Your spell's over, now what? 3 Ways to release or repurpose your ritual items

You waited for the perfect moon phase, gathered your supplies, and sent your magic out into the world. Now, you’re left with the remnants of your magical workings. What can be done with your leftover jars and bowls of notes, rocks, herbs, and candle wax?

Whether your magical workings have come to fruition or not, you have quite a few options when it comes to releasing or reusing your past spells. In this blog post, I’m going to share three different ways to honor and release your sacred spells and objects. 

It is the very act of your spell and ritual work that releases your desires out into the universe. The remnants left behind can serve as helpful reminders, but repurposing or releasing your spell will not break or reverse anything. There are certainly some practices that may require you to keep the components of your spell intact, however, if that’s the case, you’ll undoubtedly know. Trust your inner guidance system. 

As you read through these options, know that you can use one or all of these methods to repurpose or release your spell objects. Some objects may not work for certain methods outlined below, in that case, it’s okay to combine. You can also check out this quick video I created for our Instagram page. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cassie Uhl (@cassieuhl)

1. Burning Ceremony

Fire is a transformative tool, so this method goes beyond simply making space for new spells. If your spell has ended it may be time to let it transform in new ways. This method can also be helpful to aid you in detaching from the outcome of your spellwork. Fire is powerful!

A burning ceremony is a great option for spells that include paper, herbs, candle wax, and other burnable objects. Most candle wax is paraffin, which means it’s not ideal for burying in the ground, and reusing it can be time-consuming. If your spell has leftover wax, burning it is one of the easiest and safest ways to release it. 

For this method, you’ll need a large cauldron, fireproof dish, or outdoor fire. Depending on what the contents of your spell were, you’ll likely want to do this outside to prevent a huge plume of smoke from inhabiting your house. As you release your items into the fire, trust that the energy will continue to transform and benefit yourself and others. 

2. Release to the Earth

A gentler option is to release your items back into the Earth. For this method, it’s imperative that you only release items that are natural and biodegradable. For example, most candles are made from paraffin wax and are not suitable for this method. I also do not recommend burying glass jars or bottles. Herbs, plants, biodegradable papers, and crystals are ideal for this method. If your spell was contained in a jar or vessel of some kind, I recommend reusing it, see the next section for tips on this. 

Items that should not be given back to the Earth:

• Salt: salt can harm or even kill plants

• Candle wax: most candles are made with paraffin wax which is not biodegradable

• Anything that is not 100% biodegradable

You can bury your items in a meaningful location or in your backyard, the location itself doesn’t need to be special. If you live near a natural body of water, releasing them into the water is a great option as well. This method can be transformative like the fire but in a gentler way. I find this method is great for inspiring a sense of gratitude and giving thanks to Mother Earth.

3. Cleanse and reuse

For all the objects you want to reuse like meaningful crystals and items that don’t burn or biodegrade, you’ll want to energetically cleanse them. Because spell and ritual work evokes such strong emotions, it’s important to energetically cleanse items before reusing them for another purpose. Unless, of course, the energy you imbued your items with is something you want to keep around. However, if you performed a spell for letting go of a past relationship, and then want to use the same jar or tools for helping you gain a new career, it’ll be best to cleanse your items.

There are a variety of ways to cleanse physical objects. Here are a few simple techniques. 

• Place your items in salt overnight.

• Hold your items in cleansing smoke like rosemary, cedar, lavender, or some other herb in line with your spiritual heritage. 

• For rocks or other items that are waterproof, hold them in running water.

• Hold your items in your hands and call on any guides, spirits, or energies you work with to cleanse your items. 

No need to let your sacred space fill up with spellwork from the past! I hope you enjoyed these tips to keep your spell and ritual practice open and flowing.

Understanding Residual Energy vs. Spirit

If you identify as an empath or highly sensitive person (HSP), you've probably experienced residual energy and encounters with Spirit. Here's the thing, though. Each of these is totally different; they present in different ways, have different purposes and should be dealt with in different ways. 

Empaths and HSP's are much more sensitive to extrasensory information. Check out this past post if you want to learn more about empaths.

One thing you need to know as an empath or HSP is how to differentiate and deal with different kinds of energy.

Once you understand some of the fundamental differences between residual energy vs. Spirits, you'll be able to approach them in a way that makes more sense too. 

What's Residual Energy

Residual energy is emotional energy that's been imprinted from a person (living or crossed over) onto clothes, furniture, objects, and places. Residual energy is often most potent when the person who left the imprinted energy experienced strong emotions or was around the object/place regularly. This is why homes will often have such a strong feeling, especially for empaths, because our living spaces collect and hold onto so much energy.

Jewelry, keys, wallets, and glasses are everyday items that can collect a lot of residual energy. Any place or object that a person frequently visits or uses is subject to collecting residual energy. Crystals are also a prime target for residual energy to hang out as they're so great at storing information, especially the quartz family. Learn more about caring for your crystals here.

Being an empath made so much more sense to me once I understood residual energy. I've never been a fan of thrifting and don't like to own secondhand furniture. It always felt overwhelming to me. Thrift stores are energetically "noisy," and being in one makes me feel like I'm being bombarded with information and feelings that aren't mine. When I learned that I was an empath, this made sense. Because antique stores are rife with residual energy, they are a strong pass for me. 

Watch more on this topic on our IGTV here.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cassie Uhl (@cassieuhl)

What, or who, are Spirits? 

Before I dive in here, I want to point out that I'm using the term "Spirit" very broadly. Breaking this word down could literally take up a book in and of itself! Spirits could be loved ones passed on, ancestors well before your time, angelic beings, animal spirits, guides, elemental spirits, or even malevolent spirits. A Spirit could be an entity that was once human (loved one passed on or an ancestor) or a being that was never in human form (angels, animal spirits, guides, etc.) For the purposes of this article, I'm grouping all of these into one and referring to them as "Spirits." 

The reason I'm doing this is that there's one big difference between residual energy and Spirits, and that's consciousness. All Spirits have consciousness, residual energy does not. Think of residual energy as the leftover imprint of someone's emotions. Whereas Spirits are aware of what they are doing and what they want. 

How to tell the difference between residual energy and Spirits?

Residual energy doesn't decide to let itself be known or try to contact you. It just is. On the other hand, Spirits usually have a goal or a desire to make contact with you or let themselves be known. This distinction is the easiest way to discern between residual energy vs. a Spirit. 

The way that you experience residual energy or Spirits will depend a lot on how you experience extra sensory information (clairsentient, clairalience, clairvoyant, etc.) If this is new to you, hop on over to this article to learn more about the different clairs and how they each present. 

Regardless of how you experience extrasensory information, a few things can be a clear sign of residual energy vs. a Spirit. 

Residual Energy: 

• Will cause you to notice emotions when you pick up an item or walk into a space. 

• If you ask the thing or space a question, you usually won't get an answer, or the answer will not be directed at you.

• The sensations you experience with the object or space usually lessen over time. 

• Though you may experience images and sounds connected to an item or space, they're not directed at you; they're just there. 

• They are usually easier to cleanse away (if desired), or you can simply distance yourself from the object to place. 

• Residual energy can be composed of both positive or negative emotions. 

Spirits: 

• Usually have a purpose or a goal in making themselves known to you. 

• Will continue to let themselves be known to you, even if you move locations. 

• Will be more forceful in letting themselves be known to you.

• May be contacting you to help you, request help, or could have maleficent intentions. You will need to determine this by communicating with the Spirit. 

• Similar to residual energy, Spirits can inhabit objects, people, and places. Use the above points to discern. 

• Though typical energy cleansing methods (herb cleansing, etc.) may work (if desired), a Spirit may require more in-depth techniques to communicate with or remove them.  

Why does it matter and how to work with these energies? 

If you identify as an empath or HSP, it's essential to understand outside energies affecting you. If you inadvertently surround yourself with objects with strong residual energy, it may be difficult to discern between your emotions and the emotions of the residual energy. Understanding when residual energy is present can cue you to take the necessary steps to either remove the object or energetically cleanse the object or space. 

Here are some general suggestions for clearing residual energy from objects, places, and your aura.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cassie Uhl (@cassieuhl)

There are some instances where you might like to keep residual energy. If you have a cherished object from a loved one that has their residual energy on it, you may very well want to keep it and that's totally fine!

It's equally important to be aware of a Spirit occupying your energetic field. Now, how you approach and handle connecting with a Spirit is much more in-depth than what I can cover here.

Generally speaking, you'll want to communicate with the Spirit to ascertain its intentions and then take action based on what you learn. Here are some suggestions for honing your ability to communicate with Spirit. 

• Hone your intuitive abilities by working with your third eye chakra. Learn more about this here. 

• Use a tool to help you communicate with the Spirit like a pendulum, oracle or tarot cards, or through meditation. 

• Be straightforward and ask the Spirit for clear communication. 

• If you think you're being contacted by an evil Spirit, don't hesitate to reach out to someone with more experience in this realm to help. 

As Spiritual beings in physical form, we must understand both physical and extrasensory information. This may seem like a small shift in understanding, but it's a powerful one. I hope this made you feel more empowered to discern and work with the different energies surrounding you. If you have a question or a comment, I encourage you to ask on our Instagram page here.

Crystal Cleansing & Charging 101 // 8 Ways to Care for Your Crystals

Perfectly structured lattices of molecules repeat and layer until a crystalline structure begins to emerge. Crystals are the magical and living offspring of earth, heat, and pressure. Viewing your crystals in this way can help you sense their aliveness, at least it does for me.

The perfect structures within crystals make them masters at storing and emitting energy. Because they’re so easily impressed upon, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they will require energy maintenance, just like you and me.

Aside from honoring your crystals as the entities that they are, charging and cleansing them will also make them more useful. Like all energy beings, your crystals may hold onto unintended frequencies or could be charged with energy that’s not in alignment with your desires. 

Before we dive into some actionable steps for crystal care, I’d like to pull apart the differences between cleansing and charging. Even though these terms are often used interchangeably, they are entirely different facets of crystal care.

Here's a breakdown of the differences between crystal cleansing and charging. 

Now that you understand the basic functions of cleansing vs. charging crystals, let’s dive into some steps you can take to care for your crystals. 

These suggestions are by no means an exhaustive list of ways to cleanse and charge your crystals! Learn more in my new book, The Zenned Out Guide to Understanding Crystals. I also recommend you run everything through your intuitive filter and only practice what feels like a good fit to you. 

Crystal Cleansing 101

Here are a few reasons why you might want to cleanse your crystals: 

• It’s new

• You let someone else handle it  

• You no longer need to use it for a specific purpose 

Your cleansing schedule can be as regimented or as intuitive as you like. You might decide to cleanse your crystals every time you receive or purchase a new one, or you can wait until the crystal feels like it needs cleansing. I lean towards the more intuitive method, but both are valid. 

5 Ways to Cleanse Your Crystals

1. Direct sunlight for 10-20 minutes. This method works best with bright midday sunlight. Sun cleansing is one of the simplest and most effective cleansing methods. Caution: some crystals can fade in sunlight. Here are some of the most common ones: amethyst, citrine, celestite, and fluorite. Short periods in the sun, will be okay, but do not leave crystals susceptible to fading in the sun for more than ten minutes every few months. 

2. Hold in running water for 2-5 minutes. Fresh running water from nature is ideal, but tap water will do in a pinch. Water from nature will require less cleansing time. 

3. Bury in the earth for 1-5 days. The burying method is gentler, so it requires a bit more time. 

4. Hold your crystal in cleansing smoke of your choice. Frankincense, lavender, rosemary, or even a cleansing incense will work. 

5. Hold your crystal in your hand and call upon your guides, ancestors, and angels (or any other force you connect with) to cleanse your crystal. Visualize a white or rainbow light enveloping your crystals and cleansing away any unwanted energies. 

Crystal Charging 101 Here are a few reasons why you might want to charge your crystals. 

• You want to use it for a specific purpose. 

• You feel as though it has lost its effectiveness. 

• You feel intuitively nudged to charge the crystal or feel as though the crystal is requesting to charging in a specific way. 

You don’t have to charge your crystals to work with them, but it will undoubtedly enhance their effectiveness and increase your connection with your crystals. There are similarities between the techniques used for cleansing and charging; the most important distinction is that charging is adding specific energy to your crystal. There are a variety of ways to do this, but understanding your intention is critical. 

3 Ways to Charge Your Crystals

1. Place your crystal under the light of the moon phase of your choice for 1-2 nights. Working with the moon phases is one of my favorite ways to charge my crystals. Each moon phase has specific energy; you can learn more about that here. For example, if you’re working with a crystal to give you energy, you’ll want to charge it under the light of a waxing moon. The waxing moon is the growth phase of the moon and corresponds to action and energy. Alternatively, if you’d like to charge a crystal to help you rest, you’d want to charge it under the dark moon, which is a restorative moon phase. 

2. Place your crystal in the morning or evening sun for 20-30 minutes. Our life-giving sun can be used for both cleansing and charging. I do suggest being mindful of what time of day you use the sun for either charging or cleansing. This method works well if you feel like your crystal needs a little boost of energy. 

3. Charge your crystals with your hands. The heat and warmth of your hands alone are enough to charge up your crystals. Charging with your hands is an ideal method to use when you’re working with crystals for massage or bodywork. Hold or rub your crystal in your hands for 1-2 minutes for a quick charge. 

I hope you feel empowered to start connecting with your crystals using these tools! Your crystals will thank you, and the more you connect with them, the better they’ll work for you. 

You can dive much deeper into this topic in my new book, The Zenned Out Guide to Understanding Crystals. In this new book, I share how crystal energy works, how to program a crystal, and how to use crystal grids. This book also contains a fully illustrated crystal guide! 

Conjuring Strength & Healing with Creosote

Arizona is known for its deserts, creepy crawlies, and massive Saguaros, but the creosote bush is a powerful desert plant that might be new to you! Creosote is the most drought-tolerant plant in North America. Found throughout the southwestern deserts of Arizona, Texas, and Chihuahua, it can live for at least two years with no water at all, *GASP* retaining any amounts it gets in its vast root system. It helps itself by shedding its leaves or branches but is usually an evergreen bush! 

How amazing, to be just like the creosote bush- evergreen all year long no matter the weather. 

Creosote, not surprisingly, comes with a host of medicinal and energetic properties too. Keep scrolling for five ways to incorporate this magical plant into your practice.

Energetic Properties

Place creosote on your altar or in a sacred space to represent:

• Perseverance

• Strength

• Optimism

• Determination

• Ancestral connections

The most researched creosote bush is called "King Clone" located near Victorville, California. It is estimated at 11,700 years old, and some scientists consider this to be the oldest living thing on earth!

Medicinal Properties & Practices

Indigenous people used creosote bush for fixing arrow points and mending pottery, as well as for ancestral rituals and connections. Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan wrote the book Gathering the Desert. He describes creosote bush as nature's drugstore. In his research, Nabhan found that indigenous people have also used creosote bush for the treatment of many conditions and diseases: 

• colds & postnatal drips 

• chest infections or lung congestion

• indigestion

• PMS cramps

• cancer

• nausea

• wounds

• poisons

• swollen limbs due to poor circulation

• dandruff & body odor

• distemper

• acne

Can you think of a more powerful plant? Talk about magical herbalism! 

DIY Healing Salve

Creosote has incredible properties that make it wonderful to use for skin support and other areas of the body. It can be used both internally and topically. When used as a salve applied directly to the skin, it can help heal cuts, burns, scrapes, and even dry or eczema-prone areas. 

• Antibacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory

• Used as an anti-viral medicine 

• Native Americans used it to treat cancer for containing a potent anti-tumor agent called NDGA. Recent studies around this are encouraging, but not entirely conclusive.

For the salve you'll need: 

• 1 cup of dry creosote leaves 

• 1.5 cups of olive oil (or any carrier oil)

• Crockpot 

• Small glass jar with lid

Add 1 cup of dry leaves to a mason jar and top with 1.5 cups of olive oil. Place inside crockpot, adding enough water to come within 2 inches of the top of the jar. Set on low for 8-10 hours checking frequently. When it is done, you can take a tea strainer or cheesecloth to drain all the oil from the leaves into a new (and smaller) glass jar. Let it cool on your counter for a few hours and refrigerate afterward. You can dip your fingers or take a small spoon to scoop up some oil for your needs. Your salve is ready for immediate use! 

To Cleanse With The Desert

Cleansing with creosote is all about intention. You can easily incorporate it into your life for energy cleansing, spell work, and rituals. It is also a great substitute for palo santo or white sage- plants that are more and more controversial in terms of ethical sourcing as their popularity grows. 

Experimenting with different plants like creosote will open your perspective towards other realms of herbs and cleansing work. 

You do not have to burn it to indulge in its benefits; you can hang it in your shower for the most amazing scent- petrichor! Okay, that's just a fancy word for the smell of rain. Still, if you've never been to southern Arizona during monsoon season, you have not smelled the most amazing and positively intoxicating scent of desert rain. Bring it to your home with creosote! 

And while you're at it, if you decide to cleanse with it, get rid of those mosquitos as another of creosote's uses are for repelling bugs.

COMBINING HERBS

Creating different combinations of herbs will add power to your cleansing efforts. For example, adding lavender to creosote creates a harmonious partnership of optimism and peace. It can be done with roses to add self-esteem, love, and healing. The possibilities are vast with the world of herbs, don't be afraid to experiment and find what you love best and what resonates with your energy. Trust your intuition! 

As always, with coming across new herbs, be sure you are doing a patch test in case any reactions occur and discontinue burning if you experience any undesirable effects. You can hang your creosote wand in your bathroom or use it as an altar tool instead.  Learn more about Lulu and her business here.

Healing with Kunzite // 4 Ways to Work With Kunzite

Feeling like you need a little emotional protection these days? Kunzite is a lesser-known crystal that comes with a variety of benefits for your mind and heart. The high vibrational energy of kunzite invites you to let go of fear and sorrow so you can move through life with a protected, but open heart.

Let's dive deeper into the healing properties of this beautiful crystal and how to benefit from all it has to offer! Here's an overview of this potent healing gem. Keep scrolling for 5 ways to put this stone to use in your spiritual practice. 

What is Kunzite?

Kunzite ranges in color from the palest pink, light violet, green, or even white. It can vary from glass-like transparency to opaque, often with vertical striations. The soft pink hues of this stone along can bring feelings of comfort.

On an energetic level, kunzite aids in freedom of expression. It does this by opening the heart enough for you to follow your desires but subtly protects as well. Kunzite is a beautiful stone for those looking for emotional protection without closing themselves off from life or others. 

Kunzite can help align you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This stone can bring light and comfort into your everyday life. It is gentle enough to work with daily in meditation or ritual.

Kunzite Healing Properties 

• When carried, kunzite can aid in calming anxiety and panic attacks. 

• Wearing kunzite inspires us to be fully present in the moments. 

• Though kunzite primarily corresponds with the heart and upper chakras, it has the power to clear, activate, and open all chakras. 

• It helps to heal your inner child or emotional blockages from the past. 

• It can open your heart to receive spiritual and physical love. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cassie Uhl (@cassieuhl)

Meditation with Kunzite 

You will feel a powerful sense of peace and comfort when meditating with kunzite. This spiritual stone clears and declutters the mind, which can open you up to receiving blocked memories. Kunzite reduces stress brought on by anxiety, making it the perfect stone for meditation. Have your kunzite near while meditating, or wear it on your body for a strong, energetic connection.

Create a Crystal Grids with Kunzite 

Kunzite is an excellent addition to your crystal grid. Use kunzite in grids for self-love, expression, working through trauma, peace, and healing. This powerful stone combines well with rose quartz, black tourmaline, malachite, and hematite, to name a few.

Kunzite can be harder to come by and more expensive, so I suggest using it as a center stone. Learn how to make a crystal grid here. 

Heal Your Chakras with Kunzite

As a stone that represents unconditional love and compassion, kunzite aligns best with the heart chakra. It can help to open your spiritual and emotional heart and bring healing to past trauma. 

Kunzite not only activates the Heart Chakra but aligns with all of the upper chakras (throat, third eye, and crown), triggering a harmony of transformative energy. To work with kunzite for chakra healing, place a piece on your heart chakra and visualize in creating a field of soft pink energy around your body. Learn more about chakras here. 

Cleanse and Strengthen Your Aura with Kunzite

This delicate stone allows us to embrace kindness and joy while connecting to a higher power. If you've built walls around your heart over time, kunzite can help. The calming energy of kunzite will cleanse any negative auric shadows that may have accumulated. Cleansing with kunzite encourages us to breakdown barriers to make room for unconditional and abundant love. Kunzite will also strengthen your aura. 

To work with kunzite to heal and strengthen your aura, hold a piece of kunzite about 6 inches away from your body and use your intuition to guide it through your aura, clearing away any negative energy. Performing suggestion number 3 will also similarly affect your aura. Learn more about auras here. 

Walking the Path of Infertility & 5 Spiritual Tools to Help

Walking the path of infertility was one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced during this lifetime. If you’re walking this path, I see you, and I send you my love and encouragement because I know how hard it is. For four years, I was unable to conceive naturally, and I tried all the things. Eventually, after four years of walking the infertility path, I became pregnant and birthed my sweet twins, Ellis Andrew and Lillian Hart. Here I’m sharing some of the tools that helped me through this journey.

Let me preface this post with a gentle reminder that your experience is unique, and so was mine. Please, take what you like and leave the rest. My suggestions are based on my individual experience and may or may not work for you. 

I’d want to be extremely transparent about all of the tools that I relied upon throughout my infertility journey. I am a huge advocate for therapy and found a therapist that specialized in working with women who were struggling with infertility (she actually went through IVF herself!). If you live in Arizona and want her contact info, please send me a note here. I also used a variety of holistic and modern Western medical interventions, including acupuncture, massage, herbs, IUI, and ultimately, IVF. IUI and IVF are not for everyone, and certainly has its many downfalls, but it was the path I chose. 

The suggestions I offer you here have less to do with becoming pregnant and more to do with loving yourself where you’re at. I believe, for me, that the acceptance and peace I found around this issue is what ultimately lead me to conception. This isn’t the case for everyone, and as I said, this is a deeply personal path that is unique to each individual. Be open, but, if something doesn’t feel like a good fit, that’s okay! 

Berkano card featured from The Ritual Deck.

CREATE AN ALTAR

Having an altar gives you an area to hold space for all of the big emotions that go along with infertility. Early in my infertility journey, I made an altar for my unborn child. If you’re feeling this, go for it, but I’ll be honest and tell you that I took it apart in a fit of rage and rebuilt an altar for myself. I was so glad I did, and here’s why. 

For me, so much of the infertility journey was me constantly doing and trying new things, often with little regard for my body and energy. I can’t tell you how many times Dr’s would say, “This procedure is perfectly harmless and painless!” only to discover that it was indeed painful and very emotionally taxing. I felt like a human pin cushion on an emotional rollercoaster. I needed a space for myself more than anything, not for my unborn child! My unborn children were totally fine; I was the one who was struggling. 

So, my recommendation is to focus on you and honor your feelings as much as you can throughout the process. One powerful way to do this is to dedicate a space to yourself and your feelings with an altar. Think of your altar as a container for all of the big things you’re not ready to face or need a break from. I would even visualize placing my big emotions in a safe little container stored on my altar until I was prepared to confront them. 

Check out the video below to learn more about creating an altar, embodying the mother archetype, and leaning into shadow for infertility.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cassie Uhl (@cassieuhl)

Altars work well for grief and hardships of all kinds! Click here to check out a post I shared a while ago about how to create an altar. 

EMBODYING THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE WITH BERKANO AND THE TRIPLE GODDESS 

You do not need to bear children to be a mother. This was huge for me in my journey. In fact, I even tattooed the Rune Berkano on my finger as a reminder. I decided to have Berkano tattooed on my finger after I came to a place of acceptance about possibly not being able to have my own children. I wanted it as a reminder that I could be a mother in a variety of different ways. Berkano is a Rune that represents creation, birth, and fulfillment. It is often associated with fertility and motherhood. 

The Triple Goddess symbol is another symbol I used to tap into the energy of motherhood. The Triple Goddess symbol consists of the waxing moon, full moon, and waning moon representing the maiden, the mother, and the crone. This lunar reminder suggests that we can embody all aspects of the Triple Goddess at different times in our life. You don’t need to be young to act like the maiden, and you do not need to have children to embody the mother. Beyond the archetypes associated with the Triple Goddess, the moon phases also point to a reminder that everything is a phase and nothing is forever, just like the infertility journey. Read more about the Triple Goddess in a post I wrote here. 

You don’t have to have these special symbols tattooed on your body to work with them! But if you want to, by all means ;) You can add these symbols to your altar, meditate on them, create art with them, and wear them. 

MEDITATION

There are SO MANY choices to be made along the infertility journey, believe me, I know. Here are just a few, “Should I try IUI or IVF?” “Should I adopt?” “Should I stop trying altogether?” “Why do I think I don’t deserve to have children?” “Should I switch to a new Dr.?”, “Should I go the holistic route first?”, “What are my limits with this process?”. These are just a few examples of some of the big questions that went through my mind during my infertility journey. 

When life hands you any difficult situation, meditation is a powerful tool for a variety of reasons. Meditation will help soothe your possibly stressed nervous system to give you the space to feel and process some of the big emotions and questions connected to infertility. Once you’ve gotten to a place where you’ve experienced some of your emotions, meditation can help again by giving you clarity around any questions or confusion you may have about your path. 

If you’re new to meditation, I suggest trying a 5-minute meditation every day and then bump it up to 10 minutes a day when you feel ready. Click here to read a great blog post about meditation and how to start and stick with a meditation practice. 

My final IVF attempt that resulted in the viable pregnancy of my twin babes happened when my meditation practice was the strongest. I was actually hosting a two-week meditation challenge on Instagram at the time. I was the most at peace I’d been throughout my entire infertility journey and can say, honestly, that I knew I’d be okay whether or not my final IVF resulted in pregnancy. Now, I don’t think it was only my solid meditation practice that made this IVF attempt stick, it was a culmination of several things, but I know that it certainly helped!

CRYSTALS ALLIES

I saved this tool for the end because, though I do believe crystals are mega-powerful, I also think they can be a crutch. I like to use crystals in tandem with other tools, like the ones I mentioned above, not as a solo tool. Personally, I think crystals work best when their energy can be layered with other actionable steps. 

Here’s my list of crystals to help with infertility, bonus they’re all also great for pregnancy and connecting with Goddess energy!

Card featured from The Ritual Deck.

Moonstone- Moonstone, in all of its varieties, corresponds to femininity, the Triple Goddess, the element of water, and cycles. Working with moonstone can serve as a potent reminder that everything you experience is a phase. On a physical level, moonstone is said to help regulate cycles within the body. Moonstone is a gentle enough stone to keep in the bedroom on your nightstand or under your bed. 

Carnelian- There’s nothing like scheduled sex that will take the passion out of your sex life! Carnelian connects with both the root and the sacral chakra, making it ideal for connecting with your passion. It is also another stone that can help heal the reproductive organs. 

Rhodonite- If you’re in the trenches of infertility, you’re going to need a lot of self-love and self-acceptance. Rhodonite is here to help. Rhodonite is also said to help with fertility directly, but I relied on it more for its emotional balancing. When I was TTC and struggling, I had a rhodonite mala necklace created for me and used it often during meditation. 

Smokey Quartz- If you’ve been at this long, then you probably already know that that 2ww (two-week wait) is one of the most anxiety-provoking times of the month! Not to mention your hormones are at their peak! Smokey quartz can be your grounding and anxiety soothing bestie during this time. 

LOOK FOR THE SOUL LESSON AND DIVE DEEP INTO SHADOW

My last suggestion, and it’s a pretty esoteric one, is to look for the soul lessons in your infertility journey. I believe, before we are born, our souls decide what lessons we need to learn while in human form to help us progress. For me, this is where therapy and meditation really helped. It became evident to me throughout my process that I had a deep belief that I did not deserve to have children and that to be happy, I had to struggle. 

Much of my infertility journey involved getting nice and cozy with my shadow side (learn more about shadow work here) and negative the storylines I was choosing to live in. In therapy, I explored my beliefs about being undeserving and where they stemmed from through EMDR therapy. EMDR therapy gave me the tools I needed to explore these darker aspects of my life and ultimately heal them. 

My meditation practice helped me become more aware of when these stories would come to mind, so I could look at them with clarity and not attach to them. For me, this step was not the sort of thing I did in a day or even a week; it was a long process. 

I could obviously write about this for an entire book worth of writing! If you’re walking the infertility path and have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to reach out to me here. Remember, there’s a lesson in everything, even when it’s hard. Nothing lasts forever, and you are always supported!

I hope these tools offer you some peace and healing. I’m sending you so much love, hope, and strength for your journey, wherever it leads you.