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My little boy came home from school yesterday, and refused his mini gingerbread man and apple juice, a sure sign that something is ‘not quite right’. But, after a dose of calpol and a visit to the bathroom, he returned to his usual bouncy self. At 6 o’clock last night he changed.

Out of the blue he turned into a vomit fountain, it was truly like a scene from the exorcist. He was laid across the sofa, which thankfully is leather and easy to clean, and managed to create a ‘vomitfall’ effect from the sofa to the floor. It was quite spectacular.

So once this spectacle was over I was left with a massive clear up operation. Cleaning him up was easy, cleaning the sofa was easy, but the floor? The was a totally different story.  I had spent the majority of the day in a great deal of pain with my back, and when not suffering with pain I was moving around in a pain-killer induced fog. But, its surprising how fast that fog lifts when you have an ill little one to care for.

The amount of times I walked in and out of the room to survey the damage was ridiculous. I knew I couldn’t kneel on the floor, or crouch down, my dodgy knee simply wouldn’t have coped, and if I was to bed forward for long enough to get it cleared up well, would I be able to straighten up again? It was a chance I had to take. It is the longest clean up operation i have ever had to undertake, but I got there in the end.

I was not looking forward to a night punctuated with a small child crying, with his head down the toilet, but thankfully after only one more exorcist incident (over the toilet bowl – hooray!) he settled down to sleep. However just because he slept does not mean that I did, I rose at the slightest sound just in case we were off again!

Its going to be a long day today….sigh. Never mind though, we’re off to see the Top Gear team this afternoon, that should cheer him up.

I think that I am now quite correct in saying I have insomnia and its driving me mad.

I decide its time for bed as I am dead on my feet, then as soon as I lie down I am suddenly wide awake and laying there telling myself I should be asleep. If I do happen do doze of its not for very long and then I end up clock watching until its a reasonable time in the morning to get up.

I have tried all of the usual things to get some sleep from warm drinks to ’strong’ drinks, lavender scented baths, reading a book etc etc.. I have even resorted to some less that traditional methods to exhaust me before bed (snigger). I still lie there awake.  I have always been a light sleeper, my partner has always said that if a mouse walked past the house through the night and broke wind, I’d wake up!

So this has got me thinking. Do I have anything in the shop that I haven’t tried for myself yet?

I have tried hypnotherapy cd’s in the past and they have worked, after a fashion, but I have not tried this one yet. Overcome Insomnia So I’m putting this on my shopping list.

I like ambient, relaxing music too, so I’m also going to add this one to the list. Sleep Gold Llewellyn really does produce some beauitiful music so I know this is going to be relaxing.

As far as using some herbs – which I tend not to for myself, no idea why, I tend to prefer crystals. I think I am best off with Valerian and Lavender, I just need to come up with a suitable mix, which I will probably use for a pillow sachet.

Wish me luck!

One of the pleasures of working from home is that I can start and finish working when I choose to, and not have to spend my day ruled by the clock, well other than for school runs. I was all set for a quiet night last night, it was warm with a subtle breeze and I was just pottering around finishing a few jobs, when I noticed a new sound was appearing between the bird song and the sound of cars driving past the end of the street. It was the sound of glass meeting glass.

I’m not sure if you have ever noticed this, or if its just bit of writers imagination, but the sound of beer bottles hitting each other has a very distinctive sound. It could not be mistaken for any other type of bottle, it can only be a beer bottle. As I listened the interval between these new noises appearing became shorter and shorter, and I found myself letting out a resigned groan.  It could mean only one thing, the neighbours from hell were out in the garden, and had settled themselves in for a full night of it.

I would have loved to have been proved wrong, but no, they were there for the long haul. They were out there making an acceptable level of noise at around 7pm when I put my little boy to bed, at 10pm I had to close all of the windows to block out the noise they were making, which made it unbearably stuffy in the house, and at midnight I reached my limit.

I would never want to stop anyone having fun, but in a relatively quiet residential area, on a Monday night when kids have to be up for school the next day and adults need to be fit for work, I would hope that people would have enough respect for those around them to keep the noise level down, I know I do. It wasn’t just the music (if that’s what it was) or the singing, or the clattering of glasses and cans, the crudeness of the language or the volume of the voices, it was just the whole combined cacophony. They are far too intimidating to confront outright, so I made a complaint to the local authority.

I doubt if anything will come from it, but I can’t believe I was the only person who was disturbed last night. Even with the windows shut tight they managed to wake my son up three times, and they were still out there at 2am thismorning. I am at a loss as to just what we are supposed to do when people like this, with no regard for anyone else make our lives a living nightmare.

So now you feel that you are ready to progress your psychic/spiritual gift, so what do you need to do?

You may well have heard ‘horror’ stories about people ‘inviting spirit in’ or ‘dabbling with the occult’, where individuals have ended up with unknown spiritual entities running amok in their home, or even worse, possessing the individual themselves! It is no wonder that anyone approaching spiritual contact feels uneasy, perhaps a little scared about what the are ‘letting themselves in for’. There are so many programmes on TV, and magazines relating tales of supernatural woe that it can be difficult to tell fact from fiction.

If you speak to any experienced psychic or medium they will tell you that one of the most important skills that you need to learn is how to ground and protect yourself. So what exactly does this mean? To put in in simple terms, think of yourself as a cartoon character, you go through life happily without incident, then strange things start happening, and as you open your mind to the idea of spiritual contact a small light appears above your head, almost like a  light bulb. this light shines quite dimly at first, but as you open your mind further and start to ‘test’ your intuition and ask for signs from spirit, the light begins to burn brighter and brighter. So here you are walking around with a huge bright light above your head, in a community where everyone else is dull and their minds closed. Just like moths to a flame your light will start to attract spirit wishing to let you know that they are there, because they see your light as an open communication channel – like an unsecured broadband connection!

The best time for a spirit to make contact with you, is when you are relaxed, when your mind is unoccupied by the everyday things that keep us distracted from one task to another. The time before sleep, when you are comfortable and relaxed, slipping into a dreamlike state is the ideal opportunity for them to make their move. How many times have you been about to fall asleep when you have heard a noise, thought someone was there, or turned bleary eyed and imagined that you have seen a figure at the foot of your bed? You will probably find that as you develop psychically you will have more disturbed nights, more vivid dreams and more unexplained phenomena than you know what do do with! This is where the ‘Grounding and Protection’ come in.

Think of it this way, would you go deep sea diving without a wetsuit and safety equipment? I thought not, its the same with psychic protection, it’s your personal safety equipment. How you choose to protect yourself is up to you, you can find a host of different methods at ‘Circle of Light‘ my spiritual forum. The most often taught method is for you to visualise yourself inside a golden bubble, inside the bubble you are protected from negative influences, both spiritual and physical. You are surrounding yourself in a golden protective light, building a shield between you and everything else. The more you practice the visualisation the stronger your shield will become. It is a great place to start, but then how you choose to visualise your shield is up to you, what works for one person may not necessarily work for another.

By ‘grounding’ yourself, you are quite literally anchoring yourself to the earth plain, this helps to keep your feet firmly on the ground, and stops you from losing touch with reality. It also helps to ground all of that psychic energy that is powering the giant light above your head! One of the simplest and most effective ways of doing this is by visualising roots, like those of a great Oak, extending out from the soles of your feet, deep into the earth below you. As the roots travel downwards they  spread in all directions grasping the earth and helping to keep you steady. As with any grounding or protection exercise, the more that you practice it the stronger it will become and the more noticeable the effects will be.

How many times each day you choose to practice the grounding and protection exercises is up to the individual. Though I would suggest that when first starting out you do it as many times a day that you can remember, especially first thing in the morning and last thing at night. As you get better at doing it the less often you will need to do it, and it will become as automatic as making your morning cuppa. You will find though, that as your skills develop you may need to adjust the levels of protection that you apply, this could be as simple as placing your bubble within another bubble, or visualising a reflective surface on the outside of your bubble, you will know what will work best for you.

There are a good selection of books on psychic development, as well as CD’s etc. at The Covenstead.

Finally, to ensure that you get a good night sleep, without interruptions from visiting spirit, you need to learn the art of ‘closing down’, this is basically how you switch off your ‘lighbulb’ and put up a closed for business sign. Again their are a multitude of methods for doing this (see Circle of Light) and methods vary from person to person. You could visualise yourself inside a giant flower, closing up the petals around you one by one until the flower is completely closed, or you could visualise yourself crawling inside a sack and closing it tight above you head. I have know a few people start to feel claustrophobic when doing this, so if it is something you suffer from, I’d suggest a more suitable method. If you are have an understanding chakras you could visualise a coloured light at each of the chakra points and turn them off one by one by one from base to crown. Or perhaps if you are a biker, visualise yourself putting on protective leathers, followed by your helmet, finally closing your visor. You get the idea? However you chose to close down is up to you, just remember that you are in effect sealing yourself off from spirit. You can always open yourself up again in the morning if you wish by reversing the close down process.

Often when starting out upon psychic development you can feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that just seems to pop into your head day and night, it can make you anxious, sleepless and sometimes can get you down as you feel that you no longer have any peace. By learning to successfully ground, protect and close down, you are learning to take control of your gift manage how and when you use it, which is something that a lot of people forget they can do.