Words of Love and Kindness.... Written on Your Water Bottle

A few years ago I read The Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto.  

The book explains that water exposed to words (or images or sounds) of love and kindness becomes so filled with positive energy that it turns into beautiful ice crystals when frozen.  It also explains that water exposed to negative words is so filled with negativity that malformed ice crystals are created.  

We all know that our bodies are made up mostly of water.  So one would be able to infer that drinking water that has been exposed to words of love and kindness would bring the positive energy generated into our bodies.

I loved this idea and so I created custom water bottles over at CafePress for my daughters.  Each bottle has a loving and kind quote or word on it.  I hope it brings my girls an extra bit of positive energy each day!

How to Be the Person You Are Truly Meant to Be ... By Picking To Do the Things That Bring You Joy

I have fought a long hard battle to be the person I am truly meant to be.  Instead of the person everyone expects me to be.  I still have some skirmishes now and again but I feel really quite victorious!

But now I have recognized that my 10 year old daughter is waging the same war.  She is small and quiet and lives inside her imagination.  She like Legos and Minecraft and fairies and brussel sprouts. She barely answers when an adult talks to her and she is scared of most movies and roller coasters and butterflies.   She feels different from the other girls in her class and from her sister and from her friends and it bothers her.  Because she is trying to be the person everyone expects her (a 10 smart, beautiful 10 year old girl) to be instead of the person she is. 

And I want to teach her what I have learned.

To be the person I am truly meant to be.  A person who shines with a radiantly positive light.

By doing what brings me joy and to doing away with avoiding the things that cause me fear.

I have learned to ask myself  "What is my intention?"  before doing anything.  Before I agree to a lunch date on a jam-packed day.  Before I sign up to run the Book Fair.  Before I have a conference with a teacher.  Before I comment on a Facebook post.

Once I am clear on my intention, I decide if what I am doing is bringing me joy or if what I am doing is just running away from something I am afraid of.    Am I having lunch with a friend because I really want to see her or because I am afraid of making her mad if I say I can't make the time that day?  Am I volunteering at school because I want to support the kids and teachers or because I am afraid I will be looked down upon for not helping?  Am I going to the conference to hear the teacher's expert opinion or because I want to blame her for my child's challenges?  Am I commenting on Facebook because I really want to express a feeling or because I want to remind the poster how important I am in their life?

If I am doing something because it brings me joy then that is fabulous!  I let myself shine on!

If I am doing something in an attempt to avoid bad feelings or cover over bad feelings, then I stop and look deeper into those bad feelings.   Why am I afraid to put myself before others?  Why am I afraid to say 'no'?  Why do I need to assign blame for an issue?  Why do I need to be seen as important?   Why am I afraid to just be myself?

Even if I can't get to the bottom of those bad feelings, I can let go of the need to do something that does not bring me joy just to avoid them.

And this is what I want to teach my daughter.  To not go along with things that don't make her feel good just to try to avoid feeling bad.   I want her to keep playing Legos and Minecraft  and believe in fairies and eat her brussel sprouts even if none of her friends do. And I want her to tell her friends about  how happy those things make her.  I want her to be polite to adults even if she does not want engage in lengthy conversation.  And I want her to feel proud of herself for having beautiful manners and a happy smile.  I want her to wait at the bottom of the roller coaster while her friends take a ride.  And I want her to be excited for them when they come off and let them share all of their scary moments.   I want her to be herself.  And be full of joy and a radiantly positive light.

(I always want her to know that sometimes we need to do things that don;t bring us so much joy in order to have things that bring us lots of joy ... like taking ballet in order to be dance team, like paying taxes in order to live in the US, like taking tests in order to attend a certain school... but that is a post for another time!)

Increasing the Positive Energy of Your Home .... A Little Bit of Feng Shui

Every spring I do a Feng Shui re-assessment of my home and business.  I like to make sure that over the year I have not created any energy problems and I like to try to add in a few more things to bring an even more positive flow.

Feng Shui is a method for helping the energy of your space to flow in a most positive, balanced way.  There are some great books out there to help you understand Feng Shui and I really love this article from About.com, but here are a few notes I have made for myself to help me each year.

BAGUA AREAS

Feng Shui assigns an area of your life (bagua) to each area of your house with your front door being somewhere on bottom plane of the chart below.  

MONEY	REPUTATION	LOVE
FAMILY/HEALTH	CENTER	CHILDREN/CREATIVITY
PERSONAL GROWTH	CAREER	HELPFUL PEOPLE/BLESSINGS

ELEMENTS SUPPORTING BAGUA AREAS

Each of these areas is supported by an element .. earth, wood, water, fire or metal.  In the area, you want to give as much support to that element as you can.  You can do this by incorporating the colors and items that are related to that element.  You can also incorporate colors and items from the element that feeds the element in your area and you can remove colors and items from the element that destroys the element in your area.

MONEY Wood  (water+, metal-)	REPUTATION Fire (wood+, water-)	LOVE Earth (fire+, wood-)
FAMILY/HEALTH Wood (water+, metal-)	CENTER Earth  (fire+, wood-)	CHILDREN/CREATIVITY Metal (earth+, fire-)
PERSONAL GROWTH Earth  (fire+, wood-)	CAREER Water (metal+, earth-)	HELPFUL PEOPLE/BLESSINGS Metal (earth+, fire-)

Feeds

Water -->Wood--> Fire--> Earth--> Metal

Destroys

Wood -->Earth--> Water--> Fire--> Metal

COLORS AND ELEMENTS SUPPORTING ELEMENTS

The colors and items that support each element are as follows ....

Wood: Green/Brown/Purple'Gold, plants, wood items

Fire: Red/orange/purple/pink/yellow, candles, lighting, leather, animal items

Earth: light yellow/sand. crystals and rocks, pottery

Metal: white/gray, metal

Water: blue/black, water, mirrors, images of water, glass

INSPIRATIONAL ITEMS SUPPORTING BAGUA AREAS

You can also add in items that support the energy of the bagua areas by picking things that inspire you in that area of your life ... family photos in Family/Heath, a jar of pennies in Money, etc.  You can select items that speak to you are can search around for some of the traditional items that supports each section.  This article discusses some of the traditional elements.

CLUTTER

One of the most useful things to do to support the positive energy of your home is to remove the clutter!  Energy cannot flow if it is all blocked up by stacks of papers and piles of laundry.

STRUCTURAL ISSUES

Another big part of Feng Shui is looking at the flow of energy around the furniture and structural items, like windows, of your home.  This article talks about some of the most common energy flow problems.

While I am not an expert in Feng Shui, I have implemented a lot of these small tips and have found them to make a positive impact on the energy in my home.