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September 6 through September 12, 2021

Monday's new Moon in Virgo will inspire our organizational and idealistic sides, as we embrace the new energy in the air! The first two days of the week will prove quite productive under this influence, as we clear a path and start setting up new ventures and schedules. Balance will be the theme as the Moon cruises through Libra on Wednesday and Thursday, so we'll be able to take a breather from the constant pace of the previous two days. This is also a good time to review our relationships and make sure we are connecting on a heart level with loved ones, rather than a superficial one. Venus will move into Scorpio on Friday, bringing our desires and longings into focus. The spiritual side of Scorpio will infiltrate all we do, especially with the Moon in this sign on Friday and Saturday as well. Speak from the heart, follow your intuition, and trust in the process. A lot of memories could surface under these influences, and a walk down memory lane will fill us with gratitude and appreciation for the journey our path has taken us on. Sunday's Sagittarius Moon is all about having fun, so cast off the scattered vibes of this week and make this a "me" day. Whether a day spa is in order, a car trip to your favorite spot, or spending the whole day catching up on shows you've missed, the main thing is to feed your soul and nurture your spirit!

The Relief-5R Plan
An Excerpt from The Pain Solution by Saloni Sharma, MD

In many cases, the outcome you want will continue
to elude you — even if you try harder. But it may be possible if you try differently.
Can your current choices carry you to your desired future? If not, something has to change. You can’t get there from here.
You have to get on a different trajectory.
— James Clear

Modern life brims with little and big stressors, from never-ending phone notifications and late nights to the loss of a job or a devastating injury. These physical, mental, and emotional stressors intensify orthopaedic pain. They tighten our muscles, constrict blood vessels, and pinch nerves. When we are stressed, we become smaller, self-focused, and limited. Our bodies crumple into a ball of tension, inflammation, and pain, sometimes so bad that we have trouble standing up straight or walking.

The tools in this book can help you reduce painful inflammation and chronic stress in order to function and live better. What we fuel our bodies with today determines our future level of painful inflammation. Each bite of food, each movement, each response to stress, each sleep decision, and each social relationship can tip the balance toward or away from painful inflammation. Small, simple changes can add up to a big reduction in overall pain and inflammation, and a big increase in wellness. To understand how and why they work, let’s look at some of the root causes of pain and the ways our body and brain send and interpret pain signals.

Lower Back Pain and Arthritis (Joint) Pain
More than 60 million Americans have had a recent bout of back pain. The leading causes of back pain include muscle sprains, spasms, degenerative disc disease, disc herniations, nerve root pinching, spinal stenosis (arthritis), facet joint spondylosis (arthritis), bony misalignments, abnormal spinal curvatures, and fractures. Disc herniations are a common cause of back pain. Spinal discs act as rubbery shock absorbers between the vertebrae (the bones of the spine). We can think of them as being like jelly donuts, with thicker outer layers and gelatinous middles. If there is a tear in the outer layer, some of the gelatinous substance may leak out: this is called a herniation. If this rupture occurs near a nerve, it may irritate the nerve and cause symptoms such as leg pain, weakness, and numbness. Arthritic bone spurs and cysts can also pinch nerves and cause similar symptoms.

Other common sources of back pain are sacroiliac joint pain, bursitis, hip pain, piriformis syndrome, inflammatory arthritis, and widespread pain conditions like fibromyalgia. Some of these conditions can occur in combination. Other, less common forms of pain are related to conditions such as infection or cancer (and this is the reason that any ongoing pain must be evaluated by your physician).

With age, everybody develops some arthritic joint changes as a result of wear and tear, but these can be aggravated by physical stressors, injuries, obesity, and genetics. Another risk factor is metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of inflammatory abnormalities, including abdominal obesity, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. As these risk factors increase, so do inflammatory levels. Inflammation leads to cartilage breakdown and bony overgrowth in the joints and spine. But typical
degenerative joint changes do not result in severe, debilitating pain for everybody, so what accounts for the difference? The answer is a combination of fuel and genetics. We cannot control aging or fully control our genetic risk factors, but we can control how we fuel our bodies.

Lumbar degenerative disc disease (wear and tear on the discs between our vertebrae) is one of the most commonly diagnosed causes of back pain and one for which treatment options are limited and often ineffective. Even the diagnosis of this pain is difficult, since it can be caused by multiple factors, including aging, injury, poor healing, and ongoing cellular stress. As with arthritis, certain risk factors are known to accelerate disc degeneration, such as physical trauma, carrying extra weight, smoking, infections, inflammation, metabolic conditions, and genetics. While most adults experience some disc degeneration, the extent of and, more important, the pain associated with this nearly universal phenomenon vary greatly. In particular, the degree of inflammation in the tissues surrounding the disc often determines the level of pain.

Furthermore, chronic painful inflammation changes our brains. It makes us more sensitive to pain: we are liable to feel pain even in response to light touch and to feel it beyond the injured area. Like a wildfire, painful inflammation can spread and grow stronger if it is left unchecked.

Fortunately, some of the risk factors for orthopaedic pain and inflammation are within our control, including daily food intake, activity level, sleep quality, mental stressors, and emotional stressors. To improve spine health and reduce pain, we must opt for real food, move more, use good ergonomics, sleep better, reduce stress, and focus on positive relationships. We can make these changes in bite-sized chunks and without time-consuming workouts, personal yoga instructors, or other costly or disruptive lifestyle changes.

Conventional pain treatment focuses on physical stress. Yet we know that mental and emotional stress worsen pain. Even without a definitive physical injury, mental and emotional stress can manifest as pain, spasms, and suffering. As an example, simply think about a corrupt politician, cutthroat coworker, or challenging family member. Picture the lines of their face, the sound of their voice, their negative words ringing in your ears, and the devastation caused by their actions. These thoughts may trigger tightness in your jaw, shoulders, or back. Your heart rate may quicken as your stress response flicks on.

Now take a big breath in and a longer breath out. Do this three more times. Then let out an audible, teenage-angst sigh. Now picture somebody you love — a family member, friend, mentor, or pet. Remember how you feel in their presence, the sound of their voice, and their warmth. You may notice some of the tightness melt away. This experience reminds us that the mind and body are not separate entities: what happens in the mind manifests in the body and vice versa. Simply put, all forms of stress contribute to inflammation and pain.

Saloni Sharma, MD, LAc, is double board-certified in pain management and rehabilitation medicine. She is the medical director and founder of the Orthopaedic Integrative Health Center at Rothman Orthopaedics and has treated thousands of patients. She is also cochair of Pain Management and Spine Rehabilitation for the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. A popular speaker at Google and an award-winning clinical assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, she lives near Philadelphia. More information at www.salonisharmamd.com.

Excerpted from the book The Pain Solution: 5 Steps to Relieve and Prevent Back Pain, Muscle Pain, and Joint Pain. Copyright ©2022 by Saloni Sharma, MD. Printed with permission from New World Library.

I am a Gemini. I have been hearing and seeing spirits since I was very little. I'm an adult now and my abilities have gotten stronger, but lately I have been overwhelmed by voices. They sound like people talking but it's not one or two - more like thousands. It is becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate and meditate. It's starting to become crippling, and I am starting to lose myself to them. I can find no real cure or relief from this. Are there any suggestions you can offer me?

Susyn:

It would seem you have accessed a vortex through which you are privy to exchanges in the spirit world. You don't mention if these voices are talking to you personally, only that the spirits' conversations are becoming too loud to ignore. This is not uncommon when people begin to open to their psychic abilities.

To begin, start a journal to document when you hear the voices. It may seem random at this point, but take notes to see if there is a rhythm to what you are hearing. For instance, do the voices seem louder while you are meditating or sitting quietly? Does this happen more in the evenings, mornings, or middle of the night? Examine the course of your experience for patterns.

We sometimes forget that we can speak to the spirit world and that spirits can hear us as clearly as we hear them. When the conversations become too loud, pause, and in a commanding voice, ask them to stop. Like noisy neighbors, spirits may not realize that some of us can hear them. Unfortunately, unlike the people next door, you can't bang on the wall. You may have to repeat yourself a few times, but this should help eliminate some of the ruckus.

If this doesn't work, try shifting your location. For example, if you always meditate in the same area and this appears to be one of the times the voices are the loudest, move to another room. You can also add a water fountain or play instrumental music in the background to lessen the interference.

At times, you may feel like these voices are speaking directly to you. This can be annoying as well as frightening if you are not familiar with the spirits that are addressing you. Again, remember that you can ask them to stop and that you have no reason to listen to what they are saying.

I recall a friend who experienced what you are talking about when she visited the World Trade Center disaster site about six months after 9-11. There were so many souls there who were eager to get messages through to their loved ones. Because she was sensitive to their pleas, she became overwhelmed by the numerous voices all clamoring to be heard.

I have had similar experiences during readings in which a clientís spirit guides all lined up to talk at once. Though they all may have had something valid to say, I had to ask them to stand back and come forward one at a time to share their messages. You can use this practice too if you feel that the spirits are benevolent and have information you want to hear.

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Mata Maya:

What you describe is the experience of a natural medium who lacks the development necessary to control his gift. Though it may seem counter-intuitive to pursue further psychic development, at this point, you're already in psychic waters, so you'd be wise to learn how to swim. Perhaps the most helpful thing you can do is find a local Spiritualist church, for there you'll find a medium who can mentor you and a development circle you can join.

It should comfort you to know that you're not being harassed; it's more like you're trying to tune in to one radio station (this reality), but are picking up interference from a nearby station. By learning how to tune in to the frequency of your choice, you can get clearer reception whether you are trying to stay focused in this world or purposefully trying to communicate with beings in other realms.

Since what you want is less of these voices, you'll have to be more grounded in this physical dimension. There are many ways to go about that. One of the best is to get out of your head and engage in mundane physical activities. All sports are good for this, though yoga and martial arts may be especially helpful.

Your goal is to simultaneously get more grounded in this reality while at the same time learning how to shift your vibration higher, for a high vibration and high level of conscious awareness will lead to a high level of spiritual/psychic experience.

Perhaps the most helpful thing you can do is develop a strong, clear relationship with your spirit guides. This will be tricky since you are trying to silence some voices while drawing others' forward. Again, to find help with this, I strongly recommend you find a local Spiritualist church and minister. In general, however, this process will require you to get into a very high vibration and then begin to purposefully dialogue with Spirit, asking for help with this matter and receiving guidance on what you need to know and do in order to create what you want in your life.

You wrote that this has become crippling; please don't despair or do anything drastic. There are medications that may help you. For example, schizophrenics also have keen psychic senses and difficulty controlling their sensitivity. By taking medications that dull their psychic senses, they are freed from being overwhelmed by subtle energies. This is obviously not an ideal remedy, but it may help you while you are working on a healthier solution.

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.