Have you ever met someone and knew right away that they were bad news? Or just had a strong feeling that you shouldn’t do something?

Those feelings come from your intuition. Intuition is the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. It’s an instinctive feeling. At the time, you just have a feeling and may not be sure why you have it or where it’s coming from. Sometimes it’s not logical and may go against what our logical mind thinks or wants to do. These thoughts or feelings in our body (especially in our gut) are the intuition’s way of communicating with us.

I remember one time when my intuition actually saved my life. I was driving home from my part-time job in high school. It was very dark night on a two-lane country road in rural Montana and I was tired after a long shift at the Drive-In restaurant where I worked after school. I saw car lights from a semi-truck coming towards me in the distance.  In my mind, I saw a brief image of a car darting out from behind the semi to pass in my lane. I began to slow almost to a stop, and it was a good thing I did. At a high speed, a tiny sports car did indeed dart around the semi into my lane without warning. If I hadn’t listened to that feeling and believed the image in my mind, we would have very likely gotten into an accident. It was still close enough to make my heart rate increase and my body to tense up but I was safe.

“Intuition is seeing with the soul.” ~Dean Koontz

When we’re connected to our intuition, it can protect us from danger (including dangerous people), and lets us know when we’re going in the right direction with our lives. Our intuition taps into knowledge from the body, the brain, and also from our “higher self” or inner wisdom. It gives us that feeling of inner “knowing” and allows us to be more confident about our choices in life – that is, when we listen to it. Once your connected to your intuition, learning to trust it is also important. How many times have you gotten that sinking feeling in your gut that you shouldn’t do something and you did it anyway only to regret it later? We all have our own examples. But, we can learn how to partner with our intuition and allow us to serve as a guide for reaching our highest potential.

Here are 5 ways to get you started:

1. Meditating

Starting a regular meditation practice helps clear the mind and connects the mind with the body and our spirit. Meditation allows space for our intuition to enter. Even a few minutes of meditation each day makes a big difference. I like to use the app Buddify when I wake up as part of my morning routine. The Buddify app has meditations for where you and what you are doing. They are short and easy to follow but very effective.

Another breathing meditation that I like to use is alternate nostril breathing. Alternate nostril breathing helps calm the mind and is also said to help harmonize the left and right sides of the brain. Since our intuition resides in the less dominant side of our brain, this can be especially helpful. To do alternate nostril breathing:

• Place the tip of the index finger and middle finger of the right hand in between the eyebrows with the ring finger and little finger on the left nostril, and the thumb on the right nostril. Use the ring finger and little finger to open and close the left nostril and use the thumb for the right nostril.
• On an exhalation, close the right nostril with your thumb and breathe out through the left nostril.
• Breathe in through the left nostril and then close with the ring finger.
• Release the thumb on the right nostril and breathe out through the right nostril.
• Inhale through the right nostril, close with the thumb, release the ring finger from the left side and exhale through the left nostril. This is one round of Alternate Nostril Breath.
  *Source Art of Living.org

“Don’t try to comprehend your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition.” ~Madeleine L’Engle, A Wind in the Door

2. Writing

A daily writing practice helps clear the mind, helps us be more creative, and opens us up to our intuition. Keeping a journal is a great way to get started. One of my favorite writing practices is called Morning Pages from Julia Cameron in her book, “The Artist’s Way at Work.” Morning pages are three pages of longhand writing first thing in the morning. Just write down anything that comes to mind without trying to organize it or overthink it. When you’ve finished your three pages, stop for the day. There is something magical about three pages, it’s enough to engage our creativity but not so much that you get lost in introspection. Your writing may even be your “to-do” list for the day but it clears your mind and allows you to relax and focus.

3. Dream journaling

Our dreams often hold important signs and symbols that can help us on our journey. Becoming aware of your dreams and interpreting them can help you improve your intuition. One way to do this is to keep a dream journal next to your bed. As soon as you wake up, record your dreams and any images or symbols that move you. Then, look up the meanings. There are many great websites for dream interpretation, or you can get a book. I like The Dream Intrepretation.

4. Create Art

Allow yourself to be creative – painting, making music, singing, or creating your favorite form of art are all great ways to connect with our intuition. When we are creating, our mind quiets and allows intuition the opportunity to come in. Plus, creating is fun and is good for our mindset. If you’re not an artist, you can even just pick up some crayons, colored pencils, or your favorite markers and color. I LOVE the Johanna Basford coloring books like Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book. I’ve already colored all the pages in mine and am starting on her ocean book.

Another way to create is to make Five-Minute Art. This is something you can do anytime you feel stuck. Just take five minutes and make art about how you are feeling. Write a poem, draw a picture, sing a song, do a dance, or make something crafty. Don’t worry about whether the art is good or not, the point is to enjoy the process and express and release the emotion. Set a timer, have fun, and let go.

5. Aroma Freedom 

The Aroma Freedom Technique is one of the most effective ways of clearing our minds of negative self-talk, doubts, and memories. It helps us become radiant and connected with our intuition and higher guidance. I’ve been using it myself several times per week since March and have noticed a significant improvement in my confidence and ability to focus. I’ve also seen immediate and significant breakthroughs with my clients. This process is especially effective because it utilizes the power of scent and our amazing sense of smell to “interrupt” negative thoughts and emotions and replace them with a powerful affirmation. Learn more about Aroma Freedom.

Our intuition is a gift that reminds us we are never alone. We just need to turn inward and listen for guidance and support in navigating life’s challenges.

Now It’s Your Turn

How do you connect with your intuition? Do you have any experiences either listening (or not listening) to your intuition? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments below.

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The Book of Joy is the story about Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s trip to visit the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others, and it truly is a gift.

Writer Douglas Abrams helped facilitate the dialogue and brought in some of his own research to support the concepts presented. The reader gets the benefit of the wisdom of these spiritual leaders, groundbreaking research on joy, and to witness the playful interaction between these sweet souls.

“Joy is much bigger than happiness. While happiness is often seen as being dependent on external circumstances, joy is not.” ~Desmond Tutu

Prior to writing this book, The Dalai Lama heard from Western psychologists that many of their patients deal with self hatred. This was a surprise to him but is not a surprise to many of us living in the United States. Our modern culture often makes self compassion very difficult. This was one of the prompts for The Dalai Lama to write this book. He wanted to share that, “the ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status. Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness. We must look inside.”

The kind of happiness described in this book is Eudemonic happiness, which is characterized by self-understanding, meaning, growth, and acceptance, including life’s inevitable suffering, sadness, and grief. The twelfth century Buddhist lojong texts about mind training state that, “Joy is our essential nature, something everyone can realize. We could say that our desire for happiness is in a way, an attempt to rediscover our original state of mind.”

“Joy is our essential nature, something everyone can realize. We could say that our desire for happiness is in a way, an attempt to rediscover our original state of mind.” ~ lojong texts

So if joy is our essential nature, why are so many people unhappy? We create many of the things that undermine our own joy, including negative thought patterns, not appreciating what we have, and emotional reactivity.

According to The Dalai Lama, “The suffering from a natural disaster we cannot control, but the suffering from our daily disasters we can. We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people.” He also reminds us of the adage, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”

Here Adams presented research by by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky that shows only 50% of our happiness is determine by set factors like our genes or temperament. The other half is determined by our attitudes and actions, which we can control.

According to Lyubomirsky,the three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on our happiness are:

1. Our ability to reframe the situation more positively,
2. Our ability to experience gratitude, and
3. Our choice to be kind and generous.

Reframing the Negative News

So how do you reframe a situation when things can often appear negative and bleak, especially when you watch the evening news?

According to The Dalai Lama, it’s important to keep a more holistic view. The news presents the aberrations in our society, not the things that are fantastic about the world. For example, there are millions of children who are loved by their parents everyday, school teachers who are kind and caring, people in hospitals who receive immense caring, and many other kind gestures that go unnoticed by our media. When we remember all the good things happening around the world, it helps keep us from getting discouraged.

The Cause of Suffering 

As a culture, we have been focused on self improvement as the key happiness. There are millions of self-help books that promise to make our lives better, happier, and of course, make us thinner. We read and work on fixing everything that is wrong with us.

However, the exact opposite happens. When we have too much focus on ourselves, we become disconnected and alienated from others, and ultimately ourselves. The need for connecting with others is fundamental to who we are as humans.

According to The Dalai Lama, “Too much self-centered thinking is the source of suffering. A compassion concern for others’ well-being is the source of happiness. By simply shifting my focus to another person, which is what compassion does, my own pain was much less intense. This is how compassion works even at the physical level.”

This excessive self-focus is also bad for your health. Too much fear and distrust, too much focus on yourself, leads to stress and high blood pressure. One study by Johannes Zimmerman found that people who more often use first-person singular words – I and me – are more likely to be depressed than people who more often use first-person plural – we and us. Self-Involvement has even been found to be a better predictor of death than smoking, high cholesterol levels, or high blood pressure

Moving from Suffering to Joy

So what is the solution? It’s having and showing kindness and compassion for others. The Dalai Lama says, “When one is thinking about others with kindness and compassion, one is never lonely. Openheartedness, warmheartedness, is the antidote to loneliness.

The more we heal our own pain, the more we can turn to the pain of others. We heal our own pain by turning to the pain of others. Is is a virtuous cycle. The more we turn toward others, the more joy we experience, and the more joy we experience, the more we can bring joy to others.”

“The goal is not just to create joy for ourselves, but ‘to be a reservoir of joy, an oasis of peace, a pool of serenity, that can ripple out to those around you.’ Joy is in fact quite contagious. As is love, compassion, and generosity.” ~ The Dalai Lama

The back of this book is also packed full of joy practices to help you on your journey including processes for setting morning intentions, meditation, forgiveness, Tonglen – a Buddhist process that allows us to be present for others who are suffering, and the eight pillars of joy.

The quotes from The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in The Book of Joy remind you of the beauty in humanity. The book also reminded me not to be so self-focused, the importance of connecting with others, and in giving to others.

I know it sounds cheesy, but this book made me a better person. It is dog-eared and highlighted for my favorite quotes and passages and is something that I will use as an ongoing reference for life. I hope you enjoy it too. Please tell me your favorite point or quote from the book in the comments below.

This post contains affiliate links. All thoughts and opinions are strictly my own.

The post LifeOhm Book Club – The Book of Joy first appeared on LifeOhm.

An abundant life is one where you have the ability to create, explore, and experience your desires consistently. Abundance may include financial wealth, but it also includes having a rich life, full of meaning and joy. If you’re ready to live abundantly, or just need some inspiration, here are 30 of the World’s Greatest Quotes on Abundance. Which one is your favorite? Share your thoughts, or your own quote in the comments below.

1.”When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” ~ Tony Robbins

2. “Choose joyful abundance in your heart and be unbounded, free, and relaxed. Be relentless with your choice and you’ll make your mark.” ~ Amy Leigh Mercree

3. “Gratitude builds a bridge to abundance.” ~ Roy Bennett

4. “The cause of poverty is not scarcity. It is fear and small thinking.” ~ Alan Cohen

5. “Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.” ~ Wayne Dyer

6. “Abundance is the process of letting go; that which is empty can receive.” ~ Bryant H. McGill

7. “Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.” ~ Wayne Dyer

8. “I try to be grateful for the abundance of the blessings that I have, for the journey that I’m on and to relish each day as a gift.” ~ James McGreevey

9. “When I think about creating abundance, it’s not about creating a life of luxury for everybody on this planet; it’s about creating a life of possibility. It is about taking that which was scarce and making it abundant.” ~ Peter Diamandis

10. “The key to abundance is meeting limited circumstances with unlimited thoughts.” ~ Marianne Williamson

11. “Abundance is about being rich, with or without money.” ~ Suze Orman

12. “If you want love and abundance in your life, give it away.” ~ Mark Twain

13. “I am one with the Power that created me. I am totally open and receptive to the abundant flow of prosperity that the Universe offers. All my needs and desires are met before I even ask. I am Divinely guided and protected, and I make choices that are beneficial for me. I rejoice in other’s successes, knowing there is plenty for us all.” ~ Louise Hay

14. “The journey to financial freedom starts the MINUTE you decide you were destined for prosperity, not scarcity—for abundance, not lack. Isn’t there a part of you that has always known that? Can you see yourself living a bounteous life—a life of more than enough? It only takes one minute to decide. Decide now.” ~ Mark Victor Hansen

15. “Why are you so enchanted by this world, when a mine of gold lies within you?” ~ Rumi

16. “You are, at this moment, standing right in the middle of your own ‘acres of diamonds.” ~ Earl Nightingale

17. “Your fortune is not something to find but to unfold.” ~ Eric Butterworth

18. “When you undervalue who you are, the world will undervalue what you do and vice versa.” ~ Suze Orman

19. “Prosperity, I claim it. Abundance, is mine. Love, flows through me. I feel joy, all the time. Peace, fills my heart. I surrender, everything. Health, is my birthright. Passion, helps me sing. I release, and let go. I accept, what is mine. I can have, what I want. And let spirit, direct the flow.” ~ Prosperity Chant, Karen Drucker

20. “Abundance comes in many forms, do not limit your abundance by trying to control how it will flow, just know that it will come.” ~ Shelly Sullivan

21. “The fastest way to bring more wonderful examples of abundance into your personal experience is to take constant notice of the wonderful things that are already there.” ~ Esther Hicks

22. “Remember, no more effort is required to aim high in life, to demand abundance and prosperity than is required to accept misery and poverty.” ~ Napoleon Hill

23. “See yourself living in abundance and you will attract it, it always works, it works every time with every person.” ~ Bob Proctor

24 “I expand in abundance, success and love every day as I inspire those around me to do the same.” Gay Hendricks

25. “Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.” ~ Steve Maraboli

26. “Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.” ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

27. “True abundance isn’t based on our net worth, it’s based on our self-worth.” ~ Gabrielle Bernstein

28. “People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of win-lose. There is only so much; and if someone else has it, that means there will be less for me. The more principle-centered we become, the more we develop an abundance mentality, the more we are genuinely happy for the successes, well-being, achievements, recognition, and good fortune of other people. We believe their success adds to…rather than detracts from…our lives.” ~ Stephen Covey

29. “The universe operates through dynamic exchange… giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. and in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.” ~Deepak Chopra

30. “If you develop an image of success, health, abundance, joy, peace, happiness, nothing on earth will be able to hold those things from you.” ~ Joel Osteen

The post 30 of the World’s Greatest Quotes on Abundance to Help You Live a Richer Life first appeared on LifeOhm.

Does Quality Really Matter with Essential Oils?

I get this question ALL THE TIME. Essential oils have gone mainstream, you see them at virtually every store, farmer’s market, and certainly at every natural grocery store.
In fact, one of my very best friends just told me, “I know all about lavender oil, it’s only good for a few things and I can buy it at any grocery store. I don’t need Young Living.” At first I was a little hurt by the comment, but then I realized that I might feel the same way if I was just starting out.

I started using essential oils in 2008 when a friend introduced them to me. At first, I was skeptical about whether or not they would improve my wellness and be useful in my life. I also considered going to the natural food store to buy oils instead. Since that time however, I’ve learned a lot! Essential oils have changed my life for the better and continue to add value to it everyday. I don’t go a day without using my favorite oils and I ONLY use Young Living because I know they are the best oils in the world and this is why – QUALITY!

Did you know that the FDA doesn’t regulate essential oils?

They only require a manufacturer to use 5% essential oil in a product to label it “pure essential oil”. What that means is that up to 95% of the product can contain other ingredients, and most of them do. These ingredients include fillers such as alcohols, synthetic oils, water, and even toxic chemicals!

Plus, pure essential oil doesn’t mean organic; pesticides may have been used on the plants while they were growing. The label doesn’t tell you anything about the strength or grade of the oil, or the quality. Some companies also use chemicals to distill the oil from the plants, which ends up in the oil. Many essential oils are also “watered down” because the manufacturer can make more money selling diluted oil.

That’s why it is critically important to know where your oil is coming from. You might be trying to be healthy and actually be exposing yourself to more chemicals!

Seed to Seal Guarantee

Young Living is the ONLY company to offer a Seed to Seal Guarantee. They monitor the quality of their oils every step of the way, from the seed, to the soil, to the way the are harvested, distilled, and sealed into the bottle. They can do this because they are the only company that owns all of their own farms. Their farms are open to the public and you can view the entire process close up.

I’m excited to have a visit scheduled to their Mona, Utah lavender farm this summer. I’ve talked to others who have visited and they may put you to work while you’re there. All of their plants are hand weeded! Young Living sets the standard for premium essential oil and are quite simply the best!  All of their oils are Grade A – Therapeutic which makes them safe for internal use (cooking and supplements) as well as in a wide range of products.

If you’re still not sure, I invite you to attend one of my free classes to SMELL the difference for yourself! I even bring a bottle of another common natural food store brand of essential oil to the class so you can put the oils side by side. The difference is astonishing!

Also Read:

Essential Oils

How to Order Essential Oils

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