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Choose Your Thoughts, Choose Your Life, by Della Temple

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Taming your inner critic and getting to the core of who you truly are, not whom others think you should be, is a process. It's a process of intentionally choosing your thoughts instead of allowing your inner critic to choose for you. Much like peeling away the layers of an onion, this process of discovering who you truly are takes patience, self-nurturing, and fortitude. But it is possible—and once you find your true essence and live by your own internal wisdom, life is truly delicious!

However, you can't change something until you understand what it is you want to change. The first step then is to bring your awareness to your current story of how you see yourself operating in the world. Start to listen to your inner dialog. Write out some of your worst inner critic statements. Keep a journal of your dominating thoughts. Bring your beliefs of how you view yourself up from the basement of your subconscious and into the light of your awareness. Remember the words spoken to you in judgment or the expectation handed down from your parents. Journaling the story may help to bring all the pieces into focus.

The second step is intent. Do you want to get rid of the energetic imprint of these old beliefs? Sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't. Often people are tied to their stories because the victim energy feeds their sense of self. If that's where you are, then that's where you are. No judgment, just awareness.

And if by chance you are ready to be something different, intend it to be so. Awareness then intent; that's the process of becoming a conscious creator. As you choose to create new dominating thoughts, you start moving out the energy that's keeping you stuck.

Grounding to the Earth
One of the easiest ways to remove the old beliefs from our space is through a grounding cord. One end of this hollow energy tube attaches to your body and the other end attaches to the center of the earth. The gravitational pull of the earth sucks the energy attached to your old belief from your space, making room for more of your life force. You can attach this grounding cord every morning during meditation, and it will stay in place all day.

As I've done this, day after day, year after year, I've found that my inner critic's voice has diminished. I won't say it's all gone, but it is less bothersome. Now I can tune into my own thoughts about what's best for me. I've changed my dominating thoughts to those of self-worth, compassion and non-judgment.

Exercise: Releasing Your Old Story

1. Sit in Meditation with your feet flat on the floor, and your eyes closed. Take a couple of deep breaths and visualize a wide, hollow tube of energy connected to your hips. This tube falls below your feet, through the floor, and continues down to the center of the planet. Feel this cord anchoring into the core of the earth. This hollow energy cable serves as a vacuum cleaner sucking the energetic baggage right out of your aura and returning it to Mother Earth, where it will be recycled and returned to its original essence.
2. Imagine energy, the thoughts and feelings of others, the shoulds and expectations of the world, drop right out of your body and fall down the grounding cord. Let it all go. Give your body permission to release all that stress, all that foreign energy. You don't need to store it in your body. Release it all.
3. This grounding cord stays in place the entire day, continually vacuuming up all the gunk in your aura and returning it to the earth. Take a couple of deep breaths, open your eyes, get up and walk around. Imagine your grounding cord still in place. It moves when you do, allowing you complete mobility. Anytime during the day that you begin to feel weighed down by your old beliefs and thoughts of unworthiness, imagine this grounding cord removing those toxic thoughts and feelings from your energy field. Feel the rush as all that foreign energy leaves your aura and moves back to the earth.

As you remove the shoulds and expectations of others from your energy field, you empty out. And, as you know, nature abhors a vacuum. So instead of filling right back in with more of the same nasty inner critic energy, you can consciously "fill up" with energies more in alignment with your new dominating thoughts. As you consciously choose to align yourself with energies that feel good to you, there's less room for your old stories to reside.

Calling Back Our Life Force
One of the best ways of bringing new energies into your body and aura is to use a tool called Golden Sun.

The Golden Sun has two functions; one is to call back our life force so that we can function at our full potential. The other is to offer us a way to replace the foreign energy leaving our body via the grounding cord with energies that are more in alignment with who we truly are. When we fill in with energies such as peace, love, and self-acceptance, we dilute the power of the lower vibrational energies (fear, anger, resentment), offering us one more way to tame our inner critic.

The grounding cord and the golden sun are what I call "foundational tools." I use them every day to help me remove the thoughts and feelings of other people from my body and aura.

Exercise: Filling In With A Golden Sun

1. Sit quietly with your feet on the floor, and your eyes closed. Take a couple of deep breaths. Imagine a gigantic Golden Sun, about three times the size of your body, above your head. See the sun filled with golden light. Now place a giant magnet in this sun, and ask the magnet to call back your scattered energy from past events, and from time spent at your job or with family and friends. Feel all that energy zoom back into the Golden Sun.
2. Imagine that energy being cleansed and restored to the frequency that's just right for your body. This is your life force energy.
3. Next, fill this Golden Sun with relaxation, peace, abundance, self-validation, or whatever quality would most benefit you at this moment. See those qualities permeate the sun, vibrating at a frequency that's just right for your body.
4. Now imagine reaching up and popping the Golden Sun. Let the deflated sun's beneficial qualities flow into your aura and fill in every cell and membrane of your body.
5. Feel yourself refreshed and enveloped in a cocoon of energies that are just right for you today. The world around you can be full of chaos and turmoil, but when you're filled with your own energy, you can be relaxed, free from stress and turmoil.
6. Sit in this wonderfully peaceful space of relaxation and fullness for a moment or two. When you're ready, open your eyes and notice how you feel. Your body may be vibrating a little bit faster, or you may feel a bit more focused or present.

When you are "full of yourself," filled to the brim with your unique life force energy, there's less room in your aura for mind chatter. It's free, it's easy, and it's oh so comforting.

And finally, if the old story tries to reattach, just remember that you are in control. You've turned the page, and you're becoming something more. Tell those old dominating thoughts, "Oh, I remember you. You're that story that's trying to keep me small. I've outgrown you, and I am something different now, so please go away." Send those thoughts down your grounding cord and then fill in with the Golden Sun full of energy in alignment with your new dominating thoughts. Be in control. Be the master of your universe.

Choose your thoughts—choose your life.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2015. All rights reserved.

How do I know if a psychic has true abilities, and can provide a fairly accurate reading? - Christine

Dreamchaser:

I am so glad you asked this question. I am sure MANY people wonder this, but never get a chance to ask about it. There are a couple of things that mark a reading as legitimate right off the bat.

The first thing is you knowing exactly what you are getting. You should know who your reading is with and how long it will last. You also need to know the exact cost. Any time a "reader" says something like, "You have a bad spell on you. For an extra (fill in the blank with a large amount of money), I can remove it for you," or "If you give me (fill in the blank with another large sum) I can cast a love spell to guarantee his/ her return," you should RUN away quickly.

That is a sure sign of a scam. While some reputable psychics may offer to help you with love spells, they will tell you exactly what you're getting, and for how much. If you're asked for a large amount on top of what you already expect to pay in the middle of a reading, consider it a red flag.

Often I hear clients say things like, "You're the psychic; you tell me why I am here." A doctor can tell you what is wrong with you, but when you first walk in, you have to tell the doctor what your symptoms are. If a psychic asks you to ask specific questions, like I do, it's because I want to get to the root of your issues quickly and save you some money.

I can do a general reading and hit on lots of areas, but if you are coming to me for a reading, you have a reason to be there, so let's go right to that reason, get it fixed and get you out and on to better experiences. That is ANOTHER sign by the way: readers who charge by the minute and who lapse into long silences or milk the conversation out are probably just trying to get more of your money.

The most important thing is how your gut feels. Does your gut kick and scream against what the person is saying to you, or does it agree, even if you don't like what you hear? If you link up with a good reader, your intuition will know it, and you will feel a connection. If you do not have a good connection, your energy will also know THAT. We always, under ALL circumstances, need to pay attention to our guts.

If you ask Spirit for guidance, you will be led to the right person for you. You will find the reader you are meant to have a reading with. Please remember that not every psychic, no matter how gifted, can read for every person. Even if someone recommends a psychic as INCREDIBLE, you may not have the same experience, so ask Spirit to guide you to the perfect reader for you.

I wish you clear and unmistakably accurate readings.

*****

Astrea:

When I was fourteen, my friends and I went to Mrs. Wheeler to have our fortunes told. Mrs. Wheeler took my five dollars ("to put in my Bible so I can pray for you") and told me that the ring I wore was lucky, and that someday I would marry a man with blonde hair and blue eyes. I'm still wearing the ring, and I DID marry a man with blonde hair and blue eyes - for a while. We chose Mrs. Wheeler because she was the only "psychic" around at the time.

There are a lot more storefront psychics you can see in person now, because the laws against fortune telling have been relaxed in lots of places. You can even ask friends for recommendations. Most New Age Bookstores have good readers working several hours a week.

Check to see how long the reader has been reading in that location, and if you want an "in person" reading, try someone out for a "sample" reading before you get more involved. Tell the reader before you sit down that you're looking for someone you feel "connected to" for your reading. A good reader will know within a few minutes if SHE has that connection too, and HONEST readers will tell you if they can't get anything for you. I do that all the time.

Don't ask for a "general" reading. Go prepared with specific questions, and if the first two or three answers seem off to you, thank the reader and try someone else. I don't do "general" readings at all, because I think they're a waste of my time and the client's money.

If you're shopping on the Internet, you should be able to tell by the site if the readers there are any good. A site that has been in business on the Internet for five years or more must have good readers, and they will have had plenty of practice reading for people this way.

If a reader EVER tells you that you are "cursed," leave immediately. The NEXT thing he or she is going to say is that it will cost A LOT OF MONEY to get that "curse" lifted! If a reader offers you a "spell" to "fix" something (usually it's to "make someone love you"), run the other way. Spells are good for lots of things, but changing someone's free will isn't one of them.

Any time you feel the LEAST bit uncomfortable with what the reader is saying or doing, it's time to BOOGIE! Also, if a reader EVER asks for large sums of money to do something for you, please do yourself, others, and sincere psychics the favor of reporting this scam artist to the proper authorities.

Finally, you get what you pay for TO A DEGREE, but a $100 reading can be just as good as a $1000 reading, especially if you've done your homework and established a strong connection.