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May 5 through May 11, 2025

Overall this is a week of enlightenment, and though no major astrological events are on the horizon, we’ll finally get a chance to step back and assimilate all we’ve experienced in the first few months of the year. The first three days of the week unfold under a Virgo Moon, calling us to pay close attention to details, regroup, and reorganize our worlds for a better flow. Once the Moon moves into Libra, we’ll spend Thursday and Friday seeking a better balance, not only emotionally but spiritually, encouraging us to pay closer attention to our feelings and intuition. The weekend unfolds under a Scorpio Moon, encouraging more depth and power in all our relationships. With the Sun traveling through Taurus, this is a weekend to focus on adding beauty to our homes as well as heart-based expressions to our conversations and personal interactions with others.

Five Ways to Add Joy to Your Life, by Emily A. Francis

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

I have been speaking about joy as a key emotion, one that the body stores, for quite a few years now—and I have a different offering for you about joy and how it is experienced inside your body. Happy is one thing, but joy is something felt deep within the entire body and muscle memory system. Take for example the smell of perfume or cologne that your first great-love used to wear, the smell of a cherry tobacco pipe that your Grandpa used to smoke, or the leather car seats of a new car. Notice how, when something tickles your olfactory senses, you are instantly transported back in time to a place where you felt a height of emotion. Your whole body gets involved. Joy is deeply felt inside when we remember it and when we experience it for the first time.

Joy doesn't just come in the loud moments. Joy shows up in silence. It shows up in the quiet as well as the excitement, and, most of all, in the present. Even if you are reliving memories and re-experiencing moments of joy, you are taking them from the past and bringing them exactly to the present. It's a moment of getting still and sitting with the joy as it comes. That's when you close your eyes, take it all in and savor it for everything that joy is.

Joy is not a buzzword. It is an emotional experience that opens up the senses and nourishes your soul. It ignites your muscles and your mind. While I would love to make this a simple list of things that could add joy to your life, which I will, I want to invite you to find joy for yourself that isn't easily listed. Joy is deeply personal and heartfelt. Finding a bit more joy in your life requires you to put yourself out there into new adventures and new experiences. As I list five ways to add joy to your life, I will ask that you add to this list as you read and see what comes into your thoughts as something you want to discover. Joy comes with purpose, and taking a chance and switching up the regular moves with a few side steps, skips, and twirls. So, let's dive in!

1. The biggest and easiest way to add joy to your life that I can offer is to take a trip. Gifts don't have to come in boxes; they could just as easily come as adventures. Change it up and give yourself permission to use some of your savings and see a part of the world you have always wanted to see. The amount of tickling that this will do to all of your senses is beyond description. Seeing other parts of the world and how other people live opens us up and expands our perception of the world. It's an extremely sacred gift for yourself; take it when you can.
2. Take a new class somewhere near you. Whether it be a cooking class, cake decorating, dance class, photography class…whatever it is, it requires you to step to the right and get out of your comfort zone to elevate your own daily experiences of life. Once you start looking for one, you'll be shocked at how many things have been right down the road from you all along. If you've been contemplating doing something like this, this is your sign to go for it.
3. Change up one of your meals a day. This idea comes to us from the Mediterranean. Food is magic if you know what to do with it. In the Mediterranean, the key is to simplify it. You don't have to learn some new elaborate recipe at all. I'm talking bread, olive oil, cheese, and maybe a nice glass of wine or a mocktail if alcohol is out of the question. Take small, simple, ripe foods that are currently in season and make a little charcuterie for yourself or for whomever you would like to share a meal with. Slice up some fresh bread and take a small amount of olive oil and stir into it some fresh herbs such as rosemary, basil, and thyme (this is the trifecta of spices in Malta) and then sprinkle the herb-infused olive oil over the bread and eat it as is, or lightly toast it. Add some fresh greens and top it with some fresh feta and maybe some pomegranates since it's that time of the year. Top the greens with the same herb-infused olive oil. No need to have to do more than that one drizzling! Something so simple and delightful will immediately make you slow down and be intentional with your meal practice. It's about being present in the food and to the experience as the food enhances your awareness of taste, touch, and smell.
4. Make a date with someone important to you. If you've been meaning to call your best friend or family member, pick up that phone and schedule a date. Go have coffee or tea or wine. Go make that date a priority. Meals are not meant to be eaten alone, and neither are your coffee breaks. In the Mediterranean this counts as a whole meal, going for coffee. It's slow-paced and satisfying. It's stimulating conversation and it elevates a regular day. I do this so much more in the Mediterranean than I ever did back in the United State. All the time, people ask me to meet up for coffee, and I've finally started taking them up on it. It turns out that my days do seem just a little bit more alive when I do this. We are hard-wired to crave human interaction. Stop hiding behind that keyboard and go get your coffee on.
5. This one comes down to you. The other suggestions all asked that you expand in some way and add more or do something out of the ordinary. Joy can come in the smallest and simplest of ways. This one is all about you. This calls for you to sit still for some part of every day for at least seven days and see what you notice about yourself. Learn to take some time out and get quiet so that you can hear yourself think and feel your feelings. It's a time of simple self-reflection and checking in with yourself so that you can ask yourself questions and be clear enough to listen for your natural responses. We spend so much time being told what to think, what to buy, and what to do with almost every aspect of our lives. We are consumed by the outside world so much of the day. I'm asking you to sit still with no distractions for however long you want to be still in some part of each day and then notice how that affects your whole system. It will open a pathway for joy. Let it in.

Joy doesn't have to be some life-changing, explosive experience. It can be felt in a multitude of ways as you open up to its presence. Joy is a sacred energy, and it usually comes with its best friends, purpose and gratitude. To add more joy to your life, simply be open to noticing it when it shows up. Things show up when you do!

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2023. All rights reserved.

I have always been very sensitive and intuitive. I am a hairdresser and a manicurist, so in my line of work, I am constantly touching people. If a customer has a pain, I will feel it for the next few days the same way they did. I was told I have healing hands, but instead of helping others, they seem to sicken me. How can I continue helping others without taking on their problems myself? Please help me.

Yasmeen

Susyn:

This is a very common experience of natural healers: we tend to become sponges for other people's problems, and take them on ourselves.

If you can work with gloves on, I recommend you wear them when you work on your clients. If that won't work for you, try using hand sanitizer after each appointment. Of course, we don't actually have to touch a person to absorb whatever is wrong with them, so taking the measures above should only be considered the first steps in protecting yourself.

The good news is that you can pass healing to other people without jeopardizing yourself. Ideally, you will want to use a ritual for spiritual protection before you go to work, one that will allow you to continue healing others but keep you from absorbing their energy. I like to visualize a clear, large bubble surrounding me before I work. This is similar to the one that Glinda, the good witch in The Wizard of Oz, traveled in.

I also recommend wearing protective stones and colors as you work on others. These are natural ways to keep others' energy from clinging to you. White, yellow and red are good colors to wear when you work on others. Earrings, rings or bracelets that have quartz crystals, amber stones or red gems such as rubies or garnets can also create a protective shield around you.

Next, you will need to practice higher awareness when dealing with clients who are in pain or emotional distress. Be aware that to heal them, you will be bringing their energy into your own body. Instead of holding on to their troubles, however, you will perform a ritual that removes these troubles from your own body or emotions as well as theirs.

Once you have finished with a client, take a few minutes to focus on the trouble they had and visualize it leaving your own body. This may take a little practice, but in time, you will be able to move the negative energy away from them, onto you, and then out into the atmosphere.

I support your desire to continue practicing with your healing gift. Once you have set up these protective measures, you should experience less stress and pain as a result of your sensitivity.

*****

Mata Maya

What you describe is very common; in fact, I experienced something similar as a new healer. When I prayed about the matter, I was led to a wise teacher who enlightened me; as a result of her teaching, I've become a much more powerful healer and haven't had a problem since.

While it's clear that you would also benefit from some training, I'm a bit hesitant to recommend it since most of the energy healing methods being taught are in my opinion fundamentally flawed.

Energy healing is simple and is something anyone can do. You don't need any special knowledge, mystical symbols, expensive attunements or secret codes. What you do need is a heart full of divine love and unwavering faith.

Many traditional methods teach you to look for problems to solve; since what we focus upon grows bigger, this is their first mistake. Further, healers are encouraged to connect with people with great empathy and compassion. While it may seem like this is the kind thing to do, it actually just draws you into their problems instead of empowering you to uplift and empower them.

As an energy healer, your job is not to figure out what needs fixing and how to fix it. Instead, your job is to embody perfect well-being and draw others into that high vibration. If you truly believe that all is well and everyone is experiencing whatever they need to experience in order to learn what they need to learn, then you can remain calm and full of faith regardless of what people may be suffering through. If you know without a doubt that death is not an end but rather the next stage in an endless journey, then you will be able to maintain a high, peaceful, faithful vibration even if the person you're healing is struggling with a life threatening disease.

To put it another way, if someone is lost in darkness, you could go into the darkness with them and stumble around, trying to help them feel their way out of it, or you could simply turn on the light. To be able to turn on the light, you must be in a state of radiant health and well-being on all levels yourself. Though many may disagree with me, if you're not there yet, you would be wise to focus on healing yourself before you undertake healing others.

Whether you are trying to heal others or just cut their hair, it is important that you learn to set your own tone. This way what you create in your life will come from within you instead of from outside influences. To do this, I highly recommend you study and work with the law of attraction.

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.