Inspirational cliches exist for a reason: there is often some wisdom behind the quick platitude. However, we tend to use them most often when those around us are feeling pain, depression, or just plain need our love and nothing more.

When we encounter bad experiences, we are quicker to respond than when we encounter positive things. This is a survival mechanism, from an evolutionary perspective. However, we live in the modern world, and just because our friends are in trouble doesn’t mean their lives are in danger.

The following are the things you will be tempted to say when a loved one is facing emotional distress, and why you should say something else instead. Or better yet, say nothing and give them a hug.

You Can Choose To Be Happy.

While this is partly true, and common advice in the world of spirituality, when it is said to someone who is already down it has the opposite effect of what is intended. Think about it: if you’re really struggling, what do you want to hear?

That you can wave a magic wand and reverse the emotions you’re feeling so deeply? This phrase, spoken at the wrong moment, is deflating, not uplifting.

Everything Happens For A Reason.

This may be true, but not everyone believes it.

It is therefore unwise to speak it to someone in distress, who is having a hard time seeing the larger picture to begin with, unless you know for a fact that they believe it as well, and you are certain that they need a reminder. Continue reading →

The term ‘out of body experience‘ (OBE) was coined in 1943 by George N.M. Tyrell in his book Apparitions. It is basically the soul’s endeavors outside the body, and can occur during periods of dreaming, psychedelic experiences, sensory deprivation, conscious astral projection or near death experiences.

Early researchers Celia Green and Robert Monroe adopted this term as an alternative to belief-centric phraseology. Studies have confirmed that at least 10% of the human population has had an OBE, but in most cases if someone has had one, they have had several.

In history, such greats as Thomas Edison and Salvador Dali are known to have employed OBEs in the creative process.

There have been several documented methods by which one might induce an OBE. Binaural beats at a frequency of 4 Hz were observed as effective by the Monroe Institute, and many other researchers support the use of this technique in conjunction with others as away of induction.

Also, stimulation of the brain has been used, via magnetic, direct, or electrical stimulation, to achieve these states.

Perhaps the easiest way for the layman to enjoy the wonders of the OBE would be to employ sensory deprivation, sleep training, or metaphysical methods outlined in this or any number of spiritual websites. Continue reading →

We often tend to look at the unconsciousness of sleep as a physical necessity that is healing but takes up a whole bunch of time. However, sleep is for the mind as well as the body, and focusing attention on this mental and emotional side of sleep can allow us to turn a mundane activity into a mystical ritual.

Have A Routine.

Sleep routines are not just for children.

They exist for a good reason, for adults as well. This could mean a book and a bath, or could be more deeply therapeutic such as using essential oils or moisturizer.

These activities will wire your brain to know it’s about to go to sleep, and will eventually induce sleep.

Forget The Caffeine.

Caffeine is both a stimulant and an appetite suppressant. As such, you will feel nourished and energetic when you could naturally be neither. If you are using caffeine to stay up later, you will not be in optimal health.

Only Sleep When You’re Tired.

You can actually sleep too much, but if you are receiving full amounts of rest every day, your body will only sleep too much if it’s sick or otherwise unwell.

If you are well rested, you can release the fear of sleeping too much and let your body get what it needs. Continue reading →

 An empath, or, someone who is highly sensitive to other people’s feelings, intentions, motivations, and the general the energy that surrounds them, often don’t realize that they are until they’re in such emotional/mental turmoil, they go looking for the cause.

The difference, of course, between simply being “empathetic” and what one would define as an “empath” is that the latter doesn’t quite have control over it, or it affects their lives to an unhealthy degree.

1. You are a bonafide “over-thinker,” and often times become absolutely convinced that there is something more at play in the situation (even when other people would say you were totally nuts).

In reality, you are picking up on the motivations, intentions, feelings and reactions that most people are not sensitive to; you can naturally feel the multi-dimensional nature of anything.

2. You’re constantly tired. You’re worn out from so much emotional exercise that you’re not even conscious you’re doing. Until you’re aware that you pick up on other people’s feelings and adopt them as your own, you’ll do so and just believe they’re yours to cope with.

3. You’re extremely sensitive on the inside, but very distant and emotionally reserved on the outside. You have an incredible need for intimate, human contact, but only allow it for yourself sparingly.

4. You’re naturally a peacemaker, and often compromise your own feelings or needs just to “keep the peace” because discord bothers you so much. You actually believe that quelling your own feelings about the situation heals the situation, because it changes how you perceive it. So you force this on yourself incessantly. Continue reading →

To be intuitive is to be self-aware. To be self-aware is to be able to grasp the immaterial parts of yourself that exist within the physical doing and being.

The benefits to this kind of understanding are obviously endless, but seldom discussed are all the challenges that come with being very attuned to your intuitive, inner ‘knowing.’ To speak to it and more, here, all the things highly intuitive people have to deal with every day:

1. We always know when someone is bullshitting us, even when we aren’t able to say anything about it.

For the sake of maintaining our family structures or keeping our jobs, we can’t always call people out on their absolute lack of awareness, and that becomes really frustrating when we see them being tripped up by the lack of insight that they’re closed to having.

2. Almost nothing is as infuriating as when people fake emotion, because we can pick up on that as much as we can pick up on the real stuff.

And it’s something people do all the time: feign emotion to get a certain reaction from others (usually attention or love.)

This is as physically palpable as any real emotion, and is endlessly frustrating, because we end up feeling as though we have to fake a response and feigning our own emotional experience is essentially the antithesis to our existence.

Continue reading →