Animal Spirit Guides and Shamanic Journeying

Introduction

A few years ago, I was on a trip in Colorado when I came across Shamanic Journeying: A Beginners Guide. Little did I know that this book would change my life! I read with excitement and about the practice of shamaic journeying – a way of connecting to our Animal Spirit Guides and receiving their wisdom. 

From that day onwards, I began practicing regular journeys, and went on to meet hundreds of Animal Spirit Guides. 

In this post, I will explain what Animal Spirit Guides are, how to work with them, and how they can transform your life.

Your Power Animal

Everyone has one “Power Animal”. This is your main Animal Spirit Guide, who works with you from birth. Your Power Animal protects you from the moment you step foot on earth. Because you work closely together, you and your Power Animal may have similar traits. Some people even look like their Power Animal!

I came into this life as what many describe to be an ‘old soul’, and my Power Animal is an Elephant! The Elephant is known for its wisdom, balance, and humility. Some would say that I, too, exhibit these traits. 

Your Power Animal not only protects you, but also has the ability to channel through you — this gives you additional power, resilience, and courage as you navigate your earthly life. 

Helping Spirits

Each of us has a team of many spirit animals, known as “helping spirits”. While these animals are not your Power Animal, they also support and guide you.

Your helping spirits come in and out of your life depending on the circumstances and events that you’re navigating. For example, if you need to give a business presentation, the Rhinoceros spirit animal may come in to guide you (the Rhinoceros is known to help you build confidence and courage).  

Alternatively, if you need to perform on-stage, the Flamingo Spirit Animal may work with you. The Flamingo is known to show your beauty and talent – helping you become unafraid of being seen! 

Every animal has a significance and method of helping you. It’s wise to learn how to work with many different types of Animal Spirit Guides, and be open to their support and guidance. This is a helpful website to learn the meanings of different Animal Guides. 

How Can You Connect to Your Animal Spirit Guides?

There are few simple ways to connect with your Power Animal and Animal Spirit Guides. 

One of the best ways is to physically bring their presence into your living space. For example, you might get a statue of them or a piece of artwork. Whenever you invite an animal into your space, you are creating an energetic connection to it, and you begin to build an enduring relationship. 

You can also ask your Spirit Animals to come to you in dreams. Before going to sleep, set the intention that you will connect to them in the astral plane. Ask them to provide you with wisdom and guidance in your dreams. Make sure to write your dreams down immediately once you wake up!  

You can also call upon your Spirit Animals to visit you during your meditation. In doing so, make sure to choose an animal that has a specific quality you’d like help with. For instance, you may say something like: “Ostrich Spirit Animal, please join me in my meditation. Infuse me with resilience, and help me set stronger boundaries.” It’s believed that the animal’s energy will mix with yours, helping you absorb required qualities for success. 

The Practice of Journeying 

In Shamanism, the practice of journeying is known as the primary way to connect with your Animal Spirit Guides. There are three realms we can journey to, known as the Lower World, Middle World and Upper World. Most people will choose to journey to the Lower World to connect to their Animal Spirit Guides. 

Before you journey, make sure to set a clear intention. You can do this by formulating a question. Keep it open-ended – it should not be a yes or no question. 

If you’re journeying to the Lower World for the first time, you may use the question: “Who is my Power Animal?” 

Journeying to the Lower World

Anyone can journey to the Lower World – you can read more about this in Sandra Ingerman’s book. To briefly explain the process, you journey there by imagining that you’re climbing down a tree root or traveling down a glass elevator. It’s believed that the tree root or elevator will bring you through the core of the earth to a new realm entirely. This realm, called The Lower World, is often depicted as a jungle. It’s full of life, with lots of beautiful flora and fauna. Most people who journey to the Lower World with immediately see animals there or feel their presence.

When you get to the Lower World, usually, an animal will approach you. Observe the animal and energetically connect to it. Once you feel connected, ask it: “Are you my Power Animal?” You will get a response intuitively. 

If the animal says ‘Yes’, stay with it. It will take you on a tour of the Lower World. 

If it says ‘No’, ask it to guide you to your Power Animal by saying: “Can you please take me to my Power Animal?” 

Journeying to the Middle World

The Middle World is our 3D realm, where we are right now. You can journey to the Middle World by intending to connect with something in your 3D reality. For example: your garden, your cat, your tree, or your plants. Choose something that you can already see or feel.

Simply set the intention to gain information during your journey. For instance, you might set the intention to journey into your garden and talk to one of the trees. 

This experience is similar to entering the dream realm – except instead of going to the astral plane, you’re journeying in the third dimension. 

Journeying to the Upper World

The Upper World is a realm of teachers, mentors, and light workers in spiritual form. They’re energetically pure and light in vibration. In fact, it's harder to get to the Upper World, because your body and physical essence needs to “grow lighter” to access this plane. 

If you are a “beginning journeyer”, try to journey to the Lower World first! Only attempt to travel to the Upper World after multiple journeys to the Lower World and Middle World (in that order). 

The Upper World is believed to exist past the Earth. When journeying, you must visualize that you’re through up over the Earth, until you reach the top of the Earth’s surface. 

Once you’re there, you will see a “gaseous layer” around the Earth. Next, envision that you’re pushing through this layer to access the Upper World. Eventually, the Upper World will appear. You’ll know that you got there because it’s so light and pure in vibration. In this realm, you can meet masters, teachers, and guides (especially angels), and they will share their wisdom with you.

Once again, remember to journey with an intention in the form of a question, such as “How can I grow in my spiritual journey?” 

My Personal Experience

Developing a beautiful relationship with my Spirit Guides – especially my Animal Spirit Guides – has been one of the most rewarding parts of my life.

After journeying a few times, the practice will become quite easy for you. This practice is so sacred because it allows us to gain wisdom that’s not available in our 3D reality. 

In many shamanic societies, entire tribes would journey together with the same question. Sometimes, the individual journeyers would experience the exact same journey – and receive the same exact same answers to their questions!

Imagine how powerful we could be if we journeyed together more regularly… and how many of society’s challenges we could overcome. 

A Personal Note

Over the years, journeying has brought me immense faith and courage. On a recent journey, for example, I was inquiring about whether I will have children in this lifetime. In my journey, a Rhinoceros appeared to share the importance of having resilience during this time. He guided me to a family of Lions, which symbolized my future. This was a beautiful moment that brought me hope and joy. Often, when we don’t have much faith in our waking life, we can find immense faith in journeying. 

Conclusion 

I hope that this guide helps you as you begin to develop a relationship with your Animal Spirit Guides – and explore the practice of shamanic journeying. 

You can always call upon your Animal Spirit Guides before any conversation, presentation, event, or adventure. They’re here to guide us, and working with them is extraordinarily enlightening.

The Ultimate Guide to Spirit Guides

What are Spirit Guides?

Spirit Guides are wise and evolved beings who exist to support you, guide you, and help you heal during this lifetime. Each one of us has between 6 to 12 Spirit Guides on average. Spirit Guides existed as humans previously, and went through specific challenges and lessons. They choose to work with you based on the fact that you will face similar challenges and lessons in this lifetime. 

Unlike ancestors (ie. your late grandfather or grandmother), Spirit Guides are actually unrelated to you, which allows them to be more objective. For example, if you are dealing with substance abuse in this lifetime, one of your Spirit Guides has most likely dealt with the same in their human life and was able to transcend that and heal.

How to Work with Spirit Guides

Spirit Guides love to communicate with you. The best way to work with them initially is to speak with them! Tell them you would like to have a relationship, and explain the ways in which you would like to receive information. For example, tell them if you prefer to receive their messages in the form of visuals, dreams, signs, tarot and oracle cards, or other methods entirely. 

The best way to solidify your relationship with your Spirit Guides is to have clear and purposeful directions on how they can communicate with you. We work with Spirit as much as Spirit works with us, so the more energy and intention we put into cultivating our relationship, the more your Spirit Guides will begin to show themselves in your day-to-day life.

What are some of the things we can ask Spirit for help with?

Our team in Spirit is here to help us with every aspect of life, especially transformations and challenges. This can show up in our relationships, our health, our career, and more. Spirit loves to work with us to give us hope. 

One of the clearest ways that Spirit works with us is through sending signs. You can ask your Spirit Guides for a specific sign, such as a green frog, and specify what this sign means. For example, you might say something along the lines of: “Spirit Guides, if I’m meant to pursue a relationship, please send me a green frog within the next 24 to 48 hours.” 

You can always specify the sign, the condition of the sign, and the amount of time in which it is sent. See what comes through! It’s advisable to wait between 2 to 3 weeks to receive your signs, but of course, you can always ask for them to be sent within a specific time. Just keep in mind that Spirit needs time to orchestrate the signs and find creative ways to deliver them to you… don’t get upset if it’s not sent within the timeframe you asked for! If you do not receive a sign that you’ve asked for, perhaps what you’re asking for is not aligned, or your Guides are already planning something better for you. 

The Benefit of Having a Relationship with Spirit

Having a relationship with your Spirit Guides is truly like having an attunement to a special language that not all people know. Being able to communicate with your Guides is one of the most sacred relationships of all. This communication allows you to have spiritual insights and faith, even in situations that appear bleak. 

Spirit Guides are always encouraging us to make decisions from our heart, instead of from our logical mind. They are one of the biggest advocates for living life in flow, and allowing ourselves to pursue adventures and possibilities – even when they don’t necessarily seem like the most logical things to do. 

In my own life, having a relationship with my Spirit Guides is truly what gave me the faith to leave my corporate job and pursue my business (which is much more spiritually aligned) – as well as pursue my relationship. I asked for signs over the course of 3 years and I consistently received all of the signs that I asked for. Even though some of my decisions didn’t appear to be the most logical, I was able to have faith and confidence that things would work out. Ultimately, everything worked out even more beautifully than I could have predicted.

Other Ways That Spirit Communicates With Us

Spirit Guides will often communicate with us first through dreams. This is because when we enter the dream state, we go into the astral realm. Our energy becomes lighter in the astral, and we are able to receive information more easily. It also becomes simpler for Spirit to get through to us. Therefore, it’s quite common to have a premonition through a dream or to receive a specific message in the form of a dream. Especially if you wake up and the dream seems very realistic and is filled with faith, that’s a good sign that this was a message from Spirit. Our ancestors also like to communicate with us through dreams, often appearing to us to send us love and guidance.

Other ways to communicate with Spirit include receiving their messages through songs, clairsentience (feelings and sensations, like shivers or chills), clairvoyance (seeing images in your mind’s eye, especially in meditation or in passing moments like when you’re in the shower), getting messages through books, etc. Spirit loves to communicate with us in all of these different ways because each of these modalities allows them to share enough nuance to guide us on our Earthly mission.

One of the ways that many people connect to Spirit is also through tarot and oracle cards. Essentially, what our Spirit Guides are doing when communicating with us through these cards is fitting their message into the specific symbol or image on the card. For instance, if you ask a question and you pull The Emperor card, your Spirit Guides are using the symbolism of The Emperor to communicate their message to you. Just keep in mind that they do have to limit their communication to this specific symbol or card in doing so. However, this is still a great way to connect with your Guides and develop a lasting relationship with them! From my own experience, reading tarot cards is what first opened my channel to direct and consistent communication from Spirit. This opened my channeling abilities tremendously — to the point that I can communicate with Spirit as if they are sitting next to me in the same room.

Words of Advice

My best advice is to create a habit or ritual that you can use to connect with your guides. This consists of a cue, an act, and a reward. The ‘cue’ is a sign to your Guides that you’re opening up your channel, the ‘act’ is simply receiving their messages, and the ‘reward’ is closing your channel and having more guidance. This concept of ‘cue, act, reward’, was first coined by Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, and we can create habits with our Spirit Guides too. 

One helpful example is to say an opening prayer every time you wish to open your channel to Spirit. For example, I often call in my Guides and will use the exact same words every time I do so. This is like a signal to my Guides that I’m ready to receive their messages. After that, I sit in silent meditation and within a matter of seconds, my Spirit Guides begin speaking through me. After receiving their messages, I always pray and thank them. My ‘cue’ of saying the opening prayer, my ‘act’ of receiving their messages, and my ‘reward’ of getting guidance and saying thank you is something that has consistently worked for me over the years.

One Final Practice

A final practice which is extraordinarily beneficial to developing your channeling abilities is called automatic writing. Automatic writing is the practice of asking a question of Spirit, meditating on it, calling in your Spirit Guides, and then writing down exactly what you receive until your hand stops. When you do this, it’s very important not to allow your ego to get the best of you! If you begin questioning if what you’re receiving is ‘real’ or not, try and move those thoughts aside. Truly focus on listening and receiving the information that’s coming through.

It might take you minutes or even longer to receive the information, but just stay in silence, meditating on your question until you get something. Some people receive messages through symbols, colors, and imagery – even before they will ever get words or phrases in their mind. Literally capture every single thing that comes through, even if it seems random at first. Often, the messages that you get will make more sense in weeks, months, or even years to come. This has been one of the most powerful practices for me to grow my channeling abilities and connect with my Guides.

I hope that this post helps you begin to develop an enduring relationship with your Spirit Guides. I would encourage you to choose a few of these activities and continue to practice the ones that resonate with you most. Remember, the more that you practice these activities and commit to your relationship with Spirit, the easier it will get for you to receive their messages! Spirit Guides love communicating with those who genuinely appreciate their guidance and are grateful for it, so always remember to close by offering them thanks.

A Practical Guide on Protecting Your Energy

Before you begin incorporating intuitive or spiritual practices into your daily routine, it’s a good idea to learn how to protect your energy. We all have our own tank of energy – it is ours alone, and we are beholden to that energy in particular. However, “energy vampires” (or people who steal our energy intentionally or unintentionally) can cause imbalances in our energy field. 

Protecting your energy ensures that you’ll be less impacted by external forces.

To help you get started, here’s a simple 4-step guide on how to protect your energy effectively.

Step #1: Meditate and Clearly Set Intentions

Take at least 10 minutes to meditate each day.

After you meditate, you can repeat this reiki phrase silently or aloud:

“I say with love and respect that I do not give anyone permission to take this energy. This energy is mine alone, but I hope I can use it to help others find their inner light.”

Sharing this intention ensures that your aura (your body’s energetic field) is well-protected, instead of allowing your energy to drift out and be inadvertently influenced by others.

Step #2: Use Visualization Techniques to Protect Your Energy

Visualizing a gold, white or purple light around you can help strengthen your auric field. These colors are most effective because gold is highly protective, white is the color of intuition, and purple is the color of the crown chakra (which sits at the top of your head and connects you with your spirit guides and the angelic realm).

By using these colors in your visualization practice, you’re effectively asking your angels, spirit guides, ancestors, and everyone else watching over you to help protect you.

This visualization technique is especially helpful to practice before entering public spaces such as supermarkets, hospitals, graveyards, or bars. These spaces are subject to a lot of energy exchanges in general, but also harbor wandering spirits who have not fully transitioned into the next realm. If you want to read more about this, I recommend checking out the book The Unquiet Dead by Edith Fiore. 

Step #3: Visualize Your Highest Self

Envision your healthiest, happiest, and most fulfilled self. This is what you’ll be like when your energy is most powerful.

This will help motivate you to transform to exactly where you want to be in the future.

The same way that a drop of water lands in the ocean and sends out ripple effects, visualizing yourself in your highest-vibrating essence boosts your energetic field and helps you set boundaries more intentionally.

Step #4: Beware of Energy Vampires and Limit Your Interactions With Them

Energy vampires are people who take our energy, both consciously and unconsciously. It’s important to protect your energy by firstly identifying who they are and limiting contact with them as much as possible.

A clear sign that someone is an energy vampire is if you constantly feel drained after spending time with them, and immediately feel more at ease when you aren’t together anymore.

If a co-worker or someone you see on a regular basis is an energy vampire, visualize a protective shield of white light around you before or during your interactions.

You can also recite “I do not give this person permission to take my energy” silently or aloud. 

Energy transcends time and space, so even if the energy vampire is not physically present with you,  it’s still important to protect yourself before having remote calls or meetings with them – those interactions are still energetic exchanges.

I hope this guide was helpful and gave you the clarity and guidance you need to protect and preserve your energy intentionally!

How Reading Tarot for a Year Changed My Life

In this blog post, I’m sharing my journey with intuition and how I began to receive channeled messages. I hope it inspires you to develop your own intuition more deeply.

Early Inspirations in my Childhood and Adolescent Years

When I was a freshman in high school, I studied Buddhism. I intuitively understood the concept of karma — how we’re each born into this lifetime with lessons that we must resolve and transmute. From there, my interest in spirituality grew over the years, leading me to study and learn more about Hinduism and other religions and philosophies. 

My childhood was filled with memories in nature, and this went on to inspire my writing. I always felt connected to animals; being outside helped me focus on the present moment. From a young age, I felt in tune with the earth and the consciousness of the beings around me.

The Book That Inspired Me to Meditate Daily

One day, my mother gave me a book called Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing by Anita Moorjani. In short, it’s about a woman who was diagnosed with cancer and felt that her emotions and thoughts affected her body, to the extent that she developed the disease. Throughout the book, she speaks about her journey and how she rid cancer from her body through spirituality, meditation, intuitive eating, and other spiritual practices.

Reading that book was one of my first “aha!” moments, which eventually led me to meditate each day. This book helped me understand that we have the power to change our physical bodies based on our thoughts and how we carry ourselves energetically.

Meditation turned out to be a grounding practice for me over the years, helping me feel balanced and calm whenever my life became stressful. After 3 – 4 months of meditating for at least 10 minutes a day, I noticed a significant difference in myself. When unexpected changes and upheavals caused those around me to panic, I found myself staying calm and grounded, able to focus on the present moment.

My meditation practice led me even further into Buddhism and reinforced my aspiration to share love with all the people in my life. At this time, I also started to work on myself through inner child healing and shadow work, attempting to “let go” of everything that held me back from reaching my fullest potential.

Discovering Card Divination

After graduating from college, I started working as a recruiter. Although the job was cyclical, it revealed a passion of mine — helping others match their behavior with their intentions. This lead me to explore spirituality even more deeply; I began taking an interesting in guiding others towards a more holistic and spiritually uplifting life.

In my free time, I loved to stroll by thrift book stores and pick up anything interesting I could find. One day, I came across a Lenormand card deck called Titania’s Fortune Cards. The way the cards were set up was very simple — just pictures with descriptions. I began reading the cards and experimenting with different card spreads. Since I was working a pretty repetitive job, I found great interest in the practice, and would practice doing card readings late into the night. Shortly afterwards, I began doing readings for friends. I was surprised to find that people were fond of my readings. Even my close friends would call me and tell me that what showed up in the cards had transpired in real life!

After a couple of times hearing this, I began to seriously believe that I was channeling some kind of spirit. I truly enjoyed helping others find more clarity and resolution, and felt safe and protected while doing so. A few years passed, and I would still read for my friends here and there. I let go of card reading for some time, and didn’t think much about it. It wasn’t until a couple years later that my spiritual journey began diverging into a new route.

Getting My Reiki Certification

My mother is very spiritual, so we often do fun activities together like yoga. One day, she invited me to do a level 1 Reiki training with her. We both had really enjoyed our Reiki training — we had an amazing Reiki Master who was very well-versed in the history of Reiki, the 7 chakras, and how life force energy helps heal others. I distinctly remember going back home and giving my boyfriend at the time a Reiki session (I technically wasn’t meant to, because I had only completed reiki 1 – but oh well!) Afterwards, he shared that he felt so free and light, like everything he was energetically holding onto had been released. I have been fascinated by the healing properties of Reiki ever since, and now am a Reiki Master.

Finding Tarot

Later on, while I was transitioning jobs, I started to study tarot. I love throwing myself into new subjects and enjoy being a lifelong learner. I picked up the book The Essential Guide to the Tarot by David Fontana, and used the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck to learn about the different symbols in the cards and their meanings. I devoted a lot of time to studying tarot and practiced with a variety of card spreads each day for a year. 

I truly believe that if you’re committed to something and practice it every day for a year, your progress will blossom. If there’s something in particular that you feel drawn to studying, I encourage you to take the time to practice it every day for a year, for at least 5 – 10 minutes a day. See where it takes you!

Becoming a Tarot Reader on Youtube

After studying and practicing tarot for a year, my boyfriend at the time encouraged me to start a Youtube channel. I was pretty reluctant at first until the pandemic hit. I decided to give it a try, since there wasn’t much to do. I got back into tarot and planned out my first video. After I filmed my very first collective card reading, I went to bed and told myself, “if this video gets 40 views, then I will continue with this, and I will dedicate myself to it”.

The next morning, I woke up and was surprised to see that my video had been viewed 42 times. Back then, I had maybe 8 or 10 subscribers, but I was still in shock that people resonated with my first collective reading. I practiced reading tarot for a year straight and posted Youtube videos to track my progress. I started to notice a significant shift in my readings. In the beginning, I was very much focused on the signs, symbols, and traditional definitions of the cards — the same way you would memorize the alphabet — and then one day, things began to change. Out of the blue, I began to see images in my head. They would pop up as I was reading the cards. This new approach to reading tarot was completely new for me. From that moment forward, I began relaying channeled messages that felt divinely guided. Multiple people told me they were accurate and that they resonated deeply. This practice (called clairvoyance) is what allows my readings to be precise. These days, I really only use the cards as a clue or hint.  

Developing My Intuition Over Time

After studying and reading tarot for a year, I felt like my intuition has grown exponentially. I believe that there are levels to developing your intuitive gifts. Depending on how prepared you are, your spirit guides will send you messages accordingly. When you’re conducting personal or collective readings for others, it’s important to effectively listen to what’s coming through and translate it in a way that helps others — without causing harm or using fear-based messaging.

To be a responsible and dedicated reader, it’s important to stay grounded and humble. A lot of people can get caught up in being in the “spiritual world”, and they can lose sight of the practical, tangible things we need to do in our 3D reality. It’s always a dance between finding your purpose, showing up authentically, and then thinking about the actual steps you need to take to do what’s best for your highest good.

When you’re first starting out on your spiritual journey and tapping into your intuition, it’s important to have a genuine love and desire to do so. You will be energetically aligned to receive messages from your Spirit Guides and channel their messages more thoroughly. For example, I’d be inquiring about something, and then my spirit guides would mention something super specific like “there’s asbestos in your house”. I wouldn’t even know what that meant, but it resonated for the person I was reading for. 

Currently, I am mostly clairvoyant, clairaudient, and claircognizant, but I also experience clairsentience whenever I do Reiki sessions. Tapping into someone’s energy reminds me a lot of when you open up a book; instead of a story, I can see their lifetime and how it unfolds, one chapter to the next. 

Final Guidance

Studying and practicing tarot every day for a year and continuing to learn something new is what made my intuition skyrocket. If you truly want to live out your purpose, I believe that your spirit guides are going to put you on that path in divine timing. Nothing will come too early or too late, but today could be the day you begin. 

I’m incredibly grateful for the work that I do and have overwhelming gratitude for all the people who support me and allow me to do what I love: supporting and guiding others. The immense joy I feel watching others reach milestones in their lives is limitless, and continues to make this work worth it. 

I hope this helps you as you deepen your own intuition!

With love,

Gabriella

Manifest Anything With 3 Steps

Over the years, I’ve been drawn to different manifestation guidelines and frameworks and wanted to share my own manifestation framework with you. Check it out below to create your dream life!

Step 1: Choice

When it comes down to it, manifestation is thinking about possibilities we’d like to bring forth into our reality and making it all possible through our commitment to making conscious choices that align ourselves to making that manifestation achievable. To do so, we first must make a choice and stand firm in that choice to mindfully nurture its potential of coming true.

For instance, if someone is choosing to seek a partner for marriage, that individual cannot be wishy-washy and want to marry every person they go on a date with. Ideally, if a person wants a husband, they are looking for a committed partnership so their actions in life need to reflect that to attract it more effortlessly into their life.

Step 2: Personal Power

Secondly, whenever you want to manifest something, using your personal power can be tremendously helpful in bringing you closer to making your manifestations a reality. This technique involves harnessing the idea that you alone are the one who leads and guides the Universe and in return, the Universe follows your cues (not the other way around).

At first, it may be difficult for some people to grasp this idea, (trust me, I personally struggled with it too) but once I fully embraced my own power, I decided to leave behind everything that was not in alignment with what I wanted to manifest. If you’re truly committed to manifesting your reality, this is how you must operate. On the other hand, if you don’t know what you want and try manifesting with uncertainty, doubt, and fear, the less probable your manifestation will be. You need to fully believe that you are the one who creates your destiny and confidently take on the driver’s seat instead of being in the backseat of your life.

Like in the previous example, in order to manifest a husband, you must stand behind that manifestation and use your personal power to align yourself with choices that best support meeting a partner who also seeks marriage. To truly channel your personal power, you need to remind yourself that you are an incredibly powerful being—  and that every single decision and action you make aligns you closer and closer to your desired manifestation. Incorporating positive and empowering affirmations into your daily routine helps cultivate more self-trust and also accelerate the manifestation process as well.

However, as you know in our physical 3D world, manifestation isn’t always an easy or fast process. Let’s say you’re working a corporate job and would like to start your own business, but you’re reluctant to start because you reliant on the financial security of the corporate job. Although your reluctance is completely understandable, you can always use your personal power in smaller, more actionable steps once you begin manifesting. You could say daily affirmations like “I’m a successful business owner” or “I have the most amazing clients in the world”, and the more you start to affirm yourself and train your subconscious mind into believing those affirmations, the more you can amplify your personal power. When first starting, it’s always more simple to start small and work from there. Once you truly believe you can do whatever your mind is set on, you can successfully manifest your ideal reality into 3D form.

Step 3: Commitment

Lastly, the last step of my manifestation framework is commitment. Common manifestation techniques such as visualization, meditation, and scripting are not only different forms of manifestation but also various forms of commitment. In my eyes, I see manifestation as a dual process where there is the action, the thought, and the feeling of actually having that manifestation come into fruition (e.g. embodying what it would feel like to be married to a loving and supportive husband). So if you’re using meditation to manifest marriage, you could drop into that dreamy state of being immersed in the euphoric emotions of being married to the love of your life to help strengthen your manifestation.

On the flip side, if you want to manifest becoming a successful business owner with clients from all over the world, reflect on how abundant, joyful, and freeing that would feel and tap into that state as you meditate in order to emotionally embody those affirmations that way. Regardless of whether you’d like to manifest through meditation, visualization, or scripting, what matters most is how committed you are to your preferred manifestation practice. So simply put, once you 1. make the choice to manifest xyz, 2. harness your personal power to stand firm in those choices, and 3. seriously committing to a practice that will bring that manifestation to life, you’re golden!

As long as you commit to your manifestations, you’re showing up to the Universe and giving it affirming signs and clues that will help usher in your manifestations much more seamlessly into your 3D reality. My last piece of commitment advice has to do with manifesting with time constraints. A lot of people typically try to avoid choosing a specific date they’d like to manifest something by, which is understandable since unexpected things can happen, but I personally think setting milestones is a great alternative approach.

 My Personal Experience and Final Thoughts

When I was going to leave my corporate job, I gave the Universe a specific date I was going to give my notice and told myself that I’m still taking the leap regardless of what happens after. Within the same week I put in my notice, I received two really amazing opportunities that came out of nowhere. The first one was where I spotted a local business looking for a tarot reader and immediately got accepted, and the second opportunity that presented itself involved me putting my coaching and personal development skills into practice.

Those synchronistic experiences showed me the power of being crystal clear with the Universe and what I wanted to manifest in my life. So if you’ve intuitively been feeling like you want to level up in life, the Universe starts to work with you once you finally make that choice, rely on your personal power, and actively commit to your manifestations.

If you decide to try out my 3 step manifestation framework, please let me know how it worked out for you.

Love,

Gabriella

The Seven Chakras: What They Are & How to Keep Them Aligned

If you want to live your most fulfilling life, it’s important to maintain a healthy connection with your body, mind, and spirit. One way you can become more in tune with yourself is learning how to balance each of your 7 chakras (energy centers) to maintain a state of equilibrium.

‘Chakra’ is a Sanskrit word that translates into “disk” or “wheel”, so when you visualize your seven chakras, you can envision seven energetic wheels moving simultaneously to help preserve your energy. These seven energy centers are positioned centrally in our bodies, starting from the top of our heads and forming a line down to the base of your spine (groin area).

In this guide, you will learn about what each chakra is, the colors associated with it, where it’s located, and how to keep them all aligned.

First Chakra: Crown Chakra
The first chakra is the crown chakra, which is located at the top of your head. The color most commonly associated with the crown chakra is violet.

The crown chakra represents your connection to the spiritual realm. Anytime you want to connect with your angels, ancestors, or Spirit Guides, you will be using this specific chakra to channel information and energy from the Divine. Since it’s the uppermost chakra, if your crown chakra somehow gets blocked, it creates a domino-like effect where it affects other chakras in the body and causes them to become blocked as well.

That’s why it’s important to balance our crown chakra — so we can continue having an open line of communication with Spirit.

Second Chakra: Third Eye Chakra
The second chakra is the third eye chakra, which sits between your two eyebrows. It’s associated with the color indigo. It has been said that humans don’t have two eyes — we actually have three — because our pineal gland provides us with insight, intuition, and psychic abilities. If you ever feel like your intuition is dampened, or you’re having trouble trusting your gut to make a firm decision, it’s a sign that your third eye chakra could use tuning up. One of the ways you can do this is to visualize the color indigo between your eyebrows and allow the indigo color to expand outward to help grow your intuition.

After you’ve completed the previous exercise, you can write down any intuitive messages you receive to reflect on how you can work on enhancing your intuition generally. Whether you’re extremely psychic or just beginning your spiritual journey, your third eye chakra is a very important chakra to focus on when deepening your spiritual gifts.

Third Chakra: Throat Chakra
The third chakra is the throat chakra, which is located in your throat and is associated with the color blue. The throat chakra is all about expressing yourself authentically — so if you feel like your voice isn’t heard or you’re unable to express yourself with confidence, it’s important to work on balancing your throat chakra.

Your throat chakra is all about being authentic and speaking your truth, regardless of whether or not other people agree with you. A simple exercise you can do is to visualize a blue light around the throat area; next, tilt your head back and visualize the blue light expanding around your throat and recalibrating its energy back into balance.

Fourth Chakra: Heart Chakra
The fourth chakra is the heart chakra, which is located in the center of your chest. It’s associated with the color green. The heart chakra signifies love, compassion for others, and service orientation. This chakra is very important to keep balanced, because you have to have self-compassion in order to have compassion for others. One of the simple ways to boost this chakra is incorporating the color green into your life, both physically and metaphorically. You can start by visualizing green shining light coming from your heart center, but you can also do simpler things like buy more plants, consume more green foods, and wear more green colored clothing.

Fifth Chakra: Solar Plexus Chakra
The fifth chakra is the solar plexus chakra, which is located under the chest, right above your belly button. It’s associated with the color yellow. The solar plexus chakra is connected to everything that has to do with your relationship with yourself, your self-worth, and intellectual curiosity. The happier you are with yourself and your life, the more vibrant your solar plexus chakra is. Since this chakra is directly correlated with your relationship to yourself, practicing self-compassion, self-love meditations and writing down things that make you unique and special will keep your solar plexus chakra glowing radiantly.

Sixth Chakra: Sacral Chakra
The sixth chakra is the sacral chakra, which is located below your belly button. It’s associated with the color orange. Your sacral chakra signifies your physical relationships to others regarding creativity, pleasure, trust, and building deep, intimate connections with others. If you’re someone who experiences problems with your gut or digestion in general, that means your sacral chakra needs to be re-balanced. You can start by visualizing an orange light flowing outwardly from your sacral chakra to realign it. Furthermore, incorporating the color orange into your wardrobe can be a great way to strengthen your sacral chakra. Consuming more orange foods, maintaining a regular exercise routine, hugging loved ones and cuddling with pets can help attune this chakra.

Seventh Chakra: Root Chakra
The seventh and final chakra is the root chakra, which is located at the base of your groin area. It’s commonly associated with the color red. The root chakra is all about remaining grounded and the roots you’re metaphorically spreading out into the world with your physical presence.

When you think about a tree and how the tree has roots that grow deep within the Earth’s soil, that’s exactly how your root chakra symbolizes your connection to you and your body in the physical world. It’s also connected to things like your identity, community, larger sense of belonging, and how you impact and influence the world on a macro level. To boost your root chakra, ground yourself physically by taking walks on the beach or grass barefoot.

I hope that learning about your chakras helps you understand how to live a more balanced and fulfilled life!

With love,

Gabriella

How to Learn Tarot as a Beginner

The Basics

The first thing I advise is to buy the original Rider Waite tarot deck and begin learning the symbols. This is the classic deck, so it’s important to start to acquaint yourself with it.

While doing this, I recommend using the book The Essential Guide to the Tarot by David Fontana. It’s like a one-stop shop for everything tarot — it’s concise and not too overwhelming. That’s actually pretty much how I started when I began my tarot journey!

If you try and read tarot without knowing the symbols, it’s like trying to go on a road trip without having any idea of where you’re going. The symbol is a good place to start, because it will get you “on the right road”.

The 4 Suits in Tarot

There are four different suits that come up in the cards: Wands, Swords, Pentacles, and Cups. Each of these holds a different energy.

• Wands – Wands are about creativity, passion, speed and innovations. They bring a fast energy. Events associated with Wands tend to transpire more quickly from inception to reality.

• Swords – Swords are more hard, intellectual and cutting. They represent logic, determination, facts and figures. Swords also often signify ambition, determination and competition.

• Pentacles – Pentacles are a very stable energy. They’re associated with material goods (like money) and the earth. For example, let’s say you’re doing a career reading and someone is asking about their workplace or their job. If Pentacles come up, you know what they’re asking about involves steady work, and will likely be something they can depend on.

• Cups – Cups are all about emotions and intuition. They’re symbolic of water — therefore, these events are more easily changeable. Cup cards are deep, but just like water flows in a stream, they can change quickly.

The 78 cards

There are 78 cards in the deck. I advise first learning the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana cards.

• The Major Arcana – The Major Arcana cards are known as “fated”, meaning that events are destined. These are lessons that that person needs to unlock and challenges they need to face. They’re not easy to change! There are 22 Major Arcana cards. I’m not going to go through all of them, but quick examples are The Lovers and The Sun. When we see The Lovers, this is a destined connection or a business partnership. When we see The Sun, this is about hopes, wishes and dreams that are coming to that person. It’s very happy and vibrant energy! As you can see, both of these cards signify destined events.

• The Minor Arcana – There are 56 Minor Arcana cards. These cards are less about destined events, and are more subject to shifts in energy. While these events will still happen, they’re not necessarily fated. That’s the key difference between the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana!

The 4 Main “Characters”

There are four people who continue coming up again and again. Here, I’m talking mainly about the Minor Arcana cards.

• The King – The King energy is a stable energy — it signifies leadership, vision, strategy and planning. The King is somebody who’s more mature and on their own two feet. They have a lot of confidence!

• The Queen – The Queen is a little bit more intuitive and softer. However, she’s still a leader. She’s strategic, strong, and also has an incredible amount of vision. When we see the Queen, you can think of a mature feminine figure coming through, whereas the King is the mature masculine figure.

Some may wonder if this actually correlates to the gender of the person being read for. The answer is no. It’s more about

feminine energy being fluid, light and soft, while masculine energy is harder, intense and more determined.

• The Page – The Page is an energy of youthfulness, creativity and ambition. One thing to know is the Page can be a little juvenile or uncertain about their future. Sometimes, they’re a little bit wishful.

• The Knight – The Knight is the more determined version of the Page. While the Knight is also wishful, he’s wearing armor and is more steadfast about achieving his goals.

Based on my experience, the Page is a little softer, whereas the Knight is harder and more determined. I tend to see more wishful thinking with the Page, and more action-orientation with the Knight. That said, this is quite a broad generalization and it totally depends on the reading itself.

• Aces – The Ace cards are symbolic of new beginnings, success, and a new path ahead.

Once you’ve learned the above, the next thing you’ll want to do is start to tune in with the symbols and what they’re showing you.

Leaning into your intuition

Your spirit guides and your angels will often help you “zoom in” on certain aspects of the cards. From there, you can deduce what they’re trying to convey. For example, let’s say I felt drawn to focus on the mountain in the back of the Queen of Pentacles card. Perhaps the situation I’m reading for requires great perspective. Once the person climbs their “mountain”, they’ll get the answer they’re seeking.

Before working with your cards, it’s a good idea to center and ground yourself, and invite in your angels and guides. You can do that through prayer, lighting a candle, and asking them to help you with a session. This is something I do before every single session, and it helps me tremendously.

That’s all for now!

This is my quick guide on how to learn tarot. Just know that tarot is a lifelong journey. It’s not going to give black and white answers — and you won’t always get ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses. Simply trust that what’s coming through via the cards is what you need to know, and what your spirit guides are willing to show you at this point in time. Good luck!

With love and light,

Gabriella