110: Ask me anything, part 1

Hello everyone and welcome back to Canny Crystals, the podcast. As you know by now, my name is Mart, I am your host, and this week I have had so many lovely messages from you lot about my adoption news that I couldn't even get through them all. There's still messages set in message requests. I'm really sorry it's taken so long to respond to everyone. Thank you so, so much. Of course, when we announced it on Facebook and Instagram, we got so many lovely comments. But the second Johnny put it on Twitter, it blew up for all the wrong reasons, and I woke up on Sunday to a whole load of negativity. I just didn't want to sit back and do nothing, so I shared a few screenshots, you might have seen them, of, you know, the absolutely vile messages we got on Twitter calling us pedophiles, saying it was sexual abuse giving a child to two gay men. Like, what actually goes through people's heads, I will never know. And funnily enough, they were all faceless profiles as well. Of course they were. 90% of them were from the US, but you lot all had my back and reached out to say ignore them, and that's all that matters. And I tried not to let it get to me, so I just thought, I'm going to protect my energy here, take my own medicine. And the more the day went on, the more I kept stewing on it. So I just thought, I've tried mindfulness, I've tried breathing exercises. We deliberately went to my favorite beach for a walk with the dog, and I just thought, why am I still letting all of this get to me? And I thought to myself, what can I do to cancel out that negative energy? And then I suddenly remembered something that Francesca Amber mentioned that she does and that I've seen her do many times, and that's to make a donation to a charity that supports everything the haters are against. Ha! Final laugh on me. So I found a local LGBT adoption agency online. I say local, it's a UK-based one. And I made a donation of £250. And you know what? It really, really lifted my spirit to kill the haters with kindness. I'd had so much negativity that I balanced it out with doing something nice for other people. And it really got me on to thinking, you know, how grateful I am that I could do something like that and I could help others out that, you know, could potentially like go through the same drama in the future as us. So yes, I balanced the shit out of that neggie attitude. And you know what? I woke up on Monday morning feeling so much lighter and ready to take on the week ahead. So yeah, that's that out the way. But you might have seen on my story earlier this week as well that I asked you lovely lot to submit your questions for me for this episode. So I've got a whole range of topics to talk about today. I'm just looking down the list of questions now. We've got superstition, spirit animals, signs from the afterlife, crystal care, manifesting a lottery win, and so much more. So we might as well just get straight into it and dive straight on in there. So the first question is from Sarah, and she asks, do you have to believe in the Law of Attraction for it to work? Great question, Sarah, and one I get asked so frequently. And to be blunt, the answer is a resounding big fat no. Okay, I'm sure we can all think about a day in our lives when everything has gone wrong for us, and you know, one bad thing that's happened on a morning has rolled out across the entire day to the point of us saying something along the lines of, oh my God, let this day end, get me to bed, "Get me a glass of wine," all that jazz. And that's because our thoughts are magnetic to what we attract into our lives. So whether we're aware of the law of attraction or not, if we think negatively about something, our reticular activation system will automatically look out for more things to be negative about just to prove itself right, because that's what the brain does. The brain's an idiot. It just wants to prove itself right constantly. Can you remember early on in this podcast— not this episode, the podcast itself— like, I think it was like episode 7 or 8, and I asked you all to manifest a green car driving past you. Do you know that still to this day, I'm talking like 2 years later almost, still to this day I get messages saying, "I've just done the green car experiment and I see them everywhere now." That's because you're tuning yourself into that frequency. And the same goes for the flip side. So if you think positively, you're going to see more positive experiences in your life because you're going to be open to all these positive experiences around you. You might show up happier, which might mean that someone might approach you that wouldn't normally have because you had a face on you like a slapped arse. Take for example, you're trying to manifest a partner or love into your life. So if you were to walk around all negative, who in the right mind is going to walk past you on the street, take a look at your gloomy face, and think, "That's my soulmate right there." Do you get what I mean? Walk around all smiley on the flip side, all happy, and someone might see you and think, wow, they're clearly a happy person, I want to be in their life. Do you get where I'm coming from here? We create everything in our lives whether we're aware of it or not. And I'm going to say this is to an extent, and it does have its caveats. Obviously I'm not saying like, for example, everyone in Gaza manifested a war, or that children manifest leukemia, or people manifest cancer, because those things are just unthinkable. Yeah. So things are always going to happen to us in life. We can't control that, but what we can control is the outcomes of those situations. We can't control those external factors, but what we can do is we can work on our mindset. We can work on, you know, attracting that positive energy to us to affect the outcome of those situations. And I'm sure when you first found out about the Law of Attraction, just like me, you'll have had those moments where you think back at key moments of your life like, 'Oh my God, I can totally see why that happened now,' or 'I can totally see why I attracted that relationship at that point of my life because I had something to learn. I manifested that.' Yeah, it's all about having that awareness that you are a conscious creator. I feel like people in the world are always manifesting whether they know it or not. We're always creating the reality in which we live in, put simply. Okay, I'll use my mom as an example here. She doesn't listen, so she'll never hear this anyway. But up until last December, she was quite a Negative Nancy, and I'll say this to her face, so don't go DMing her, but seriously, she was a huge mood hoover. So I would turn up at her house, like, not having seen her in a couple of weeks, and I would be met at her door with, "What are you doing here? I've got work tonight." And I was made to kind of feel unwelcome in my own family home. So when I worked with me life coach Jude about this, she mentioned that this isn't so much a reflection on me but more on the fact that something else was going on for my mam. So looking back, she worked night shift after night shift, she barely slept through the day, she was running around after the rest of the family, she was taking them to the doctors and hospital appointments, she was going and doing food shopping for the entire family, she was walking a dog. She was the definition of the word stressed. She would break down in tears at any slight inconvenience. But now, Having retired her last year where she comes to work for me one day a week, she helps me pack orders, she helps to clean my house because she loves to clean, and she'll soon be helping us out with childcare as well. She's really lightened her responsibilities and she is a different woman completely. Even Johnny, my partner, said she's like a totally different person. She shows up differently, she acts differently. She even catches me saying something negative at times and says like, ah, ah, ah, no negativity, as you say. Do you know what I mean? Her mindset has totally changed from taking her out of that awful work situation that she was in where she was underpaid, understaffed, and overworked. And when she was in that role, she felt like she wasn't coping in life. And because of that, she had money issues, she had massive health concerns, and everything else on a plate as well to deal with. And now she's just much happier. She has a much better quality of life from thinking positively about situations that happen to her. When you think about it, we have the power inside us to consciously manifest whether we know it or not. You don't need high levels of experience to start because looking back at your life, you'll have those experiences of saying, "I'm going to do X, Y, or Z," and then you'll have gone on to do exactly that. Like, do you really think that Beyoncé knew about manifestation when she was formed with the rest of Destiny's Child at age 11? Absolutely not. But because of her positive attitude, because of her work ethic, because of her parents telling her that she could achieve anything in life, she manifested the life of her dreams unconsciously, as we all do. So in a roundabout way, Sarah, I hope that helps you. Next up, Grace asked, do you believe in superstition, as in breaking mirrors and 7 years bad luck? So I've done a bit of research on this. So the belief that breaking a mirror brings 7 years of bad luck, it actually— it's a superstition that stems back for centuries and it apparently goes back to 8,000 years ago. Its origins vary across cultures, but the common belief is that, you know, mirrors hold a connection to the soul. So when we break one, that could harm the soul or attract negative spirits. And the specific duration of 7 years was actually considered because back then that was quite a significant period in ancient culture. They would say that things come and go in 7-year periods, basically. And you know what's weird about that? Just as I was saying that, is that someone once told me about my psoriasis years ago, and they said to me it'll come and go in bouts of 7 years. And it's so bloody true. Like, when I was a baby, I started with psoriasis when I was about 7 years old. I say a baby, I'm a toddler. I'm a toddler? No, I'm just a child. And when I was 7 years old, it was there until I was about 14, then it disappeared until I hit about 21, then it disappeared again until, you know, I was about age 28 when it reappeared. Oh, I just find that mad. That's quite mind-blowing actually, but it's fascinating at the same time. But going back to bad luck, there is no concrete evidence or logical reason why breaking a mirror would bring bad luck for any reason. It's more of a cultural superstition. It's not based on any factual truth. What I would like to say on this is, you know, we create our own luck. We can elevate our luck to new heights, or we can lower it, okay? I think personally, just like in the law of attraction, if you think you're unlucky you're just always going to attract bad luck, okay? You're going to get negativity, you're going to get bad circumstances. I remember one time in me teens, for example, I'd left me bedroom window open in the summer when getting ready to go and see friends, and I'd been doing me hair in the mirror that I had leaned against me window. And obviously whilst I was out, the wind had blown in, it pushed the mirror over, it shattered into a million pieces all over in me bedroom. And I remember thinking, great, 7 years bad luck. But then I remember also telling myself, I'm not having that. I don't want 7 years bad luck. I can't get 7 years bad luck. And I can't even remember having bad luck in my teens, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, superstition. But I always say about anything in spirituality, and in fact life itself, if it feels good, do it. If it doesn't, don't. And the same can be said about superstition. If you feel like you're cursed or that things aren't going your way because you've smashed a mirror, you've had a black cat walk out in front of your path, you've walked under a ladder, whatever it is, counteract it with positive thoughts. Next up, Michael asked, what are spirit animals and how do they help us in life? I've been wanting to do an episode on spirit animals for so long. So you might have heard of spirit animals, often referred to as power animals or totem animals. These are a concept found in various spiritual and cultural beliefs across the world. They're believed to be spiritual guides or guardians that offer insight and wisdom and protection. And these animals can appear in our dreams while we're meditating, or even just in everyday life. And they symbolize, you know, qualities or traits or lessons that are quite relevant to the person that they appear to. So obviously different cultures have their own interpretations of spirit animals. For example, if you think of like Native American Indian traditions, Individuals believe that they have a spiritual connection to an animal that serves as a guide throughout their entire life, and it imparts the characteristics or strengths associated with that animal. So I'll just talk about my own experience of spirit animals here, because my spirit animal is an owl. And have I ever been told this before? Once. Did it make perfect sense to me when I was told this? Absolutely. So going right back, I went on this weird holiday camp thing years ago, long before I was into spirituality. And we drank this weird drink. It wasn't ayahuasca, but I'm assuming it was something similar. But within minutes, I was out for the count. I was thinking I was flying around as an owl. I was flapping my wings in the sky. I was able to turn my head 360 degrees. It was like a dream, basically, but it was odd as fuck, as you can imagine. And then years later, when I started into this spiritual journey, I had a reading off someone, and she told me that my spirit animal was an owl. Did I connect the two stories at the time? Did I, Nelly? Someone gifted me a labradorite owl a couple of years ago, and ever since then I've seen owls everywhere. I was even at a yoga class a couple of years ago with Josie, my friend, and at the end we all pulled a card which had animals on them. There was 72 to choose from, and guess what I got? An owl, of course. So owls are symbolic for wisdom and guidance, and they often appear to teachers or mentors as a beacon of strength and protection. And they can also symbolize transformation and change as well. So it was weird to me that when my granddad passed, I would start and see them everywhere, and then I suddenly made the connection, like, oh my God, is this my granddad's way of telling me that he's still with us? I mean, who knows, do you know what I mean? But what I will say is that in the last 2 weeks, I've seen 3 dead owls. Now, I think that's a bit unusual to see an owl anyway, because it's not like you would ever see many in real life unless you watch Harry Potter every day. But to see 3 in 3 different locations face to face, all dead, that kind of shocked us. And I spoke about this to the group of women that I was with at Denise's event last weekend in Bristol, and I came to the conclusion that it means that the old me is dead. You know, like when Taylor Swift says, "I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now." Why? Oh, 'cause she's dead. I feel like that's my symbolism from seeing those dead owls. As it's almost like as if I'm transforming and I'm changing into the new me. And it's something that I've felt quite energetically for a few weeks now, and a tarot reader even told me that my new life is about to begin at the start of next year. So rest in peace, owls. But I'm assuming that's what it means for me. Either that or someone's going around poisoning owls, which I'm not having. But actually, this has nothing to do with spirit animals, so I don't know why I'm about to tell you this story, but Seeing as though we're on the subject of birds, actually, this quite ties in with the last story about superstition. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. When I first got with Johnny 9 years ago, whenever I would be driving us anywhere and would see a magpie, I would salute. Does anybody else do that? Just me? I don't know if it's just a Newcastle thing, um, but maybe, like I said, this links a bit in with superstition. But anyway, to cut a long story short, about 3 years into our relationship, we were out on a dog walk and I saluted the magpie and I sang salute salute as in the Little Mix song. And Johnny looked at me shocked and went, 'Oh, is that what you do in the car? A salute? I thought you had Tourette's.' 3 years into our relationship and he thought that was the case. Give me strength. The next question is from Helen who asks, 'Can I win the lottery through manifestation?' Ooh, this is juicy. My answer is yes, but I wouldn't advise it. Okay, to do this, you are going to limit all the abundance of ways that money can come to you by putting all of your eggs into one basket. I, I wish I had a pound coin for every time I get asked this question because it's instant gratification and intention is so important, but I don't want you to think that the lottery is the only way that you can achieve true happiness in life. For example, if you've got a dream car that you want and you think about, you know, how am I going to get the money together for this? There are so many ways that you can receive money. And I would love for you to get that in your head. Come and join me in my Manifesting Money Masterclass. Enter the code BLACKFRIDAY50, you get 50% off. But there are so many ways that you can receive money. And obviously you have to make sure that you've got a receptacle and an avenue for this. So it might be that you work longer hours and put in overtime at work. Or it might be that you're inspired to start a side hustle, or that you babysit or dogsit for a friend or a relative that enables you to afford this new car. I just want you to know that the universe can bring it to you in so many different ways. The lottery just limits that to one avenue. Think about what a lottery win would mean for you, and I don't just mean a couple of hundred pounds. Like, if I said to you, you got a phone call today to say, congratulations, you've won £3 million, Think about that feeling. Think about what you would buy with it, okay? Think about the emotion associated with it, because that'll bring about all the different ways that it can come to you. And when you meditate on that and you visualize on that, you'll get sudden light bulb moments where you think, oh my God, I could be selling this book that I wrote years ago that's just sat as a PDF on my computer, or I could put together an online course, or I could sell this, or sell me old clobber that I no longer use. Ideas to make money are just as valuable, and by taking that little step of inspired action, you're saying to the universe, "I am ready to receive," and that puts you into alignment of receiving that money. You can use crystals like pyrite, jade, green aventurine, or citrine to boost these feelings and energies deep within you, and be grateful for what you do have without that lottery win already. And who knows, remember back in June this year when I was adamant I was going to win that competition to win the cruise? And then I didn't win, I just left it up to the universe saying this or something better, and then Fran messages us asking if I want to go on a free cruise saying that she'd been gifted one for nothing. That is the law of attraction at work right there. Like, yes, I put all my eggs into one basket and I fully believed that I was going to win that cruise through one avenue, but because then I released all the ways it could come to me, it came down to me like in a whole different route. So keep buying those lottery tickets, but don't get too fixated on winning. Think more about the associated outcomes and the feelings and the emotions and the lifestyle and the mindset, and you will get there. Like I say, come and work with us in the Manifesting Money Masterclass. It's a 6-week course. It's available on cannycrystalsacademy.co.uk, and we've had so many success stories from people that have gone through this because it's all about working on your limiting beliefs where your money stories come from, like generational traumas and things like that that you might not even know you've got until you start doing the work. But then it's like looking into loads of different ways that you can basically attract all of this wealth and abundance into your life. Next up, Rachel asked, do you ever get signs from your granddad? Oh my God, where do I start with this one? All the time. In fact, even just a couple of weeks ago On the morning of our adoption panel, I was sat in our living room ready to go. I was feeling all nervous and anxious at the same time, you know, as you probably would be. And I looked up to see me grandad's ashes on the shelf in me living room, and I just said, "I wish you could be here to see this, Grumps." We used to call him Grumps because he was a total bah humbug. So I looked up and I said, "Wish you could be here to see this, Grumps." And I turned the TV on to a song playing and my jaw dropped. And it was the song "You'll Never Walk Alone." Now, that's a song that you don't often hear all the time. Like, it's, it's not very— like, it's not in the charts. It's a song from the '60s or the '70s. I don't really know, but it's an old song. My granddad was a huge Liverpool FC supporter, and their football club anthem is the song "You'll Never Walk Alone." So it was like a little sign from above. And straight after our adoption panel, when they told us we were approved, I was in tears, obviously, and when I opened our front door, there was a white feather there. I truly believe, hand on heart, that this was his way of saying, like, 'I'm always here.' It's such a strange feeling when you lose someone, and the grief can totally consume you, like it started to do with me back in 2019. But signs like this make me think that there is no doubt in my mind that the afterlife is real. We don't just die and that's it. There has to be more to us. We were something before and will be something after this life as well, because energy never dies. And as we're all made up of energy, there has to be an afterlife of some sort. I've spoken before as well about how my grandad's song will come on when I'm thinking of him, or how that alpaca last year was called Geronimo, which was me grandad's password for everything. We found out when he died, um, there's been plenty of times when we've been sat in me nana's, in me grandad's chair and me keys have just fallen off the arm of the chair when there's been nobody else around. There's been times when I've felt his presence and then his funeral program has fallen off the shelf in me living room. There's plenty of times I can hear his voice in me head as well. Like, even when thinking of a business name for Canny Crystals, I could hear his voice saying, 'Gan canny,' which is something he always used to say when we left their house. It's a Geordie way of saying, 'Take it easy.' So yes, lots and lots of signs from him, and it's quite comforting. And something that's literally just come to me as well is that his favorite football club was Liverpool FC, and it was at Liverpool that I was sent to in the NHS where I met Carly, who started up a crystal shop online, who I bought my first original crystals from. Maybe that was all his way of saying, here you go, here's your new life. That's quite comforting. I've only just connected those dots there, right? Do you know what, I've got so many questions to answer for you all that I'm actually going to have to split this episode and continue along with it next week. Um, just before we go though, I do have some incredible news to share with you all about Black Friday deals. Yes ma'am, they are here. I have got 30% off everything site-wide at cannycrystals.co.uk. This is the first time I've ever done such a large discount. Okay, so you get 30% off everything at cannycrystals.co.uk. All you need to do is input the code, which is Black Friday 30. 30 in numbers, obviously. So Black Friday 30, all as one word. And when you spend over £30, you will get a huge 30% off everything. That's an amazing offer. And it's not all, because I have got 50% off everything except for Manifest with Mart at the Academy, cannycrystalsacademy.co.uk, you just use code BLACKFRIDAY50. This is across all workshops, all courses, my Manifesting Money Masterclass, my Achieving Your Goals workshops, 50% off them all. And, and, and, because I'm not finished yet, because I know that some of you won't get paid until next weekend, however, with, you know, most people paid at the end of the month, I'm actually extending this until midnight on Friday the 1st of December. How nice am I? You've got 7 days to get in there. So get yourselves to cannycrystals.co.uk with code BLACKFRIDAY30, all one word, or treat yourself to some self-development or coaching at cannycrystalsacademy.co.uk with BLACKFRIDAY50. I'll put both links in the show notes. I'll put both codes in the show notes. And I really hope that you've enjoyed this episode. Please feel free to help me out by leaving a rating or a review.. It takes you mere seconds to do, but honestly, it helps me out in ways you wouldn't believe. The algorithm is so, so weird for the podcast charts. It's like, it goes by how many listens you've had, but also how many reviews that you've had, and how many people have commented on Spotify. It's very odd. I'm not even gonna go into it. Don't wanna bore ya. But yes, in the meantime, I will see you all next Friday for another episode of Cani Crystals the Podcast. And we'll continue this Q&A then. Have a great weekend everyone. Bye!