management. Spending excessive screen time with video games, social media, and television keeps you engaged mentally even if you are sedentary, and you deplete your energy trying to unwind by winding right back up again. What’s more, a recent study by a major health insurance provider found that the current generation is more lonely than any other generation in history.3 Part of the blame for that loneliness, which is a state of burnout, belongs to our devotion to technology as an attempt to replace our very real needs for direct human contact and social engagement. That lack of in-person socialization has a profoundly negative impact on your well-being.
We may begin to feel lost and isolated without meaningful relationships. It can feel as if we are missing something of great importance in our lives. This also can lead to being too much “in our own heads,” and even simple social interactions become overwhelming. This can make it even more difficult to form connections, and we may take things too seriously or personally. Healthy relationships manifest more easily when navigated from a calm and balanced state.
Crystal relaxation strategies can help center that energy by winding down your stress or restoring your energy after the depletion of burnout has set in. Developing awareness about our current energy state and the onset of stress and burnout is the best defense. Set an intention and choose an action—even non-action—to restore comfort and peace, lead to your own greater clarity, and reverse the “downward spiral.” Energetically speaking, even the smallest of shifts in the right direction can truly turn the tide.
Stress and burnout certainly affect us in our physical bodies as we experience tension or exhaustion. Sometimes we even experience these physical symptoms of burnout in the form of pain, which is like a warning flare sent by our bodies to alert us that something is wrong: if we keep going at a certain pace or remain in our current condition, we might do actual damage to our bodies. But what are the cues that we receive from the energetic realms within our subtle bodies?
There is an ancient saying that can help explain the impact that physical energies can have on our subtle energies: As above, so below, and as within, so without. The origins of this concept have been credited to multiple sources, including the Emerald Tablets associated with Egyptian and Greek mythology. Mystery surrounds these alchemical messages inscribed on green stones, but the earliest known reference to these arcane texts occurred around the eighth century; interest in them was later reinvigorated by medieval alchemists4 and then again by the unique blend of transcendent psychology uncovered by Carl Jung. References to the concept expressed by “As above, so below” occur in many religious writings, including the Christian Bible, the Tao Te Ching, the Vedas, and many other sacred texts throughout history.
This ancient saying expresses the concept of correspondence between the inner and outer worlds of being. This idea is reflected (or perhaps refracted) by the crystal. The outside of a crystal is beautifully structured, and the inside of a crystal is a perfect geometric pattern. Everything without and within (above and below) is in alignment. Energy is similarly experienced: When you are feeling disconnected from your experience of the divine, your outer energy in your physical body is low, and you may present to others with a duller tone or less of that twinkling inner fire that burns within you. You may become sick or exhausted as your inner world is reflected through your body to the outside world. The same is true in reverse: when you are sick or agitated physically, you may experience emotional symptoms that may present a withdrawn or disorganized appearance to others, as though your Self is disconnected.
This sacred unison of Self is reflected by crystals, which come from the ground and thus are excellent tools for grounding. They were once thought to be ice, expressing the universal connection between earth and water energies. The word itself, “crystal,” comes from the Greek word for frozen water. Your body is a physical expression of your energetic body, just as crystals are a physical expression of the organizational energy of the universe. When you are stressed and your layers of existence are out of alignment, you look to attune your outside with your inside to realign; “As above, so below.” Crystals can be particularly useful to this because their internal structure is geometric perfection.
Crystals are actually defined by their internal structure, or the organization of their atoms and molecules. While it is true that crystals can be manufactured or mimicked by commercial factories, we encourage you to work with true, raw crystals which are ethically harvested from the Earth in sustainable ways so that you can tap the energy of their geometric perfection. True crystals contain within them perfectly symmetrical, geometric, interlacing rows of atoms. It is this internal organization that allows crystals to be such collectors of energy to power lasers and solar panel cells.5 That same principle of inner organization and outer beauty can also be harnessed for attunement and alignment when you are experiencing burnout or just need the opportunity to relax. Inner order makes for outer order.
It is possible to achieve energetic balance when both sides of the burnout teeter-totter are level. In your optimal state, time seems to fall away, and you achieve what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to as flow. Creativity represents the force of love in the universe. According to Dr. Csikszentmihalyi, flow occurs when there is order in consciousness and that order breeds creative and loving energy. Its opposite state, entropy, occurs when we are in a state of disorder. Flow occurs when your entire consciousness is focused on achieving your inner goals. Flow exists when you battle “against the entropy that brings disorder to consciousness. It is really a battle for the self; it is a struggle for establishing control over attention” (Csikszentmihalyi 41).6 Like the hermetic teachers before him, Csikszentmihalyi identifies the goal of self to be a state of organized alignment between body and energy. Perhaps Csikszentmihalyi, whose own brother achieved flow while studying crystals,7 might honor crystals for their optimal flow of organized energy within and beauty without.
Like flow, mindfulness is the awareness of that state of creative focus. People in a state of flow are so focused on the task of creation that they forget all about the world around them—in some cases, they even forget about their own bodies as attention to pain or hunger slip away. The flowing person transcends the needs of the body, but there is a problem with being in a state of flow for too long. Pain and hunger exist to keep the physical body operating. For flow to be optimal, it must be both hyperfocused on creation (the fight for self) and mindful of it. But how do you do that? How do maintain an awareness of body, mind, and energy while allowing yourself to engage fully with your state of flow?
Mindfulness is one of the tools we use to weave the fabric of our many selves together into one. While it is a marvel that creative energy can allow your awareness of your body to fall away while you flow with creative energy, returning to your physical body after spending so much time in your energetic body may be a bumpy reentry. Being mindful refers to an intention to be aware of what’s happening both within and without. Truly gifted mindfulness practitioners do not judge what that awareness highlights; that is, they attune to what they think or feel in a given moment, but they don’t necessarily attach to those thoughts or feelings. Judgment actually takes you out of the moment and causes an interruption to the direction of your energy. The key is to honor and not deny the experiences you have—warts and all.
If you are to manifest your greatest good, you can’t be in denial. Denial sends energy to the very thing you are choosing to deny, because denial is an action. If you are actively trying to reject something—perhaps because you don’t like how it feels—then you are aware of that rejection and your thoughts and reality will be out of alignment. An example of this we see often is the client who says she wishes to attract something into her life—we’ll say more joy and happiness—but continues to engage in the activities that cause her to feel unhappy. She knows she wants more happiness and works with her crystal healer to manifest it, but, subconsciously, she denies the need to make changes in herself to be aware of that happiness. Manifesting wellness takes intention and a willingness to change.
Grounding with a crystal connects you to the present. It might literally mean connecting with the ground beneath you, which is always supporting you by holding you up, feeding your body, and quenching your thirst. Most gemstones
