Clarity and Quiet Time, blanketed in white...

The title sounds poetic right!?!  Lately, before I snuggle in to dream what dreams may come I have been pulling a couple, 3 cards from a Doreen Virtue Healing with the Fairies deck that I keep on the bed side table.  This is a little ritual that I started a week or two ago to help me start journaling every night.  It is really interesting the cards that are coming up in a repetitive manner, one of those cards is "Quiet Time".  This card speaks to taking time for yourself in whatever manner you would like to take it. Really doing something for you that you WANT to do and not that you need to get done. 
So today I honored that and have been blissfully inactive, reading and snoozing off and on while the world outside also appears to sleep while blanketed in white.  It's like the snow muffles the world and suddenly it gets quiet too.  In this state of blissful nothingness I spent some time thinking about clarity and the rash of confusion I feel I had been living in for the months since I lost my mom in August. 
Losing someone who is such a fixture in your life creates a hole and if you are not careful it can act as a black hole pulling into it anything and everything.  I have worked very hard to combat this by pushing forward in my life and almost forcing myself towards my goals, yet with the confusion and grief that was sitting on my heart, I fell a little off track and had to learn some interesting lessons to pull me back to my center.  I had to re-learn how to stand up for myself and what I believe in.  I had to re-learn that if the energy is not a good fit for me I am allowed to walk away, and finally I had to re-learn that my intuition is right, to follow my gut and that there is nothing more important than my happiness. NOTHING!! 
In learning these lessons I have had to swallow my pride a couple of times and instead of admitting defeat, I have accepted change, I have walked through my fear of making choices based on my heart instead of my head and I am still working with and learning to trust daily.  It has been amazing the doors that have opened and are starting to open for me since this year began.  I am incredibly grateful.
Now don't get me wrong, I am still grieving for my mom and I still have my moments of having a heavy heart but it is an easier load to carry with a little clarity on where I want to go and the trust to follow that intuition and my heart.
Soooo I do want to talk a little bit about different ways to clear your personal energy that can help to clear your head...
One very common way to clear your energy is to use sage, you can burn it and waft it onto and into your personal space.  The smoke will clear out any negative energy that you may be carrying, and if you set the intention to also release anything that is not serving you or is not yours to carry this energy will fall away as well.  You can also use sage to clear your home, office, car or any space where the feeling is heavy or negative.
Another excellent clearing or clarity technique is visualization.  There are many great CD meditations that offer clearing meditations that are simple and easy to use.  (Doreen Virtue has some great ones). If you prefer to do this on your own, I recommend that you find a quiet space, sit comfortably and turn your vision in, visualize what your personal energy looks like and then you can use white light to clear out any dark areas or you can ask the angels and archangels to come in and help you clear. (I personally ask Archangel Michael to come in and he shows up with a vacuum and vacuums all the negative energy off of me)
You can also use visualization while in the shower as the sensation of the water running off of you can help with the visualization of the energy being cleansed. 
If you prefer to use sound, Tibetan and crystal singing bowls are great for clearing personal energy and spaces.

And finally (and this is one of my favorites) you can lie down and focus on your physical body.  Tense up each area of your body and then relax and release, with the release you are also clearing the energy of that area of the body.  I recommend that you work from your head to your toes as this encourages the energy to flow down into the earth.  An example is to tense up all the muscles in your face and then relax and release, then move onto the muscles in your neck.

All of the exercises that I have mentioned are also a form a meditation and can really help bring clarity into the mind, especially if you are struggling with a specific decision or situation.
So feel free to give some of these a whirl and if you have any questions or suggestions of your own on clearing please comment, I would love to help or hear yours. After all these are just one girls thoughts...