Here’s my secret to how I can stay awake from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM every day.

And it’s not coffee or anything related to caffeine.

It’s yoga nidra!

I know I’m not supposed to sleep during yoga nidra, but did I fall asleep and still reap the benefits?

Totally yes!

Unlike a normal nap, I wake up from yoga nidra with a clear head and a renewed sense of focus. A regular nap might leave me groggy and hard to wake up from, but yoga nidra feels completely different.

I first fell in love with yoga nidra when I was co-facilitating an online workshop with my friend Youmin Yap on resting and intention-setting. Yoga nidra, also known as yogic sleep, is a relaxation practice rooted in ancient yogic traditions. It helps release tension from both the body and mind, guiding us into a profound state of calm and inner peace.

In this workshop, Youmin—an expert rest coach and forest bathing therapy trainer—would lead a 10-minute yoga nidra session, and afterwards I would guide participants in crafting their intention statements.

As we settled in for yoga nidra, Youmin explained what it meant to her:

“Yoga Nidra is a very delicious rest medicine that is super accessible to people. You do not have to be of a physical fitness level. You do not have to be of a certain belief. Everybody knows how to lie down and close their eyes. Yoga Nidra then is like a river of rest where we just flow with the words and, in a very seamless, effortless way, we enter the restful state.”

I followed Youmin’s guidance, making myself as comfortable as possible on my yoga mat. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and paid attention to each body part as she guided me. Soon my awareness drifted in and out, hovering somewhere between relaxation and sleep.

The funny thing was, I did fall asleep—but I naturally woke up to her voice right when the practice was ending. No alarm needed.

I was amazed with the sense of clarity I had after I woke up. With just 10 minutes of yoga nidra, I felt like I had another 8 hours of sleep. I was awake, alert, focus, and most importantly – relaxed.

How was this possible?

It turns out yoga nidra has countless benefits. One of the most important is that it activates the parasympathetic nervous system—our body’s “rest and digest” mode—which explains why it’s so effective for reducing stress.

Yoga nidra also supports spiritual growth, helping us feel more connected to a greater presence and to our True Self.

Youmin shared that one of the benefits of yoga nidra is that it redistributes mental energy from the head back into the body for healing. That made so much sense for me. Every time I woke up from yoga nidra, I felt as though my inner batteries had been recharged to at least 90%.

As we progressed each day in the retreat, I also started to stay awake during the yoga nidra practice. On the first two days I fell asleep for almost the entire session. But on the third and forth day I started to stay awake longer. On the fifth and sixth day I didn’t fall asleep at all, I heard every word that Youmin said, and I also picked up on my soul’s whispers.

After each yoga nidra session, Youmin would ask us to write down our soul’s whispers and at the end of the retreat we would piece them together to weave into our soul-aligned intention for the year.

At the beginning of this year, I’ve fallen in love with practicing yoga nidra after lunch as a way to recharge my batteries and to counter the energy dip I would experience after eating. I love a good 20-minute to 30-minute yoga nidra practice. On the days that I knew I wouldn’t get an afternoon break, I would try to get in a 10 to 15-minute yoga nidra practice in the morning so my energy could last till the end of the day.

Of course, there were days when I couldn’t fit in a yoga nidra “nap,” especially while traveling, and I was still fine.

But as a mom of two kids, four dogs, and a few businesses to run, I love that even a short 10-minute yoga nidra practice leaves me refreshed and recharged, and it gives me energy to keep going in my day.

And it’s not that type of stimulating energy that caffeine would give – which often makes us feel like we still need willpower to push through the day and then we’d crash to exhaustion at the end of the day.

The energy I receive from yoga nidra is a restored sense of calmness and focus, knowing that I can still be my best self at the end of the day.

PS: I usually write best in the morning before lunch time but guess what, this blog is written right after I woke up from my yoga nidra “nap” after lunch and it still makes sense (hopefully).

Resources:

• Youmin Yap’s yoga nidra audio: https://xiunatureconnections.com/gifts/p/pause 
• Free yoga nidra practices videos by Ally Boothroyd: https://www.youtube.com/@SarovaraYoga
• “Yoga Nidra – Step-by-Step Guide to Yogic Sleep for Top Relaxation” by OneYoga Thailand: https://oneyogathailand.com/yoga-nidra-step-by-step-guide-to-yogic-sleep-for-top-relaxation/
• “What Happens if You Fall Asleep During Yoga Nidra?” by Christian Möllenhoff: https://www.forceful-tranquility.com/what-happens-if-you-fall-asleep-during-yoga-nidra/

If you are feeling heavy and exhausted for no apparent reason, or if you are feeling drained by people, situations or the environment, learning how to protect your energy is the key to help you feeling like your authentic self again.

How can energy protection help you?

Energy protection is like applying body lotion on your energy field.

Applying a good quality body lotion after shower can moisturize the skin and help to strengthen the skin barrier. Our skin barrier locks in the moisture and protects our skin from irritants and bacteria, so our skin doesn’t get damaged or dry throughout the day.

So when we protect our energy, it’s similar to what a body lotion does. We become less affected by the external environment – be it other people’s energies, the energy of the space we are in, or the collective energy of the world.

It’s important to remember that we are protecting our energy from a place of love and not from a place of fear. Fear lowers our vibration, whereas love lifts up our vibration.

The most potent protection comes from within and it is to raise our vibration. If we view the world as a dangerous place, and that we need to hide from everyone and everything that is potentially toxic, then this point of view can lock us to live in fear.

When our energy is protected, we can stay true to our authentic self and preserve our energy to do what is aligned with our soul’s purpose. We can focus on listening to our intuition, our soul, and the Universe’s guidance, instead of being distracted by all the outer noises and drained by the outer chaos and fear.

So how do we actually protect our energy? In today’s blog, I want to share with you 3 simple yet powerful energy protection tools to help you stay empowered every day.

This one may seem obvious, but many people don’t think about their nervous system on a regular basis.

We have two main modes in our nervous system. One is the sympathetic nervous system, also known as the fight-or-flight mode. The other is the parasympathetic nervous system, often called the rest-and-digest mode.

When we stay in fight-or-flight all the time, it takes a negative toll on our physical, emotional, and mental health — such as increasing blood pressure, lowering immunity, and impairing cognitive functions.

For example, in a 1995 study conducted at Ohio State University, psychologists Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Ronald Glaser found that wounds in dementia caregivers under chronic stress took 24% longer to heal than in non-stressed adults. This shows how being stuck in the sympathetic state directly slows the body’s ability to repair itself.

So what kinds of stressors can flip us into fight-or-flight mode?

Examples include negative news, gossip, horror movies or violent media, alcohol and drugs, people who constantly complain and drain your energy, toxic work environment, drama that doesn’t belong to you, and places that give you the creeps.

Of course, we can’t always avoid these stressors completely, and each person reacts differently depending on their sensitivity.

When you notice yourself switching into sympathetic activation, you can shift back by practicing the seven types of rest and engaging in nourishing activities that intentionally slow and ground you — such as deep breathing, meditation, being in nature, gentle movement, and listening to soothing sounds.

Black is THE color for energy protection.

When you’re feeling low on energy—or if you are intuitively drawn to wearing black—try wearing it and notice how you feel and how your day unfolds.

Wearing black isn’t limited to clothing. You can also use black-colored crystals, such as black onyx, black obsidian, black tourmaline, or orgonite containing black stones, for energy protection.

Personally, I wear a black-colored orgonite necklace to protect myself from EMF (electromagnetic fields). I wear it whenever I’m working on my laptop or when I’m in crowded places. You can learn more about how I discovered orgonite, what it is, and how it has helped me in my previous blog here.

This is one of the simplest and most effective energy protection tools, and many spiritual teachers have shared variations of this visualization exercise.

All you need to do is to imagine yourself being inside an energy bubble, and you can choose the color based on your intuition.

If you don’t connect with the image of a bubble, you can also imagine being inside a membrane, a crystal, pure light, a glass pyramid, or covered by a colored cloak. Experiment with these images to see which one feels most protective for your energy. Some people prefer a bubble, some prefer a crystal. Some days you may feel being in a membrane is protective enough, and other days you may feel more protected in a crystal. I would suggest trying on different images to sense how protected you feel with each one.

This is a really good exercise to do in the morning before you leave the house and go on with your day. Normally once you’ve visualized energy protection around you, it stays with you for a good 24 hours.

But there may be situations when you want to reinforce your energy protection – perhaps when you are in the middle of a meeting or a conversation with someone that you cannot get out and you start to feel drained. In this case, you can run this visualization in your mind quickly to strengthen your energy shield.

Side note: Spiritual teacher Gabrielle Bernstein has a wonderful 11-minute video sharing five signs of an energy vampire. In this video, she also guides a similar energy protection exercise that you can follow along with here.

Conclusion

In today’s world, with increasing chaos and uncertainty around us, energy protection is not only relevant for highly sensitive people and empaths—everyone can benefit from it.

Energy protection helps us stay true to our authentic selves so we can listen to our soul’s voice—the inner voice that matters the most.

It can also help us becoming more compassionate towards others. Instead of carrying the pain and suffering of others, the heavy burden of the world, and the guilt of being alive, we can stay focus on leading by example, sharing our soul gifts and bringing inspiration and light to others. Energy protection allows us to understand the pain of others without being buried under fear.

If you want to learn more about energy protection tools, you can listen on Spotify or watch episode 11 of my podcast Embrace Your Sacred Nature, where I shared three additional energy protection tools that you can use to stay grounded and clear every day.

Today I want to share with you my personal story of how I lift myself up from a place of feeling angry and frustrated to a place of feeling good at the end of the day.

Perhaps some of the tools I’ve used can help you release anger and uplift your mood too.

My morning started like this. I was fuming with anger when my 3-year-old kept on testing and pushing my boundaries until I couldn’t stand it anymore. If you know the emoji of a head explosion 🤯, that was me.

And yes, I was yelling. I was shouting. I needed to walk away and restrain myself with my last ounce of mental strength to cool off before I said anything else that I would regret later.

I was able to get a few moments by myself. So I went to my journal. I needed to express my anger. There was also guilt. It was not just anger to my 3-year-old. It was anger towards myself. Why were there so many obstacles in my life? Why was I still feeling such a failure after all the work I’ve done on myself? Why was I such a bad mom?

I just wanted to shut myself off from the entire world and be by myself. That lasted for 10 minutes before my kids came crashing into my meditation space.

From that moment I made a choice. I could choose to push my kids away and asked them to leave mom alone and lock the door. Or knowing that they came to find me because they wanted to spend time with me, I could do something together.

I knew I desperately needed a fire release ceremony for myself, so I invited my kids to do it together. We’ve done it many times before already, so it was nothing new and my kids loved it.

We blew what we wanted to release onto our wooden sticks and burnt them in the fire. Then we all picked an oracle card.

The card I got was the horse spirit – freedom as yours. I sighed with relief when I got this card. This was exactly what I needed to hear. The freedom to choose how to proceed with the rest of the day was mine. I could choose to stay in this anger space and tell myself my entire day was ruined. Or I could choose to be open and make different decisions to help me feel better.

For the rest of the day, I did some things different.

First I cooked lunch for myself. It was a new recipe, and even though it didn’t turn out perfect, I didn’t beat myself up. I didn’t allow my inner critic to take over so my mind couldn’t reconfirm that I was having a bad day.

I felt satisfied with the taste and the fact that I did something for myself. The dish wasn’t cooked for the kids or my husband, so there was no need for any approval of taste from them.

After lunch we sent our elder son to a class while our younger son was napping in the car. I had my quiet time then. I treated myself to a cup of green tea latte, and I decided to continue editing my weekly card message videos. I finished three videos by the time my son finished his class and I felt a sense of accomplishment. I was starting to feel good.

We had the rest of the afternoon free, so I thought we could go visit this new kids’ playground and café that we’ve never been before.  Obviously my kids had so much fun there and we got to play some games there together too. For dinner my husband asked if I wanted to try this new place we’ve been thinking to go, and I said yes.

By the end of the night before we slept, my kids and I always shared what we were grateful for the day. I was really grateful for visiting these new places and also for how my day turned around from feeling angry to feeling awesome.

So here is the summary of what I’ve done throughout the day:

When we are feeling so full of emotions, whether it’s grief or anger, stress or resentment, instead of trying to stop yourself from feeling, acknowledge your emotions. You can say it out loud or just in your head.

In my case, when I was fuming I went to a separate room and I was saying my feelings out loud to myself. I felt I was disrespected. I felt frustrated that I wasn’t listened to. I felt annoyed because I didn’t know how to fix my son’s behavioral problem. I felt powerless and guilty.

Acknowledging my emotions allowed myself to accept where I was then. I wasn’t trying to fix, change or stop how I was feeling. I held space for my anger to express itself.

Emotions are energy in motion. In the space with so much pent-up emotions, practices such as journaling and fire ceremony can help with releasing emotions. Journaling helped with releasing my thoughts, and the fire release ceremony helped with releasing my emotions.

Looking how the fire was burning the wooden stick reminded me that anger needed time and space to release. Eventually the fire would stop burning the wooden stick by itself when the stick would turn into ashes. All I needed to do was to have a container for the wooden stick to burn safely. Just like our emotions, when we can create a safe space for them to be expressed, eventually the emotions would transform into a different energy.

Reading the oracle card’s message reminded me what I should focus on. Sometimes when we are feeling overwhelmed with emotions, our thoughts can spiral down the rabbit hole, believing our inner critic’s words to be true.

When I read the oracle card message, I remember what I needed to focus on and that became the center of my attention. The freedom of choice was with me. Knowing how important self-talk was to our mental health, I knew I needed to change my narrative. It was up to me to decide how I wanted to feel from now on.

Ideally when we are doing release work we already have a quiet space to do so. I had a short time but nevertheless I still had that moment. Sometimes we do need to walk away from the trigger just for a bit if possible, and with my kids, I asked someone else to step in to help.

Even though my ideal self-care at that moment would be a massage but it was not possible given the circumstances. Instead of sulking about it, I created other moments of self-care. I treated myself with a green tea latte. I worked on things I enjoyed and gained a sense of accomplishment.

When you are feeling low with energy or down with your emotions, it’s always a sign from your body that you need to give yourself some tender loving care. Self-care doesn’t need to take hours. Create pockets of self-care moments for yourself that can bring you contentment.

Body movement can be a great way to lift up your spirit. What’s more fun than dancing silly and singing out loud and not give a crap about anything else in the world. Scientific research has shown that singing is a natural anti-depressant, and dancing releases endorphins which help to boost our mood and reduce stress.

In my case we were listening to my kids’ favorite songs while we were driving in car that day, and we totally got to rock out a few tunes together.

The most helpful thing I’ve done that day to help myself feel better was to do and explore something new. I cooked a new dish. I explored somewhere new with my family.

This gave me a sense of adventure and travel and shifted my mood tremendously. According to an article from Harvard Business Review “The Mental Benefits of Vacationing Somewhere New” by Todd B. Kashdan, one benefit is increased emotional agility, which is to observe our emotions instead of reacting right away, and to intentionally decide how to manage them.

If traveling to somewhere new locally or even getting out of the house is not possible, try to do something different at home and see how your mood shifts.

At the end of the night I could reflect my day with gratitude.

However, I wouldn’t recommend forcing yourself to practice gratitude if you were still feeling overwhelmed with a lot of emotions.

It is important to hold space for our emotions and to allow our emotions to be heard and acknowledged first. If you are telling yourself that you should be grateful, then that may not be true gratitude from your heart. That may be your mind trying to intellectualize your emotional experience and to protect you from feeling pain (also no judgment or criticism here, just be kind to yourself if you observe this happening).

When you feel that you are slowly shifting out from a place of negativity to a more neutral state (it doesn’t have to be a positive state yet), then you can start practicing gratitude. See how that resonates and if you can feel gratitude arising naturally from your heart.

Scientific research has shown that the practice of gratitude can increase feelings of happiness, life satisfaction, and resilience so I highly recommend keeping this practice consistent no matter what.

Conclusion

By the end of the day I was feeling real good and proud of how my day went. I filled up my inner well with nourishment on the physical, emotional and mental level. I didn’t expect or need myself to feel better. I just stayed open to this possibility and consciously made choices to stay on this course.

It is natural for our emotions to go up and down. This is the human life experience. It is unrealistic to expect that we can always stay in a positive state of love and bliss, unless you are already enlightened.

It is more important to embrace this cyclic nature that we live in, and to know that we can stand back up when we fall on our face and feet.

Here’s a recap of the 7 tools and practices I’ve used to lift myself up from feeling angry to awesome:

1. Start with acknowledgment and acceptance
2. Release emotions with journaling and fire ceremony
3. Make a choice for new possibilities
4. Create solo time for self-care
5. Dance and sing
6. Explore somewhere new
7. Reflect with gratitude

If I can do it, so can you.

If you use other tools and practices to help lift yourself up, feel free to share them with me, I’d love to know. Connect with me here.

It is the time of the year again! The last month of the year is always busy with holidays, celebrations and traveling. It can also be stressful and overwhelming at times for a lot of people. Perhaps it’s the pressure to finish up whatever tasks or to-do lists on hand. Perhaps it’s the planning of the holidays. Perhaps it’s dealing with heightened emotions and expectations from certain family members. We may feel like we’re getting swept up by everything happening outside of us.

However, the end of the year is also a great time for us to reflect over the past year, and to mindfully set our intention to welcome the new year.

In today’s blog, I want to share with you four steps to mindfully welcome the new year. This is such a great gift for yourself during this busy time of the year. I highly recommend taking some solo reflective time for yourself to do this. These steps don’t have to be done all in one session. You can take your time at your own pace, and you don’t have to feel pressured to complete them before new year’s eve. These steps can also be done in the first month of the new year, or whenever you are going through a transition in your life.

Take some time to reflect over the past year. Journaling is a great tool to help us process our thoughts honestly, without the need to correct, analyze or judge what we write down.

Some journaling prompts that you can use are:

• What were some significant events that happened the past year?
• What were your highs and lows the past year?
• What were your achievements the past year?
• What were your key learnings and takeaways from the above questions? Even if you did make a “mistake”, what can you learn from it?
• Compare to one year ago, how have you grown and evolved?
• What emotions, beliefs, habits, relationships, attachments do you feel that are no longer aligned with your current self? Make a note for yourself to prepare for the release exercise in the next step.

If you already have some ideas of what you want to manifest for the new year, you can also write them down.

If you have a long to-do list in your head that you feel like you need to complete before the end of the year, I invite you to write them all down. Every single thing that you need or want to do. This will give you more mental space to reflect instead of constantly worrying about what you need to do.

Once you have a list of what you want to release and let go, prepare for a simple fire ceremony.

Write down all the things you want to release on pieces of paper, preferably one topic for one paper. Find a heat resistant bowl and make sure you are in a safe environment to burn the paper. Always have water by your side in case you need to extinguish the fire that has gone out of control.

Light your candle first. Then read out what you wrote on one piece of paper. Allow the feelings associated with what you wrote come up, and blow that feeling with your exhale onto the piece of paper. Imagine all those feelings are now transferred to this piece of paper, and then burn the paper in your heat resistant bowl. Witness how the fire burns your paper. Then move on to the next piece of paper, read it out loud, blow onto it, and burn it and so on until you finish burning all your paper. Thank the fire for transmuting all that you have released to the Universe. Wait for the ashes to cool down, and you can release the ashes to the earth if possible, or to water (or the toilet bowl is also fine depending on where you live).

If fire is not available or safe to use in where you live, consider using the other elements in nature such as water, earth and air.

For water you can consider writing down what you want to release in water-soluble paper, or use leaves, flowers, or stones and release them in any bodies of water that you have permission to do so. Toilet water also counts.

For earth, if you have a garden of your own, you can consider burying what you want to release with symbolic objects from nature.

For air, you can consider blowing bubbles into the air and imagine what you intend to release are carried away with bubbles. This is also a fun release exercise that you can do with children.

By performing a simple release ceremony with the elements of nature, you have created new space within your energy field for something new to come.

Ask yourself what word you will choose for yourself for the new year, and that word will be your theme for the year. Your word of the year will help shape what you’d like to focus on for the upcoming year. You can do so through journaling, or just sit with the question throughout your day and allow the answer to come to you.

Once you have chosen your word of the year, you can write it down or draw it out on a piece of paper, and stick it somewhere that you can see daily as a reminder.

For some extra fun, you can also choose a song as your theme song of the year, so every time when you listen to the song, it reminds you of what you want to focus on.

Tune into your current state and ask yourself what it is that you want to feel right now. This intention doesn’t need to relate to your word of the year necessarily. Rather this intention is meant to bring focus on what you want to feel now, whether it’s the end of the year or beginning of the new year.

An intention is an anchor for us to return to our heart and what is important to us now. By focusing on what we want to feel now instead of how we will get there, we release the “how” to the Universe and trust that we will be guided by our intuition and the Universe to get there.

An intention can also serve as a filter for us to live a more aligned life with our mind,nheart and soul. For example, if my intention is that I feel energized, when I’m facing a decision, my intention can serve as a reminder whether or not this certain choice energizes me or drains me.

Write down your intention on a piece of paper and place it somewhere you can see as a daily reminder. You can also read it out loud for yourself on a daily basis to reinforce your intention.

For more details on how to set an intention and guidelines on how to write your intention, check out my blog here: How to Set Intention as Part of Your Spiritual Practice

Conclusion

Though the end of the year can be stressful at times, it is also a magical time to take a pause to honor our journey.

During this process, make sure to hold space for yourself without judgment or criticism. It is important to hold an attitude of curiosity with a hint of playfulness. Make sure you are in a quiet space so you won’t be disturbed for at least 10 minutes to do your own reflections over the past year. You may find that your priorities may have shifted, and that is okay because you are now a different person than you were one year ago.

Give yourself time and space to properly say goodbye to the old you. Sometimes emotions may come up which is perfectly normal. Allow yourself to feel these emotions to complete the release process. As we release what no longer serves us, we will find more clarity on what we want to create and have more energy to bring forth our ideas to manifest in the physical world.

Once you have done the above, be really proud of yourself of how far you have come in your journey. I encourage you to say the following statement out loud, “I’m proud of myself for…” because you are truly amazing and I am so proud of you for doing this work for yourself.

Special New Year Classes: Recalibrate Yourself from Transformation to Truth

From cacao ceremony to sound healing, labyrinth walk to meditation in the dark, we have a variety of special year end classes to recalibrate your vibration to the new year. Come celebrate the arrival of the new year mindfully with our special classes at Museflower.

Imagine having a remedy that can work directly to balance your emotions. Nope, I’m not talking about anti-depressants or any supplements.

This amazing remedy works on our vibrational level and it comes from flowers!

Have you heard of flower essences before?

Personally I love working with flower essences!

In fact, it was because of flower essences, I was led to Chiang Rai to experience my first ever retreat back in 2011. And the name “Museflower” was inspired by my own healing journey with flower essences.

In today’s blog I want to share with you what flower essences are, and how flower essences work.

In my next blog I share with how my personal healing journey with flower essences here: https://musefloweretreat.com/how-flower-essences-led-me-to-museflower/

What are flower essences?

Flower essences are a vibrational remedy that works on our subtle energy levels to help us rebalance our emotions.

It is first discovered by Dr. Edward Bach, the founder of Bach Flower Essences, in UK by the 1930s.  He was a medical doctor, a bacteriologist, and a pathologist. As he was conducting his research with vaccines, he became frustrated on the limitations of western medicine for treating a person as a whole. He was then inspired by homeopathy and Dr. Hahnemann’s work, and realized the important connection between emotions and physical health. He then discovered the use of flower essences over years of trial and error, and came up with a total of 38 flower essences to help address various emotional states.

The way how flower essences work is similar to a plumber’s work (sorry it’s not the most elegant analogy). Flower essences can “unclog” our emotional pipes, so-to-speak, and can help to gently release any suppressed negative emotions.

Why are emotions important to our health?

In our daily lives when we constantly keep ourselves busy, it’s easy to sweep away emotions such as grief, anger, jealousy, guilt, shame, and resentment under the covers. Especially if we view these emotions as negative, we may hide our true feelings, avoid facing them, or even numb ourselves from feeling them at all.

When we suppress or repress these emotions, we also stop the flow of other more positive emotions, such as joy, love and bliss into our lives. We cannot let go of the past or we feel too overwhelmed about the future, and then we get stuck in the present and cannot move forward in our lives.

Emotions also play an important role in our physical health. According to PsychCentral, chronic stress contributes to the six leading causes of death in America and is considered a silent killer.

Suppressed emotions become energetic blockages in our energy field, and can manifest into physical dis-eases as a way for our bodies to heal and to address these imbalances.

So when our emotions come to a more balanced state, it can help improve our physical, mental and energetic health too.

When we recognize that emotions are just energy in motion, we can live a more colorful and authentic life where we are open to feel all types of emotions.

How are flower essences made?

When flower essences are made, typically the flowers are collected and placed in a bowl of clean water under the sun. After the sun has charged the water for a few hours, the energetic information of the flowers is imprinted in the water (you can refer to Dr. Masaru Emoto’s research on “The Message of Water” for how this works). This liquid is then preserved by alcohol, usually brandy. This is then stored in a dark dropper bottle and is labeled as the stock concentrate. It will need to be diluted again to be used.

Flower essences are different than essential oils, as flower essences work on an energetic level and they don’t have any aroma or fragrance.

How to choose and use flower essences

In my intuitive healing session that I offer to our guests at Museflower, I always begin with a flower essence consultation.

We begin with a short grounding meditation and I will guide my guest to do a body scan. A body scan is when you close your eyes, imagine that you have an inner eye in the center of your forehead, and scan your body from top to bottom for any areas that are holding tension, discomfort, heaviness or even pain.

The purpose of the body scan is to be aware of our body in the present moment. There’s no need to judge, analyze or change anything. In the body scan you just observe what’s arising in your body in this moment and make a mental note.

After the body scan, I then invite the guest to choose one body area that feels the most tension or heaviest, and to place his/her dominant hand on that body part. With the eyes now open, I invite my guest to use his/her non-dominant hand to choose 2 to 3 bottles from the flower essence set.

I will then place one drop from each of the flower essence bottle picked into a separate spray bottle filled with clean drinking water. When I was learning about flower essences, even though the traditional way to use it is to take a few drops orally under the tongue, my then teacher explained that we can also store it in a spray bottle and spray it in our energy field. With the spray bottle, personally I find it easier to use flower essences on a daily basis.

I will then guide my guest to use the flower essences by spraying the liquid above his/her head and take a few deep breaths in, allowing the energetic information to sink into the energy field. We will then do a second body scan to pay attention for any subtle shifts and changes.

After some time for journaling, I then explain the meaning of each flower essence picked.

Each flower essence represents an emotional state, and also a topic or theme that we are currently facing in our lives. Every flower has a light and shadow side, and contains both balanced and unbalanced qualities.

When we are drawn to picking certain flower essences, it means that we are currently experiencing the unbalanced qualities of that flower. These qualities are like a coin that has two sides. We already have these qualities within us, but the flower essences can give us a boost to bring us back to the balanced side.

Taking flower essences for your emotional health

Flower essences are completely safe to work with and there are no contraindications for taking them.

There are only two guidelines to follow when you are taking flower essences.

1. Give it 10 minutes before or after eating, drinking and brushing your teeth

This is more for the traditional method of taking flower essences but I still apply with the spray bottle method. If you have used the flower essence spray, wait for 10 minutes before you go brush your teeth, eat or drink.

2. Keep it away from electronic devices

EMF (electromagnetic field) emitted from electronic devices such as phones, laptops and wifi routers, may affect the vibration of the flower essence so it’s better to store them separately.

As flower essences work gently and subtly, I always recommend my guests to journal during the time that they are using the spray so they can be more aware of their own emotional states. It is possible that sometimes suppressed emotions may arise. Take it as an opportunity to allow the emotions to flow through instead of holding them back. It is like a frozen ice cube (aka the suppressed emotion) is finally melted, and the melted water still needs to go somewhere.

It’s not necessary do a body scan every time when we use the flower essence. But a body scan is a great way to help us connect with our physical body in the present moment and to pay attention to what wants to arise.

When we are using flower essences, we can learn to hold space for ourselves without judgment and criticism as we observe our emotions flowing through us. Reflect and record everything down in a journal. And pay attention to the subtle shifts and changes unfolding. This is how we can experience the healing power of flower essences.

References

• Michelle Pugle, “Can Stress Cause Death?”, PsychCentral, June 30 2022, accessed August 20 2024, https://psychcentral.com/stress/is-stress-the-number-one-killer 
• Healing Herbs Flower Essences: https://www.healingherbs.co.uk/
• Bach Centre: https://www.bachcentre.com/en/ 

Book an intuitive healing session with Tania during your stay at Museflower where she always begins the session with a flower essence consultation. The intuitive healing session can also be booked as the private wellness session included in the Yoga Retreat Chiang Rai and Spa Getaway Thailand retreat package.

In our upcoming Cacao + Bhakti Yoga Retreat from Oct 3 – 6, 2024, Tania will also guide each retreat participant to pick a flower essence to help support their emotional healing journey during the retreat.

*Disclosure: This blog post includes affiliate links. Please note that I only recommend books, products, courses, and services that resonate with me and all opinions expressed are my own. The affiliate link below means that I will earn a small commission if you decide to make a purchase at no cost to you. 

Tears were rolling down my cheek as I was holding up both of my hands, thumb touching my ring finger on both sides while I was following Gabby Bernstein’s guided meditation a few years back.

That was when I started to become fascinated by the power of mudras.

Later on I got to practice mudras again when I was learning about Bhakti Yoga, and have since then incorporated mudras in my own daily meditation practice.

I’m someone who learns through experience, so of course I need to test this out on myself before I can share more about it.

I’ve been practicing mudras along side with my mantra meditation for three years now, and I can safely say that mudras really do add to my daily practice. Sometimes I don’t feel much, but sometimes I can feel energy currents being activated. At times I feel extra grounded, at times I can feel the fiery energy, and at times I can feel divine love and grace flowing into my heart.

So in today’s blog I’d like to share with what a mudra is, how does it work, and 3 easy meditation mudras that you can try at home.

Mudra is a Sanskrit word that means a “seal”.

There are five classes of mudras in the Hatha Yoga tradition, including hasta (hand), mana (head), kaya (postural), bandha (lock), and adhara (base or perineal).

In this blog I’ll be focusing on hasta mudras, or hand gestures. Mudras are specific hand gestures that we can hold during meditation to activate the flow of energy in our body.

In the traditional Indian medicine Ayurvedic point of view, we have thousands of nadis, or energy channels, flowing inside our body.

As we hold specific hand gestures, we are forming certain energy “closed circuits” which are like energy “seals”, so to speak, that can help us plug in to the quality of what the mudra represents.

We as humans have always used our hands to express our feelings and emotions since the dawn of time. Whether it’s through hand gestures when we talk, giving a hug to someone we love, lending a hand as a symbol of help, or flicking the middle finger to express our rage.

It’s no surprise here when we recognize that our hands are actually extension of our heart chakra, the energy center situated in the middle of our chest that is all about unconditional love.

The heart chakra is also associated with the element of air (vayu), and the element of air links the invisible to the visible. Consider this – when the wind blows, we can see the trees and leaves dance with the wind but we can’t see the wind physically. The presence of the wind can be only felt by our sense of touch and skin.

As Bhakti Yoga teacher Nubia Teixeira wrote in her book “Yoga and the Art of Mudras”, “air…carries the forces of the mystical reality into our material world.”

To me, that means that when we hold a specific hand mudra, we are getting in touch with the energies that cannot be seen with the physical eyes through our hearts.

Mudras are powerful keys that can help us unlock inner states of awareness and awaken specific qualities and/or elements within us.

1. Prithivi Mudra (Earth element mudra)

This is my favorite mudra to use when I want to feel more grounded, as it helps to connect and balance the Earth element which is within us. It can also help to strengthen the digestion system and establish a sense of effortless joy.

How to hold the mudra:

Lightly touch the tips of the thumb and ring finger together forming a circle, and stretch out the other fingers in a relaxed manner.

2. Dhyana mudra (Meditation mudra)

This is a commonly used mudra in many spiritual traditions in Asia such as Buddhism. It is a mudra to help with meditation and contemplation, and to release attachments.

How to hold the mudra:

Place the left palm facing up on your lap, and rest your right palm facing up on top of your left hand. Touch the thumbs together gently to form a circle. Rest your hands on your lap with your shoulders relaxed, or you can also place a blanket over your lap to support your hands.

3. Jnana or Chin mudra (Wisdom mudra)

This is the most commonly seen mudra used in yoga and meditation photos, where jnana refers to wisdom. The name chin comes from the Sanskrit word chit, meaning consciousness.

Please note that sometimes Jnana mudra or Chin mudra look identical and can be used interchangeably, and in some schools of yoga, it is explained as Jnana mudra is practiced with palm facing up when the sun rises and Chin mudra is practiced with palm facing down after the sun is set.

Both mudras can help us feel lighter and calmer, more centered and grounded.

How to hold the mudra:

Lightly touch the tip of the thumb and the index finger together forming a circle, stretch out the other fingers and relax your hands on your knees.

It is easy to incorporate mudras in your sitting meditation practice. But even if you don’t sit still in meditation, you can also incorporate mudras as you are practicing yoga poses, or even when you are traveling on a plane or commuting on a long train ride.

1. Warm up your hands before practice

Practicing mudras are like doing yoga with your hands. You can warm up your hands by taking a deep breath in, retain your breath and clap your hands three times loudly and firmly till you feel tingling sensations in your palms and release the breath. Then, rub your hands together until they are warm. You can also rub the other parts of your hands to help stimulate blood circulation to your entire hands and fingers.

2. Sit comfortably (or stand)

Traditionally, mudras are practiced during sitting meditation. Whether you decide to sit on the floor or on a chair, it is important to sit up tall and keep your spine lengthened, roll your shoulders back, and keep both feet on the ground if you’re sitting on a chair. Relax your face and chest, and if you’re sitting on the floor and need more support for your back, you can lean against a wall. You can also practice while standing or walking, as long as your posture is comfortable.

It is important to note that similar to a yoga asana practice, it is recommended not to practice mudra and meditation on a full stomach.

3. Be gentle with your fingers

Some mudras may feel tiring the longer you hold them, and they may be challenging to the finger joints. Be gentle with your fingers, just like you would with your body during your asana practice.

4. Bring awareness to your fingers and hands and focus on the sensations

Usually it takes at least 5 minutes of holding a mudra to start feeling its energetic qualities. Depending on the mudra you are holding, it is recommended to hold at least 5 minutes up to 45 minutes.

When you are holding a mudra, bring your awareness to your fingers and hands, and focus on feeling any sensations or feelings that may arise. You may start to feel the energy in your hands activated and as you are meditating, you can feel the energy flow directed to your entire being.

Whenever you find yourself starting to wander in your mind, a mudra is also a great way to bring focus back to your meditation by bringing your attention back to your sense of touch.

Mudras are an easy-to-follow and powerful technique that you can incorporate into your daily meditation practice. It’s also a great way to introduce meditation to children.

In today’s blog I shared with you 3 easy meditation mudras to try at home:

1. Prithivi Mudra (Earth element mudra)
2. Dhyana mudra (Meditation mudra)
3. Jnana or Chin mudra (Wisdom mudra)

Here is the overview of the general tips on how to meditate a mudra in meditation:

• Warm up your hands before practice
• Sit comfortably (or stand)
• Be gentle with your fingers
• Do not practice on full stomach
• Hold the mudra for at least 5 minutes up to 45 minutes, depending on the function of the mudra
• Bring awareness to your fingers and hands
• Focus on the sensations arising as you hold mudra

I hope you will also get to try mudra out and experience its benefit.

Have you tried practicing mudra during your meditation or yoga practice? If so how did you feel?

Feel free to share and contact me directly here.

References:

• Cain Carroll and Revital Carroll, Mudras of India, (UK, Singing Dragon, 2013)
• Nubia Teixeira, Yoga and the Art of Mudras, (USA, Mandala Publihsing, 2019)

In my last blog “Are you an empath – here’s how to find out”, I shared what the term empath means and how to find out if you’re an empath and/or a highly sensitive person.

An empath is a highly sensitive person who can feel a lot more than an average person (though everyone is sensitive to a degree), and may absorb and take on energies from other people and the environment.

Because empaths and highly sensitive people can get easily overwhelmed by energies outside of them, it is imperative for them to do some sort of spiritual practices to help them stay grounded and protected at the same time.

Being an intuitive empath myself, the below wellness tools and practices have really helped me to stay anchored and centered in my own energy, and in today’s blog I want to share them with you.

Whether you identify yourself as an empath, a highly sensitive person or just an average person, these tools are suitable for anyone to practice to help them live a more grounded and conscious life.

Meditation is my top number one in my list, because having a daily regular meditation practice has really changed my life.

I’ve talked about meditation a lot in my blogs and that’s what I love to teach, because meditation can be very simple to practice yet very powerful for our mind and health at the same time.

Meditation is when we can turn away from all the distractions of the outside world, and have this sacred time to just be and notice what’s going on inside our inner world.

For empaths and highly sensitive people especially, meditation can help us feel more grounded and centered. Through meditation, we can become more mindful in our daily life, noticing how our moods, state of mind, feelings, emotions, words, and thoughts, can be affected by other people and our environment.

For more tips on how to get started with meditation, you can check out my blog here: https://musefloweretreat.com/8-tips-on-how-to-get-started-with-meditation/

Since empaths and highly sensitive people tend to avoid conflicts and confrontations, it is very easy to bottle up all our feelings instead of speaking up on how we truly feel.

Journaling can be a safe place to practice having an honest conversation with ourselves and to check in with our inner world. During journaling, we can freely write down all the feelings and thoughts we may be holding within us. The process of writing it out is a type of emotional and mental release too.

Journaling also gives us a chance to reflect and inquire on our own sensitivities and whether they may relate to any patterns, tendencies and reactions we see in our lives.

Knowing that our sensitivity is our gift, we can also use journaling to help us discover how our sensitivity can help us carry out our soul purpose.

Remember to practice self-inquiry with curiosity and compassion, and it’s important to leave any self-judgment and self-criticism behind.

To learn more the benefits of journaling, you can check out my blog here: https://musefloweretreat.com/5-ways-on-how-journaling-can-help-you-with-your-emotional-and-mental-health-and-spiritual-growth/

Because empaths and highly sensitive people can feel and carry a lot of energies on their bodies (energies that belong to themselves and/or others), practicing yoga or any other types of grounding exercises that can stimulate blood flow and lymphatic circulation in our physical body, can also encourage our own Chi or energy to flow better to remove any energy blockages or heaviness in our energy field. That’s why we feel lighter not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too after exercising.

If you feel your energy is very scattered or mentally you are all over the place, practicing yoga can also help us connect our breath with our physical body to help lower any feelings of anxiety and to regroup our own energy, meanwhile it’s helping us to build physical strength and to enhance mental clarity.

Love to try yoga at home and don’t know where to start? I love Yoga with Adriene’s 30-day journey Youtube videos which you can check out her channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@yogawithadriene 

Just as how we shower every day to clean our body for physical hygiene reasons, our energy field also needs cleansing for energetic hygiene.

Empaths can take on other people’s energies very easily, so by cleansing our own energy field we can help to release what does not belong to us at the first place.

If you feel constantly drained from interactions with other people, especially if you work in a field that requires a lot of deep listening, have a lot of meetings, or deal with a lot of trauma and emergencies, such as social workers, human resource officers, coaches, healers, teachers, doctors, nurses, and police officers, I highly recommend learning how to cleanse your energy field regularly to help keep your energy level stable.

To learn ways on how to clear your energy field, check out my blog here: https://musefloweretreat.com/3-ways-to-clear-your-energy-field/

Another possible reason that you may feel drained throughout your day is that your energy is not thoroughly protected and you may even carry other people’s burdens and worries subconsciously in hopes to make the others feel better (because that’s the beautiful kind nature of empaths).

One sign that you may be carrying other people’s burdens is that if you find yourself constantly worrying about the other person’s problem and trying to fix the issue somehow.

A simple way to protect your energy field is a visualization exercise below shared by many teachers including Sandra Ingerman, renown Shamanic teacher:

At the beginning of the day before you leave the door to meet anyone else, imagine stepping into a white light bubble that is covering your whole being including your energy field. The white light bubble represents divine protection from the Universe or your spiritual support team, depending on what you believe in. The white light bubble is like a flexible, fluid membrane where you get to decide what comes into your energy field and what stays out.

Whenever you feel drained by others during the day, you can imagine strengthening this white light bubble around you to help you feel more protected.

Protecting your own energy, in this case, means staying grounded and centered in your own thoughts and feelings and expressing your true self, so you are not affected by other people’s emotions, fears and anxiety.

Learning about energies such as the chakra system, how your intuition speaks to you, and how energies work in general can help you gain more knowledge and develop a deeper awareness into how you can work with your sensitivities, and not against them.

When I first learned Reiki level one, it completely shifted my perspective in life and opened a whole new door into the world of energies and vibrations.

Just like superheroes in movies need to learn how to train and master their abilities and superpowers to fight, we can serve ourselves and the world better when we are in tune with our intuition to live a soul-aligned life and to use our sensitivities properly to share our gifts to the world.

For more on how intuition sounds like, check out my blog here: https://musefloweretreat.com/intuition-vs-ego-how-do-they-sound-different/

Or come join our Intuition Development workshop at Museflower Retreat & Spa to discover how your intuition communicates with you.

Below is a summary of the 6 wellness tools that can empower empaths and highly sensitive people to not just survive but to thrive in the world.

1. Meditation
2. Journaling
3. Yoga or exercise
4. Cleanse your energy field
5. Protect your energy
6. Learn about energy and your intuition

I know they work because these tools have helped me tremendously to navigate in this world as an empath myself.

Meditation helps me stay grounded and connected, journaling helps me express my voice better with confidence, yoga helps me feel centered and strong, and taking care of my energy field is just like my skincare routine – they help me stay healthy and happy.

Last but not least, the main key here is to hold the intention of LOVE whenever you are practicing these tools.

When we are enjoying whatever it is that we are doing, whether it’s meditation, walking the dog or taking a shower, our state of joy is what helps raise our vibration and keep our vibe high.

This is love FOR yourself. You’re not doing it because you are scared of picking up other people’s burdens or getting sick or because the world is a dangerous place.

You’re doing it as an act of self-care and self-love because you choose to live in LOVE, and see LOVE in everything you do, everywhere you go. Love is the best source of strength and protection that we can all get.

Do you find these tips helpful? Do you have any other practices or tools that you can share that have helped you as an empath/highly sensitive person?

Feel free to share and contact me directly here.

*Disclosure: This blog post includes affiliate links. Please note that I only recommend books, products, courses, and services that resonate with me and all opinions expressed are my own. The affiliate link below means that I will earn a small commission if you decide to make a purchase at no cost to you. 

We all know the benefits of meditation. It is scientifically proven that meditation helps to reduce stress, manage anxiety and improve sleep.

So how can we get started with meditation? Why is so hard to get started? There are so many resources online that can be overwhelming. And sometimes we may try one style of meditation that doesn’t “work”, and we may give up meditation altogether.

It took me years and lots of trials and errors until I found a meditation practice that I enjoy and look forward to. Meditation definitely can be fun, simple and practical.

Today I want to share with you my 8 tips on how you can get started with meditation.

There are so many styles of meditations out there, so if you have tried one that doesn’t really work for you, don’t give up just yet! Just like finding your partner (hello meditation!), stay open and trust that you will find one style that resonates with you.

The best way to immerse in meditation is to join a group class or a retreat. In a group environment and with the physical presence of a teacher, it is easier to dive deeper into meditation with fewer distractions compared to when we are practicing alone. See if you can find a local meditation or yoga class that incorporates meditation in your area.

If there’s no access to a group meditation class in your local area, or if you are traveling, meditation apps can be very handy. Many meditation apps offer free classes for you to experience before making any paid purchases, such as Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer.

“Motivation is overrated; environment often matters more”, wrote James Clear in his book “Atomic Habits” basically sums up this point. If your meditation space is already setup, then all you need to do is to move your body there physically.

A meditation space in your home does not need to be in a separate room, it can just be a corner of your bedroom with a cushion and/or a yoga mat setup. This way you see your space every day, you are more motivated to go for your meditation.

A lot of people believe that meditation needs to take a big chunk of time from their busy schedule, so it is difficult to find time to meditate. But in fact, the best time to meditate is anytime.

Start small. Even if you can practice just for one minute a day, you are still doing it regularly. You can then slowly build up your practice.

It is easy to let meditation slip if it’s a new habit we’re starting in our daily routine. It’s much easier to remember to meditate when we can pair it with a daily habit.

For example, if you usually have some free time after breakfast in the morning and before going to work, you can do your meditation after breakfast. If you keep on doing meditation the same time for at least one week, chances are, you will keep it going for more weeks to come.

A lot of us have expectations of how our meditation practice should help us, like we should feel calmer afterwards, or our mind should become empty of thoughts.

Yes, some days that may happen. But in reality a lot of time we may find ourselves distracted by our thoughts and it feels difficult to connect to that inner heart space of calm and content. We may then feel like we’re failing in meditation and then we give up.

The key here is to lose your expectations to be “perfect” and how you “should” feel after meditation. Just keep on showing up to your practice every single day.

Every day’s practice will be different, and that’s the beauty of making progress and not perfection. Just like with any kind of exercises, the more you practice, the easier it becomes.

As you start to reap the benefits of practicing meditation regularly, you may want to do it for the long run (which is great!). On days when you feel like skipping your practice, remind yourself of your “why”.

Why do you want to meditate? What brings you to meditation at the first place? What benefits have you already received from showing up to your practice regularly?

You can write down your “why” on a piece of paper, and place it somewhere visible in your meditation space as a reminder to keep you on track.

It’s never too late to get started. And it’s certainly never too late to get started with meditation.

Here’s a summary of my 8 tips on how to get started with meditation:

1. Try out different styles
2. Join a group class or retreat
3. Use an app
4. Setup a meditation space in your home
5. Start small and build it up
6. Pair it with a daily habit
7. Lose your expectations, just show up
8. Remind yourself of your “why”

Keep the first step simple and just go for it.

If you need more help, I’m here for you! Feel free to drop me any questions about meditation here.

At Museflower Retreat & Spa we also offer various meditation classes and workshops, as well as yoga and meditation retreats. Check out our class and event schedule here for the next upcoming meditation class.

*Disclosure: This blog post includes affiliate links. Please note that I only recommend books, products, courses, and services that resonate with me and all opinions expressed are my own. The affiliate link below means that I will earn a small commission if you decide to make a purchase at no cost to you. 

I love journaling.

If you have read any of my blogs, or have been in my classes, then you know that I highly recommend journaling as a way to help us release emotions and process our thoughts.

I started the practice of journaling in high school from an English summer writing camp. It was an assignment only but it was the first time in my life that I actually enjoyed writing. I didn’t have to think about the grammar, spelling, or any other rules for the matter of fact.

I then realized journaling was the place for me to connect with my inner voice. The more I journaled, I better I was at listening to my inner voice.

I would write down my ups and downs, my heartbreaks, triumphs, anger and worries. Anything that came to my mind, I just jotted down on paper.

It was cathartic, the process. The pen moving on the paper, transferring all my inner thoughts and the different voices in my head through my hand onto something physical.

There are multiple voices in my head that want to be heard, with the inner critic being the loudest usually. But the more I journal, I know that eventually there will be a wise voice emerging. Some may call that inner wise voice as our soul, our spirit guides, or even the Universe.

To simplify it I would just call it the voice of Love, with a capital L. Who reminds me on seemingly hopeless days that there is indeed hope. That there are miracles and magic everywhere, but sometimes we just forget to acknowledge them. That there is love, all around us. Hope is not lost among us even when we may be surrounded by fearful voices. Because the love within us will triumph – as long as we listen.

So journaling to me is one way to help us hear that voice of Love. In today’s blog I want to share with five ways on how journaling can help us with our emotional and mental health and spiritual growth:

Our minds hold so many thoughts. Studies have shown that an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. 80% of these thoughts are negative, and 95% are exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before. 97% of our worries are baseless, meaning that they will never happen in real life.

Now you can see why it’s not easy to quiet our minds in meditation. That’s where journaling comes in handy.

In the past I only did journaling after meditation until I read Gabrielle Bernstein’s book called “Happy Days”. In her book she suggested to do journaling before meditation as a mind-dumping tool to help us gain more focus in meditation.

It was true. I tried and tested it and I could focus much better in my meditation.

Whether you will meditate after journaling or not, journaling can be a great mind-dumping exercise. Once we write down what’s on our mind, sometimes we can feel lighter or find more clarity.

Besides being a great way to “dump” thoughts, journaling is also an amazing tool that can help us process emotions and feelings.

I love writing down my own thoughts and feelings in my journal. Particularly when I’m feeling certain negative emotions, journaling becomes my outlet. Sometimes maybe I feel angry or resentful to a situation or person but I don’t know how to express my true feelings yet without getting defensive.

When we write down our feelings, we can express our emotions in the rawest form without the need to censor or intellectualize them. It’s different than talking it out with a friend, as sometimes we may start to water down our feelings or rationalize them in order to avoid being judged.

Perhaps at the moment I’m feeling so much hatred towards a certain person. Instead of directing the anger to that person and getting into a fight, or suppressing that anger and pretending nothing is wrong, I can write down all my anger and frustration down on paper first.

Writing then becomes a way to release some of the pent-up emotions, and perhaps through writing, other emotions will start to surface from deeper within, such as resentment, grief or even love.

Once we are able to find relief from releasing emotions through writing, we can take a step back from our life and start to see more clearly on what’s going on in our inner worlds. We can ask ourselves questions to get to the root cause of our emotions.

Why did I feel angry? Or resentful? Or fearful? Was it because the words or behavior of another person triggered a limiting belief, like I was not good enough? Was I carrying other people’s feelings? If so, why was I doing that?

Journaling prompts are helpful to gain more awareness into our inner worlds. Simple prompts such as “if I were not afraid, what would I do?”, or “if I had all the money and resources and support I want, what would I do?”  can help us reflect on what we truly want to create in our lives. It can also help us clarify our intention and to listen to our intuition.

Sometimes after doing meditation, walking a labyrinth, drinking cacao or waking up from a dream, I feel like words, images, or ideas are coming through me. That’s when I’ll grab my journal and write or draw them out.

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Big Magic”, she wrote about catching our inspiration or the big idea before it gets away. I truly believe that. Sometimes it’s not a big idea, maybe they are just random words that want to be expressed as a poem. Sometimes I start writing and a short story comes out. Sometimes I jot down ideas for a blog (like this one), an offering, or an answer to my prayer would come.

Journaling is a safe and private way to express our creative voice without the need to show anyone. It gives us an opportunity to play with our creativity within the safe four corners of the paper.

Like any other skills in life, the more we express our creativity through journaling, the better we get at expressing our true authentic voice in all aspects of our life.

Last but not least, journaling can be served as a written prayer.

In times when I need more clarity or just feel stuck in my life or don’t know how to resolve a problem, I would write the questions in my journal. I believe that once the question is posed, the Universe will show us the answer one way or another.

For example, one time I was feeling really down and I asked the Universe, rather angrily, to show me a miracle that day. On the same day I received an email from a guest who appreciated her time at Museflower and felt that the experience has transformed her more than she had imagined. Her words brought tears to me and reconfirmed that I was on a right path. Her email was the miracle and the answer to my prayer. The Universe was listening and gave me hope that I needed to move forward.

In “The Artist’s Way”, Julia Cameron suggested a daily exercise called the “morning pages” where one would write 3 pages of anything first thing in the morning. I highly recommend anyone who’s starting out with journaling to try this exercise out for one week.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be the first thing in the morning if your mornings are busy and hectic. Of course, it is a great exercise to do at the beginning of the day as it helps to release some of those repetitive thoughts, and by doing so it can help to set the tone for rest of the day.

But if evening times are the only time that work for you, go ahead and do your journaling at night. Night times are great for reflecting and processing what has happened during the day.

In Shawn Stevenson’s book “Sleep Smarter”, he suggested to do some journaling before bedtime, including writing down three things that we are grateful for today, reflecting the best and toughest part of the day, and what we are looking forward to in the next day to help calm the inner chatter for better sleep.

All you need to get started with journaling is a pen and paper. The morning pages and journaling prompts are useful guides to help us get started, but nothing speaks louder than the action itself.

Try it one time and see how you feel. Notice if you feel any difference on the days when you did journaling and on the days you didn’t. I sincerely hope that you can reap the benefits of journaling as I have.

References:

• Neringa Antanaityte, “Mind Matters: How To Effortlessly Have More Positive Thoughts”, TLEX Institute: https://tlexinstitute.com/how-to-effortlessly-have-more-positive-thoughts/

Since I was a child, I’ve always been fascinated by dreams.

I always remember my dreams, and by the time I was a teenager, I’ve learned to write them down in my journal. I even bought one of Robert Moss’ books on dreams, but of course at that time I didn’t really understand what I was reading (and now I couldn’t find the book to read it again).

I’m no expert in dreams. There are a lot of dream teachers out there, such as Robert Moss, if this is something you are interested to learn more.

But my dreams have always been a way for me to understand what’s going on in my inner world.

I believe that dreams serve as a gateway to help us understand our subconscious and unconscious minds better.

Sometimes, dreams can be symbolic and I feel like I’m receiving a direct message from the Universe.

Sometimes, I have intense feelings from my dream and I see dreams as a way to help me work through those feelings or just to release them.

Sometimes, my dreams just help me process my thoughts or observations the day before.

Not everything in a dream has to be symbolic though. We can fall down a rabbit hole when we try to overanalyze every element that happens in a dream, and that’s when we will get too much in our head.

Instead, let your heart and intuition guide you. I believe that our soul, our ancestors, helping spirits, and the Universe can speak to us through our dreams. Dreams are a beautiful way to explore our inner landscape too.

Based on my personal experience, here are 6 ways on how dreams can help you:

This is not often but when it happens, I can feel there’s something important that’s trying to come through in my dream. Sometimes when I’m in the dream and when I know that it’s important, I’ll try my best to remember it so I don’t forget (or try not to) when I do wake up.

Before my husband and I dated, I had a dream that I received a golden snake bangle from him but I had to give up something else like golden dishes. Interestingly in Thai culture, receiving jewelry from someone means that there is love/romance coming your way. Well, in my case, my dream was prophetic as my husband and I started dating officially half a year later.

Though this only happened to me twice, but they were definitely important ones! Both the Chinese and English names of my elder son Mirren came through to me in my dreams.

When I was pregnant with Mirren, I had a dream of my grandfather from my father’s side visiting. I’ve never met him in real life as he passed before I was born, so naturally in the dream I didn’t see any image. It could only be explained as a deeper knowing, and I saw three Chinese characters in the dream which I knew was going to be the Chinese name for my son.

One time in my dream I was extremely angry that I felt like I was a volcano exploding. I couldn’t remember what the story was in the dream. When I woke up and remembered that intense anger, I was like wow, I didn’t know that I had that in me.

Instead of overanalyzing why that would be, I felt that it was just one way my body intelligence was helping me to release any repressed feelings and I thank the dream for that!

Sometimes I’d meet celebrity crushes in my dreams, or I’d experience very empowering adventures, and when I wake up in the morning, I feel that my mood is lifted and like anything is possible.

I’m very grateful for these types of dreams, because they remind me that we can recreate feelings that we want to experience in real life. For example, if I’m feeling nervous about teaching an upcoming workshop, I’d remember my dream of feeling powerful and confident, and I can allow that confidence to come through in my real life.

When my dad passed away suddenly, I missed the chance to say anything meaningful to him before he passed. Our last discussion on the phone was about the tsunami that hit Japan back in March 2011.

With his death, I’ve learned and understood a lot more about different dimensions that the Shamans and other ancient cultures had talked about.

In my own experience, I truly believe that there are other dimensions out there and only because we are in one and can only see one, it doesn’t mean that other dimensions don’t exist. The analogy I like to use is TV channels. Just because we are watching one channel now, it doesn’t mean that other channels do not exist. And I believe that dreams are a gateway for our souls to access these different dimensions too.

I’ve met and hung out with my dad many times in my dreams since he passed. In most of these dreams, I didn’t even remember that he was no longer physically alive in real life.

To me, I know that it is my dad visiting and letting me know that he’s okay, and that he’s looking after me from another dimension. And how cool that we can still hang out in our dreams.

Lucid dreaming means that inside the dream, we are actually aware that we are dreaming. We can then regain control of what happens in our dreams, kind of like Inception the movie.

Lucid dreaming can be a very powerful experience since we can basically do anything we want in a dream without any consequences (like when we jump off a building to fly).

According to Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, lucid dreaming can help us cultivate more self-awareness, and explore the creative power of the mind.

I don’t always get to lucid dream (though it is a technique one can learn), but when I do, I feel very empowered and free to do whatever I like. That’s when I love to jump off wherever I am and fly.

Dreams are such an important gateway for us to tap into our inner world and other dimensions.

It is confirmed by scientific research that we humans dream every night, but we may not recall the dreams.

When we start to recognize the impact of dreams in our lives, and how dreams can help us, we can start to build a better connection with our dream world and use our dreams to understand ourselves better.

We all dream every night – so let your dreams speak to you.

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