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May 2 through May 8, 2022

Venus will move into fiery Aries today, kicking off a week of inspiration, assertive action, and heart-centered progress! The Moon cruises through Gemini Monday through Wednesday, inspiring us to gather, share and assimilate information at record speed. Conversations will be enlightening and fun as we ponder the possibilities and sort through details to discern fact from fiction. The pace will slow on Thursday as the Moon moves into Cancer for a two-day visit, turning our attention to home, family, and security. Based on the fact that Mercury will be turning retrograde in a few days, this is the ideal time to back up computers/phones and electronics of all kinds. With the Moon traveling through Leo over the weekend, we'll be focused on social events, self-nurturing, and generosity. We may not get many chores done this weekend, but we'll be gifting ourselves with light-hearted interactions and satisfying activities. Enjoy the smooth sailing vibes in the air, as Mercury will be going retrograde early next week!

How to Use Affirmations That Work, by Amy B. Scher

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

I've never been a fan of standard positive affirmations; my clients are always shocked when I tell them this. In fact, for some people, not only do affirmations not work, but they can also make things worse. I know this may be a little surprising after reading pretty much everywhere that if we just repeat positive things, our lives will turn to glitter and gold.

Affirmations are not bad, but we are all different, and affirmations work best when they are made specifically for each of us based on our needs.

Why Most Affirmations Backfire
The idea behind an affirmation, whether it's in the form of a verbal statement or visualization (which is really an affirmation, too), is that you are affirming positive thoughts or images—things with which you'd like to be in alignment. What often happens, though, when you focus on something positive that doesn't feel true to you in any sense is that the opposite thought or image comes up. This is common, and often subconscious. These are what I refer to as a "Yeah, but …" statement that automatically get triggered when something feels very far from your current reality or truth.

For example, let's take the affirmation, "I am in perfect health." While this is obviously a very positive statement, it is typical, if you are not feeling this way, to have an automatic internal response of, "Yeah, but I'm sick!" This may be conscious or subconscious response. In this case, along with that affirmation, you would actually be repeating (even if just at a subconscious level) the negative statement of, "I'm sick!" as many times a day as you repeat your affirmation. Yikes, right? It's most likely too far a reach from where you currently are, or you probably wouldn't even be trying to use an affirmation like this in the first place, right?

How You Can Create Affirmations That Work
During my own healing, I read so many positive healing affirmation books that ended up in a pile on the floor. While I liked the idea of them and every guru from here to the moon was professing they were the cure-all, the suggested affirmations being taught were just too "out there" and unattainable for me.

All hope is not lost, though. Affirmations will be very effective when they hold some type of truth or resonance for you. In order to make affirmations successful, we need a way to baby-step our way to believing what we are saying. We need to make sure we don't have those, "Yeah, buts…" that might end up sabotaging our efforts.

I'm going to each you exactly how to find affirmations that will work. Remember, if you repeat an affirmation such as, "I am perfect, happy, and healthy," but you are not feeling that way, it’s likely to backfire. However, you can make it work for you by revising that affirmation to something like, "I am excited to feel perfect, happy, and healthy." This statement is positive and could still feel true for you. There is no risk of accidental negative affirmations getting attached.

Examples of Effective Affirmations
You are probably familiar by now with the standard affirmations out there. Now, I'm going to share some alternatives to those. Here are some great examples of effective affirmations that may be more effective for you:

• I am willing to believe in my ability to create healing and happiness.
• I allow myself to believe I deserve to heal.
• I allow myself to believe I can be content in this moment.
• I allow my body to become an environment for health and healing.
• I am able to process, metabolize, and release all emotions that do not serve me.
• It is time to heal!
• I choose to be in alignment with my body's way of healing.
• I am able to see the good in myself.
• My health is moving in the right direction.
• I have everything I need.

Affirmations like these are not likely to cause an unintended opposite reaction, because they are subtle. As you feel better about yourself, and your health, you can continue to revise them so they are more and more positive, as long as they still resonate with you.

Quick Tips For Creating Effective Affirmations
Making your own affirmations can be very effective, and also fun! The key is to create affirmations that feel good to you. These affirmations will ideally be something that feels possible for you—maybe not in the moment, but in the near future. It is best when it's something you can relate to, understand, and appreciate the importance of in relationship to your own journey. Some helpful tips for creating effective affirmations are: <ul

• Use words like "choose," "time," "allow," and "willing" so they imply a decision made by you (it's very hard to resist our own decisions).
• Make sure they are believable to you at some level.
• Make sure you use only positive words—no words with negative connotations (like illness, stress, etc.).
• You can write them on a sticky note and tape them to your bathroom mirror, jot them down in a journal, or put them in another obvious place so you are reminded to say them every time you see them.

When and How To Use Affirmations
There are no rules for when, how, or how often to say them. For clients who want to use affirmations, I typically recommend saying them a few times a day on a regular basis and tied in with daily routines. For example, when you brush your teeth in the morning and at night. You might say each affirmation a couple of times before or after that activity. When you state the affirmation, state it "loud and proud!" Put some emphasis on it and try to get energetic about feeling that way. This will help activate the emotion behind it, which will help you more easily manifest it.

Now that you understand the components of a really effective affirmation, you can revise affirmations that you already use to be more specific to you. Or, even better, have fun creating your very own that you love!

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2016. All rights reserved.

For many years, I lived a very happy and blessed life. Then about four years ago, one thing after another started to go wrong. First my mother died, then my father met and married a new woman and they moved far away and now have nothing to do with the rest of the family, which has really broken our hearts. I've suffered some strange health problems, am going through a financial crisis, and nothing that I used to do in terms of praying and manifesting seems to be working. I think I may be going through a so-called crisis of faith, for I'm definitely wondering if all the good things I used to believe about life and the Universe and how we have the ability to create our own realities were ever true. Why is all of this happening? Do you believe that we go through hard times as spiritual tests? If so, how do I handle all of this? Do I have any power to influence what is happening in order to break free of it, or do I just have to ride it out?

Becca

Susyn:

Your letter doesn't surprise me, for most of us - myself included - experience a difficult cycle at some point or other in our lives. You didn't mention your birth date or age; it would be helpful to have that information to determine if what you've been going through is astrologically driven.

This influence could involve Pluto (the planet of karma), Saturn (the planet of limits), or Mars (the planet of movement). These three planets generate cycles that can last two to four years and create just the sorts of experiences you've been struggling with. You may want to consider having an astrological reading to determine if these cycles are in play, when they began and - perhaps most importantly - when they will start to clear. Clearer understanding of how the stars may be influencing your life would be helpful for lots of reasons. For one thing, it would reassure you that you are not the cause of these problems, and that they are part of a bigger picture and higher plan.

When moving through a phase like this, there are a number of things to keep in mind. First, you are being challenged to change your thinking. Because these events came in one after another, they are probably all mixed together in your mind. It is never easy to lose a loved one, so I imagine your mother's passing was really devastating. Although she is always near you, losing someone we love dearly often challenges us to grow in very intense ways. Hopefully, her passing has helped you develop greater spiritual awareness of life as well as death.

Regarding your father and your manifesting skills, you are learning the lesson of powerlessness. When I tune in to your father, I sense that his reluctance to be around you and the rest of the family is arising from knowing but not wanting to face that what he is doing is wrong. You can't control his actions now, but you can take heart in knowing that later down the road, your connection will be restored. As in any cycle of loss and rebirth generated by Pluto, he will come back after learning his own karmic lessons.

Finally, remember that it is easy to have faith when things are going well. It is not that the Universe wants to dump heartbreak upon you, but rather that you need to grow stronger in your faith and resilience. If you look back on other times in your life when loss and disappointment came your way, it should be a bit easier to see that eventually, everything worked out so that you were aligned with your perfect path.

I can assure you that the crises you are dealing with will cycle around once this phase of your spiritual testing is complete, and in the long run, you will find yourself in a much better place for all of this.

*****

Oceania:

When things unfold as we hope they will, it's easy to feel happy and spiritual; it's when circumstances take unexpected turns that our spirituality is really put to the test! The challenges we encounter in life bless us with just what we need in order to grow spiritually and strengthen our values and identity.

I'm sorry for your suffering, and want you to know that you can significantly reduce your pain by changing your perspective. When you describe a situation as something you must ride out or break free of, you're declaring it to be negative and oppressive. By viewing this as something awful that you must endure, you're forgetting that there are no happy endings to unhappy journeys. You cannot BECOME happy; you can only BE happy now. I recommend you welcome and embrace your situation, and choose to trust that there are gifts, lessons and blessings in there somewhere. If they aren't clear to you, you might pray for help in discovering them.

Let's redefine the events you've been experiencing from wrong to natural. It was your mother's time to transform. Your father may have survived his devastating loss by distracting himself with a new relationship and dissociating himself from anyone who reminded him of your mother. Try to muster compassion for him. Many men have a hard time processing their emotions; indeed, a number of men die shortly after their wives do because they are so bereft.

If you haven't already, consider letting your father know how much you love him and how much you welcome his return to your world when the time is right for him. It is possible that he is mentally stuck in a perspective very similar to your own: New love enabled me to go on living, but my children have rejected me and my new companion. Choose to be happy for your father. Welcome him and his new spouse. See his desire to pair up again as a tribute to what he shared with your mother, rather than a rejection of her.

Health problems can be a wakeup call to healthier living, so give thanks for your symptoms, and welcome this opportunity to make adjustments to your diet and routine. A financial crisis can alert us that our career path no longer fits. This may be the time to simplify, downsize and reexamine your core values and life purpose. Usually, second careers prove to be more meaningful and service-oriented than first ones.

Prayer and the Law of Attraction may not be working if you are overlooking the multitude of blessings in your world. If you maintain the belief that everything has gone wrong, you can only manifest more wrong, but if you identify the ways that things have gone right, more blessings are sure to flow in.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.