Time for a "real" talk.

Karen and I started our spiritual journeys like most people - like kids in a candy store. Karen started hers much earlier than mine, 20 years earlier in fact, but it was essentially the same routine - you find your local metaphysical shop and you take it all in. Spells, Tarot Cards, Ascended Masters, pendulums, "pretty" looking crystals, endless chakra and Law of Attraction books, candles, overpriced spiritual clothing, jewelry and more incense and oils than your nostrils can handle.

Some of these, like crystals can be valid tools when used by serious people who understand it takes more than waving a jade sphere over a lottery ticket to bring financial abundance.

However, some think they're "instant manifestation spells" and solve all their problems for them. Like buying a paintbrush expecting it to paint a painting for you. Or buying the paintbrush because it matches your dress you're going to wear "to that party". Or simply buying it to show off to others that you have a paintbrush, with zero intent on actually using it.

Purchasing anything with the thought (conscious or otherwise) of impressing others, or expecting it to do the work for you, wearing it like it's a fashion trend (Karen and I liken it to dressup), things that externalize power (ascended masters, etc), anything that ties to old energies (rituals, Voodou, etc), or things purchased strictly with entertainment in mind - (ex: Ouija Boards, which are VERY dangerous), these things we like to call:

Frou-frou also includes behavior and verbage (think "namaste") and has become so commonplace that it's become laughable (illustrated below) - a big joke - and misrepresenting us as a whole. We're being seen as these behaviors and things that we buy rather than who we are and the gifts that we've been given to help this planet. We've been reduced to a joke over these "toys", this "frou-frou" and it seriously needs to stop. These shops act as a toy store of sorts, and can become addicting, no different than a drug, constantly drawing you to come back for more. Looking for the "next best thing", and it never ends. It keeps you going in circles.

Keeping people stuck in this loop is part of the "agenda" and it propagates the constant mockery of spirituality as a whole. It keeps you circling with no end in sight - and that's the point. The last thing they want to look is within, instead they wish to keep you distracted with toys.

If we are to move forward we need to respect tools for what they are - simply tools. We have to learn to fall back on them and not depend on them or carry them around like a hat to show off. We have to learn to discern "toys" from tools and decide whether it's something we want to take seriously. Karen and I have dozens of crystals but we don't need to carry every single on of them on us, if any at all. We have many paintbrushes, and if we need them we are guided to use them intuitively and understand that they HELP us paint, they don't paint for us. We have used them countless amounts of times to assist in internal healing work such as ego, previous lives and mental, physical and sexual abuse.

That being said, we are relying less and less on our crystals every day. Those that are sensitive to crystals, and energy in general will notice that after you have a crystal for a while, it won't have the "wow" factor, or the energy potency as when you first felt it. This does not mean that the crystal is any less effective, you have simply taken on it's energy and made it your own, and now resonate with it and carry the abilities of that stone yourself. It is why so many people feel the need to share crystals after sufficient time with them - it's like a book that you have read, learned from and now wish to let go of to give to enlighten and help someone else.

It's time to graduate past the "Frou-frou". You'll be able to walk into these stores and see and feel that a majority of those "things" are in fact simply toys, with a few legitimate tools sprinkled in. Your abilities will awaken and you will be less dependent of these external devices and simply trust in your own gifts. You will be able to talk to someone without any fancy "Namaste" lingo and show people that spirituality isn't this silly costume party that everyone makes it out to be. Show them that spirituality is a mindset that everything they're looking for is already inside of them, with unlimited potential. That there are plenty of tools to assist them in finding those answers, but that the answers themselves are certainly not lying on a dusty shelf in your local metaphysical shop.

I don't look good in funny looking hats anyways.