What to Do When You Don’t Feel Like Yourself: A Grounding Practice to Help You Find Your Center

This has become one of the biggest differences in how I move through difficult moments now.

I have practices to return to.

Some of them are quiet. Some involve prayer or guided reflection. Some involve the angels. And some are rituals that allow me to work with my hands as well as my spirit.

These practices didn't begin with Angelic Reiki.

For nearly two decades, I have used intention and ritual as part of my spiritual life and my manifestation practice.

I learned that when something existed only in my thoughts, it was easy for my mind to wander. I could worry about it, reconsider it, overthink it, or lose sight of what I actually wanted.

Creating a ritual gave my intention somewhere to go.

I could write down what I was calling into my life or what I was ready to release. I could choose a color that represented what I wanted to focus on. I could light a candle, work with a plant or herb, use salt or water, or prepare a particular space for what I was about to do.

The physical act of preparing these things helped bring me into the present moment.

It centered me.

It grounded me.

And it gave me a way to take something that existed inside my mind and place it in front of me with intention.

That is one of the reasons written intentions have remained especially meaningful to me. Writing requires me to become clear. It slows my thoughts down long enough for me to decide what I am actually asking for, what I am ready to change, or what I am choosing to release.

For many years, this has also been part of how I practice manifestation. I set an intention, give it my focused attention, and then allow my actions and spiritual practice to support what I am working toward.

The tools themselves aren't the source of the intention.

They help me focus it.

And the ritual gives me a container in which to do that.

My spiritual practice has grown considerably since those early years. Angelic Reiki and my relationship with the angels have become deeply important parts of it, but I haven't felt called to abandon the practices that helped me long before I understood my spirituality the way I do today.

Instead, they have grown with me.

So when I say that I have practices to return to, I mean many things.

Sometimes I use Angelic Reiki.

Sometimes I pray or work with the angels.

Sometimes I write an intention.

Sometimes I light a candle, prepare a space, work with color or something from the natural world, or create a ritual around what I am experiencing.

Sometimes I am focusing on something I hope to welcome into my life.

Sometimes I need release.

Sometimes I need protection, courage, clarity, comfort, or simply a way to acknowledge that something is changing and I am ready to move forward.

And sometimes I need nothing except stillness.

The practice changes because what I need changes.

But after nearly twenty years of returning to these practices, I know why they have stayed with me.

They bring me back into the present.

They give my intention somewhere to rest.

And when my mind is moving in too many directions, they help me find my center again.

Before You Leave the Healing Room

If you found your way here because you don't quite feel like yourself today, I don't want to leave you with only my story.

Let's give you somewhere to begin.

You don't need to understand exactly what is bothering you. You don't need to name the feeling correctly. And you don't need to gather everything I might use in one of my own rituals.

For this, you only need a few quiet minutes, something to write with, and a small piece of paper.

Sit somewhere you feel comfortable.

Place both feet on the floor and give yourself a moment to notice where you are.

Then write:

Today, I am carrying...

Don't make the answer beautiful. Don't worry about whether it sounds spiritual. Write what is true.

Maybe you are carrying worry about something that hasn't happened yet.

Maybe it is a conversation you keep replaying.

Maybe you are tired.

Maybe you are angry.

Maybe you miss someone.

Maybe you have been taking care of everyone else and haven't noticed how depleted you have become.

Or maybe the only honest thing you can write is:

I don't know. I just don't feel like myself.

That is enough.

Now, underneath it, write:

Right now, I need...

And give yourself permission to make that answer small.

Rest.

Quiet.

Reassurance.

A good meal.

Prayer.

A walk outside.

To call someone.

To cry.

To turn my phone off for an hour.

To stop thinking about this tonight.

To ask for help.

You are not trying to solve your life on this piece of paper.

You are noticing yourself.

That is the practice.

When you are finished, you can fold the paper and keep it somewhere private. If what you wrote is something you feel ready to release, you may choose to tear it up instead.

Then do one thing that honors what you wrote.

Not ten things.

One.

Make the tea. Take the shower. Say the prayer. Step outside. Turn off the phone. Go to bed early. Ask for the help.

Let the ritual end with an action of care.

And Then You Can Come Back

This is the kind of practice I want the Healing Room to hold.

Some practices here will be this simple.

Others will be more intentional rituals using candles, written intentions, color, plants, herbs, salt, water, or other meaningful elements. Some will include the angels. Some will be guided experiences you can simply close your eyes and follow.

But they will all begin from the same place:

What do I need in this moment, and what practice can help me meet myself there?

You don't have to wait until you are falling apart to ask that question.

Over time, you may begin building your own collection of practices to return to.

I hope you do.

Because there will still be difficult days.

There will still be moments when you feel overwhelmed, frightened, uncertain, disappointed, or simply unlike yourself.

The goal isn't to create a life in which you never feel those things.

It is to know that when you do, you have somewhere to return.

And perhaps, eventually, you'll recognize what I have come to recognize in my own life:

I know how to find my way back to myself.

What Does It Mean to Work With Angels?

When I say that I work with angels, I realize those words may mean very different things depending on who is reading them.

For some people, angels have been part of their faith for as long as they can remember. Others may have begun noticing them during a difficult season of life. And some may simply feel curious about the possibility that there is more around us than what we can see.

You do not need to belong to a particular religion or follow a spiritual tradition to enter the Healing Room or explore the practices I share here. You may come with a faith that is deeply important to you, a spiritual path of your own, uncertainty about what you believe, or no particular faith or spiritual tradition at all. I do not ask you to set aside your beliefs, adopt mine, or believe exactly what I believe in order to receive Angelic Reiki or take part in a guided practice.

You are welcome to come as you are and allow your experience to be your own.

For me, working with angels began during one of the most difficult periods of my life.

I had gone through a traumatic experience, and in the midst of it I began noticing what I understood to be guidance.

At first, it was angel numbers.

They appeared often enough, and at moments relevant enough to what I was experiencing, that I began paying attention.

Eventually, I felt drawn toward Angelic Reiki. At the time, my intention was deeply personal. I wanted to experience it for myself. I wanted to learn something that could become part of my own healing.

I did not know how much would open from there.

An Invitation to Know Them

Through my experiences with Angelic Reiki, I came to believe that I was being given an invitation not simply to learn a healing modality, but to begin getting to know the angels themselves.

My first relationship was with Archangel Michael.

From there, slowly, I began learning about and developing relationships with others. I didn't feel a need to rush through their names or memorize everything about them. The relationships developed gradually, through practice and experience.

Something else was changing too.

My clairaudience, or what I experience as intuitive hearing, became considerably clearer. I began recognizing moments when I believed I was being spoken to rather than wondering whether I had simply imagined something.

I developed tools and practices that help me listen, reflect, and discern. What continues to strike me is how relevant the communication often feels to what I am experiencing, studying, asking about, or being called to consider at that particular time.

This has become part of my spiritual life.

What “Working With Angels” Means to Me

I don't believe working with angels means controlling them.

For me, it is a relationship built through invitation, prayer, listening, discernment, trust, and an openness to receive.

Over time, I have also come to understand my own spiritual nature differently.

I believe there is light within each of us, and through Angelic Reiki I began experiencing my own light as being in harmony with the angelic realm. When I become quiet and receptive, that harmony is something I can sometimes sense very clearly.

For me, that may come through intuitive hearing. At other times, it may be a sense of presence, an inner knowing, or guidance that becomes clearer as I sit with it.

I don't expect someone else's relationship with angels to look exactly like mine.

In fact, I don't think it should.

What I Experience During Angelic Reiki

I have now had the privilege of giving many Angelic Reiki sessions, and they have been among the most beautiful spiritual experiences of my life.

No two sessions are exactly alike.

Sometimes I see what I understand to be glimpses of a client's past life or future life. Sometimes I experience a sensation or pain in my own body that I understand as guidance about where I should place my hands as the healing continues.

There are sessions when I see light in extraordinary colors.

Sometimes I perceive angels or Ascended Masters I have come to recognize through my own spiritual practice.

And sometimes I see nothing at all.

I simply feel.

I have learned that one experience is not more meaningful than another. I don't need something dramatic to happen for a session to be worthwhile.

And neither does the person receiving it.

My clients have described their own experiences differently, but many have told me that they felt remarkably better after their sessions. What I love about Angelic Reiki is that receiving does not require someone to understand everything that may be happening. There is an opportunity to become still, stop trying to manage the experience, and simply allow themselves to receive and integrate.

I Am a Healing Channel

There is an important distinction I want to make about my work in the Healing Room.

I do not channel angels in order to deliver messages from them to my clients.

That is not the work I offer.

In Angelic Reiki, I serve as a healing channel.

The intuitive experiences that occur while I am giving Reiki are part of how I experience the healing session. They are not about making myself the authority over another person's spiritual life.

I don't want someone to leave the Healing Room believing they need me in order to communicate with the angels.

They don't.

If anything, my own journey has taught me the opposite.

The angels helped me learn how to listen for myself.

From Receiving Healing to Creating Practices of My Own

There is another part of the Healing Room that has grown directly from my own experience.

There have been many times in my life when I have felt anxious, frightened, nervous, overwhelmed, or simply unsettled.

During those times, I developed and returned to spiritual practices that helped me become quiet again. They gave me somewhere to place my attention when my thoughts were moving too quickly. They helped me pray, release, listen, reconnect, and remember that I did not have to solve everything in a single moment.

Those practices have helped me in ways that are difficult to separate from the person I am now.

I have changed.

Not because difficult things never happen anymore. They do.

The difference is that I have practices to return to when they do.

That is why I am beginning to create guided practices for the Healing Room.

They aren't being created because I believe everyone needs to practice spirituality exactly as I do. They are an opportunity for me to share some of the practices that have supported me and adapt them into experiences that someone else can enter in their own way.

Some will be for release.

Some will be for grounding and settling.

Some may invite angelic presence or reflection.

Others may simply offer a place to become quiet when life feels like too much.

They are not about escaping what is happening in your life.

They are about having somewhere within yourself to return to while you move through it.

Your Experience Does Not Have to Look Like Mine

You don't have to hear angels.

You don't have to see them.

You don't have to see colored light, recognize an Ascended Master, know every archangel's name, understand energy, or consider yourself intuitive.

And you certainly don't need to force an experience because someone else has had one.

I can tell you what happened to me.

I can tell you what I have experienced while practicing Angelic Reiki.

I can share the practices that have supported me.

But I cannot tell you what your relationship with the angels is supposed to look like.

Perhaps yours begins with prayer.

Perhaps with curiosity.

Perhaps you feel drawn to one angel without quite knowing why.

Perhaps you begin with one of the guided practices here in the Healing Room.

Or perhaps you simply allow yourself to receive an Angelic Reiki session without trying to understand any of it beforehand.

There is room for all of that here.

And if you don't think of yourself as spiritual at all, you do not need to manufacture a belief before entering this space. You are still welcome to approach these practices with curiosity and decide for yourself what, if anything, the experience means to you.

Why I Share This Part of My Story

The angels became part of my life during a time when I needed healing, guidance, and protection.

What began as my attempt to heal myself became something much larger.

I learned.

I practiced.

I listened.

I healed in ways that mattered deeply to me.

And eventually, I began helping others receive healing too.

Now I understand another part of that invitation.

I can share what I have learned without asking anyone to believe exactly what I believe.

I can tell the truth about my experiences without telling someone else what theirs must mean.

I can offer Angelic Reiki.

I can create guided practices from the things that have carried me through my own difficult moments.

And I can keep the door to the Healing Room open for someone who is only beginning to wonder what might be waiting for them here.

You do not need to arrive knowing exactly what you are looking for.

You can begin with curiosity.

Sometimes that is enough to open the door.

A note from the Healing Room: The experiences described here are my personal spiritual experiences and interpretations. Individual experiences with spiritual and energy practices vary. Angelic Reiki and the guided spiritual practices at Sweet Tea & Sage are offered for spiritual exploration, reflection, relaxation, and well-being. They are not substitutes for medical, mental health, or other professional care.

Cord Cutting: When You Are Ready to Release What Still Holds You

There is a difference between knowing it is time to let something go and actually feeling as though you have let it go.

I learned that for myself.

I had reached a place where I understood that I needed to release a connection and move forward. I knew what I wanted intellectually. And yet my thoughts had not quite caught up with my decision.

I would go about my day and find myself returning to the same thoughts. Replaying things. Revisiting conversations. Thinking about what happened, what might have happened, or what I wished had been different.

I wasn't deliberately choosing to sit with it. My mind simply kept finding its way back.

As part of my Angelic Reiki practice and training, I experienced a cord-cutting meditation. I went into it with the intention of releasing the connection and calling my own energy and attention back to myself.

What I noticed afterward surprised me.

The situation didn't disappear from my memory. I didn't suddenly stop caring. Nothing about the past had been rewritten.

But the mental loops were different.

I could think about what had happened without automatically following the thought down the same familiar path. My attention wasn't being pulled back as persistently. I found that I could acknowledge the thought and then continue with my day.

For me, something had shifted.

My spiritual understanding of that experience is one of energetic release. Someone else might understand an experience like this as symbolic, contemplative, or simply the result of intentionally creating space for closure.

You don't have to interpret it exactly as I do for the practice to have meaning.

That experience is one of the reasons cord cutting has earned a place here in the Healing Room.

What Is Cord Cutting?

Within many spiritual and energy-work traditions, a cord is a way of describing the energetic connection we form with people, experiences, places, and sometimes even expectations.

Some connections feel nourishing. Others can feel remarkably difficult to put down.

Cord cutting is a spiritual practice centered on intentionally releasing a connection, attachment, or pattern that you no longer wish to carry in the same way.

It isn't about pretending something never happened.

And it isn't necessarily about removing someone from your heart.

It is about recognizing that something can have been important to you and still no longer need to occupy the same place in your present life.

What Might We Have Trouble Releasing?

Romantic relationships are probably one of the first things people think about when they hear about cord cutting, but they are certainly not the only reason someone might feel drawn to the practice.

You might consider a ritual of release after:

A difficult relationship.
Perhaps you know the relationship was not right for you, but you continue replaying it or feeling emotionally pulled toward it.

A divorce or separation.
Paperwork can declare that a marriage is finished long before your inner world feels finished with it. There can be memories, expectations, disappointments, anger, love, unanswered questions, and the life you once imagined together.

The ending of a friendship.
Friendship losses can be profound, particularly when there was never a conversation that provided the closure you wanted.

An estranged family relationship.
Sometimes distance is necessary even when love, history, obligation, or complicated emotions remain.

A painful chapter of your life.
A former workplace, a difficult season, an experience that changed you, or circumstances you continue revisiting long after they have ended.

A future that never happened.
Sometimes what holds us isn't a person at all. It is the life we expected to have with them. The reconciliation we imagined. The opportunity we thought would come. The version of our future we had already begun living inside our minds.

The death of someone you love.
Grief is not something that needs to be hurried, and cord cutting should never be presented as a way to stop loving or remembering someone who has died. But there may come a time when a person feels spiritually drawn toward releasing a particular attachment, regret, unfinished conversation, or way of holding the loss while continuing to carry the love.

These experiences are very different from one another.

What they can share is the feeling that some part of us continues returning to something we consciously know has changed.

Release Does Not Mean Rejection

This may be the most important thing I can tell you about cord cutting.

You don't have to make someone a villain in order to release them.

You don't have to decide that nothing good ever happened.

You don't have to stop loving someone.

You don't have to erase your memories.

And you certainly don't have to deny your own grief.

Sometimes release simply means accepting that the way you have been carrying a connection is no longer serving the life you are living now.

There are relationships that end even though love existed.

There are people we can remember fondly without needing to remain attached to what might have been.

There are experiences we can honor without continuing to revisit them every day.

There are people who have died whom we may love for the rest of our lives while still allowing ourselves to fully participate in the life that remains before us.

Cord cutting, as I practice it, isn't an act of punishment.

It is an act of release.

What Are We Actually Cutting?

I think the word cutting can make this practice sound harsher than it needs to be.

The intention isn't to exert control over another person or determine what they should feel, think, or experience.

The work is centered on you.

What are you ready to release?

What are you tired of carrying?

What continues to call your attention backward?

What expectation, conversation, resentment, longing, regret, or imagined future are you ready to hold differently?

Within my spiritual practice, I understand energetic cords as connections through which our attention and energy can remain attached to people and experiences.

The cord-cutting practice provides a deliberate spiritual moment in which we acknowledge that connection and choose release.

For someone who understands the practice differently, the visualization can also serve as a symbolic declaration:

I acknowledge what happened. I acknowledge what this meant to me. And I am ready to move forward.

Why Intention Matters

Cord cutting is not about forcing yourself to be finished before you are ready.

There may be things that still require practical action. There may be conversations you need to have, boundaries you need to establish, belongings that need to be exchanged, or ordinary human emotions that simply need time.

A spiritual practice doesn't replace those things.

Instead, cord cutting can mark an intentional moment when you recognize:

I do not want to keep carrying this in the same way.

That was an important part of my own experience.

I had already decided that I wanted to let go.

The meditation gave me a spiritual practice through which I could express that decision.

Release — and Return

There is another part of cord cutting that matters deeply to me.

I don't want the practice to end with cutting something away.

I want it to end with returning to yourself.

After release, there should be space to notice your own presence again.

Your attention.

Your intentions.

Your life.

Your plans.

The ordinary things waiting for you when the meditation ends.

Because ultimately, the purpose isn't to spend even more time concentrating on the person or situation you are trying to release.

It is to make room for what comes next.

That is why I think of this practice as Release & Return.

Release what you are ready to put down.

Return your attention to yourself.

And then return to your life.

How I Practice Angelic Cord Cutting

The cord-cutting practice that has a place here in the Healing Room is specifically Angelic Cord Cutting, rooted in the spiritual practices I learned through my Angelic Reiki training.

The angelic aspect is important because it is part of how I practice.

In my own practice, I begin with intention. There does not need to be a retelling of every detail of the story. What matters is becoming clear about what I am ready to release and what I no longer wish to carry in the same way.

I create sacred space in the tradition of my Angelic Reiki practice, inviting angels, Ascended Masters, and spiritual guides to surround and support the work.

The practice can include guided visualization, quiet reflection, sound, and the energetic and spiritual elements of Angelic Reiki appropriate to cord cutting. The intention is not to send negativity toward another person, control what happens to them, or erase them from memory. The intention is release.

And when the cord cutting is complete, I believe the practice should include grounding, reflection, and a deliberate return to the present.

Release, and then return.

Do I Have to Believe in Angels?

You don't need to share every one of my spiritual beliefs to understand or learn about cord cutting. Some people understand energetic practices literally, while others experience them as symbolic, meditative, or contemplative.

Here in the Healing Room, however, when I write about or create guided practices around Angelic Cord Cutting, I want to be transparent that angels are intentionally part of the practice.

My practice is rooted in Angelic Reiki, and angels, Ascended Masters, and spiritual guides are welcomed into the sacred space as part of the tradition in which I was trained. I would rather be transparent about that than remove an important part of my practice simply to make it appealing to everyone.

You do not need to adopt my beliefs or interpret an experience in exactly the same way I do.

For some guests, the angelic aspect may be exactly what draws them to the Healing Room. For others, a different form of contemplative release may feel more appropriate.

Either is perfectly all right.

Angelic Cord Cutting is offered as a spiritual and contemplative practice. It is not medical or mental-health treatment and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any physical or mental-health condition.

— Mika