What are Crystals? 10 Essential Gemstones to Create a Better Life

Crystals have gained popularity in recent years. They are extraordinarily beautiful and claim to heal anything from depression to migraines, attract love and wealth, protect one from negative energy, and even increase the effectiveness of mantras and meditations. But how?

First, let’s begin with the basics.

What are Crystals?

Crystals are minerals found naturally on earth with a highly well-organized microscopic structure. If you use a magnifying glass, you will notice snowflakes, diamonds, and salt all consist of crystal attributes. However, to be considered a crystal, it must have crystalline structures. 

You may find that the word ‘crystals’ is used loosely and interchangeably when someone may be referring to a gem, rock, or mineral. However, they each have their own unique and important properties and healing capabilities. 

How do Crystals Work?

You’ve heard claims that crystals can attract your soulmate, or cleanse your home of negative energy, keep you safe during travel, and so on. But how? The simple answer is, everything has energy: our bodies, our thoughts, and all matter around us, including crystals.

Some people may intuitively recognize their own vibration and that of others and the things around them. For others, it takes some work. An excellent place to start is by learning your energy fields and how to balance your chakras.

Have you ever been around a negative person or environment and felt utterly drained? On the contrary, have you visited a place, welcomed by beautiful plants, flowers, and splashes of bright colors all around and instantly felt more energetic and cheerful?

Everything has a vibration, and crystals do too. So much so that the most popular kind of crystal, called Quartz, is used in devices such as radios and watches. Crystals have a higher vibration than our human bodies. When you work with crystals, it raises your vibrations. Raising your vibration benefits you mentally, physically, and spiritually.

How to Choose a Crystal

Choosing a crystal is easy and fun but first, you have to know what kind of crystal you need. The crystal that you need will depend on your current situation. Are you in a time of transition in your life? Are you moving into a new home? Want to attract a new love? Need to cleanse your space or your energy? Below is a list to narrow your search.

12 Essential Life Gemstones

1. Crystals to Attract Love
   

   Rose Quartz is a widely used crystal to attract or sustain romantic love and all unconditional love. It is the ultimate crystal for Love.
   Love is essential for all humans on the planet. The act of love can be shared and cultivated between your partner, family members, friends, even strangers, and most importantly, yourself. It is the one thing that can transform anger, hate, guilt, and envy. Having compassion and giving love is a sure way to receive it as well. However, it’s not always easy to do so.

2. Crystals for more Happiness
   

   The Citrine crystal can remind you that you have the power to create more joy and happiness in your life. This gemstone promotes a positive flow of energy, improves and strengthens your self-esteem, and it brings light and joy into your energy field.
   At the end of the day, we are all looking for one thing, and that is happiness. We are always looking to maximize joy and minimize pain. In our quest for happiness, we may be turning to the wrong things or make it dependent on others or outside circumstances. However, happiness is a choice.

3. Crystals for Inner Peace

   Amethyst has a reputation for its calming and relaxing energy. It also promotes clarity so you can better understand what is disrupting your peace. This stone is versatile but absolutely supportive for inner peace.
   The world around us can feel chaotic. With so much noise in our environment, it can be challenging to cultivate inner peace and calmness.
   

4. Crystals to Increase Motivation

   Tiger’s eye is a stone of motivation; it helps you take action, remove fears and self-doubt, and gives you the courage to work towards your life goals and dreams.
   We all can use motivation from time to time. It’s in the times that we are motivated that we see solutions and make strides and progress. However, sustaining motivation can be challenging, yet it’s crucial to accomplishing your goals and creating the life you want.

5. Crystals to Attract Wealth & Prosperity

   To manifest building wealth and the things you desire, the Aventurine stone is what you need. It is the stone of opportunity and is considered to be lucky. Many would agree that having wealth can provide freedom, solve minute problems, allow you to live comfortably, and afford your desires. As they say, money makes the world go around. Everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie. Wealth isn’t just in money; it also includes having things you value in abundance.

6. Crystals for Creativity

   Carnelian is the stone of creativity as it increases your passion for life, love, and work. In addition, this stone is stimulating and enhances confidence and motivation. Being creative is the cornerstone of humans and what we have been able to create and achieve. It’s what sparks new ideas, inventions, entertainment, art, and more. We are surrounded by things that are a product of creativity. Being creative helps us to think outside of the box, solve problems, and to have fun.

7. Crystals to Boost Self-Confidence:

   To increase your self-confidence, Amber is the stone you want. It improves self-esteem and confidence, allowing you to believe in yourself, move with a strong personal will, and act boldly. Self-confidence gives us the courage to live our authentic selves. It allows us to be aligned with what we want out of life and make things happen. Self-confidence is important when attracting a partner, getting a job, starting a business, giving a speech, and influencing those around you. It makes us feel comfortable to see others feel comfortable and self-assured. On the contrary, it makes us feel uncomfortable when we see someone being awkward and unsure of themselves. Even the most confident people aren’t always secure. Everyone has their highs and lows.

8. Crystals to Attract Positivity

   To protect yourself and your space from negativity in your home, at the office, from daily life, and remove negative thoughts, Smokey Quartz can help. It’s a stone of power that can absorb bad energies and remove them from your space. It can help you eliminate fear, jealousy, and other toxic thoughts. To be positive is to remove negativity. We are sensitive to energies around us, whether we are aware of them or not. Any negativity in the news, for instance, or a difficult conversation or environment can change your positive energy into negative.

9. Crystals for Better Health

   Clear Quartz is considered a ‘master healer,’ regulating all energies and helps with stress, healing, and balance. Health and Wellness are vital in life, and health is the new wealth. Therefore, making sure you are healthy should be your top priority. Regular exercise and diet, and a positive and healthy mindset can drastically improve your health.

10. Crystals to Deal with Grief or Heartache:

    Apache Tears can help with grief or heartache. Its reputation as the crystal for suffering is widely known and used. It can help you healthily process your deep emotions. This is sometimes the most difficult emotion to bear. It takes the joy out of life and creates an agony of pain, making it difficult to see the light of day. It’s a natural emotion that should be felt and healed at your own pace.

Crystals to Balance your Chakras

You may also want to seek crystals to help you with any areas of your life that are experiencing an imbalance. To find out which chakra is unbalanced, take the chakra quiz. You can also see a previous post that goes in-depth about each chakra. See the post here. When you use crystals to balance your chakras in conjunction with other self-healing methods, you can get rid of emotional pain and physical disorders that you may have unknowingly manifested into your life.

Where to Shop for Crystals

We recommend going to a metaphysical or spiritual shop that has crystals. A quick yelp search can point you towards a store near you. 

Your second option is to shop online. The benefit to shopping online is the wide variety of choices available to you that you may not find in one store alone. 

How to Pick the Perfect Crystal 

This is the fun part. If you are shopping in person, this will be an easy experience. Take a list of the kind of crystals you want. The store will have a variety of each type in different shapes and sizes. Find the crystal that excites you the most. Hold the crystal in your hand. Experience how you feel. It’s okay to put the crystal back if you don’t feel like it’s the one. However, try not to hold every crystal for this purpose. Just a few that get your attention. 

If you are shopping online, don’t worry that you may buy a crystal that you could not experience and hold before you buy. Instead, be open to the experience and set the intention that you will receive the crystal that is meant for you. This crystal does not have to be a stand-alone piece, it can also be a bracelet or a necklace. The possibilities of what you can find online are endless. 

How to Cleanse your New Crystals

You just bought a new crystal, but you don’t know where it has been. Crystals can carry the energies of their environment. You may want to cleanse your crystals and reset your intentions for it. 

1. Cleanse it overnight: The best and easy way to cleanse your crystal is by leaving it outside at night. The moonlight acts as a cleansing agent and will clear up any unwanted energies.
2. Burning sage: Use a burning sage around your crystals. Sage is helpful to clear all unwanted energy, including your crystals.
3. A light rinse with water or saltwater: Do this minimally. It does not take much. 

How to Store your Crystals

You may store your energy stones anywhere you like. You can have them on display, wear them as jewelry, or take it with you in your pocket. It’s great to have it visible so that you can connect with it often. 

How to Use Crystals

To reap the benefits of crystals and their powers, there are many ways you can use them. In addition to interacting with your crystals by holding them, cleansing them, setting intentions for them, you can also use them more actively. For example, crystals are great when used during meditations. It would help if you held your crystal on your receiving hand (nondominant hand) while meditating or repeating mantras or affirmations. Doing this will amplify your focus in the area of your life you intend to work on using its corresponding crystal. 

Conclusion

Knowing how to use crystals will help raise your vibrations to attract and manifest the things you desire, but it takes an open mind. It’s best to leave any skepticism because having doubt will get in the way of having the crystals work for you. With so many crystals to choose from, you can start building a collection of your own and get intuned with their energies. There are so many ways to use a crystal. Use this to your benefit by wearing it on you, displaying it in your home, doubling as a beautiful decoration, and during your spiritual practices.