tingling, rejuvenating effect of the sea, swimming without effort, still aware of the amazing aquamarine blue colour all around you. Feel how different it is to be in it as well as seeing it. Feel yourself supported by the water, the sun still shining brightly all around you.

You come back to the shore, and as you leave the water, feel how refreshed and revitalized you are. Take a few slow, deep breaths, flex your toes and fingers and let your awareness come back to the room.

Meditation to invite Fun into your Life

Meditation to invite fun into your life

- Sit comfortably, making sure the flow of energies up and down your spine is unimpeded. Settle into your breathing, becoming intimately aware of every breath. Surrender into the breath. At the same time as you are conscious of your breathing, become aware of the rise and fall of your stomach. After a while, add to this an awareness of your heartbeat. Feel these three activities taking place within the framework of your body. Now let go into the magnetic pull of earth’s gravity. Feel as though you are letting go into the arms of the Divine Mother, relinquish all control and sense the support you are given, the way you are held and how you automatically let go any tension in your body. It is a wonderful feeling.
- Ask your Higher Self to give you a container for the fun. Imagine slowly and gradually, a vast 3-dimensional web where the lines are constructed of threads of light, slowly descending to surround your body and aura, approximately an arms length from your body. Feel yourself in it.
- Starting at the base, take two or three breaths into each chakra to open them. (Don’t labour this stage. It goes quickly and easily and if it is too difficult to work with all the chakras just focus on your heart centre. It will work just as well.) When you have completed opening each vortex, imaginatively feel you have seven openings in your body. Continue breathing consciously and gently, and as you exhale bring through each opening beautiful, subtle rose-pink light. Let this spread into the web of light in and around you. Fill this web with more and more rose-pink light.
- With your inner eye, now breathe a gentle orange light through the chakra openings to add to the rose-pink light. Watch the two colours mix and gradually transform into a beautiful peach colour within the light web. After a while, long enough for you to sense you have really bathed in this peach colour, breathe brilliant white light through the chakra vortexes and again, rest in this, held within the web. Feel your sense of lightness and fun in the cells of your physical and emotional body. Your Higher Self now gives you a wand. Make this truly a delight; the end could be a twinkling star, a sparkler, a light-filled crystal, a rainbow. This is for you to wave over any person, task, challenge or situation to transform it with lightness and fun. Be grateful as you feel your new energy.
- Well done. Take your time and breathe yourself back into your body, being very present within your physicality; bones, blood, skin, and flesh. Only when you are fully present in your body, get on with your day, with fun and lightness, of course.

Divine Patience

Divine Patience

Our creator's patience is immense as he awaits for a soul to evolve. each moment, each stage, each level or degree, occurs just at the right time and no sooner.

The creator knows that nothing happens by chance and that one step comes after another, each one in its own turn. On this planet, we need wisdom in order to evolve and wisdom comes with experiencing all these stages of growth. It is slow and gradual, one step at a time after focusing and learning each lesson and this is why it takes so long and it is of no use to try and speed up the process.

We should therefore acknowledge the creator's patience with our spiritual growth. He has an unending supply of patience and has always been there for us living a human life experience, step by step, lovingly supporting us all throughout the process.

The Victim Syndrome

The Victim Syndrome

A soul on a path of self-victimization will return in similar circumstances and each incarnation tends to be progressively harsher until the soul reaches the limit and hits rock bottom in order to then look up and emerge victorious in this way, one journey after another, thus bringing about a choice made in the right direction.

Victims have only one choice: to turn against self-victimization and realise that the only way to go is away from it and move on.

A being who places blame on others for the state he finds himself in, is in a bottomless pit of misery.

A being who accepts responsibility for his own acts, opens himself up for a better future and a world of possibilities, through learning and showing the courage to take action and accept the consequences of that action.