Change of blog location

Just a quick post to let you know that I am moving my blog, if you have this one saved, or subscribe to the RSS feed, please change to this site http://www.helenleathers.com/blog/ ?

Why? Well, I'm revamping things online and have a very exciting new project in the offing. Do keep in touch via my new blog, on Facebook or on twitter (@HelenLeathers)  to find out what I'm up to and make sure you don't miss out on anything!

Bright Blessings
Helen

Crystals for creativity

Following on from my last blog I though I might suggest some crystals that could enhance your creativity. I love crystals and find they have a powerful impact on me and what's going on around me. If you've never used them, why not give it a go?

Creativity is associated with the 2nd, or sacral chakra, just below the belly button. The traditional colour for this chakra is orange, so most orange-coloured crystals will help with your creativity. But I also think it's worth looking at some that might help to open up the third eye or brow chakra as this are associated with visualisation and 'seeing' new ideas as well as inspiration.

Suggested crystals for creativity are:
Aventurine to release blocked creative flow and activate your imagination.
Moonstone to release blocked creative flow and to connect with intuition and goddess energy.
Amber promotes creative self expression.
Tiger's eye helps released blocked creativity and in recognising one's own natural talents and abilities.
Green tourmaline rejuvenates and inspires creativity and draws the wearer towards prosperity and abundance.
Citrine is associated with creativity, abundance and opening up to intuition. It also enhances individuality and self-expression and encourages you to explore new things and move forward.
Amethyst helps you to open up to new realities and assimilate new ideas. It helps to stimulate the 3rd eye chakra, increase intuition and enhance visualisation.
For a really potent mix, try Ametrine which combines amethyst and citrine and all the qualities they bring in ti one powerful stone.

You can use these crystals as tumblestones and simply keep them in a pocket, purse or handbag. Or you could wear them in a piece of jewellry.

If you wanted to create a 'creative' area you could place these stones, or a selection of them around a candle of yellow or orange. This may be a good place to meditate on your own ideas or creative thoughts. Make sure you keep some paper and a pen handy though as you just never know what might spring to mind!

Bright Blessings
Helen

Get creative

Spring is on its way and we can start to see new growth on the trees and plants, and green shoots coming from the earth. This is most certainly a time when we can see and feel the creativity of the earth. I think it's also a great time to look at your own creativity and to encourage it.

Creativity isn't just about about all things artistic, although that is one element, it is about how we see the world and how we interact with it. Especially when challenges present themselves. In the past I'd never really considered myself particularly creative, especially in office environments. When I had a traditional job I would cringe at those brainstorming meeting where we had to come up with innovative new ideas for the team or the company. I really wasn't any good at it. Or maybe I just didn't care. I say this because I later discovered that I could come up with creative ways of helping others, or to help others' help themselves. I could see solutions for people and situations I cared about. And when I was inspired to write I was most certainly being creative.

Being creative is about introducing new ideas and concepts, finding different ways of thinking and being as well as actually creating things in a more traditional sense, whether it's inventions, artwork, music, clothing, poetry etc.

Everyone is creative. Your beliefs may tell you otherwise, but if you let yourself be, release your mind from the restrictions of what you tell yourself, you will be creative too.

Equally you can't force creativity out, it must be coaxed gently, and then given freedom to come to you in its own time. Creativity must flow naturally.

Top tips to being more creative

1. A bit of what you fancy - Forget about what others think and just give it a go. If you want to paint, draw, sing, write, dance, decorate, bake.... or anything else, just try it. Don't think about the 'what if's', don't worry about being good or bad at, just try it.

2. Spending time in nature - a walk in the park, a hill climb, a picnic, watch the sunset, or the moon rise, however you choose to do it this can encourage your creativity.

3. Quiet time – meditation, yoga even pilates, activities that quieten the mind will encourage our creativity out form its hiding place within.

4. Adrenalin rush – do something different, amazing, exciting or scary. It will make you see the world a little differently, and then who knows what might happen?

5. Have a long chat with a good friend, especially if you're looking for a creative solution to a situation. Talking things through can really give you clarity and understanding and a fresh point of view is also helpful.

6. Map your mind – If you want to be more creative, get a big sheet of paper and write, 'how to be more creative' in the middle. Now write down lots of ideas and thoughts about creativity, what it means and how you could embrace it, make you mind map colourful and decorative if you want. Put down everything, even if your conscious mind says it's silly. Spend a good length of time on this and then sit back and take a look. What thoughts and feelings do have about being more creative now? What actions could you take?

7. Stay hydrated and get plenty of sleep, you cannot be creative if you're body isn't happy or you're too tired.

Be patient – don't give yourself a hard time, enjoy yourself, have some fun and at some point you'll suddenly realise you creative self is wide awake and hammering to be heard.

Bright Blessings

Helen

When do you hear your intuition the best?

Here are the top ten things that I have found help me to hear my inner intuitive voice. Some people may think of it as inspiration, god, intuition, gut instinct. Whatever you call it, and whatever background or faith you are from, I believe all of these will help you to connect and hear it. They create a space in which to hear the voice or to allow the voice to make itself known. These are just the things that I've found work for me, I'd love to hear yours.

1. Do the washing up by hand – I know this is an odd one but you have no idea how many things come to me when I do the washing up. You go in to a bit of a trance-like state (provided you're on your own and not nattering away to a friend or the kids). I know I'm not the only one this happens to and this suggestion is dedicated to my lovely friend Christina for reminding me of it.
2. Meditation – A time to switch off the conscious part of your mind, meditation isn't as hard as you might think. With regular practice you will find that it not only refreshes your mind but you will get inspired with new ideas and thoughts as a result.

3. Yoga – I suppose this is similar to meditation in many ways but I think it also reinforces our energetic and mind/body/spirit connection not just within ourself but with others and the universe as a whole.

4. Brisk walk or a run out in nature - especially when you get in to the zone (although it takes time and a level of fitness) where your body just goes and you're conscious mind switches off. Again it creates a trance-like state that allows you to access the intuitive side of yourself.

5. Find your creativity – whatever it might be,writing, poetry, acting, dance, crafts, knitting, painting, drawing or any variation along this theme. I believe everyone has something creative that they can do and somehow tapping in to the creative part of your mind helps you to find inspiration and intuition too.

6. Don't over-indulge – If you eat too much at mealtimes or feel uncomfortable in your body, the focus of your mind can become very much your physical self. When I am neither hungry or full, and feel hydrated and healthy, that is when I can be more intuitive.

7. Drive in silence – I do a lot of driving and I usually listen to local radio, music or personal development CDs. Sometimes this and the constant road noise just gets too much for me so I turn off the radio/CD player and drive in silence. It's weird at first but then you start to have ideas, or thoughts and find that solutions pop in to your head etc. You don't need to try, just be silent or a while.

8. Healing or energy work. If you know how, give yourself healing. If not, get some healing or energy work done by someone else. This is an amazing way to connect with your inner voice.

9. Get an early night – and not just one, if you're sleeping well you will find that you hear your inner voice better generally. But also I find that I'm more likely to have an intiutive flash as I go to sleep or as I'm waking up, or I'll wake up with fabulous ideas in the middle of the night. (Keep a pen and paper by your bed otherwise you won't remember in the morning.

10. Talk it through – If you have someone who you can talk to about spiritual thoughts and philosophy, do it. It's amazing how you can start chatting about something and have no real concept of what your personal thoughts are on the subject, and after a while of discussion, you are having amazing moments of inspired thought and formulating great ideas and beliefs. (Christina and Diane thank you for all the moments just like this.)

I hope these have inspired you and that you will go on to re-connect with your inner-knowledge in whatever way you discover works for you,

bright blessings

Helen

Hello intuition, I've missed you!

Don't worry, it's still there, honest!

If you haven't been listening, or things have been too busy, or too noisy, or emotions have been running high, you would be forgiven for thinking that your intuition has deserted you. It hasn't. You don't always hear your heart do you? But it's still beating. I believe that intuition is just as much of an integral part of you as your heart is. The irony is that when we need our intuition most, that's when we quite often block it out, often due to panic in some form or another.

So how do we reconnect?

Here's a quick exercise to get you thinking. (You will probably want to read through before trying it so you know what to look for).

Find somewhere quiet to sit uninterrupted for 5 to 10 minutes. Take a deep breath and close your eyes.

Now think of something that you love to do, or that you've always wanted to do, something that is positive and a bit exciting. Imagine your friend has just said, that this weekend everything has been sorted, diary cleared, family looked after, and you are going to go and do that 'thing'. Allow yourself to be happy, pleased, excited, to look forward to the positive experience. What do you feel, see or hear when you experience this? Whatever you experience is right for you.

• How does that feel? Where in your body do you feel what you feel. Is it warm or cold, heavy or light? Does it have a colour, a movement, a shape?
  
• What do you see in your mind's eye? Where do you see it? Is it a shape, colour, does it move around?
  
• If you hear sounds associated with it, what type of sounds are they, where do they come from? Are they loud or quiet? Flowing or jarring?
  

Make a mental note of what you get. Then, when you are ready, open your eyes. You may want to make some notes.

Now close your eyes again and take a deep breath. Think of something that you don't enjoy, or don't want to do or dislike. It might be something to do with work, or a task that you dread doing, a place or person that you don't enjoy visiting. Imagine that your friend has told you that your weekend plans are cancelled and you must go and do this thing. What do you feel, see or hear when you experience this? When you're ready open you eyes and make some notes.

If you struggle to think of a scenario that you like or dislike, then do this exercise by repeating the words 'Yes' for the positive experience, and 'No' for the negative experience in your mind and make notes on how each word makes you feel, what you see, or what you hear.

My positive response is light, large and clear, I feel it around my solar plexus and it has a lot of movement. Not dissimilar to 'butterflies'. My negative response if heavier, sits down in my lower abdomen and is darker, more dense with no movement.

Now that I have calibrated my positive and negative responses, when I have a choice to make and need to listen to my intuition I can analyse the feelings and sensations in my body and can judge whether I should go with it, or not depending on that response.

Like an old friend, no grudges are held, just welcome intiution back in to your life, sit and have a cuppa together, you'll soon remember how good it feels. It will be like you were never apart, because, actually, you weren't.

Bright Blessings.

Living intuitively

I recently did a quick survey and discovered that the majority of people know that they are intuitive, but don't always go with their gut instinct. In most cases they then wish that they had as their intuition is always right. However, there were a few people who didn't feel that they were particularly intuitive, and would like to be more so.

Very few people always go with their intuition 100% of the time (myself included). Why is that when they know it's always been right in the past? Here's my take; sometimes our intuition tells us things we would rather not know, such as, we shouldn't trust someone. That may be put us in a difficult position, or we may reject our gut reaction because we always want to see the best in people and give them a chance (I'm guilty of this). Or we weigh things up sensibly and rationally and HAVE to go with the 'wrong' (non-intuitive) option because we can't 'justify' doing anything else (I've learnt not to do this). Another reason is (and it pains me to admit, but I am definitely guilty of this) our intuition tells us something but we know we can't prove it, so we ignore it in case we're wrong.

We also find that sometimes the world is too noisy for us to hear our intuition, or we're too busy, or we've forgotten what it sounds like. We are no-longer totally reliant on our wits or awareness to remain safe and alive as our ancient ancestors would have been while living outside and hunting for example.

It's the weekend, maybe you will get time to start listening again, some quiet to hear, some space to re-connect. I'm going to do the same, and make a little apology to myself for all the times I've ignored that feeling, seen but pushed it away, silenced that inner voice, or even those huge great alarm bells that have been clanging.

And next time, I'm going to write about re-building that intuitive connection with ourself again.

Bright Blessings

Searching for the answers....

I think that it's really interesting that in many aspects of life, especially spiritual and psychic development, people very often look outside of themselves for the answers. They search for a label that describes them, they look for tools that they can use and paths that they can follow to develop and formulate their skills, beliefs, morality and often to justify their action, or, in all too many cases, inaction. They seek to journey far and wide, to 'find' themselves.

I'm not saying that this is wrong, but I do believe that it's only a part of the process. That's because ultimately, everything you ever need is within you. Inner guidance, intuition, prayer and answers obtained through it, signs from the universe, psychic abilities, whatever you want to call it, when something is right, or something is wrong, you know it instinctively.

However, sometimes our instincts get driven undercover, become discoloured or influenced by other things that go on in our lives. I am going to go in to these concepts in more depth in my next few blogs but for now, a message from...who knows, but it came to me this morning.

“Live intuitively, use your skills, with inner guidance, and that of your guides, and in time you won't need any tools.

Live in congruence, be your true self, be ethical, gentle, but firm when necessary.

Be you, but be the best version of you you can be and your inner talents will flow outwards. You will touch and affect others, you won't even need to try. When you try, you impede the flow.

Live for you, live at your highest vibration in this moment, everything will be perfect for you: timing, knowledge, contacts, development.

Live your life knowing that you are serving the purpose you intended to be here for, even if you don't know what that is, and smile.”

Bright blessings to you.

See yourself in a more positive frame

It's widely known in personal development circles that the phrase, 'I am' is one of the most powerful starts to a sentence that you can make. However, what matters, perhaps more, is what you say next.

Negative self talk leads to all sorts of problems, self-limiting beliefs, poor self-image and low self esteem. It can reinforce negative things that others say or have said about you, and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Examples of this are...
'I am fat'
'I am stupid'
'I am shy'
'I am rubbish at public speaking'
...the list goes on.

Even if you feel that you're stating a truism at that moment in time you will be creating a hurdle in your own mind for future development & adventures and reinforcing any dislikes, fears and phobias. It always seems so much more socially acceptable to put ourselves down than make a positive statement about ourselves. Part of us recoils at saying that we're good at something, as though we're becoming big-headed or arrogant. However, when you follow the statement 'I am' with a positive, your mind is encouraged and begins to make changes from within that allows this statement to become accurate. Also, it's not a crime to make a positive statement about yourself!
Examples of positive 'I am's are...
'I am learning'
'I am confident'
'I am fun'
'I am strong'

The law of attraction states that like attracts like, so by stating a positive 'I am' on a regular basis, you will create the right conditions within your own mind for a new, more positive you. This is because what you think about yourself, you start to say about yourself, your words then translate in to actions and actions, repeated often enough, become habits. Habits create the you that you are in any given moment. So, if you want to change yourself, you need to change the things you think and say about yourself and watch the knock-on effect.

I am a firm believer in positive affirmations, especially when combined with positive action to move towards where you want to be. However, sometimes, when you aren't quite feeling in a positive frame of mind it can be really tough to come up with a positive affirmation about yourself. Your mind just goes blank. I know, I've had days (and weeks) like that. So, I came up with the idea of an 'I am' board, full of wonderful positive statements about me that I could put in my office and look at whenever I needed a lift. I can choose one statement from it to keep in mind each day and repeat to myself whenever I need to encourage myself.
I wanted to make this simple tool available on my website and when I was writing about it in one of my books I realised that when you said 'I am board' out loud, it wasn't a particularly positive statement! So, in a moment of inspiration I changed it slightly and decided it should be an 'I am mirror', reflecting the perfect you.
Click on 'I am Mirror' and you will be taken to my website, you will find a link of the same name towards the bottom of the page.
By putting a lovely picture of yourself in the middle of the mirror, you reinforce that the positive statements are about you. Feel free to download this pdf and print it out. Stick a picture of yourself in the middle – make sure that it's a favourite picture of you. Place your 'I am mirror on a wall somewhere that you can see it whenever you want. You could even add your own words or stick small images such as stars or butterflies, on or around it to make it your own. Look at it everyday. Read the positive words about you. Pick one of them that fits for you today and keep it in mind, maybe write it down on a sticky note and put it in your diary, purse or wallet. Throughout the day refer to your positive statement, repeating it whenever you need a boost.
Some days you may just look at your 'I am mirror' and smile, because you know that you are perfect.