Tag Archives: intentions

March 2023: Intentions “Mindful March” & Ostara Blessings

03/01/2023 Charmeine 1 Comment

March is already here and I can’t believe how fast this year has gone by. That means, it’s time to review how the last month went – and to set new list of intentions to work with.

February Recap and Highlights

February started off as a difficult month with a series of migraines that lasted for much of the first half of the month. The past week or so has been better and I have more energy. My sleep is basically back to normal and I’m up most mornings by 8:00 am. Sometimes I’m awake by 6:30 am, and sometimes I stay in bed to read – or until I get that “good morning” text from someone that likes to tell me to get up and drink my water.

Last month was really the first month that I decided to do monthly intention setting and the post was short. Going forward, I’d like to take things up a notch. I spent most of the afternoon in between making a delicious stew and apple loaf – designing the images you’ll see below. Canva is a nifty program, and I’m making use of the premium licensing.

Here’s a quick recap of February’s intentions:

For the most part, I stayed on track when feeling up to it last month. There were some days that all I could do was lay down in bed or read. And for that reason, I managed to read 2 books for my Good Reads Challenge. Some other highlights included:

Daily intentions: for the most part, I did daily Tarot readings for myself and friends on social media, even just pulling one card. I took some time each night and spent it at my altar, shuffling the cards slowly. Thinking about what I wanted to accomplish or what I needed to hear. I started eating healthier, cooking more, drinking herbal teas again, and am slowly getting back on the right track.
Good Reads Challenge: purchased a Kindle Reader for Kindle Unlimited books. I’ve downloaded about a dozen books I’d like to get through this year.
Practice selfcare daily: I slipped on this a bit with the migraines but had more relaxing baths in the last two weeks.
Getting crafty: I worked on digital art mostly and focused on my book which is coming along slowly.
Socializing and connecting with friends: while I didn’t make any new friends, writing daily helped connect me to new people online.

All in all, the month is finishing up strong. While I did not get out and socialize very much (or at all), I managed to keep in touch with friends often and even had a call from my new “friend” in California. We chat daily and it’s nice. I had to skip out on the February Witchery Market due to crappy weather. Here’s hoping that the spring market is better – and I even have a date for it!

Now…onto March! Here’s what’s happening in the next thirty days.

Mindful March

For March 2023 intention setting, I’d like do a little something different and work with daily intentions, gratitude and meditations. You can adapt this list and make it work for whatever your spiritual beliefs are. And if you are not a spiritual person, then feel free to just focus on the mindfulness part of it. The idea is that for the next 30 days, try and incorporate one of these rituals into your daily routine.

Start your day off with intention setting and coffee

Sit with your morning coffee or tea, meditate while you stir (counterclockwise), Soak in the delicious aromas and think about what you want to get accomplished for the day. Run through a list of plans in your head, or jot them down in a notepad (or digital notebook) – whatever medium you use.

I wrote a more in depth post the other month on How to Incorporate Mindfulness into your daily routine – read it here.

Ideas for daily mindfulness

Start your morning off with stretches to get the blood in your veins pumping. This will give you a boost of energy for your day.
Go outside, connect with nature and take stock of the beautiful things around you – pick at least 2 or 3 things. Take a picture, sketch if you’re an artist, or just take in the natural beauty that is Mother Earth.
Reach out to those in your life you care about and who may be struggling. Let them know you are there for them.
Say something nice to a random person, or to someone you know. Brighten up someone’s day to give them that dopamine hit.
Bullet journal and or aim to write 500-1000 words daily if you are a writer like me.
Work on arts and crafts, scrapbook, or garden if the weather is appropriate to do. Keep your hands and mind occupied with tasks that bring you joy.
Take at least one day where you can be on your own, or at least have your own time for a luxurious bath, or take a spa day.
Listen deeply to a friend in need, and really take in what they are saying.
Pause briefly, to take a moment and look up at the stars or the moon in the sky. Reflect on what the universe might be telling you.
Practice daily meditate, gratitude or consult your Tarot cards or runes if that’s what you’re into. Remind yourself of all the good things you have in life. And try and let go of the negative.

Stop. Deep breaths. Repeat regularly. Your anxiety will thank you.

My Personal Intentions for March

Get up before 8 am daily, drink water first thing, enjoy a sustaining breakfast. Think about intentions while drinking coffee. Make a list of things to achieve for the day.
Daily meditations, gratitude, and mindfulness techniques as listed above – I will try as many as I can. Also keep up with daily exercises and fresh air.
Write daily, at least 2000 words whether on this blog, journaling, or for my books. Work on graphic design, crafts and start organizing my home. Spend less time on Fetlife, and more time researching and learning.
Read daily and try and finish 1 book each week.

Mindfulness Planning Board – created with Canva

Mindfulness Journaling

Do you practice daily mindfulness? If so, how do you incorporate it into your daily life? Do you find that it helps lessen your anxiety? Let me know in the comments what you loved about this post and what you might carry on with you this month.

Word of advice: if you do a 30 day challenge, keep a diary or journal of what you did every day and how it made you feel – you can refer back it to every month 🙂

If you are looking for an online journal, I have a few on my Etsy store – check out the link here.

Thank you for reading!

Ostara and Spring Equinox Blessings

Ostara is just around the corner and thus marks the beginning of spring. That means the long days of darkness are soon to be over and the days will become a little longer. Already here, the sun comes out before 8 am and sets long after 6 pm.

Ostara is one of the eight Sabbats of Wicca or Pagan celebrations and one of my favorites on March 19-20-21. Celebrations are held around the world as people welcome the longer days.

This is the time people think about planting seeds for flowers and food, and also cleaning up the home – or decluttering. It’s a good time for meditation, and clearing out the clutter in your head and heart too.

Make sure to come back to this blog on March 20th, as I will be sharing my own rituals and thoughts for Ostara.

What’s happening this month spiritually?

March 07, 2023: Full Moon – Worm Moon
March 20-21, 2023: Ostara, Spring Equinox

March Correspondences

Astrological signs: Pisces and Aries
Birthstones: Aquamarine and Bloodstone
Colors: Go with spring colors, pastels, yellow, blues, pinks
Power animals: Lion, birds, grasshopper, bearded dragon
Wolf moon: intense dreams, start a new project, ritual, illumination and transformation

Related Information

For more information about my spiritual practices, please visit my Spirituality page. It is a work in progress, like this blog.

Spiritual Practice

Ostara Blessings

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mindfulness, shadow work, spiritual

What is Shadow Work and why is it necessary for trauma?

01/28/2023 Charmeine 5 Comments

Shadow work is working with your unconscious mind to uncover parts of yourself that you may have repressed or hide from yourself. This could include past traumas, hurts, or negative aspects of the shadow self, that we all possess.

What is our shadow self?

Our shadow self is thought to be the parts of ourselves that make us undesirable to others. Or parts of ourselves that hold us back from success or happiness. Our shadows can represent things like anger, sadness or depression, anxiety, self-doubt or self-loathing. It can have an impact on your overall well-being and cause blockages with your spiritual beliefs and practices.

Giving in for far too long to our shadow self, can result in struggling in relationships or connections in general. When you suffer from chronic anxiety and depression, it can really make it hard to sustain relationships with others who seem more positive or can shrug off challenges more easily. I am not one of those people.

This was the first time I really dived into shadow work, and it was a draining and exhausting process. It was also lonely as hell. But it’s something I will work continue to work on to help heal.

How to recognize your shadow self

A good way to test yourself, is to gauge how you interact and react towards others. How do you respond when people become aggressive towards you? What about those who do not respect your boundaries?

Are you firm in telling them to stop? Are you firm in sticking to your core values and principles? Or are you the type of person who avoids conflict or difficult situations and tend to ignore your selfcare because you are a people pleaser?

There’s nothing wrong with being a people pleaser, as long as you don’t dismiss your own values in the process.

Consequences of shadow work

When you do shadow work, you get a better sense of what those core values in relationships might look like for you. This can change your entire outlook on current connections in your life. You might lose friends or even your primary relationships.

People who aren’t ready to face their trauma or do shadow work themselves, will often revolt or shy away from those that do.

Shadow work can also reveal trauma you may have suppressed for years and this can open a flood gate of feelings you aren’t prepared for. I do suggest working with trained professionals in counseling or therapy. Or find a support group that you can trust.

You may find yourself becoming emotional for no reason even on those good days. Crying is a big part of it. You may also find you want to sleep more. Pain might surface. Same with tension headaches. If you struggle with any of these new symptoms, please check in with your primary care provider.

Your intuition will peak during this process. You will notice toxic behaviors more and people that you considered to be close friends, will not look the same.

You will go through it. The stages of grief are real. I’m kind of in between I’m ready to let it all go, I’m mad at the world, and I just want to have fun again.

Thankfully, the crying myself to sleep daily has stopped.

Setting intentions with shadow work

One of your intentions with shadow work might be to help heal from trauma or hurt that triggered something from the past. For me, it was an abrupt ending to a relationship. Being made to feel like I was a terrible person when in reality, I wasn’t. Unresolved conflict led me to an anxiety spiral and a serious depressive episode. This led to being ghosted.

This experience brought out a lot of insecurities and resentment from past partners. It also triggered my abandonment anxiety and I went into a bad spiral.

Intentions can be anything you want to work on. I find bullet journaling, writing here in this block and working with Tarot cards really helps to pick things I should focus on. Ideas will often come to me while meditating or working on crafts as well.

You can read more about intention setting here.

Lessons learned during my shadow work

Make sure you have clear intentions and an outcome for your work.
You will need breaks in between to remember the good things in life.
Give yourself a deadline for the hardest parts.
Surround yourself with people who are on similar paths that you can learn from. Be wary of those who are “leaders” and stick to ones you get good vibes from. Trust your intuition.
Your intuition will peak during this process.
You will feel things you’ve never felt before and these can manifest into physical symptoms.
You will want to isolate yourself. That’s fine. But don’t isolate too long. You will need friends to help you.

Most importantly: you will lose people. Those who are false friends will reveal their masks once you start taking care of you. It will hurt you more. But you are better off without these people. This will open new doors for new people to come in.

You will discover who your real friends are. The ones who are happy with you as you are and accept you fully despite your faults.

It’s a lifelong healing process

Shadow work can be rewarding and can speed up your healing process from recent hurts. That said, the more trauma you unpack, the more you connect it to your early memories. This can be a lifelong process and you may have to relearn coping mechanism along the way.

The point of shadow work isn’t to stay in the darkness forever. The point of it is to learn to let go of that darkness that hides your shine. You WILL find your inner light again. You will get your spark back.

You just have to keep working at it.

Also, this song came on while I was writing this and I thought I’d share the video. It’s fitting.

Discussion Prompt

Have you ever done shadow work? If so, what were your biggest lessons? What methods worked for you? Did you have a support group? Let me know in the comments.

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anxiety, mindfulness

How to incorporate mindfulness to your daily routine

01/18/2023 Charmeine 3 Comments

Mindfulness is described as being the state of being aware or a state that keeps you in the present moment – instead of dwelling on the past, or worrying about future events that you have no control over.

As someone who struggles with anxiety, this is difficult for me but also a necessary part of healing and moving forward in life. In addition to incorporating daily spiritual practices, I thought I would share some ideas and tips on how you can practice mindfulness in your daily life.

These are things you can do from anywhere – even if you’re on the road or traveling. It won’t cost you anything and you only need minimal supplies.

My spiritual workings involve a lot of meditation, journaling and doing a lot of these things already – so, don’t be surprised if some of my advice is overlapping in some areas.

Start your day with intent

Something I’ve always done as an anxious person, is wake up in the morning and run through a list of things that I need to get done for the day. I keep calendars and sticky notes with reminders of important tasks or appointments that I can’t miss. I run through plans multiple times in my head to make sure that I won’t be late or miss anything I need to do.

Now that I’m not working, my to do list is a lot shorter. So, it’s important for me to find things to do during the day that fill up the time and give me a sense of purpose (as health and symptoms allow for). Some days, all I can do is sleep if I have a migraine or in a lot of pain. On those good days, like today – I feel motivated and try to be productive where I can.

Take some time after you wake up, or during your morning routine to think about what you want to accomplish that day. Whether it’s finding time for yourself to meditate. Or get that workout in. Or go for a walk. Visit with a friend. Whatever it may be – set an intention for you that brings you joy. Even if it’s something like buying a coffee and drinking it while listening to music.
Check in with yourself during the day. Make adjustments if necessary to fit it in with your schedule. Remind yourself why this is important to you and why it is needed. The more you do this, the easier it will become a habit for you.
Rinse and repeat – every day, until this becomes second nature to you. Soon, you won’t even need a journal or to write things down. You’ll train yourself to be able to just follow through. The important thing is not to give up on those down days when you’re feeling low. Don’t be too hard on yourself. And don’t set unrealistic intentions. Start small and work your way up.

Mindful Eating and Exercise

Too often, I find myself eating meals at my computer while watching my favorite YouTube channels or binge watching shows in the evening. Sometimes, I eat so fast, that I feel hungry within an hour or two, and then crave junk food which always makes me feel worse.

One thing that can help with weight loss and improving eating habits in general, is to be more mindful of how you eat – now just what you eat.

Take a few deep breaths before eating. Calm your mind. This works better if you eat meals alone or on your breaks. Eat slower, chew slowly. Enjoy every bite you take.
Eat the foods you love – don’t force yourself to eat foods you’re not a fan of. Eating should be pleasurable. If weight loss is your goal. do research into healthy meals – there are lots of foods out there that can help you meet your goals, you just have to put a little time and effort into them.
Listen to your body. Pay attention to how hungry you are. If your stomach is getting full, don’t force yourself to eat all the food in front of you. Package some of it up for later. Or eat smaller meals throughout the day. This will depend greatly on any medical conditions you have or special diet requirements. Eat to sustain your energy, not because you are bored or feeling sad.
Look at your relationship with food – do you have healthy eating habits? Do you often forget to eat or skip meals? Do you eat out of boredom or to help with grief or strong feelings? Once you recognize your eating patterns, you can work on your relationship with food. You may need to recruit a professional therapist or counsellor if you really struggle with it.
Move a little every day – You don’t have to get an expensive gym membership or build a full gym at home to incorporate exercise into your daily routine. Start small. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. Go for a walk on your break. Go to the mall and walk the halls in winter months. You can do things like yoga or pilates at home. As long as you move at least 15-20 minutes daily, you’ll notice a shift in how you feel overall.

Meditation to strengthen your focus

As someone with undiagnosed ADD, I struggle a lot with focusing on specific intentions or tasks. I easily get distracted or become disinterested in things the moment I get started on. Even with this article, I started on it five hours ago – and have worked out, cooked dinner and completed other tasks that I could have waited on.

Meditation can really help strengthen your focus. This can be done by focusing on your breathing, listening to music, or doing something physical like yoga. For me, music is my meditation. Or I have to force myself to lie down and try and clear out thoughts that are running a mile a minute in my busy and anxious brain.

Here are some types of meditations you can do, to help “slow your roll” and that may help to strengthen your focus.

Deep breathing exercises
Body scan meditation (lay down, relax, focus on breathing)
Sitting meditation (with intent)
Walking meditation (connect with nature)
Music meditations – binaural beats, alpha, or theta (I’ll write another article on this)

Bullet journaling or practicing or writing

This is something that is new to me and I have a private journal I write in often, especially on those low days where I want to keep thoughts to myself. On good days, I’ll write a post here or share with my friends.

Using a daily bullet style journal is a very useful tool for practicing the art of mindfulness. It’s about self-exploration, writing down thoughts that come to you or questions that might come up. You can jot down your feelings about certain events or situations. Or you can create lists of intentions and things you want to accomplish.

You can do this the old fashioned way, on pen and paper. Or you can download journals from sites like Etsy and use on your tablets. Journaling has come a long way and you can tailor something to help meet your bulleting needs.

I try and write a little every day. Whether in this blog, my private journals, or working on my short stories and books. This is a hobby for me, and helps me relax.

Why is mindfulness is important?

If you’re a person like me that struggles with anxiety, adding these practices to my daily life can not only give me something positive to focus on, but also can greatly reduce the number of panic attacks or anxiety attacks I might have in a given day.

Living with chronic pain and a disability can be difficult to manage – especially on those days where it seems like just getting out of a bed can be a chore. I felt a lot of guilt for not being able to work, and now, I’m accepting this is life now. And I’m making the most of the time I have here. This blog is a hobby for me and I’m writing about issues that bring me joy.

Mindfulness can help manage illnesses like generalized anxiety, depression and other mental health issues that you might struggle with. If you live with daily pain like I do, it might even help boost your serotonin (the happy hormone) or dopamine, and give you energy needed to get your daily tasks done.

You may even find over time, that your relationships become easier to manage as you learn new coping techniques for stressful events. You learn what’s worth fighting for, and what’s worth letting go of – even if it hurts.

Learning to work with things you can control, and letting go of what you cannot control, is honestly a game changer when it comes to mindfulness. Knowing that you’re doing the best you can, in extraordinary circumstances, focusing on what you can do, while letting the universe take the wheel for the rest.

What are some ways that you incorporate mindfulness into your busy routine?

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Charmed Reflections