KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

January 8 through January 14, 2024

The Capricorn new Moon occurs on Thursday, but the energy for fresh starts will abound all week long. There's a tendency for lots of talk and little action under Monday and Tuesday's Sagittarius Moon, but it's all part of the plan to bring us back into work mode, so let's not worry if we don't get much done. The Capricorn Moon is the aspect that will get us back up and running on Wednesday and Thursday, and we'll be able to catch up in record time, allowing us to tie up any loose ends from last year and put a stake in the ground for new enterprises. Change will be the theme as the Moon dances through Aquarius on Friday and Saturday, whether we are looking for a new job, home or relationship. Finding new ways to manifest our dreams is essential now, because as we know, nothing changes if nothing changes! Sunday's Pisces Moon will inspire us spiritually, so let's listen for that small intuitive voice within that is sure to direct us forward.

5 Ways to Manifest Outer Health, Inner Peace, and Beauty, by Dr. Debbie Palmer

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

We're all looking for balance these days. Juggling work, life, and taking care of ourselves is a full-time job that can very often sap our energy, enthusiasm, and health. I have experienced this struggle in my own life and see this every day with patients, too, who seek me out for help in achieving this balance.

I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that achieving balance is possible—without having to book a month-long yoga retreat or overhaul your entire life. This is why I wrote my new book, Mindful Beauty. It's a modern-day guide to living in mindful balance using simple tips—which don't take a lot of effort—to revamp your daily habits. The end result of achieving this balance is inner calm, vibrant health, and outer radiance.

As I talk about in Mindful Beauty, this balance can be summed up in what Ayurveda (the holistic healing system that originated in India over five thousand years ago) calls ojas ("oh-jus"). Pure beauty, says Ayurveda, is clear, glowing skin, silky hair, happy eyes, youthfulness, and even a pleasant smell. This is the result of inner and outer happiness and health. Ojas is considered the "sap of life," true inner and outer beauty and health that radiates from a relaxed, peaceful state. This state of balance is a result of finding peace in your life, but it's also a result of a nourishing diet, regular mindful movement, and restful sleep. That's what I want to talk about here: exactly how to manifest outer health, beauty and radiance, and an inner calm for longevity and true inner and outer beauty. Below are five ways to get started.

1. Find a way to connect with your inner you every single day. I cannot stress enough the importance of taking time to nourish your soul. We eat three-plus meals a day to feed our body, but what are we doing every day to feed our soul? A soul-nourishing "diet" is as important to our balance as food is. While once-a-week yoga or meditation is great, we must begin to incorporate soul-nourishing habits every single day. When I explain this to my patients, they immediately think they have to meditate for thirty minutes every day and explain why they don't have time for it. But you don't need thirty minutes and you don't even need to formally "meditate." I do meditation at my desk during my lunch break and sometimes it's no more than five minutes. But in that five minutes, I focus on my breathing—which nourishes my inner self—reducing heart rate, lowering stress, and giving me a boost to get through the rest of the day. You can also practice walking meditation in your workplace, home, or even the grocery store. (See more about this later.) There are plenty of meditations in Mindful Beauty that you can do, too, if you want help getting started. A simple morning moment of gratitude—being thankful for things that are going right in your life—is sometimes all it takes, too. There's been research that shows that having a sense of awe and gratitude for things in our lives can lower levels of inflammation in the body. Inflammation is a precursor to disease—which is why keeping levels low in the body is so important. Nourishing our inner selves is a key part of living a healthy life today: when we feed our soul, we strengthen our physical being, too.
2. Eat plenty of plant-based foods. When you eat a diet closer to the Earth, as the Mediterranean cultures do, your body responds with more energy, better sleep, and healthier, more radiant skin. Why? These foods—like fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, legumes and beans, and whole grains—have more key nutrients like fiber, vitamins B and C, and calcium that the body needs to thrive. This doesn't mean you have go vegan or vegetarian. In fact, I recommend that patients eat lean meat like poultry regularly and limiting red meat. Fish is also important as part of this Mediterranean-style of eating. This step doesn't have to be overwhelming: simply adding one or two plant-based food to every meal and snack during the day is a good way to start. For example, with breakfast, add an orange or grapefruit; with lunch, add a side salad or greens to your sandwich; with dinner, be sure that half your plate is plant based. A handful of almonds or walnuts as a mid-day snack is another option. Once you start adding these foods to your diet regularly, you'll find that you want to experiment more with plant-based recipes (I offer a few of my family's favorites in Mindful Beauty). You'll notice that these simple changes will result in you feeling more vibrant physically, and also feeling better mentally: you'll be more energetic, more confident, and more invigorated to take charge of your life.
3. Move with mindful intention. When I suggest to my patients that they exercise regularly, so many of them explain that they already go to the gym for a sweat-inducing bout of cardio. As I tell them: there's more to movement, however, than just working up a sweat. So many people today are on their phones—either talking or listening to music—or watching TV while they're exercising. While this definitely helps pass the time, I also suggest shutting off your devices once or twice a week and, instead, focusing on your breathing. That is mindful movement. While a good cardio workout is important for heart health and overall physical health—as well as reducing anxiety and boosting mood—mindful movement achieves balance on a deeper level: you're working out your body while nurturing your inner you. Our brain waves shift from the analytical beta waves (that are important for getting our to-do lists done) to calmer alpha waves (which are important for feeding our soul and our daydream states). One of my favorite ways to move with mindful intention is simply walking outdoors with my phone silenced. Walking meditation, or "forest bathing" as it's been called, makes us more mindful in the present moment and sustains elevated states of this mindfulness the rest of the day when we're not walking. Yoga, swimming, running, biking, and really any form of exercise can achieve this elevated state of mindfulness as long as we're focused on our breathing and the rhythm of our bodies and not our devices.
4. Create a night-time sleep ritual that works for your life. Developing a ritual at least an hour before bed every night will ease you into sleep, helping you to fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep longer. So many people have trouble sleeping today and I attribute so much of this to the digital world that surrounds us 24-7. From a scientific standpoint, our devices emit something called blue light, which has been shown in numerous studies to interfere with the production at night of the sleep hormone melatonin, particularly if you use your devices too close to bedtime. When darkness falls, our body's natural reaction is to produce melatonin, which makes us feel sleepy. But in our modern world—where we're doing work at night on our computers, checking social media late into the night, watching TV, or texting—our bodies aren't producing the amounts of melatonin we need to get to sleep and stay asleep. So my advice to patients is always: shut off your devices at least one hour before bed. Give your body time to produce melatonin and to ease into sleep. Other bedtime rituals can include five or ten minutes of meditation, calming yoga asanas (like shavasana or legs up the wall), reading quietly from a physical book (i.e., not an e-reader), or just sitting quietly drinking a cup of herbal tea. In Mindful Beauty, I also include crystal and bedroom feng shui tips that may help with sleep. What works for each person, however, is different. The important thing is to find a ritual that works for your schedule and start to incorporate it every night. You'll notice that you feel calmer overall—all day long—and sleep better. A good night's sleep is so critical to better health, both mental and physical, and overall radiance. You can have a strong inner you, but without sleep, you can't have a strong outer you and overall balance.
5. Develop a consistent skin-care regimen. The skin is the largest organ in the body and needs regular care. Eating a nutrient-rich diet feeds the skin from the inside, as does moving regularly (this boosts circulation, which provides skin cells with much-need oxygen). Drinking enough water is also important; it keeps the skin hydrated and radiant. Just as establishing good habits in other aspects of your life keeps you in balance from the inside, though, so too does creating a consistent skin-care regimen keep your skin in balance from the outside. Washing skin twice daily, exfoliating (to get rid of dulling dead skin cells), and hydrating skin are basic steps that everyone should incorporate every day. I give many more details in Mindful Beauty, particularly about what to look for when choosing products, but starting here is an important first step. If you're experiencing skin problems like eczema or acne, I recommend that you see your dermatologist, but I also recommend putting into practice the steps that I recommend here and, in more detail, in Mindful Beauty. The skin is usually one of the first places to exhibit signs of imbalance in the body. Helping to get the body back into balance typically has a positive effect on skin conditions, as so many of my patients have experienced. This is why, as an osteopathic board-certified dermatologist (one of only several hundred in the country), I incorporate Mindful Beauty strategies into each one of my patient sessions.

Something important to remember: each of us is unique and beautiful—even though we sometimes don't feel this way. Manifesting beauty and uniqueness comes so much easier once we nourish ourselves from the inside out. These strategies and so many more in Mindful Beauty can help. Wishing you a soul- and body-nourishing journey to your best self!

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2020. All rights reserved.

I've been in a safe, secure marriage for ten years. I have two wonderful daughters, and my life is blessed with good health and a great family. Here's the problem: I have the most vivid, intense, passionate dreams. Often in these dreams, I'll reunite with ex-boyfriends, and when I wake up, I can't shake the feeling that I am deeply in love with them. It leaves me feeling like I took the wrong path in life. Sometimes I want to just dream my life away, and sometimes I'm actually afraid to fall asleep, because my dreams seem more real than my waking life, and I'm afraid sometimes that I may never wake up. It can take days for me to shake just one dream. Please help me. I feel like I'm losing touch with reality, and am afraid to talk to anyone about this because they might think I'm crazy.

- Dreamer

Dreamchaser:

I think you already know what is going on here, but you don't really want to face it. You said you were in a safe, secure marriage with two wonderful daughters, good health and a great family, but you did NOT mention that you were in love, felt loved, or were in any way satisfied.

I believe your gut told you when you were making this choice that you were choosing safety and security over being IN love. You were content with that choice when you made it because of what was going on in your life at the time.

Now, however, you are bored out of your mind. You are too honest and upright to go out and have affairs, however, so you dream. You dream of past boyfriends, of men you lust after that you would never dare proposition, and of men you have never and will never meet.

In those dreams you carry on in all kinds of ways. You do and say and think whatever you want. You are wanton and you are fulfilled. You are brazen and satisfied. When you wake up, it's very hard for you to leave behind the unbridled passion of your dreams for your "cookie cutter" existence.

As I often explain here, many people lead two very different lives. One is the life they lead while they are awake, and the other is the life they lead while they are sleeping and dreaming. I have actually heard of this "phenomenon" that you are experiencing many times. People who are bored, critically ill, shut in, etc., tend to live more in the astral world than they do in the physical world.

Now I must remind you that there are four equal dimensions of experience: spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. The physical is what people tend to view as either the only reality or at least the most important one. You lead different lives on all those levels. Your "safe and secure" life is just your experience on the physical plane.

Throughout the ages, many types of people have believed in the power of dreaming. Australian aborigines, for example, believed that in Dreamtime, beings with great powers would either arise from the ground, come down from the sky, or appear on the horizon and lend their powers to the dreamer.

I think you wake up with feelings of love that you bring back from your own personal Dreamtime. Since you can't love with abandon in your physical world, you do it in your dreams. Then you come back to the physical plane with a "love hangover." If you want greater fulfillment, I encourage you to explore what these dream experiences may reveal about your repressed needs.

I wish you fulfillment in every dimension.

*****

Astrea:

Though it seems you have a perfect life, something must be bothering you to cause you to want to stay in that dream world. Perhaps things are on SUCH an even keel in your waking life that your subconscious is looking for a way to keep you alert and entertained.

This sort of experience is not as unusual as you might think. After being happily married for as long as you have, many people end up not getting enough stimulation while they're awake - at least, not enough to be completely happy. You shouldn't be afraid of your dreams. Dreams are just dreams! Nothing is going to happen in your waking life that you don't want to happen. From what you wrote in your question, you seem in complete control of yourself.

What you are experiencing is a need to search within yourself for some new sense of purpose. Everything you're doing now, you can handle, but your mind yearns for more challenge. Just because it picked the old boyfriends doesn't mean that's what you're seeking. You ARE looking for something to shake up your life, something to excite you, something that YOU can be excited about doing.

What are your interests outside of taking care of yourself and your family? It's time to expand your world to include something for which you can feel real PASSION. If you like to volunteer, now would be a great time to be certified by the Red Cross or to join a group devoted to hurricane relief.

There are all kinds of activities that would be worthy of your time and energy, but you should try to find something that fulfills you in a DIFFERENT way than your family does. Once you become passionate about doing something outside of all that seems to be good and perfect but ORDINARY for you, those crazy dreams will stop.

Feeling that you are "losing touch with reality" is NOT a good thing, Kiddo. The good news is that you are not crazy - you are just bored. Many times deep desires and issues will manifest so clearly in our dreams that we KEEP the dream feeling going when we wake up. Everyone experiences this at times of stress, and if you're having dreams that seem so much more real to you than your waking life, it's time to examine what is stressing you beneath the perfect surface of your waking life, and then make some appropriate changes.

You have to be able to enjoy being awake just as much as you enjoy dreaming, one way or another. Find and make a passionate choice to do something very DIFFERENT from what you're used to doing. It will really clear your mind of all that foggy stuff!

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.