30 lessons in 30 years

I turned 30 last week! Since being a teenager, I’ve had an infatuation with being 30 after watching the film 13 Going On 30. It follows the story of Jenna, a 13-year-old girl who wanted nothing but to be 30 after seeing a magazine article titled “30, flirty and fabulous” and she woke up as a 30-year-old.

And here I am, 30. Thirty, flirty and fabulous. Haha. I’m really excited and grateful to finally be at this age and I feel a lot of energetic upgrades already. It almost feels like everything took place to heal old beliefs, reprogram my mind and learn some serious lessons the hard way so others don’t have to.

Here are just 30 of the things I’ve learned:

1. Everything is a reflection of your inner state. When someone acts a certain way, it’s a perfect opportunity for you to slow down and tune into your heart centre to see what it’s telling you.
2. Feel your thoughts. Always.
3. The path of spiritual enlightenment comes with giving yourself up to God. Doing things for God is the ultimate way of “letting go” to receive.
4. Surrender, surrender, surrender. Take it all to Al-Noor (the light).
5. Wake up for tahajjud (the last third of the night) to pray and meditate.
6. Straight and frizzy is not an actual hair type! You have waves or curls that you don’t know about and don’t know how to take care of.
7. If you start by wanting to “manifest” something, that’s an invitation to clear your subconscious mind.
8. Visit your inner child frequently, daily if you can.
9. Trust the process while feeling your feelings.
10. Starting a boundary with “I feel” and describing your feelings in simple words is the best way to solve issues with others.
11. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Forgive from your heart. If you want people to show up differently, forgive them with your heart. If you want clarity on a situation, forgive with your heart and be grateful. Gratitude and forgiveness don’t take from the gravity of the situation and don’t take your rights away.
12. Taking responsibility does not mean it’s your fault.
13. Approach scenarios and people with curiosity, not assumption. This is how you become an alchemist.
14. It’s okay to let things come to an end. Say goodbye gracefully.
15. It is possible to send healing energy to a situation that isn’t in your control or has nothing to do with you. Pray about it and speak with gratitude.
16. Money is energy. When you spend it wisely and give generously, it will want to run back to you. This is why charity doesn’t decrease wealth.
17. It’s not a bad thing to admit to being wrong. It’s healthy.
18. Men aren’t trash.
19. When someone comes with “love and light”, make sure that it’s projecting the energy of Al-Wadud (name of Allah: the most loving) and Al-Noor (name of Allah: the light) and if they aren’t, chant those names in your heart to project them and disarm the ego that comes with those powerful words.
20. Regulating your nervous system is more important than regulating your emotions. Feel your emotions and calm your nervous system to regulate your reaction to having them.
21. Cleaning your energy field/aura is just as important as brushing your teeth.
22. Don’t chase high vibrations, chase God. Put God in the centre and pray for your life energy to reflect this and watch how you will become the vessel that raises the vibration in low-vibration places. It’s important to remember that this isn’t you doing it, it’s God.
23. People will forget what you know, but they’ll never forget how they made you feel.
24. Ho’ponopono.
25. Keep your space clean at all times.
26. Carry prayer beads with you to chant, even if it’s silent.
27. Not everyone whom you resonate with is your friend. If they aren’t being nice to you, speak your truth and if they let go of you for it, they weren’t your real friend.
28. Not everyone has narcissistic personality disorder. Don’t dissect people and don’t hunt for red flags. Take things one step at a time and when they do hurt you, understand how you feel and approach them about it by starting by talking about how you feel as opposed to what they did. You’d be surprised how often people’s actions are unintentional.
29. It’s okay to watch trash TV!!!!!!!! BINGE ALL YOU WANT! This need to be intellectual all the time is draining you and it comes from a space of people-pleasing.
30. Treat life as a game.

I love you all xx

I’ve let go of my old self… and having Covid helped

When people ask me to explain reiki to them, I usually tell them that it works by healing your aura, which affects your emotion body and then affects your physical state. It’s kinda weird because I actually saw this play out in catching Covid-19 last week.

The start of 2022 was really interesting and not like other years. Ever since 2018, I’ve been doing yearly vision boards to mark what my year would look like. This year, I felt uninspired by my little tradition and decided not to do it. Instead, I did some releasing by clearing out my whole room, my car and burning a piece of paper of all of the stuff I want to let go of. My reiki master Chetna Halai also did a release and calling in ceremony for the end of 2021 and the start of 2022.

So, yeah it was a very deep start to 2022, which uncoincidentally (we don’t believe in coincidences on this blog) is the year I turn 30.

I’ve had a few of my friends turn 30 before me and there was a lot of panic around the idea of entering this new decade. When I responded with calm, I was told to wait until I’m counting down the final weeks of being in my 20s. Here I am and not only am I calm, but I’m actually excited to turn 30. Really, it seems like a new way to let go.

Without realising I was doing it, 2021 became the year I let go of a lot of things. A crazy amount! I didn’t really set a full intention make it the year of letting go, it just happened by doing lots of energy work and finding myself in situations where I had to say bye to a lot of places, people, habits, thoughts and hobbies.

I will say that I set the intention to call in new things, so maybe I had to take out the old first 😉.

This time last year, I was doing some hypnotherapy sessions with my babe Sotoda Saifi and in one session, she noticed that I’ve been carrying a lot of ego connotations with my Palestinian identity, so she challenged me to do a session to let go of my Palestinian self. I was nervous because does this mean I would be obnoxious and forget my roots or stop being active? Regardless, I trusted her and I still cleared out the generational mess that naturally comes with being from one of the most volatile places in the world. It didn’t make me ashamed of who I was at all, but it cleared out some of the root chakra issues that come up when you or your ancestors have experienced different types of trauma such as war, siege, colonialism, slavery, etc.

Months later, when the massacre on Gaza happened and when my own neighbourhood, Silwan, was (and still is) being under threat of demolition, I didn’t feel distanced because I had let go of what I thought I had to hold on to be Palestinian. I still did everything that I do in my activism and journalism and felt all of the raw feelings that came with such a tragic situation, but I was able to manage the emotional effects of watching all of this unfold in a much more healthy way, which made me of more service.

In other words, my subconscious mind and aura were decolonised.

Then, I just spent lots of time doing other classes, sessions and courses with other modalities just for fun. At that point, it was less about achieving something and more to pass time and feel good. In that way, I let go of the outcome of the purpose behind doing all of this stuff and did it all because it’s fun… most of the time.

Fast-forward to January 2022 and I was having a very busy month, until I caught Covid-19 and had to cancel all of my plans and slow down to recover. Because I got rid of so much stuff around me, but most importantly, because I was already clearing out my subconscious mind, having coronavirus allowed the “letting go” process to continue.

On Tuesday, I spoke to Chetna about having Covid and she told me that it came to clear me out. At that point, the virus in me was at its peak and even though I felt weak, I did feel like I was doing a vibrational clearout. Now that I’m coming towards the end of my time in isolation, I really do feel like so much has energetically shifted and I am finally ready to be the next stage of who I am meant to be.

Treating every cough or sneeze as a physical release of trapped energy really sped things up. When your body releases through coughing, sweating, yawning, crying and other natural functions, you’re naturally releasing energy. This release is magnified in ways we can’t imagine when we note that our body is releasing energy and intending for such functions to be a release.

I look back at my 20s and I realise while I became a full-fledged adult, on an energetic level, my 20s were at times an extension of my teens in that I was purging all that did not resonate with me. I’ve chosen to release all of that now. I’ve chosen to stop identifying with everything that I used to identify with, but that doesn’t mean forgetting who I am.

Think of a certain identity that you may have. It could be ethnic, religious, social, political, etc. You’ve had experiences surrounding them. For example, you may have experienced racism. Letting go of your ethnic identity doesn’t mean no longer being what you are, it means you’re not identifying with the experiences you’ve had and connotations your ego creates.

Everyone jokes about the restrictions many Arab girls live with because parents tend to be more restrictive towards their daughters, whilst babying their sons. Letting go of being Arab doesn’t mean you’re no longer an Arab woman, it just means you’ve let go of limiting beliefs surrounding your personal freedom that has been fed to you by the story of coming from a certain ethnicity. By doing this, you’re becoming an energetic match to the vibration of freedom that you’ve always wanted but thought you could never have. As you keep this up and purge from years of being restricted by unrealistic cultural ideals, your reality will change.

Sometimes it’s not about keeping your vibration high. It’s about letting it sink when it needs to and using it as a chance to release and purge. Don’t hide from these low states, become curious about what they’re trying to tell you. What is your inner child saying to you? The secrets to healing and climbing up the vibrational ladder are actually in these low moments.

Without burning bridges, I’ve energetically tapped out of communities that no longer serve me and hold me back. Everyone is on their path and that’s okay. Not resonating with something doesn’t mean you need to demonise it.

By letting these identities and communities go through viewing them with neutrality and love instead of zapping them with emotional charge, you’ve put yourself in a powerful position because it means they don’t own you anymore. Anger and resentment will come up that will stop you from viewing things through unconditional love. Own that anger and work with it to heal it and rise above it. If you fight your negative patterns and feelings, they’ll fight you back, so just be neutral about an emotion and allow it to pass.

For me, everything is now starting to add up and make sense. Now that I’m looking back at the last few years of my life, I realise that nothing was a coincidence. I was meant to meet who I met, go through what I went through, read what I was meant to read, all of this to take me to this point. When? Just before I turn 30 years old. That doesn’t mean I won’t have more layers to unlock; life is beautiful that way.

I am in awe. My ego tells me I was supposed to achieve so many things I haven’t at this age and so does my community. I remember my dad telling me to hurry up and start my PhD so I don’t have to finish it into my 30s. Here I am without even a proposal and I honestly don’t mind because I realised that the PhD dream wasn’t even mine to begin with. It was just something that came with the reputation I had of being academic.

The most hilarious part of this is that even my old gym where I started my fitness journey closed down. This was the Virgin Active in Cricklewood which was right next to my old school. I remember going there feeling very nervous and intimidated when I first got my membership there as a teen when they had some special offer for us and I just wanted to leave. Minus the times I was working with a trainer or doing a class, that branch of Virgin Active was always the one where I had my worst workouts, even just days before it closed. While I miss the convenience of it, along with the reformer pilates and spin classes, I’m so glad it’s gone because I subconsciously still identified with the earliest memories I had of my fitness journey every time I walked in there.

The bottom line is that nothing can control you if you don’t identify with it. I have a vision for my future and a lot of it goes against all of these “identities” that I had to release. I think about this vision and I am at peace, in a state of joy, having so much fun and not tied down to anything that doesn’t serve me. And because I’ve let go of so much, there isn’t much weight holding me down to stop me from flying.

Here’s to 2022, here’s to turning 30, here’s to letting go and here’s to life. I’m so grateful.

And in the words of the amazing film that is 13 Going on 30, here’s to being thirty, flirty and FABULOUS!

Life is a mirror, but there are seven of them: The Seven Essene Mirrors

My loves,

Today, I want to talk to you about something from mystical Judaism that blew my mind. The Essenes are a mystical sect who flourished between 2nd century BC to 1st century AD. It is said that they resided in Khirbet Qumran, which is south of Jericho in Palestine.

Their lifestyle hailed spirituality and God consciousness and they believed in communalism as a way of life. They (like Muslims) believe the soul is eternal and death is just a channel to the higher self.

They were a very tight-knit community and forbade marrying those outside of their sect. Those who wanted to be an Essene had to enter a three-year conversion introductory period.

They had many teachings, but one of them that blew my mind is the concept of the Seven Essene Mirrors.

When I started my spiritual journey, I remember reading that life is merely a reflection of who you are. Being low on consciousness and high on anxiety, I couldn’t rationally fathom it, nor could I quieten my mind enough to realise how everything truly is a reflection of the self.

As I expanded my awareness, I saw myself in others and I saw oneness in individual acts and circumstances. If there are infinite ways to look at a circumstance or a person and if no two people interpret a situation in the exact same way, that means much of our interpretations come from within.

The Seven Essene Mirrors teach just this, but with seven different levels. My mind immediately went to the seven main chakras, the seven levels of heaven and seven gates of hell in Islam, having to circulate the Ka’abah seven times, throwing seven stones at the devil, etc etc. My mind is running away from typing right now as it starts to lose control of what is coming out of my fingertips, but I think we should just sit and appreciate the significance of the number seven and all of the mysteries that come with it.

If we look at the seven mirrors, we see that each of them have their own guide to see how something may be a reflection of what is happening in your subconscious mind. You use these to unlock your thought patterns to let them go and achieve God consciousness (taqwa) and ego death (fana). In other words, the deeper you know your ego self, the faster you will be able to peel its layers to discover the true higher self that has unconditional connection to the Divine.

Even if you aren’t a believer, you can still benefit by coming to your higher self and releasing the limiting beliefs that hold you down. The less weighed down you are with attachment, the more you ascend.

Use these as a guide to figure yourself out when you have questions, or when you want to figure out the clutter of your mind.

The first mirror reflects what you are at the present moment

If you’re finding it difficult to gage who you are at a specific moment, look around you. How do things feel right now, at this very moment? You can be in the same situation twice, but notice different things based on your present mood. Are you more likely to notice the birds flying together, or their droppings on the floor?

The second mirror reflects what you judge

There’s an old saying of when you point one finger, three fingers point back at you. When you find yourself judging someone or something, there is something you haven’t forgiven within yourself or your past experiences. For example, if you’re judging someone for going out too much, you’re resenting a feeling of restriction either within or around you.

In order to manifest better for yourself, release the judgement by releasing the resistance.

The third mirror reflects what was taken away from you

When we see a quality in another person that we want for ourselves, that means we lost it. It could be a sense of femininity, masculinity, joy, confidence, self love, abundance, etc. At our essence, we are whole, but as we go through life, we lose our sense of complete self because of traumas that created limiting beliefs.

When you admire or envy something within someone, that means you need to go on a journey to find it within yourself. We need to enter a space of neutrality and release the limiting beliefs that stop you from remembering that you are one with your desire. The Qur’an does say that we were created from a single being after all (39:6).

The fourth mirror reflects patterns of a lost love

You know that feeling when you’re in a new situation and you keep comparing it to the old? Whether you’re comparing every new person you meet to your ex, or that feeling when you start a new job and you’re trying to draw parallels to your new colleagues and old ones? This is it!

When we look at ourselves through this mirror, we’re able to see our patterns of addiction. This gives us great spiritual power because recognising such compulsions give us an instant trigger into the shadow self when we foster a sense of curiosity about our patterns. When did this pattern start? Why do we feel the need to do what we need to do? Which relationship do we need to make peace with?

Keep in mind that when it comes to relationships, you can get closure without contact through meditation, understanding the deeper meanings and lessons, therapy, journaling, reframing, prayer and cord cutting. Please don’t text your exes or put yourself in a dangerous position with anyone else to clean up your fourth essene mirror!

The fifth mirror reflects your relationship with your parents

Our parents are our first window to the world and are the vessel of our soul’s incarnation to the earthly realm. This is the first relationship we have. As we grow, we find ourselves seeing the world through their eyes. This is why generational healing is so important, because much of the traumas they have are passed down to us.

This can range from our beliefs on money, God, our self identity and self worth, the environment and even politics. If we look deeply and access our subconscious mind, we can even see how our relationship with our parents manifests into relationships we have with others as adults.

How did you feel when you interacted with your parents as a child? Get to know the good and the bad aspects and this will give you a very deep an insight. Just as we’re human, so are our parents. We all view things from very limited scopes, even if we’re spiritual.

Then, you can practice some inner child healing and reparenting and rise above what may be limiting you.

The sixth mirror reflects your dark night of the soul moments

Our darkest moments, our most traumatic experiences, our struggles with mental health and the cloud over our head. When do we view the world through the sadness that lives within us?

Here, we’re talking about trauma. By definition, trauma is an experience that causes shock to the system. This manifests in physical, emotional and spiritual pain and leaves our fight or flight mechanism on. When we become aware of how we see the world through our traumatic experiences, we’re able to use discernment and question if things are the way they are because they truly are this way, or if it’s our trauma that’s talking.

When we become aware of how our trauma affects our perception, we unlock a new level of power — if we’re willing to overcome. Go easy on yourself because healing is nowhere near linear and we can get triggered at random moments. When this happens, we just need to ask ourselves what this moment is trying to teach us.

The seventh mirror reflects our ultimate self perception

So, this mirror is different to the first mirror because the first one talks about our state of being at any particular moment. You could be feeling happy and see roses and butterflies one moment, and then see fire in a few hours if something changes your mood.

Despite our shifting moods, we have a basal vibration, which is what this mirror talks about. Rather than asking what your mood is, you ask how you view yourself in the ever changing circumstances around you.

Using money as an example, a mood is feeling incredibly abundant after a payment. This can shift based on your current financial circumstances. Your self perception, however, is your ultimate relationship with money. Do you believe money flows through into your bank account easily? Or do you believe you’re a poor person?

The latter two are part of your self perception because they come from subconscious beliefs that you identify with.

This mirror is where we do the most exploration when we’re trying to manifest using the Law of Attraction. We can script, visualise, etc about being abundant, but if we don’t try to work on this mirror and understand the deep imprints of our subconscious mind, we won’t be able to rewrite and manifest.

I love this philosophy because it really breaks down how life can be a mirror to you. During your healing journey, you can use these mirrors as a reference point. What I like to do is write one aspect of my life down and pick a mirror that I feel relates the most. Then, I just speed write everything that comes into my mind, without even thinking about what I’m writing. When you’re writing very fast, you access your subconscious mind. Then I move to the next mirror.

Each mirror gets deeper, so if you want to do it with all of the mirrors, do it in the order that was written by the Khirbet Qumran.

I love you all so much,

Di xox

Six ways to charge your water to change your life

Hello my darlings!

Water is the most important thing we consume. Up to 75 percent of our bodies are made up of water and we’re supposed to consume at least 2 litres of it a day and it keep our bloodstream clean, organs running and our mind, body and spirit popping. What we’re not told, however, is water is highly receptive to energy and its structure can be changed with intention (hence reciting Qur’an on water being perceived a legitimate form of ruqiya/exorcism, my fellow Muslims).

According to Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto, water is a blueprint of our reality and we automatically charge water around us using our vibrational frequency at the time. This means, if you’re feeling negative and you speak negativity into water, the structure of the water changes in response; with the same for positivity.

Have you ever seen images of rice in the exact same environment, with one jar having negative words being spoken into it, whereas another having positive words spoken into it? That was initially Emoto’s experiment. He used rice because rice is cooked by absorbing water, thus having a high water content. There are countless experiments online — here’s one.

For those still sceptical, Emoto also carried out very interesting experiments with water at a critical point for freezing, where he found that words with positive emotional contents produced beautiful looking crystals and those with negative emotional content produced crystals that had less of a coherent geometric pattern.

Charged water can be used for anything and it’s really up to your intuition to direct you to what’s best. You can drink it, bathe in it, put it in a spray bottle to spray your space or aura to ward of disturbing energies, add essential oils to cleanse the environment with aromatherapy, really, it’s your call!

Now that the explanation is over, here are six ways you can charge your own water!

1. Prayer

This list is not really in any particular order, but I want to discuss this first and foremost because praying into water is what got me fascinated about the way water can be charged. Growing up, I was told reciting Qur’an into water would give it healing properties; something my agnostic teenage self found difficult to believe.

In my Islamic tradition, we’re taught to recite prayers over water but to focus on connecting with God as opposed to the water. We are a strictly monotheistic faith so we attribute anything and everything to the Divine. Do your prayer as normal, either holding the container or sitting/standing over it and after you’re done praying, blow into the water three times. You can take baths in it or drink it. When I want a holy water pick-me-up, I recite Surat al Fatiha (the first chapter of the Qur’an) and blow and drink away. It takes 30 seconds, but the spiritual benefits are profound.

With prayer, connect with your heart. How do you connect with the Divine? If your religion has a holy water ritual, go for it. If you’re not religious, or your religion doesn’t have that, prayer is a heart-centred practice. Pray from your heart and let that energy bless your water.

2. Moonlight

The moon is known to affect all water, so leaving water in the moonlight naturally charges it with positive energy. The different phases of the moon influence the way in which plants, animals, and human life grow and behave. It’s no wonder the moon is seen as such a powerful mechanism in many ancient cultures.

Some people only make moon water on the full moon (when the moon’s energy is most prominent to us earthlings), but really, you can make moon water any time you want. All you need to do is get a glass bottle of water and let it sit outside, or indoors near a window.

If you want to take it to the next level, look up the different phases of the moon and see how nature responds and what the moon’s energy can offer the planet in each phase. Then make the moon water by leaving it out for one full night.

The moon is amazing in that it is very feminine and it has a similar cycle to a woman’s typical hormonal cycle. This is why periods are often referred to as “moon cycles” in the yogi world.

PS: Jennifer Racioppi has a cool post on how to use the moon for manifestation rituals.

3. Sunlight

Just as the moon has a certain energy, so does the sun. The star of our solar system and the ball of light that gives us life. Working with the sun’s energy can be very complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing. We’re told that we shouldn’t stare directly at the sun, but there are people who sungaze to balance their hormones and connect them to their intuition (please don’t sungaze unless you actually KNOW what you’re doing!!)

Unlike the moon’s energy, the sun’s energy is known to be masculine and operates on a 24-hour level the way the typical male body is known to do.

Sun water comes from the idea that sunlight can alter the chemical, physical, and biological properties of the water, leaving the sun-charged water to be more hydrating and purified. According to practices like Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, solar charged water is good for your emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing.

There are different ways to make sunwater based on different traditions. The most common way is to like moon water, leave the water out in a clear airtight glass to allow the energy of the sun to penetrate. According to ancient Hawaiian tradition, it’s best to put the sunlight out in a blue glass bottle to relax you and connect you to your intuition.

According to Ayurveda, the effect of sunwater differs slightly based on colour of the glass bottle you use. What’s interesting is they use the colours of each chakra, which coincides with the colours of the rainbow. Sanskrit magazine has more information if you want to incorporate chromotherapy into your sun water making.

4. Crystals

So the pattern here, is, nature really does change the energy of water. Crystals give off a certain energy and infusing water in *clean* crystals gives the water healing properties of the crystal itself!

Crystals are formed through heat and pressure, with each type having different physical and metaphysical properties. Because there are so many different types of crystals, the best thing to do is to work backwards. Think of a certain healing property and research the crystal that is suitable. For example, rose quartz heals your heart and helps you to manifest love.

Then what you do (I am a hygiene freak so I have to) is clean the crystal using a mild soap and water. Get a toothbrush and scrub the crystal to make sure there is no dust or yucky stuff. After you know the crystal is clean, leave it in water for around 24 hours, or more. The longer you leave it the better.

Be aware that there are crystals that dissolve in water, so stay away from infusing them. Very unsafe. Do not forget to clean your crystal energetically. Cleaning crystals physically does the job if you intend to cleanse energetically too, but it doesn’t help to incorporate extra forms of energetic cleansing by using sunlight, moonlight, water, sound healing or reiki.

5. Affirmation

Going back to the Masaru Emoto experiment I spoke about at the beginning of this post, words matter. Speak good things into your water. Speak kindness, gratitude and words of affirmation. According to law of attraction principles, speak what you already want into the water as if it is already yours, such as: “I am a money magnet”, or “love follows me everywhere I go, because love is me” into your water and drink.

You can also label a bottle of water with an affirmation and drink from it.

However, to speak into water isn’t always enough. In our culture, words are very disposable and we don’t often speak energy into our words unless we are emotionally charged. This can’t work with infusing water with affirmation; you need to feel the affirmation as well as say it!

Backing up your words by infusing your energy into the water as you speak is the absolute key and is where people go wrong. So if you’re speaking abundance into the water, you must feel abundance.

6. Reiki

Just like prayer, I needed to infuse reiki into water to prove to myself I am truly attuned to this beautiful energy. If you’ve ever been attuned to reiki, you understand that the experience itself is deeply healing and spiritual. Then when you come back from your attunement, you’re between meditative bliss and egoic cognizance.

My reiki master (shoutout to the amazing Chetna) asked me to bring two bottles of water to my attunement, without telling me why. Once I became attuned, she asked me to send reiki energy into the bottle of water, again without telling me why. When I felt I was “ready”, she told me to drink the water. I drank it and it tasted relatively normal, but I was definitely gulping it.

Then she asked me to drink from the other water bottle I brought with me (they were the exact same brand of water) and that water tasted more metallic and less, fresh, I guess. This is when I knew my attunement was successful and how reiki works. It’s gentle enough to not overwhelm you with its effects, but still deeply healing.

If you’re attuned to reiki, all you need to do is hold the container of water and send reiki energy to it. If you’re attuned level 2 and up. you can send distance reiki to the water that you want to drink but don’t have it on you (eg: if it’s in the fridge). If you aren’t attuned to reiki, you can always get a reiki healer, like myself to send reiki to your water. Click here to check out my price list here if you’re interested.

There are many more ways to use water to change your life, but these are the ones that stand out to me at this stage of my life. Some are instant, others need time, but you always have a way. Water is crucial to your life, so drink it with intention.

Love you all!

Instagram: @flowerknafeh
Twitter: @superknafeh
Learn more about my distance reiki healing sessions via Zoom

Here’s why you’re burning yourself out and what to do

This age has been categorised by identifying ourselves with our careers. Our whole childhood education has trained us to do and contribute as opposed to just be.

Take, the innocent question of “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and the way we were trained to by well-intentioned adults to use childhood as a building ground to serve capitalist ideals. We went to class for a “future”, did homework so we could pass and go to university and then went to university, or training for a job. We were told to have realistic expectations and to not pursue dreams that could land us in financial trouble in the future.

We may have had creative outlets, but our identity was first and foremost, how we could contribute to capitalism and how we identified through its lens. Unless our passions were profitable, we were told to choose between what we love and what would let us lead the lives we love.

For me, writing was always my passion. I loved expressing myself through writing, but judged myself based on my grades, which naturally were fluctuant. I then went on to study politics and war at university and I identified myself as a student. Then I identified as a journalist and my highs and lows became dependant on how my career was going.

Little did I know, those perceived ebbs and flows were one single meander that is life and I was just navigating whilst plastering my identity to one tiny aspect of it.

Learn more about my distance reiki healing sessions via Zoom

After realising this, I stumbled upon an article that said adults should identify with their health goals as opposed to their careers. It seemed legitimate, so I started to do it. I became Diana, the health conscious person and my fitness definitely improved… until I had days it didn’t.

Then came the same feeling losing your sense of self, but based on a different hurdle. I soon realised that the problem wasn’t what I was attaching my identity to, but the fact that I was identifying with temporary aspects of life, full stop.

Really, there’s no step-by-step to stop burning yourself out. We all do it in different ways and for different reasons, which change throughout our lives. Sometimes, it’s a necessity, other times it’s a survival instinct and then there are times we become addicted to the feeling of success. What we can do, though, is identify with something else.

Identify with your higher self, your soul. It could be too much to comprehend for some, especially for my readers who are new to spirituality, so think of it as identifying with your breathing.

“I am my breath. I am how I breathe.”

Take yourself there. How fast are you breathing? How deep are you breathing? Does your breathing come from your chest, or are you taking deep, belly breaths? Without judgement, focus on your breath, slow it down, put your hand on your heart centre and just say “I am”.

The rest of those identities will change. Success is relative, material is temporary. Even the body we have doesn’t stay with us forever, but our soul self, the self that was created in a completely dimension, will forever be ours and us.

Just coming to this realisation is enough. When you find yourself drifting with stress, overworking and identifying with success, just know it isn’t you.

Yes, life gets stressful, things get in the way of us doing what we want, but those are things that happen to you — they are not you. They do not need to become a part of you.

Don’t judge yourself for how well you’re connecting with your breath or identifying with your soul. Just do it. Allow negative thoughts to pass. They are not you and they do not stay forever. That extra sale may boost your confidence and dissolve those disturbing thoughts, realising your home is within lets you take a step back, allow you to feel how you want to feel, reminds you your thoughts aren’t you. Your thoughts are thoughts that affect you, but that doesn’t mean they become latched to your identity.

Get comfortable with stripping yourself of all of those labels and not identifying with the temporaries around you. Meditate on yourself, let go of the world and view yourself as the raw ethereal being you are. This is the purpose of spirituality and spiritual practice. You honour where you are, but you identify with yourself on a spiritual level to clear the material clutter in your mind.

Yes, you may need to do it more than once and yes it may take a while to retrain your brain to change the way you identify yourself, but by just having the simple awareness, you’re doing more than enough.

Baby steps, small wins and lots of gratitude and love.

I love you all.

Diana xoxo

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