Practical Psychic Protection

Psychic protection is more than shielding yourself from spirits and entities with ill intent.. It's not just the spiritual aspects of protection that we need to concern ourselves with. While yes it is important to protect yourself, to guard yourself and be aware of any possible malevolent or wounded spirits in your midst, it is far more important to guard your psyche and personal well being in the here and now.  

This kind of protection, the protection of the Heart and Soul, of body, mind and spirit, of our thoughts and emotions, and our loves, passions and joys. 

This is NOT the kind of protection that walls you off from authentic connection, from being the real you and finding your tribe. If you have to pretend to be someone else in order to feel love and belonging that's maladaptive protection. So what's it about?

Psychic protection is about resiliency, authenticity, and healthy boundaries. 

Part of this is patience, allowing yoruself to grow at your own pace. If you keep "raising your frequency" without doing the soul work needed to increase your capacity you will eventually become undone like this bead of water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKMf7PCkoZQ (video is only 1 minute long) A bowl of water wouldn't come undone so easily, nor a lake nor an ocean of water. 

Practical ways to help with this actually come from some of the hand outs I received in group therapy. I have included the handouts below. Click on the image to get a full sized view. If you have a hard time downloading hte images directly from here you can view them here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rSplcb5cNRviQZhD53xykeYhP-QHCQbN?usp=sharing

Radical Acceptance

One thing that needs to be made clear here is that radical acceptance does NOT mean you continue to allow someone to abuse you, it means accepting that you cannot trust that person to be anything other than what they are toward you. 

Radical acceptance does NOT mean you don't do anything to change the world and make it a better place. It means accepting what is so you can make actually make a difference in changing the world for the better. 

My Reiki Master said that the way to heal the pain is through the pain. 

My Sacred Grief teacher said that you don't need healing from your grief, you need your grief to heal. 

Self-soothing

For me this is more about self-care. I don't like the term self-soothing since it has been misused as a way to neglect the emotional needs of others, particularly infants and children. That said the contents of this handout is good, particularly for practical grounding methods when your imagination is running away with you, catastrophizing everything.  

These methods employ the five basic senses, such as watching candle light, or listening to soothing music, drinking your favorite tea, smelling flowers, or running your hand along smooth wood. Humming a tune incorporates physical sensation as well as hearing. 

On music, what is soothing to you will be different for osmeone else, and what's soothing now may not be soothing later. While writing this to help me focus (since I'm embarrassingly on a time crunch), I'm listening to Sonata Arctica, a power metal band. At other times I'm listening to Celtic music, or the Interstellar movie soundtrack, etc. It all depends on what I'm doing and what's needed in the moment. 

Improving the Moment

Sometimes, things suck, right now, and you might be like Miles Morales in Into the Spider-verse "I am in the moment! It's a terrible moment!" 

We have a habit of saying things that are self-defeating like "I can't take this, I can't stand this" etc. But yes, you can, because you have to, because if you don't the results will be worse. So you talk to yourself in a better way. I can do this. Or you be like Wonder Woman in the Justice League cartoon who would always "Hera! Give me strength!" 

Other ideas you can use: "Goddess! Give me strength!"

"Lord! Help thou my unbelief!" This is one I have used several times. It comes from a story in the New Testament where Jesus healed a man's son but at first didn't believe but just the hope of belief was enough to heal. (I grew up with the King James Version so it has the funky language.)

My Legitimate Rights

This is about setting healthy boundaries, allowing yourself to grow, to change your mind, to not always be beholden to others. You are allowed to say no, you are allowed to change your mind, you are allowed to parent the way you see fit (unless you are abusive then you need some serious help to heal so you can be the kind of parent you really want to be).  

Of course, none of this means you should be a jackass. Of course not, but you can say, "Now is not a good time" without justifying it. I have cancelled things purely because my mental health was bad and I just couldn't deal with people (which is saying a lot since I'm an extrovert). 

All feelings are legitimate. Even if it turns out you were mistaken. You were acting the best you could with the knowledge that you had, and once you know better you can do better. That doesn't make any feelings more or less important. 

You are legit just as you are. Give yourself the growth space you deserve! 

Questions/comments on these practical aspects? Make a comment below. :)

The Burning and Eating of Sage

Smudging has become so popular now, that you can find mini-smudging kits at Sprouts (a sort of holistic grocery store). Smudging is when you burn sage to cleanse the environment, and to cleanse the energy of themselves and others. I have purchased sage for burning and while it smells nice, it's odd that we don't think to eat it to cleanse ourselves. 

Sage is a spice that tastes great on all sorts of foods. I have had it with pork, poultry, fish, etc. I have used it in making vegan chili If you bless the sage and have the intention for it to be used to energetically cleanse you, then the sage we eat is just as effective as the sage that is burned, and bonus, it tastes so good. 

Actually, I believe that sage is better to eat than to burn. After all, sometimes, the best thing we can do for our homes and energy, is to internally cleanse ourselves, and to include our physical bodies in that cleansing. Too often we leave our bodies behind. Your body is your vessel that allows you to be in this very dense physical world, so we can experience things we cannot experience as formless beings. We need to directly include the body in our spiritual practices. Eating sage that you have blessed, and other energetically cleansing foods such as basil, cinnamon, peppermint, etc, actually produces greater results because it includes our atoms, our cells, our bacteria. The nutrients end up feeding our entire body, and with the cleansing blessing added in, it cleanses the tiny energetic "spores" (for lack of a better term) that get in the way of our highest good. 

We are all doing our best. We look outward to help us with our inward selves, such as decluttering our homes (the Kon Marie method anyone?), and we have so many beautiful  external rituals. However, sometimes, it's nice to go from inside out, and what better way to do that than to bless and cleanse all of our food? You can bless everything you consume, but we know that sage is particularly helpful. >

When I bless food I do something like this:

• Breathe deeply and call on the Elohim, of Light and Truth and Love. (or God/Goddess Source)
• express gratitude for the food, and to 
• ask for anything not for my highest good to be cleared, and to 
• cleanse it of any accidental curses, and 
• cleanse it of any other unhelpful energies. 
• I also ask that if there is any oppression somewhere in the process of getting the food onto my table that those beings who are oppressed may find relief; my intention is to include human, plant, animal, soil, etc. 
• I ask my angels for healing energy to be given to the plant or animal whose lives were ended so that I might live.  
• I bless the food to nourish and strengthen my body, mind, and spirit. 
• When I use sage as a spice, and other foods known for their healing properties, I bless it to also energetically cleanse my body.
• I give thanks and gratitude again. 
• I often end in the Name of Jesus Christ and Brighid, Amen (Or All That Is Good, Holy, and Sacred.)

Do what works for you. 

Effectively, it's using food to do energy healing. However, ethically, if I am making food for other beings to consume, I just ask for the food to be neutral and make it with my own love involved. It often involves many of the things I already normally would pray for, but without the specifics of any cleansing or healing involved on the part of the person consuming the food. We need to do energy healing only with permission, and to be sure to leave room for the Wisdom of our Heavenly Parents, the Wisdom of that person's soul to do what is in their highest good since we are mortal and don't know the full context of anyone's lives (and sometimes even our own life)

I hope you will try eating sage to cleanse rather than burning it. Lemme know how it goes! Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments. :)

All blessings, great and small, Ruth ~ Lady of Radiant Joy ^_^ :)

NOTE: for whatever reason the link to this post was misnamed and it bothered me so I am reposting this, with some minor edits. Originally posted in June 2019.