The Mood Book: Crystals, Oils, and Rituals to Elevate Your Spirit
https://amzn.to/2KMkKMc
A Little Bit of Meditation: An Introduction to Mindfulness
https://amzn.to/2Iq1gLF
A Little Bit of Mindfulness: An Introduction to Being Present
https://amzn.to/2IrbwmQ
A Little Bit of Chakras: An Introduction to Energy Healing
https://amzn.to/2Xl8rbg
The Spiritual Girl's Guide to Dating: Your Enlightened Path to Love, Sex, and Soulmates
https://amzn.to/2Pf52YE
Essential Oils Handbook: Recipes for Natural Living
https://amzn.to/2VbwJqE
The Chakras and Crystals Cookbook: Juices, Sorbets, Smoothies, Salads, and Soups to Empower Your Energy Centers
https://amzn.to/2IAyAPj
The Compassion Revolution: 30 Days of Living from the Heart
https://amzn.to/2IFgvzF
Apple Cider Vinegar Handbook: Recipes for Natural Living
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Joyful Living: 101 Ways to Transform Your Spirit and Revitalize Your Life
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A Little Bit of Yoga: An Introduction to Postures & Practice
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http://amyleighmercree.com/meet-amy
The Mood Book
https://www.learntruehealth.com/the-mood-book
Medical intuitive Amy Leigh demonstrates how your mood can get the maximum benefit from crystals, how to banish loneliness through a heart-based bath ritual, and more. Tune in to Episode 347 and learn about her recommended tools to take ownership of our health and be the architect of our life.
[00:00:13] Ashley James: Hello, true health seeker. Welcome to another exciting episode of Learn True Health podcast. You’re in for such a treat. This is a very interesting episode. Before we get to it though, I want to tell you some exciting news. Recently, Learn True Health hired a transcriptionist, so now the episodes published on learntruehealth.com, instead of having show notes as we had in the past, you will have the entire transcript.
When you go to share the podcast with your friends and family, you can find the episode once it’s up and published at learntruehealth.com. You can take that episode and share it with your friends and family, and even the friends that you have that don’t listen to podcasts, they can read the transcript of the entire interview. How exciting is that?
It’ll also make it easier for you to use the search function on the website. This is episode 347, so we have 347 episodes available and counting at the Learn True Health website. You can use the search function to type in everything you’re interested in—thyroid, autoimmune, weight loss, vaccines, herbs, essential oils, parasitic cleanses—the list goes on and on.
As things come up in your life and you’re interested in learning more about them, you can type in the search box at learntruehealth.com, and since we’re now transcribing all the interviews, you will have the ability to search through the website to find exactly what you’re looking for. Also, it will be easier for you to share it with those you love.
Some of the listeners have told me, “I definitely share these episodes, and I want the information to come across to those I love, but some of my friends or family don’t listen. They’re not listeners. They don’t like to listen to podcasts.” This will solve that problem because those who don’t listen can always read.
Also, I’ve had listeners tell me that they will often listen to an episode two or three times because they’re taking notes about what the doctor said, what the health expert did, the different recipes or tools, the different steps that the guest has shared with us. This is going to save you a lot of time because when a guest says something very interesting that is meaningful to you and your health journey, you can make a note of the time-stamp in the episode. Once we have published the entire episode with the transcript on our site, learntruehealth.com, you’ll be able to go there and read it. It will have the time-stamp when each guest said what they said along with what they said.
I’m so thrilled that we could bring you this powerful resource to help you transform your health along your holistic health journey as you’re learning how to achieve true health.
Another powerful resource you may not know I already offer is a free doctor course. I got together with some of my favorite naturopaths, and we filmed a course together. It’s 100% free, and it gives you some powerful tools to build a strong foundation of health. You can go to learntruehealth.com and see in the menu where it says “Free Doctor Course,” and click there, or you can go to freedoctorcourse.com. That is the website I created so it would be easy for people to remember.
Freedoctorcourse.com—type in your email address, and every day for seven days, I send you a video by a different doctor, a naturopathic physician, giving you wonderful information to build a strong foundation for your health. These are fun, actionable steps. It’s like a week-long workshop that you get.
Go to learntruehealth.com and explore the wonderful resources that we’ve created for you. My mission is to help over a million people to achieve their true potential to transform their lives and have the absolute best experience in their body possible. Please join our Facebook group. If you’re on Facebook, just search Learn True Health or you can go to learntruehealth.com/group which will direct you to the Facebook group. It’s a wonderfully active community of listeners that support each other along our health journey, so I’d love to see you there.
Awesome. Thank you so much for being a listener and, hey, you know what? As you’re reading the show notes of the new episodes with the full transcript of each interview, please make sure you visit down to the very bottom of the page because we turned on comments in our blog, and you can let me know what you thought of the episode. I think it will be cool to hear from you.
Awesome. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy today’s interview.
[00:05:40] Ashley James: We are in for such a treat today. We have with us Amy Leigh Mercree. She has some very interesting things to teach us. We cover all forms of holistic health on the show, and I love it when we get a little bit woo-woo. For me, when I bring in things like essential oils, rituals, prayer, and meditation, these things help us to know ourselves, give us a sense of purpose, and allow us to gain clarity in our life. Amy has some wonderful tools that she’s going to share with us today. Welcome to the show.
[00:06:28] Amy Leigh Mercree: Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.
[00:06:31] Ashley James: Absolutely. Your website is amyleighmercree.com, and of course, the link to everything you do is going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com
Amy, I’d love to start by learning more about you. What set you on this path to wanting to learn and then teach meditation, essential oils, rituals, using healing crystals? What happened that made you get excited about not only applying them in your life but also helping others?
[00:07:08] Amy Leigh Mercree: Great question. I was a different kind of a kid, to begin with, so I was always a little bit in tune with the natural world and able to perhaps see energy that probably lots of children see, but that stayed with me. I had some intuitive guests, to begin with, and then when I was 18, while I was in college, I began to take yoga, learn about meditation, and also study shamanism, and eventually connect with the woman who became my medicine teacher.
While I was in college, I was also apprenticing with a medicine woman. So then when I was 23, after college, I began my career as what I now call a medical intuitive. I’ve been doing that for 18 years, and it’s all an out-picturing of what I come to with my clients in the many years of self-study after my medicine apprenticeship and all the things I’ve learned from my clients and my work with nature and intuition.
All of that out picturing and all the books I write are love notes for my clients, whether they’re my first book, Spiritual Girl’s Guide to Dating, all the way through to all my books about mindfulness and meditation, essential oils, compassion, all of that. That’s what started me on my path. I still work as a medical intuitive, and then I also teach classes in lots of different modalities, including how to meet your guides, work with your guides, different forms of shamanism, different medical intuitive practices, and protocols that are proprietary that I’ve created over the years. I’m kind of an idea factory, so I’m just always creating new ideas, new books, and moving everything forward and kind of a student of life.
[00:09:15] Ashley James: What happened in your early life? Was there an aha moment? Can you take us back to that pivotal moment that had you want to pursue this as a career?
[00:09:28] Amy Leigh Mercree: Sure. I don’t think it was a specific aha moment as far as childhood side of things. Intuition, seeing energy, and things like that were just normal to me, and there was a point when I realized maybe everybody else perhaps didn’t see the way I did. And so the shifting point moment for me was—I think I was 18. I might’ve still been 17 because I was 17 when I graduated high school.
I took a Reiki class because my mom’s friend was interested in it, so we all took it. I ended up becoming a Reiki master teacher and all of that afterward. Reiki is the transfer of universal life force, and so that was the pivotal moment that did start me down that path.
Soon after, I took a beginning workshop on shamanism with the foundation for shamanic studies. In that workshop, it was kind of interesting because there were a lot of aha moments. We partnered with somebody, and the woman I partnered with said you need to explore past lives and gave me the name of someone she knew in her town, which was a few hours away—not too far—that she thought did that. That person ended up becoming my medicine teacher and did a lot more than past lives and trained me in native American medicine practices.
That shifting point was the Reiki class. Soon after, as I did start down that medicine path, it was clear to me that just like some people could be born and at age three just pick up a guitar and start playing, whereas other people play the guitar just as well, but perhaps they would need lessons, that in the intuitive realms, that was one of my talents. It was a natural out-picturing to begin working with clients, and it flowed easily for me.
[00:11:52] Ashley James: What happened with crystals? Can you describe your first experience working with them and what benefits did you see from using them?
[00:12:01] Amy Leigh Mercree: Crystals to me are the equivalent of a plant or an animal. They’re alive and, I think, absolutely useful to have around. They do hold emotional and mental energy in a way. It’s not that for them, but they hold frequencies. For example, I think our best bet for crystals is to use rose quartz because it holds that vibration of unconditional love. That was how I always looked at crystals, and I always keep my crystals and stones outdoors as much as possible because that’s where they want to be.
Just like I wouldn’t bring up a wild animal into the house and expect it to live in a drawer, I don’t expect a crystal to live inside all the time. It’s a being that was forged in the earth, and it would probably rather be outside. That’s how I think of crystals. I do use them. In The Mood Book, we talked about different crystals we can use for rituals and things like that to help influence our emotional state, but in my world, the crystal goes back outside. Crystals are great. I think plants, herbs, things like that can have a massive effect on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Crystals can have some effect as well, but I think they work a lot more on the emotional and somewhat on the mental level. That’s my personal opinion.
[00:13:42] Ashley James: You think all people can feel the effects of crystals, or does someone need to be more spiritual and more in tune or in touch to feel it?
[00:13:54] Amy Leigh Mercree: Perhaps people need to be a little bit more sensitive to feel it palpably, but I also think our reality is created by what we believe. So if we believe a pharmaceutical pill is going to help us, the possibility will increase. If we believe a crystal is going to help us, the possibility will increase. If we believe an herb is going to help us, that possibility will increase. It’s called the placebo effect.
I’m not saying they don’t work. Any of those three things do or don’t work, but I think a lot of it has to do with our belief in the way we’re viewing our lives. So if somebody is open to the idea of crystals helping them, then they might be more sensitive as well and feel those effects.
[00:14:40] Ashley James: Have you ever seen crystals used in healing where there are noticeable results? The example I can think of is when I lived at Kripalu, one of my classmates twisted his ankle, and it was so inflamed. You could see the inflammation on the joint, and he had a big crystal, and he was using it to decrease inflammation. He felt as though it helped him to walk. He got off his crutches much sooner than expected, and he felt that that crystal, along with the energy work he was doing, aided him greatly and magnified his healing. Have you seen specific examples of work crystals have noticeably increased healing?
[00:15:36] Amy Leigh Mercree: I haven’t specifically, no. That’s why I gear them more towards emotional work. But I think that’s wonderful, and like I said when we’re in deep communion with a plant, or crystal, or animal, there is an exchange of energy, and perhaps it did help. Maybe he was massaging the area with it, moving the fluid. Maybe it was a cold temperature. There could be so many reasons.
I haven’t seen those marked physical effects, but I work a lot more with plants than I do with crystals, so I’m not an expert on crystals. I like them. I included them in The Mood Book because I think they were valuable for the emotional side of things as well. But I wouldn’t take my crystal knowledge as the end all, be all because I love that story, too, that that did happen for that person in college. I’ve heard of things like that. I’ve never witnessed it and been specifically privy to it.
[00:16:44] Ashley James: Got It. So more around emotional healing or emotional health, what have you noticed? Are there stories of success you can share around implementing crystals that noticeably help people’s moods shift?
[00:17:03] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yes, I think keeping rose quartz in the indoor environment with the caveat that each stone spends at least 50% of its time outdoors in sun, in moon, in rain, on the earth—a clear, clean, happy piece of crystal or clean, clear, happy mineral. I think rose quartz is a beautiful stone to keep in the home. I’ve definitely seen, for example, if we keep two pieces of rose quartz, preferably larger untumbled pieces if you’re able to find some. Crystals in their more natural state generally have a little bit more charge and effect.
If we can keep two pieces of rose quartz, for example, in the bedroom, then we have that vibration of unconditional love, and we’re also having two things there which are synonymous with perhaps the couple or romantic love. If that’s something you’re trying to bring into your life or if you are a couple, two pieces of really happy rose quartz, which as a compromise you can keep on a sunlit window sill, so they spend some time in the sun when you don’t have them outside as well. I have seen that have a marked effect.
There are lots of stones that people do report feeling their intuition is enhanced by as well. Amethyst is a really common stone; blue sodalite; many of the stones that we hear about do sound like they enhance intuitive abilities as well. That’s another effect that I think it’s potentially helpful as far as crystals.
We also have grounding stones that are helpful—garnet, ruby, smoky quartz, tiger’s eye, the deeper, more rooted stones that bring the essence of being in the earth inside to us and help us reconnect with that. To me, one of the really important things about crystals is it’s bringing something from the natural world inside. It’s letting us connect with the natural world in different ways. Also, the sight of crystals being beautiful and pretty, just like a pretty piece of jewelry, will bring us joy and also elevate our spirit and our emotions a little bit.
[00:19:48] Ashley James: What crystal would you recommend for people who want to increase their motivation? Maybe they’re working on losing weight, shifting their diet, or healing their gut, but they’d like something to help them keep going towards their goal?
[00:20:04] Amy Leigh Mercree: Citrine is a fabulous crystal for that—a nice stone for that. Golden yellow and sunstone are also helpful for that. Both of those stones amplify our will, which is a big part of keeping our resolve—keeping our will up is keeping our motivation up. Additionally, to help with focus, lots of different crystals can help us focus. Amethyst is an easy to obtain crystal for focus. Tourmalines are helpful for focus as well. So any of those can be used to help keep the focus. If you combine a citrine with a tourmaline of your choosing, even better if it’s kind of a golden color or something like that, then you can take the will and the focus to keep going and stay motivated.
[00:21:11] Ashley James: I like to tell my listeners that I am the biggest open-minded skeptic. Here’s my experience around crystals. I was 15 years old. My family spent every winter in Mexico. We spent about three weeks every year in the same place. So by the time I was 15, I really knew this part just south of Puerto Vallarta called Conchas Chinas. I know all the streets. I’ve walked them many times. My parents let me be free range growing up.
So I’m 15 years old. I know every street, I have a basic understanding of Spanish, and I’m just on my own. I’m having fun talking to street vendors, and I bought a crystal. It was like a white quartz little necklace. Not thinking anything of it, I immediately put it on, and I keep walking. All of a sudden, I’m lost. I have no idea where I am. I’m incredibly confused. I’m a little dizzy and lightheaded. I turned down a street. I get assaulted by a man. I started running. I’m confused. I’m stressed out. I have no idea where I am. I feel out of my body. I think to myself, the only thing I’ve changed in the last five minutes is I put on this necklace. I take the necklace off, I immediately know where I am, and I’m safe.
I put it in my pocket, and I go, “Okay, I need to learn more about this stuff.” I learned that you need to cleanse. When you buy crystals, they pick up energy. They’re like a battery. They hold vibration. They hold energy. Fast forward, I’m 26, and my friend buys me a necklace made by a healer who was my Reiki master, and this was her Reiki master, so he created it. I put it on, and I’m immediately drunk, and I can’t stand anymore. I just lost all control of my body. And so I had to work my way up to wearing it because it was so powerful, I can only hold it in my hand and then place it back down. I couldn’t wear it.
It took me a while to be able to wear it, and then I could only wear it an hour a day or else I’d have detox symptoms. It was very overpowering—the energy. I have a deep respect for crystals, but I’m also kind of afraid of them because— I don’t know—I’m sensitive.
[00:23:45] Amy Leigh Mercree: I can see why.
[00:23:47] Ashley James: But I’ve also seen people just being surrounded by them and have no sensation at all. It’s like some people pick up on it, and some people don’t have any effect. I know people who douse themselves in essential oils, and then I know other people who could only stand one drop diluted.
So we have to know ourselves when we’re working with plants, when we’re working with crystals, when we’re working with all these different modalities. We need to know who we are, what we resonate with, and also be open-minded enough and willing to try things on.
But start slow, right? So for those who’ve never worked with crystals, you’re saying get one, put it in the outdoors half the time, leave it in your room. You’re not necessarily saying wear it.
Can you give any other advice for those who’ve never worked with crystals that want to dabble and explore, open their experience, or give themselves a new experience of crystals?
[00:25:05] Amy Leigh Mercree: I think your story is speaking to that sensitivity. I’m the same as you. Sometimes I have certain crystal bracelets. I have a nice moonstone bracelet I like to wear. I have an aquamarine rose quartz bracelet I’ll wear, but I don’t wear a lot of crystals myself either. I think in the environment it’s close enough, and if they aren’t super clear because they haven’t been outside quite a bit, then I do feel it. So I understand where you’re coming from and your story.
What I’ll say to somebody who is exploring crystals for the first time is to work with a gentle type of crystal—work with rose quartz or a moonstone. Larimar is a beautiful, gentle stone to work with. Citrine is okay too—not overpowering, but still strong. Topaz is a nice stone to work with as well. Any of those.
And then before you put it in your pocket before it’s even in your house, it needs to spend some time outside. Let’s say you live in the city, and perhaps you have an outdoor planter—better than nothing. Out on a table in the sunlight and the moonlight—great. Even better if it could go in your garden or something.
I have a tray sometimes I put mine on out on the patio because I don’t always want to put it out in the lawn and then lose it. You want to make sure you really clear the crystal and have it outside for a few days and nights.
Now let’s say you have no patio. You live in an upper floor apartment. You don’t have a patio or a yard. What’s your next option? The window sill in the house that gets the most sunlight, the most moonlight, and then you can place the crystal on a bowl of spring water. You can change that out, dry it off, and place it in a bowl of salt at some point sticking out—all different things like that. You want to clear any crystal for several days before you bring it in the environment. If it’s on that window sill, that’s fine. It’s not too close. Don’t use the one next to your bed right away and make sure you clear it first.
And then the environment—I think it’s a good place to start. Just have them in the house and see how they feel and start to tune into them. Then you can hold one and meditate with it a little bit and see if you notice anything.
[00:27:39] Ashley James: What crystals are good for sleep? Are there ones that improve sleep or improve dreams or protection that you would want by the bed after you’ve cleared them?
[00:27:53] Amy Leigh Mercree: Smoky quartz is nice for protection, so I always like to advise that. Larimar is great for dreams. Rose quartz is my top favorite for dreams. Moonstone is lovely for dreams. Aquamarine is lovely for dreams.
I tend to gravitate toward the gentler crystals. I think that’s a good way to start, especially if you’re just starting. Things like sandstone citrine—those are a little bit too amped up for sleep, I think.
Beautiful jade or emerald is okay for sleep as well. They’re very heart-centered. Sometimes you find pieces of jade at stores. If you happen to have a raw emerald, interestingly enough, emerald is a derivative of beryl. It’s a beryllium-based crystal, the same substance, different color as sapphire. They have a very similar atomic makeup based on a beryllium atom with a bunch of other atoms making up these beryl molecules.
Emerald and sapphire, although they have different countenance, emerald is a little bit more about the heart. Sapphire is a little bit more about speaking your truth. Both of those are fine as well for sleeping because they’re refined, high vibrational. Even if they’re a rough crystal, not a polished stone, as long as it’s been cleared, those are nice for sleep as well.
[00:29:41] Ashley James: Very interesting. Are there any crystals that have been known to mitigate the effects of EMF frequencies or Wi-Fi, Bluetooth? Are there crystals that when in the environment help to protect us from that?
[00:29:58] Amy Leigh Mercree: Great question. Not to my knowledge. I know there are a lot of products on the market that claim to do that. Some of them contain different crystal compounds and things like that. I can’t endorse any of that. My advice is to turn off the phone. I know some people who unplugged their Wi-Fi every night, which is kind of a project, you have to log back in. I’ve considered it. I haven’t done it yet.
I always tell people to keep all phones out of the bedroom, unplugging the chargers that might be in the bedroom, try to limit some of that. Some people use a gauss meter. It’s an introductory way to measure EMF and magnetic frequencies in your home. It’s great to check that, especially where you sleep. If there’s a fuse box in the bedroom or the place where the electric company reads the meters right outside the bedroom on that wall, that can give you a high reading, and better to sleep in another room. I like to take a practical approach. I don’t know if crystals have the power to deal with the strong waves that we’ve generated here as a society.
[00:31:19] Ashley James: Yes, I agree—take the practical approach. Just so you know, there are um, routers out there that have an on-off switch for Wi-Fi. That’s what we use. I notice a difference. I actually can feel it. I’ll be in the bedroom, and my husband will be in the office. He’ll turn off the Wi-Fi, and I’ll immediately feel it. He’ll come in the bedroom; I’ll be like, “You turned off the Wi-Fi, didn’t you?” and he goes, “Yup.”
So I can feel it, and when we started this practice, we only turn on the Wi-Fi We have hardwired desktop computers—it means the wires are coming straight out of the router, the modem plugs to the router, then the router is what turns Wi-Fi on. But you can also have cables—basically ethernet cables—from the desktop right into the router.
We have hardwired computers, so we don’t need Wi-Fi unless we’re going to turn on the TV, or the iPad, or the laptop, which we don’t do very often. We limit it. We do not have it on at night.
In the sauna—we have a little iPad thingy in the sauna. We only turn it on when we need it, and then we turn it off, and I can feel the difference. We also noticed that we sleep better and that our son who’s just turned four, his mood changes greatly. He becomes more rested. He becomes aggressive and less prone to tantrums. He gets agitated if he’s surrounded with Wi-Fi for days on end—we’d notice that. We’re very in tune to him and his behaviors. We just saw that just that one thing—significantly reducing his exposure to Wi-Fi— improved his mood.
I was hoping that there’d be like, “Yeah, there is a crystal and just have it in every room.”
[00:33:26] Amy Leigh Mercree: I wish.
[00:33:28] Ashley James: I like that you’re taking the practical approach. We need to understand that these are tools, and every tool has its limitations, but every tool also has its purpose. And so I want us to understand that crystals are a valuable tool, and they have limitations and a purpose. When we use them the right way, we can benefit our lives.
Especially for those who are like me an open-minded skeptic, I’d like everyone who’s listening to think about the possibility of where they could enhance their life using a crystal and the other modalities that you teach in your books. If we can take these small steps every day to improve every aspect of our life, that’s what holistic medicine is all about.
You mentioned a few times clearing crystals. Can you walk us through that? I know we’ve got some listeners who have used crystals for years, but then we’ve got listeners who maybe haven’t used crystals and haven’t been clearing them or just had them up on a shelf and never had the mountain and sunlight, or maybe we have listeners who’ve never used crystals. We’re dealing with a lot of different experience levels. If you could walk us through as though we don’t know anything about clearing crystal, why do we need to clear crystal and how do we do that?
[00:34:57] Amy Leigh Mercree: A crystal is just like a wild animal or a plant. It was forged outside. It lived on the earth, and that is its natural environment. Just like us, we, in theory, are used to being inside, but if we stayed inside all day and all night and never went outside, we’d get agitated too. A crystal will do the same thing. To some degree, we’re anthropomorphizing it, but it is a living being.
To clear a crystal and to treat a crystal with respect and kindness, this crystal needs to be outside in the sun, in the moon, in the rain, even in the snow, if that’s what’s going on outside. That’s ideally what it needs to experience. It needs to be out on the earth, and these things will clear the crystal. It lets the crystal gain maximum vitality and charge if we want to talk about it as a container for energy. But it also helps the crystal itself feel what we would probably qualify as happy or content. If we’re going to bring that into our environment and perhaps even into our energy field, we want that.
And so to clear, the best way to do it is put it outside for 72 hours plus. If you leave a crystal outside for weeks at a time, it’s not going to be offended; it’s going to be thrilled because that’s where it came from. At least three days is the best bet. Like I said earlier, if you don’t have a patio or a yard, you don’t have access to any of that, then your next option to clear your crystals is a sunlit and then moonlit window sill. That might mean keeping the shades up a bit to make sure the sun and the moonlight is going to hit the crystal or crystals as much as possible, so one that’s facing in a direction where it’s going to get a lot of sunlight and moonlight.
A lot of crystals respond well to salt. If you want to place a crystal in a bowl of salt, it needs to be untreated salt: rock salt, Celtic Sea salt, Himalayan salt, Hawaiian salt—all those unprocessed, untreated, natural salt and certain sea salts. You place the crystal in the bowl, and usually, you leave some of it peeking out unless you want to bury it; unless you feel like perhaps that crystal would enjoy that, if you’re connected to it. Otherwise, leave a little bit of it peeking out. Still, keep it on that sunlit window sill. For that matter, don’t keep it next to the Wi-Fi. Don’t keep it next to your cell phone. Don’t keep it next to the TV. Keep it away from electronics as much as possible.
Another way to clear a crystal, all the same things that I just said apply except utilizing sand or dirt. If you’re able to get some natural, untreated dirt, it means you don’t want to go and get dirt out of a park that’s sprayed with pesticides. But if you’re able to go out into nature, perhaps in the woods or somewhere in wild nature and bring some dirt in, that’s a fine way to do it, too. You can place the crystal in dirt, little bit sticking up and out, on a window sill is better. Another thing would be to place the crystal in a bowl of cold water, preferably spring water.
If you’re stuck inside, you could rinse your crystal under the tap water, not necessarily shockingly cold but cold water. You can also take the crystals on outings. A crystal loves to be immersed in lakes, rivers, and in the ocean. I use a pendulum sometimes, and I have some couple different pendulums.
One of the pendulums came with me on a trip to Costa Rica, and that was like the happiest pendulum I’ve ever seen. I would take it in this hot spring at night, a natural hot spring. I went to this idyllic place and soaked in these volcanic hot springs. I’d put the pendulum in the hot spring and kind of swing it around, and it would just be kind of in there. And then I’d take it out and hold it up, and it would circle, orbiting like those swings you would see on carnival rides when they’re going out high.
This thing would be like as far out as it can swing, circling. It was so happy. Same one and lots of other stones over the years, I would take them to the ocean with me. They seem to enjoy the sea foam, where the waves are crashing, and that’s where maximum ionization is happening. The wave action, the water and the sodium, and all the different mineral molecules are ionizing. In my experience, crystals enjoy that.
Those are the ways you can clear crystals, but you can also take your crystals with you on field trips into nature because they love it. When a crystal is clear, if it feels like if you’re in tune with the crystal, and you feel like the crystal would be open to it, it’s okay to put it in your pocket, carry it in your hand to take it on these little field trips.
If you’re going to put it in your purse, try to keep it away from your cell phone because just like EMS harms us or they do not enhance us, neither are crystals. That’s my take on it.
[00:40:55] Ashley James: I love it. It’s like having a pet rock that kills us.
[00:41:01] Amy Leigh Mercree: And it’s alive. I always say if you get a pet, that pet is a member of your family. It’s not just some insignificant life form that you don’t pay attention to. If you commit to getting a pet, that pet is a member of your family.
The same thing—if you have a house plant, that’s a living thing. It is a member of your family. You’ve taken it out of its natural environment, and it’s your job to care for it and make sure it’s happy and nourished—well fed, well watered— and that goes for crystal as well. If you’re going to take a crystal out of its natural environment, then it’s your job to care for it with respect, with kindness, and make sure it has what it needs.
[00:41:43] Ashley James: Very cool. Your book, “The Mood Book: Turn Worry to Peace, Sadness to Joy, Heartbreak to Love, Fear to Freedom and Lethargy To Vitality.” You launched it recently on March 4th. How is it doing? How’s the feedback that you’re getting from your readers?
[00:42:03] Amy Leigh Mercree: The feedback has been great. It came out on March 4th, and it’s doing well. #AuthorLife, as they say. I think a lot of us check our Amazon rankings periodically. The Mood Book is doing well. One of its categories is crystals. That’s one of the categories it’s under. It’s consistently been in the top 100 in its category, which makes it an Amazon bestseller almost every day since it’s come out. It wasn’t yesterday, but it’s back up today. Yes, I checked.
[00:42:42] Ashley James: Awesome. What kind of feedback have you received? Are there stories of success that you can share as the readers have been utilizing your rituals to improve their mood?
[00:42:52] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yes, actually I just got a note. I’m on Instagram a lot, so I talked to my readers on there a lot. I just got a note from someone who said that she’s been using the bath rituals every night, and she thinks the meditations and the rituals are enhancing her life so much. She’s sleeping so much better. It’s really fun to hear those tales from people for all my books when they talk about how some idea that I’ve gotten to share has made a positive difference. It’s why I do what I do actually.
[00:43:30] Ashley James: Can you teach us a ritual, maybe the bath ritual or something that you think will benefit the listeners to practice?
[00:43:39] Amy Leigh Mercree: In the book, every single chapter, all of those six chapters, they all have a bath ritual. We will do our heart-based bath. This is a bath to banish feelings of loneliness, and it also is an aphrodisiac bath. It’s good if you want to focus on self-love or you want to focus on romantic love. It’s an all-purpose love bath. It doesn’t take you through what you would do if you were engaging in this bath with your partner on a romantic level, but it would prime you for that.
Your materials for this ritual include paper and pen or pencil. You can use one or more pieces of the following crystals, pre-cleared, pre-charged from outside if possible: rose quartz, jade, green aventurine, pink tourmaline, and I will add an emerald. That’s fine for this too if you have some raw emerald.
You will use rose essential oil. Rose oil is either called rose otto or rose absolute essential oil. They are both derived from roses. It’s a difference in the process that the rose petals are subjected to pull the oil from them. The rose absolute is a little bit more potent, but rose otto is very potent. I list rose otto in the book because it’s usually easier to come by; either one is fine.
Jasmine essential oil, and then you would use four pink candles, and some rose scented soap if you have it. Your local health food store might have handmade goat’s milk soap or something like that, and that would be the rose one if you see one of those. If not, it’s optional.
Decaffeinated jasmine green tea and dried hawthorn berry–those are all your ingredients. If you don’t have all of them, it’s okay. You can omit it. Jasmine is a flowery and delicious variant of green tea. When you get a jasmine green tea, it’s green tea with jasmine blossoms mixed in with the tea. I have the decaf because I’m assuming that most people are going to go to bed after their bath. If you’re doing this in the morning, you can do it with caffeine if you want.
Hawthorn berry is an aphrodisiac. It’s great in infusions and teas. You would brew your decaffeinated jasmine green tea, and you’d put the hawthorn berry with it. You can do that in a French press or a pot of boiling water. You can use tea bags. You can throw it in a cup of boiling water, and then strain it, however you’d like. You want it to be a medium brew. You don’t need to make it incredibly strong unless you like that.
I think the taste is nice. If for some reason it doesn’t appeal to you, you could add a little bit of raw honey or maple syrup to that. So you would make your tea, and you’ll be sipping your tea. As you make the tea, you’ll be thinking about mindfully making that, and you’ll really want to be present to the process and then being present to the entirety of this process. You don’t bring your phone in for this. Ideally, you turn it silent or turn it off. You set the scene with your candles and dim lights ideally, and you run a bath. As a rule, you want your bath to be pretty warm but not so hot that it’s going to make you sweat. You have to think about what’s the best temperature for you. I like a super duper hot bath, but I tend to get cold, so it depends upon a person.
So you run your bath, and then you can use your pen and paper and think a little bit about some affirmations or a statement that you’re going to use as a bit of a mantra for this bath, which is focused on unconditional love for self and others. It can have an aphrodisiac quality if you choose, so love and romance in all of its forms. It might be something like, “I am beautiful,” or “My heart is open, and I enjoy pleasure daily,” “I open my heart and allow myself to receive love in all of its forms.”
Then you think about that intention, and at that point, your bath is filling up and then you’ll put a few drops of rose and jasmine in your bath. If you have an essential oil diffuser, you can also do that. You’ll arrange your four pink candles in a safe place—you don’t want to have them fall over or anything—depending upon your bathroom layout. If you don’t have a diffuser, a way to use essential oils is to place drops of the oil in the melted wax. You don’t want to place it directly in the flame, but just next to the flame. That will disperse the smell a little bit as well.
You can also place some of the rose oil on the center of your chest and rub that in before and after the bath. The jasmine is great to place on your back over your kidneys. Jasmine essential oil promotes kidney yang, which is libido. It also helps move the meridian energy in the kidney, and thereby move that channel into the lung channel, so that helps us move grief that’s stagnant in the lungs. That’s why we use jasmine in this bath ritual.
Then you will think about your mantra‑”My heart is open, and I enjoy pleasure daily,” “I am a pillar of unconditional love,” whatever your mantra and intention for the bath are, as you light the candles, and then you can place the gemstones alongside the candles. You can also place the gemstones in the bathtub. This is where I also invite you to connect with the stone to hold each stone and feel yourself. Ask the stone’s permission—Would you like to be placed in the top? Would you like to be placed next to the candles? Would you like to participate in this bath ritual?
Rose quartz is great to put in the bath with you. If you have those, those are nice. Then you can hop in the tub and think about your mantra and just rest and relax. If you have the rose scented soap, you can use that, or you can continue to smell the rose oil, sit with the crystals, enjoy your bath, sit in your bath, and allow the unconditional love from the rose quartz to flow through you. Green aventurine is nice if you are dealing with heartbreak, so you can even place that crystal on your chest if you’re in the throes of that. If you’re in a relationship, then that green aventurine will harmonize the relationship, and it is a heart protector, so it’ll help you move into compassion instead of fighting.
So then you can sit, visualize yourself in a pink glow, and look at the candles–the pink color of the candles, the flickering light of the candles, the intentions from your mantra that you might be just not repeating in any ritualistic manner, but just as your thoughts wander, maybe bringing it back to that “I am unconditional love” or whatever mantra you’d like to use. You can gaze at the flames of the candle to allow them to shift your consciousness a little bit as you’re focusing on this idea of love and romantic love, self-love, unconditional love.
When you’re ready, bring your awareness back in. If you have your journal handy, you can journal any thoughts or feelings, and even any messages you feel from the spirit or the minerals and stones. As you bring yourself back, when it’s time, you can remove the rocks from the tub and drain it.
Another thing that’s beautiful to add to a bath like this that you would add at the beginning would be rose petals. If they’re organic and untreated of any color, pink and red would be a little bit more on the love vibration, but any rose holds that vibration of love. So if you had placed rose petals in the bath, you can take the stones out, drain the water as long as your drain isn’t too large, and then take the petals out after.
If you do that, it’s nice to dispose of the petals outside. Sometimes it’s nice to dry the petals off and potentially even sleep with them in the bed overnight if you’re going straight to bed, and then place the petals outside as opposed to in the trash. That’s a long ritual.
[00:54:04] Ashley James: Yeah, but it’s a fun evening ritual—maybe a Friday night, getting wild, and getting our rituals on. How long is this bath typically? Is it just up to the person? It can be 20 minutes. It could be an hour.
[00:54:19] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yeah, open-ended. If you’re hot, after 15 you’re ready to get out—‑awesome. If you love it and you want to add hot water over and over for two hours, go for it.
[00:54:31] Ashley James: Yes, I stay till I’m wrinkly, till all my fingers are pruney.
[00:54:37] Amy Leigh Mercree: Me too. It’s nice before bed. That’s a great time to get in bed and journal. I don’t know if you practice automatic writing. Some people call it spirit writing. I teach automatic writing in my Meet Your Guides class. That’s a great time, when you are in the bath or getting out of the bath, to do your automatic writing with your spirit guides, too.
[00:54:59] Ashley James: Because you’re calm, your cortisol is down, and we’re out of that fight or flight mode so we can connect with our heart and listen to our gut. The negative chatter in our brain that comes with being in fight or flight is diminished, so we can stop listening to the self-doubt and the worries and start listening to our heart, right?
[00:55:26] Amy Leigh Mercree: Exactly. The warm water, the stones, the scents, and the flickering candlelight, all have the opportunity to not only deepen the relaxation response but also potentially put you in an altered state where your brain waves are more conducive to receiving spiritual guidance.
[00:55:45] Ashley James: We have people that come from all walks of life, all religions. This doesn’t challenge anyone’s belief system. A Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist—they can all use a ritual to strengthen their belief system and their faith, right?
[00:56:06] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. It can have the flavor of what you believe, or it can be absolutely neutral.
[00:56:15] Ashley James: And so they could take your rituals and incorporate their prayers for protection and healing. You’re just giving them practice in order to implement, take their spirituality and put it into action.
[00:56:32] Amy Leigh Mercree: Perfectly said. Yes.
[00:56:35] Ashley James: Very nice. Tell us more about your Mood Book. You’ve covered crystals. You talked about some of the rituals, that every chapter has a bath ritual, which should be fun to go through and try all the different baths. Can you tell us more about your Mood Book and what we’d learn in it?
[00:56:51] Amy Leigh Mercree: Sure. Every chapter has a quiz that helps you look at what essential oils would work best for your mood. From that standpoint of turning worry to peace, heartbreak to love, sadness to joy, all of that—then we have that crystals chapter, which we talked about. Then we talked about plants and flowers from an herbal and flower essence perspective that will help with each mood. And then we go into the bath ritual for each mood, which is really nice.
And then we go into another ritual around meditation, mindfulness that usually contains a yoga pose and things that we can do to turn heartbreak to love, to turn lethargy to vitality, to turn fear to freedom. So then there’s a whole non-bath-based ritual for each one as well.
[00:57:51] Ashley James: Do you have any advice around turning off anxiety or the worry? I know a lot of our listeners wish that there were 30 hours in a day. They have so many things they’re doing, and they want to do everything. So there’s that pile up of stress and possibly either worry or anxiety. Do you have any information in your Mood Book on the tools that you best recommend for helping to decrease that stress?
[00:58:30] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. We have lots of plant-based and herbal tools in there and also rituals. We have a restful sleep ritual for that specifically when we talk about the effects of sleep deprivation, which I just read a statistic the other day about—70-80% of 18-22-year-olds get less than seven hours of sleep per night, and how damaging that is to our health. Some people say six, but there are studies that prove that there are health detriments even at six. Seven to eight is our minimum.
We talked about different linen sprays you can make with essential oils, and then you have a guided sleep ritual with the yoga pose to help you relax and let go. But the other piece to that, with the idea of worry and anxiety, is unfortunately we’re all tethered to our devices pretty much during our entire waking hours.
Some people keep phones in the bedroom at night. There’s plenty of articles online trending now about sleep texting. People who receive a text, don’t have their phone on silent, they have the phone on the nightstand and then sleep text, sometimes regretting what they’ve said because they don’t remember. It seems pretty obvious that one is to remove the devices, keep them out of the room. I think turning them off is helpful just as far as decreasing some of the fields and what-not.
Then we talk about the oils that will help and also some of the herbal infusions that will help. Basil is actually very calming, and it’s an antidepressant, but it also has a stress-relieving effect. You can use basil to make steam for inhalation. It also will help you overcome uneasiness and ease congestion. It’s an interesting and different herb to use. Valerian is an incredibly sedative herb, wonderfully used in a tea better, only used at night before bed because it’s so sedative. Chamomile is great all day as an essential oil, as a tea, as an herbal infusion—any of these things help. Skullcap is also a sedative, great for nighttime. Rose petals have calming and sedative effects.ou can Ydo a rose petal tea, a rose petal bath as we stated, roses in your environment. Any of these flower essences are wonderful.
A really wonderful remedy for anxiety is passion flower. It’s great in a tea any time of day. It’s spectacular as a flower essence, and it’s heart opening while also being anti-anxiety. So lots of ways to use passion flower. There have been some studies that also state that it reduces anxiety like we’re seeing and reduces high blood pressure because it has an effect on the central nervous system. So just lots of options for those types of things—many options.
[01:01:56] Ashley James: You’re reminding me that when I drink rose tea, I get drunk. I get like giggly and happy, basically all the effects of being drunk except for the fact that I can drive. I don’t drink alcohol, but back when I did, you drink like two glasses of wine, and you feel so happy and giggly. All I need to do is drink a few cups of rose tea. I go to the Asian market in downtown Seattle, and they have these places that the only thing they do is sell loose tea. It’s little tiny rosebuds, like the size of an almond. There are little tiny pink and white rosebuds, and they’re all dry.
You simmer water and then turn off the stove and then put the rosebuds in there and let it steep for a few minutes. I like it strong, so I let it steep for a good 15 minutes and just let it sit there. My first time trying it, I was at a dim sum place off of Young and Eglinton in Toronto. Oh my gosh, I was worried. I was like, “Did they put saki in this or something?” I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to drive. I felt that drunk. It’s just amazing how some herbal teas are so strong at shifting our mood.
[01:03:42] Amy Leigh Mercree: Euphoria and relaxation with the rose. You could take those same rose buds and sprinkle them in the bath, too.
[01:03:52] Ashley James: I can imagine. Basically soaking in the tea.
[01:03:59] Amy Leigh Mercree: Exactly. The tea that does that to me the most, I almost can’t even drink it, I don’t usually buy it—it’s kava kava. That is so deeply sedative. It almost makes me hallucinate. It’s just the regular kava kava tea you would buy. It’s nothing too outlandish. That’s the thing about getting to know ourselves individually around whether it’s herbs, flowers, crystals—
everything. Everybody is so different. You might drink the kava kava and say, “Yeah, that’s relaxing, but it’s fine.” And I’m like, “Wow, that was like a deeply relaxing and visionary experience to drink that almost too much.”
[01:04:46] Ashley James: I discovered kava kava as a supplement in high school. I didn’t know about the tea at the time, but I was experimenting with all kinds of herbs and teas, and I read about kava kava, so I went and got it. It helped me get through high school, like the antidepressant.
[01:05:05] Amy Leigh Mercree: That’s nice. You needed it.
[01:05:07] Ashley James: Yeah. To talk about something as simple as an herb, of course, I could have taken it as a tea, now that I think about it. I was doing cat’s claw tea at the time. I forget why, but I was experimenting with different herbs for shifting my mood, to keep me surviving through high school. So they do. You can use herbs in their different forms, whether it’s tincture or tea or essential oil.
What about live though? You talked about having crystals in your environment to shift the energy of your environment to improve your mood. What about having plants that are living, not necessarily for ingesting, but just for shifting the energy of your space and holding a space that helps to improve your mood. Do you have any advice around that?
[01:05:55] Amy Leigh Mercree: I think that’s amazing. Just like with crystals, the same thing—speaking to the plants, making sure the plants are in a place with lots of sound, lots of moon, spring water. My philosophy would be to ask the plants if they would like to go outside for periods of time. I don’t have houseplants because I always feel badly bringing plants inside because I feel like they would prefer to be outside.
But I did in one of the places I used to live. I’m an avid gardener, and I had a greenhouse, so that was inside. Those plants were just spectacularly happy—a trellised wall of nasturtium, lots of lettuces. Some carrots that never really were ready to be eaten, but we’re very happy to be growing. Just lots of really pretty edible flowers anyways. Those plants were just gloriously happy because they did get sun and moonlight through the greenhouse.
But they’re inside because there are a lot of woodland creatures that ate my garden, so I tried to do greenhouse. But I think indoor plants that you bring inside are spectacular. Obviously, they oxygenate the air. They’re good for your health. You want to treat them with respect and kindness. Again, if you bring a plant into your home, it’s a member of your family.
So with the roses, I always buy organic roses or flowers and have the place where I can do that easily accessible. I know I’m probably going to use them in a bath at some point too. So when I do choose the bouquet, which is still alive, but it’s not in the soil, so it’s going to have a finite experience. It’s already been cut. I don’t know if I necessarily ask it with words, but I ask it if it wants to come home, and I quickly show it a picture of “I’m going to put you in a vase in my house and then put you in the bath. Would you like to participate in this? Would you like to co-create this with me?”
If I feel that that’s a yes, then I buy the flowers. I would go with that rule of thumb also with plants that we bring in the house. We’re co-creating their lives with them, and so we need to treat them with lots of kindness and respect.
[01:08:48] Ashley James: How do you listen for the response? Is it the first answer you hear? Is it more of a gut yes or no? For those who’ve never asked items around them, whether they want to be part of their life or help create their space, how do we go about listening on that level, increasing that level of intuition to be able to hear it?
[01:09:19] Amy Leigh Mercree: Great question. I think everybody hears differently. I think that gut yes or no and also the feeling you get from the planet can be really helpful. If you know you’re somebody whose intuition comes in color, then there might be elements of that. I’ve done things different ways where I would ask to see a red X or a green check mark if I’m asking a yes or no question. I might state internally, and you’d have to have a little space to do this, but state internally while holding the bouquet, “Here’s what I’d like to do. Why do you like to do this? Please show me. This is what the no answer would look like—a red X. And this is what the Yes answer would look like—a green check mark.”
That’s another way you could possibly do it. I don’t usually do that now, but in other situations, I have in the past. For me, it’s more of a feeling and then knowing a yes or no, and it’s usually pretty immediate.
[01:10:35] Ashley James: Interesting. I’d love for you to tap into your intuition. What message do you have for our listeners?
[01:10:49] Amy Leigh Mercree: Good question too. I think the message is, what I share in all of my books is that you are empowered to create your life and that includes to create and co-create your health. And so my message is to take ownership of that authority and that autonomy. Don’t give it away to whether it’s a doctor or practitioner, whomever. Don’t give it away to the system, to society, to cultural bias, cultural beliefs, your family’s beliefs, or whatever. Don’t give that autonomy away because you are your guru.
From that standpoint, you can be absolutely a student of life and learn from infinite myriad sources. But let that inner authority within you, that knowing, come forward and understand that not only do you matter but that you are the architect of your life. You can design it as you choose. All of these tools that we talk about in my books, whether it’s the things we discussed today, or mindfulness, or meditation, or self-compassion, or joyful living—all of these other tools, everything they listened to on your show, can be used to create the life of your choosing and to optimize your life because you have that power.
[01:12:39] Ashley James: Beautifully said. I know that you have a way of teaching us how to figure out what health advice we can trust, or at least what health advice would be beneficial for us to implement. There are so many celebrity wellness trends, for example. How can we know what detox protocol, parasitic cleanse, diet, all these different things that every time we listened to a show or read an article, there might be some opposing information? There might even be opposing scientific studies that don’t make sense. Like all of a sudden, how is fat good for us, and at the same time, how fat is bad for us? So we have all this information, we’re on information overload, and there are some people out there that would benefit from eating more of avocados, and some would benefit from eating no avocados.
We have to, as individuals, sift through this information and figure out what’s best for us especially like you said, we’re the CEO of our health. We are the guru of our own body. We’re the one who knows ourselves the best, but we need to start trusting and listening to our intuition. What advice do you have for us when it comes to figuring out what are the best steps that we should take and how to trust what we hear is choosing either the right or maybe they’re not the right move for us?
[01:14:24] Amy Leigh Mercree: Good question. In my medical intuitive practice, I encounter a lot of people who are at that point where they’re coming to those questions. They’ve had different medical advice that hasn’t worked or treatments that haven’t worked, and that’s why they end up coming to me. I consider myself as a guide to open the door to help them find those answers.
One of the ways I like to teach that is through the externalization of meeting your spirit guides, teaching people how to communicate with their spirit guides, which lets you develop the skills in a standardized, repeatable manner to bring some expanded and unbiased views from the non-physical world into your life. From that standpoint, as you do open those intuitive abilities more, it also becomes easier to hear your intuition.
That’s really what we’re asking about—how can we hear our intuition and use that to cut through the noise. It’s different for everybody. Spending time in nature, disconnecting from screens and technology and things like that all go a long way. Meditation is helpful too to help people clear their mind. Not that your mind has to be completely clear to hear your intuition, but to help people clear their mind and be able to hear that inner voice from within that does know that your body is a self-regulating and self-correcting wonder. That’s what I see as a medical intuitive every day. I think those tools can be used to increase intuition.
Sometimes it can be helpful to find trusted people, trusted practitioners, whether it’s an acupuncturist—maybe it’s not the first one you try. Maybe it’s the tenth one you try. But listening to your intuition also to find the resources you need to lead you to whatever wellness you’re looking for or whatever outcome you’re looking for. It may also be following those gut feelings and reading certain books, connecting with certain people, asking certain questions and tuning in.
When people are experiencing health challenges, it can be incredibly overwhelming. If you are a researcher or a reader, that’s a great place to start to look at those alternative healing options and learn about all of those different things.
In my medical intuitive practice, if I had to pick one herb, or one oil, or one substance that can help the most people with current health ailments or prevent future health ailments, it would probably be turmeric in the form of turmeric juice in its raw, enzymatic form.
That’s my general answer to a super specific question because it’s going to be a different answer for every person—how to find that inner knowing and that confidence. But I think the intention to own your life and be sovereign of your life is part of that process as well, drawing to you the resources that you need for your health and well-being, [faking] it till you make it to have the confidence and the intuition to choose the ones that will work best for you. It’s practice for all of us.
[01:18:39] Ashley James: Do you have a technique or a tool that you could teach us to improve our intuition or to improve our ability to hear our intuition?
[01:18:53] Amy Leigh Mercree: It’s so individual for everybody. I would say your absolute best bet is meditation in whatever form you like. A meditation that would work would be to lie down. A lot of people get distracted by sitting up in meditation. Especially with this one, it would be one where you want to go deep. Lie down in a comfortable place, perhaps place your hands on your heart and use a mantra like, “I allow my inner wisdom to come forward now.” Repeat that mantra, not necessarily in a stressful or ritualistic manner, but as your thoughts come up, let them float away as if they’re on a cloud, or they’re floating on a log down a river or something like that, and then repeat your meditation mantra again—”I allow my inner wisdom to come forward with ease.”
Practicing a mantra like that where you’re programming your mind or your being to that idea, to that mantra, to that frequency; letting that happen; relaxing your mind, your heart; feeling your heart with your hands in your chest; and then letting yourself fall behind that into an inner witness standpoint and using the mantra, even better if you were to do this out in nature–those kinds of techniques help us sink deeper into ourselves, and let us connect with that intuitive part of us that’s already there.
What disconnects us from it? Technology. Essentially our phones, our screens—all of it. Put away the phone, put away the laptop, turn off the TV, go outside, lie down in bed, meditate at night before bed, use these techniques, and that’s how you let your inner wisdom emerge. It is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a lifelong process to open and unfold that intuition, whether you’re just starting or even for me—here I am 25 years later of conscious intuitive practice, and there’s always more.
[01:21:28] Ashley James: There is—there is always more. That’s why I love exploring holistic health because we will forever be perpetual students learning, growing, and exploring. I feel like we’re in Star Trek exploring strange new worlds.
[01:21:47] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yes. We’re the Galactic Federation. I love Star Trek Next Generation. I like the old one—the Jean-Luc Picard one. He’s such a diplomat. He’s so diplomatic and respectful of all species and everything. I think it was very visionary of Gene Roddenberry to create that show.
[01:22:14] Ashley James: Absolutely. Even him as a person, Patrick Stewart’s heart is so big. Follow him on Twitter. He’s hilarious. He has such a big heart. I have cousins who are in Hollywood who are actors, and you hear what people are really like after the cameras turn off. You get disappointed when you hear your favorite actor is a real a-hole, and then you get excited when you hear that they’re just a genuine, loving being; they didn’t let their ego get to them, and they’re nice to everyone, doesn’t matter who they are. That’s Patrick Stewart.
[01:23:02] Amy Leigh Mercree: I’ve also heard. I love him. He’s such a neat guy.
[01:23:08] Ashley James: It’s funny. Because I’m such a geek, I can definitely take Star Trek in that like “Look for the lessons.”
[01:23:15] Amy Leigh Mercree: Oh, my gosh, me too. I’m a total science fiction nerd, so I love, love Star Trek Next Generation.
[01:23:24] Ashley James: Even just as a mind experiment to consider like, “Look up at the stars and wrap your brain around the fact that the universe goes on and on and on.” I was in my early twenties. I was looking up at the stars while lying on my bed. I lived in northern Ontario, so I could see all the stars, and it was a clear night. I almost had a panic—it felt like claustrophobia, but the opposite. I got panicked because all of a sudden my brain completely wrapped around this idea that there are no walls. The Universe is infinite, and it keeps going, and it keeps going, and it keeps going. It just freaked me out because I’m like, “Wait a second.”
We’re so used to walls. We’re so used to boundaries and borders, and understanding where one thing ends and another thing begins. But just this idea of this ever-expanding universe, and that there’s infinite potential—just like in our bodies. We have 100-trillion neuron connections in the human brain and even more possible, potential neurological connections in our body—which is the same amount as every single grain of sand on every beach. That’s how many potential neurological connections we have.
There’s this infinite potential outside of us, as above, so below. And so you can see the amazing universe of infinite possibilities outside and then see it reflected on the inside, and it got me freaked out.
[01:25:14] Amy Leigh Mercree: I get that.
[01:25:15] Ashley James: How do you play small in this world? How do you play so small that you only watch what’s on TV, and watch the news and watch sports and that’s it? How do we figure out how to put ourselves in the smallest box possible when we have this infinite world and infinite potential out there, and it just is amazing, right? I want to help people to actualize their infinite potential.
[01:25:46] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. It’s so cool to hear you describe your experience of that because since I was a small child, I felt the same feeling, but I didn’t feel boxed in. I loved it. I was like, “When can I get this rock and get out there?” That was how I felt. And then in middle school or maybe like early freshman year of high school, early, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time came out. I think it’s either the introduction or the first chapter; he takes you through a really beautiful visceral description of how the earth is a spaceship hurtling through infinite multiverses and fast infinity.
He describes the speed at which we’re moving in an unbounded manner, although the earth is revolving around the sun and all of that. The solar system is hurtling through the galaxy, but yet it’s in the spiral arm revolving around the center of the galaxy. And then the galaxy is in its galaxy cluster, which is rolling through space. It was illuminating. Because I was a very astronomy-focused teen, I had pondered these things, but the way Stephen Hawking put it all together for us let us feel that life is constant change. The universe, the multiverses that are endless, are in constant change. Nobody is stationary. We can pretend we’re in a box, but we are not. We are all hurtling through space. If we expand our view of that, as souls we are traversing dimensions at a breathtaking pace because this incarnation is just a quick blip in the span of infinity where the dimensions of time and space connect for this brief point at this time in this place. But our souls and our spirits have existed eternally before and will exist outside of this in perpetuity, and so we are infinite, and we exist in infinity.
[01:28:29] Ashley James: Beautiful.
[01:28:30] Amy Leigh Mercree: That’s the reality to me of life, and it sounds like to you too.
[01:28:36] Ashley James: Right. And what scared me is how do we stay so small when there’s so much big out there? I want everyone to tap into their infinite potential.
What I was amazed by when I started on my healing journey was that the body has an innate ability to heal itself. I’ve watched people heal things like cancer melting like a snowball on a hot stove—that kind of thing. I’ve shared this story before where I had an ankle that was badly twisted. The doctor said it would have been better if I’d broken it because I had torn all the ligaments. He said I wouldn’t be able to walk for two weeks and then might need physical therapy.
That morning and that evening, my co-worker came over who was a Reiki master, and this was my first experience with healing touch and Reiki. I was told I was going to be on crutches for two weeks. My ankle was just ballooned out. I think I was 15 years old or somewhere between age 13 or age 15. She did the work for about 30-45 minutes, and I got up off that couch and started dancing. The inflammation was gone, the pain was gone, my ankle was healed.
I was expected to be on crutches for two weeks. I didn’t have to use the crutches after that. The body has the ability to heal itself and whether we are tapping into our potential, whether it’s angels and guides, whether it’s God, whether it’s Jesus, whether it’s Allah, whatever your belief system, we can’t negate anything because who are we to judge? Whatever it is that we’re tapping into, we have to know that we have the ability to heal.
And so when a doctor, an MD, says, “You’re terminal. You’re going to die in three months.” People have such a strong belief system that they will comply.
[01:30:58] Amy Leigh Mercree: Exactly.
[01:30:59] Ashley James: And then there are people who it’s like the nocebo effect. They don’t believe the doctors, and they are still alive 20 years from now. Even though they were supposed to die—how dare they not believe what the doctor said?
We have the ability to heal, and I want every listener to know that whatever struggle they’re dealing with–whatever health or emotional struggle. As Amy said, we’re traversing through this universe at a speed that is almost incomprehensible, and that we too can change that quickly. We can heal that quickly, we can shift our mindset, and we can shift our reality. We’re not stuck. We have this infinite potential inside us, so we can tap into all of these resources and use what’s around us–the plants, and the minerals, and energy work, meditation, and our mindset, and friends and community. We can use so many of these tools to help bolster our goals.
[01:32:07] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. To add to that as well, from that standpoint of seeing that infinite nature of which we are a part, including the world around us and the universes around us. We can also look at non-attachment to help us with these challenges because we can use all of our tools. We’re self-regulating, self-correcting organisms, and we can also trust our inner wisdom to understand if we do take an expanded view that is not attached. We don’t want to suffer while we’re here. So we’re going to do everything we can to mitigate our suffering, and to that end as well, to be an aid to the end of suffering for all sentient beings–absolutely.
But at the same time, to move into more non-attachment to be able to loosen our grip from the tension, anxiousness, and efforting; to step back and allow the self-regulating, the self-correcting, and the self-healing to happen. I don’t mean this to sound morbid, but in some cases does that mean exiting this incarnation and journeying to the next stop-over to have the next experience or efforting, tension, prolonging, being attached, clinging, making it challenging, and staying longer and suffering more too isolated cases.
That doesn’t always mean when we un-attach that we’re leaving this planet either. But it means when we un-attach a little bit, we allow our inner wisdom to come forward and help guide us. It’s coming back around to that question you asked about how do we open to our intuition so we can know what to do. We also let go a little bit to let that happen, whatever it brings.
[01:34:26] Ashley James: The death of the ego, the momentary experience of not having our ego running the show.
[01:34:40] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yeah, and just relaxing from all that tension and worry, and instead allowing. Moving from active to receptive sometimes can be incredibly healing as well.
[01:34:55] Ashley James: I love what you just said—moving from active to receptive. What’s that saying, “We’re human doings, not human beings.”
Turn off the human doing and be a little bit more human being in the now, receiving, listening and quieting. Otherwise, we’ll run through this body pretty quickly. We’ll wear out this body pretty fast if we’re not turning on receptive mode. I love it.
[01:35:31] Amy Leigh Mercree: Exactly. Thinking and doing are wonderfully helpful, and how we advance in our careers and get from Point A to Point B, and move our lives forward and their progress, but then feeling and being are essential to our well-being and to that balance. That’s the Yin and the Yang, the thinking and the doing as an active principle, and the feeling and the being as a receptive principle ideally balancing each other. So that’s something we can strive for as well.
[01:36:03] Ashley James: Very cool. Amy, tell us about your other books and your resources, things we should know about you. Can people work with you one on one? Do you have online courses? Just tell us all about you and how people can connect with you.
[01:36:23] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. So you can find pretty much everything on my website, amyleighmercree.com. We’re getting so close to a complete redesign of the website, so see us now and then see us in a month and our completely new design site because it’s going to be awesome. I have ten books, eleventh coming out in the fall. You can find all of those on my website. Those are ways that you can connect with me. I work with clients individually. You can find me on the Work with Amy page on the website where you can book appointments with me for medical intuition, to talk to your guides, all kinds of other things. I also do authorship consulting because I have written eleven books and counting.
You can also find lots of classes that I teach. We only have a couple of classes active on the website because like I said we’re about to launch this whole new site. When we launch the new site, we’ll start the new round of classes, which starts with meet your guides and then moves into an intermediate meet your guides class, karmic healing, soul retrieval. We have lots of goddess classes. We have Journey into Multidimensionality as an advanced class. We have Journeying with Planetary Healers, Guides, Guards, Angels. It’s an advanced class as well. We have lots of live teleclasses. Those classes can be joined anywhere you have a phone. You call into our number, use the pen, you get me live and your group, your community for your class. We usually have a private Facebook group for your class so people can chat on there and stuff like that.
And then I’m going to be launching five different online classes this year. So keep your eyes peeled for those. Those will all be going live when the site goes live in the next month or so. A bunch of different mindfulness and meditation classes focused on specific things like meditations and mudras for joint health and concentration, mantras to reduce inflammation, things like that. Lots of fun things like that.
And then in the late fall, I will be launching my Bestseller Bootcamp, which is an eight-week program that takes you through the process of creating a book proposal to sell to literary agents and publishers and all of my tools to do that because I have been doing that for a long time. I have lots of books, and I work with clients individually to do that, and I also have a boutique marketing agency for that.
Those are most of my offerings. There’s probably more. I do a lot of things. I’m kind of an idea factory, but those are my main offerings. I speak around the country as well, so I do have in-person events. Oftentimes, when you check back to the site, you’ll find them. And then if people are having conferences or different private events, and they like to book me for speaking, I do that as well.
[01:39:52] Ashley James: Awesome. Thank you so much, Amy, for coming to the show. Is there anything that you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview? Are you receiving any messages for the listeners that you’d like to share?
[01:40:06] Amy Leigh Mercree: What a fun question, and thank you so much for having me, too. It was great to be here. I really would love to bring us back to that idea of peace. It’s so fun that you are a Star Trek Next Generation fan like I am because that is not something you find every day. To bring us back to that concept of what in that fictional work was called the Galactic Federation, but to kind of step back and to think about the fact that our earth is a tiny speck and one of most likely trillions of planets that could support life, many of which very likely do. We are probably in our adolescence as a species, and as we evolve and we become responsible galactic adults, perhaps we will be able to engage with other more advanced and most likely peaceful species.
How do we want to evolve as a species? How do we want to bring peace and our human capacity to love, which may be unique? We don’t know yet.
How do we want to evolve that and bring that to all of us here on the planet to everyone in our lives, and to the non-physical guidance and infinite dimensions that surround us? And then perhaps someday to physical form or life forms where, in an idyllic way, perhaps we’re bringing this idea of love and our unique human capacity to kind of United Nations of the universe. I bring this up to open our minds, to expand our minds, to open our thinking to greater possibilities, but the whole intent to be expansiveness and that, yes, you can heal yourself. Yes, you’re the architect of your reality and your integral piece that matters in an interdependent matrix of consciousness, discovering how that feels, and where you fit and how you’d like to create that experience perhaps as part of each of our journeys on earth.
[01:42:53] Ashley James: Thank you, Amy. This has been wonderful and very enlightening. I love stretching our minds and getting out of those boxes. No matter how unboxed someone is, they’ll always find that as they explore these thoughts and these realms, they can find a set of limiting decisions that maybe they’ve imposed upon themselves in order to release them. Whatever self-doubts came up or negative self-talk, as you listen to this interview, you can begin to see where the limitations that you’ve set upon yourself and your reality, and what can we begin to question in order to make sure that we haven’t imposed limitations upon ourselves that prevent us from healing and from growing and evolving.
Thank you, Amy. This has been awesome, and I can’t wait to hear back from the listeners in our Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group. Every time we release an episode we have a fun community chat about the interview, so I look forward to hearing what their takeaways are, what they loved about the bath. Hopefully, some listeners do the bath and then come share with us and all the other wonderful tidbits. It’s been a real pleasure.
[01:44:14] Amy Leigh Mercree: Thank you so much. It’s been wonderful. It’s been great to be here.
[01:44:18] Ashley James: Are you into optimizing your health? Are you looking to get the best supplements at the lowest price? For high-quality supplements and to talk to someone about what supplements are best for you, go to takeyoursupplements.com, and one of our fantastic true health coaches will help you pick out the right supplements for you that are the highest quality and the best price. That’s takeyoursupplements.com. Be sure to ask about free shipping and our awesome referral program.
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