Whatever is going on around you or in your life, Choose to find the good in it.
A lot of times, bad things happen to good people, and people often feel that you are at the mercy of the circumstances.
You may not be able to change the circumstances themselves, but you have absolute power over how you react.
If you react well, consider it as a learning experience, consider it as a way to gain knowledge, consider it as a way to take your power back, and not let all of these outside things just wash over you and cause you to tumble and fall and break. You will go a long way to creating excellent health for yourself.
If things happen and you let them make you crazy and stressed out, you are going to create illness for yourself. All that stress is just not going to sit well in your physical body, and eventually it will come to roost somewhere. You don't want that.
So, take back your power, make your choices good, and make the good choice to find the good thing in everything. There is always something good, even if it's just a learning experience or a way to help someone else out of a problem. If you can help someone else, you will often feel good about your own problems, and also find ways to help solve them, too.
Have a great week!
Michelle
P. S. Therapeutic Tea Time is still free! If you would like to get together on the phone, online, or in person to chat about your health challenges and holistic alternatives, let's set a time to get together! Write to me at bewellwithmichelle@gmail.com to make an appointment.
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To receive Creative Health Tips via email, subscribe to the group by sending an email to stressrelieftips+subscribe@googlegroups.com and remember to respond to the verification email!
So much is written about intuitive healing these days; you can buy dozens of books telling you how good and effective it is, and visit intuitive healers who will tell you what you need to do to be healthy. What I find humorous (and somewhat sad) about all this is that you are told you must consult someone else's intuition when it is your own you should be cultivating and listening to!
The following is a true and somewhat scary story, but it illustrates the importance of listening to your intuition for your good health and wellbeing. This incident occurred about a year ago to the friend of my friend.
My friend's friend – I'll call her Mary – experienced the accumulation of fluid in her body. She had what was thought to be a seizure and was taken to the hospital where the doctor wanted to perform a CAT scan. At first, Mary refused to recline on the bed of the machine. She had very strong feelings that if she did, she would die. She told the doctor this, and argued with him for almost an hour before he finally convinced her that she was in the hospital, she would be safe. Against her intuition, Mary reclined on the bed of the machine and immediately died. Luckily, the doctor was able to revive her, and she is presently recovering from her illness.
Your experiences with intuition may not be as dramatic as Mary's but they are every bit as important if you are to live in harmony which cultivates happiness which creates health in the physical world.
Knowledge of yourself is not something you must be taught, it is something you can sense. Mary didn't study medical books to learn that she would be in danger if she reclined on the bed of the CAT scan machine. Her intuition told her, and it was right on; she knew her life would be jeopardized if she reclined on the bed, but she was talked out of listening to that intuitive inner voice and almost paid a dire consequence.
The more you learn, academically speaking, the more you become separate from inner knowledge. In fact, you are often taught that intuition is false and unreliable, a teaching to which I think Mary in the hospital would most vehemently disagree! Your most important lessons come from observing nature, both inner and outer, and living in harmony with yourself and all that surrounds you.
When calm and connected, your mind works for the health of your body, not to mention seeking harmony with your surroundings, through the process of intuition, knowledge of nature and natural process without instruction.
Your emotions manifest in the physical world, and for good or ill, your ongoing emotional state will eventually be reflected in your physical body. In order to be physically healthy, you must first cultivate mental and spiritual calmness and harmony and one way to do that is to listen to your intuition. It will always steer you down the path that leads to health and wellness.
An affirmation is a positive statement that you repeat when you want to create a certain thing or a certain condition in you life. If your life has been chaotic lately you might say an affirmation like "I live in perfect balance and harmony."
I've discovered that people either love or hate affirmations depending on how well the method has worked for them. If you repeat "I live in perfect balance and harmony" fifty times a day, and your life has changed for the better, you no doubt will be enthusiastic about the technique. If you still feel trapped in the depths of chaos, you probably aren't going to be a real fan of affirmations.
I have discovered that there is a key to the use of affirmations that you must have before they will work for you: Belief. You must believe that the statement made in your affirmation is attainable.
The repetition process of using an affirmation is supposed to help change your belief. For example, if all your romantic relationships have ended badly and you feel unlovable, repeating "I am lovable and attract only the right people into relationships" is supposed to change your belief from unlovable to lovable.
It isn't always that easy, though. We all have beliefs about ourselves that may be hidden. Rooting out these conflicting beliefs is a process that may need to be done before affirmations, as the practice stands now, will work for you.
However, the method can be tweaked in such a way that it may work for you even if you have a hidden belief that conflicts with your statement. I learned this from Tiffanie, a young woman whom I consider to be a spiritual daughter of mine.
Instead of finding or creating an affirmation statement that says "I can . . . :" or "I Have . . ." or "I (followed by the verb of your choice)," change it around so that it starts with a positive feeling for the thing or condition you want to create.
Say, "I am grateful and thankful now that I . . ." and then add your affirmative statement. For example, for changing the way you feel about yourself and your relationships, you would say "I am grateful and thankful now that I am lovable and attract only the right people into relationships."
The reason this works is this: if you are feeling negative about yourself and believe that your relationships always end badly, when you say your simple affirmation of "I am lovable and attract only the right people into relationships," your core belief (that you are not lovable, which came from the feelings generated by your previous experiences of relationships ending badly) is going to respond with a sarcastic, "yeah, right."
It's all about feelings; and feelings create beliefs! At some time in your life, you have felt thankful and grateful for something, and you know how good that feels. Instead of repeating that simple affirmation of "I am lovable. . .," put your energy into recreating and re-experiencing feeling grateful and thankful, and aim those feelings at the change you invite into your life, "I am grateful and thankful now that I am lovable. . ." the good feelings will override the negative belief and replace it with a positive one, and manifest the condition you are trying to create with your affirmation!
Today's tip comes under the heading of incredibly powerful but almost too simple to be true practices. Did you know you could change your mood by changing your breathing?
No doubt you already know that you tend to breathe shallowly when you are stressed, and that deep breathing will help you feel less stressed, more energized and relaxed both physically and mentally.
Here is a quick and easy way to help transform your mood from depressed, fearful or angry to happy and grateful.
The right hemisphere of the brain shows the most activity when you are feeling anger, fear, or depression. When you are feeling happiness and appreciation, this most often appears as left hemisphere brain activity.
Breathing through one nostril activates the opposite side of the brain: breathing through the left nostril activates the right hemisphere of the brain, and breathing through the right nostril activates the left hemisphere.
The next time you are feeling negative emotions like anger, fear, or resentment, and you want to improve your mood to one of happiness, and gratitude (which, of course, will improve your health!), close off your left nostril and inhale through only the right nostril to activate the left brain hemisphere associated with those positive emotions. By activating the left side of the brain, you activate positive emotions and feelings, too! You may enhance the practice by imagining that you are inhaling joy, appreciation, or love with each breath you take in.
You may exhale either through your nose or your mouth, but be careful to inhale only thorough the right nostril for eight to ten breaths. I suggest that you not imagine you are exhaling the anger or depression you are transforming because that will only bring your attention back to it. Don't even think of what you are trying to transform or release, just pay attention to the joy and love you are bringing in.
After eight to ten breaths through the right nostril, release the closed nostril and take a couple balancing breaths, inhaling through both nostrils and exhaling through the mouth.
Consider one cycle of this practice to be eight to ten right-nostril breaths followed by two or three balancing breaths. It may take a few cycles to change your mood, but if you stay with it for at least five minutes, I guarantee you will see improvement, and you'll certainly feel better for it!
I have a question for you today. Are you running on autopilot or are you paying attention?
The reason I ask is because very frequently, because we all live busy lives, we don't pay attention to what we're doing for ourselves.
We're busy doing our jobs, or we're busy taking care of our family, and we just let ourselves disappear in the shuffle. That, however, is when illness creeps in.
So, you need to pay attention to yourself. Here's a great way to do that:
When you go to bed at night, or at some time during the day if you have twenty minutes that you can sit and put your feet up and relax, I want you to check in with your body. Listen to your body!
Start at your feet, or start at your head, and go right up the whole body, check in, feel how you're feet are feeling, feel how your ankles are feeling, feel how your calves and shins are feeling, check in with your knees and see how they're doing.
"Hey, knees, how's it going? You feeling OK today?"
When you find a spot that is not feeling OK, it's achy, it's tense, it hurts, it's in pain, here's the trick: Give it love.
Do you remember when you were a little kid, or when you had little children, and somebody got hurt, they got a "boo-boo" and they went to mommy, and mommy kissed it and made it all better? The reason it got all better is because mommy gave it love.
You can to that for yourself! If you feel a tension, a pain, and ache, or anything, just stop and give it love. I will bet you that if you do this every day for the next three weeks, you will notice a huge difference (improvement!) in how you're feeling.
You have been taught from infancy that your body operates on its own power and own agenda, and you don't really have a lot to say about it. That is a pretty biased belief, and nothing could be further from the truth.
It has been proven that your thoughts and emotions can control which of your genes is turned on and off, thereby controlling the expression of any at-risk genetic tendencies like heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer. Basically, this means that if you are at risk for any disease that is linked to genetic traits or "runs in families," you can control whether that disease manifests or not.
We hear about medical miracles every day: how a woman with mortally traumatic injuries recovers to walk and talk again after being told she might not survive her injuries; how cancer spontaneously goes into remission after a person has an experience that changes his or her whole outlook on life. There are even stories of children who have lost a limb and that limb has begun to grow back until they hear their parents being told, "Your child isn't re-growing a limb, that's not possible, they can't do that!" Not knowing any better, the child accepts that doctrine as the truth, and the belief is set.
That brings us to the second quote in today's Creative Health Tip that tells you that your only limitation to healing is your beliefs.
Someone asked us recently, "Is there any limitation to the body's ability to heal?" And we said, "None other than the belief that you hold." And he said, "Then why aren't people growing new limbs?" And we said, "Because no one believes that they can." --- Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in San Rafael, CA on Saturday, February 27th, 1999 #329
Science is discovering this very thing. We know that you can lose 75% of your liver and it will grow back. It once was believed that if you lost a portion of your brain, you were out of luck. We now know that brain cells grow back. A doctor in India discovered that heart cells grow back, too. (See link to article below.)
There is an article on the CBS News website (see link below) that in part says, "Dr. Atala, one of the pioneers of regeneration, believes every type of tissue already has cells ready to regenerate if only researchers can prod them into action. Sometimes that prodding can look like science fiction.
"Emerging from an everyday ink jet printer is the heart of a mouse. Mouse heart cells go into the ink cartridge and are then sprayed down in a heart shaped pattern layer by layer.
"Dr. Atala believes it's a matter of time before someone grows a human heart.
""The cells have all the genetic information necessary to make new tissue," Atala explained. "That's what they are programmed to do. So your heart cells are programmed to make more heart tissue, your bladder cells are programmed to make more bladder cells.""
In my opinion, what the doctors and scientists have not yet figured out is that you don't need technology nor any sort of intervention to prod your cells to regenerate. The Abraham-Hicks quote has told you how to do it: all you need is the belief that you can!
Today's tip is something we can learn from our nomadic cousins around the world: don't carry around a lot of baggage.
In spite of their seemingly (to us) harsh lives filled with change and instability, nomadic peoples are some of the healthiest people on the planet.
There are many reasons for that, but I believe there is one especially important reason: they carry only what they need and don't tote around a lot of baggage.
By baggage, I mean two things; "stuff," as in physical things, and "stuff" as in emotional things. Carrying around a lot of physical items is a great metaphor for toting around a lot of emotional baggage too, and both types of baggage can wear you down to the point you will manifest illness.
In the mind-body creation process, you know that the relationship between your thoughts and emotions will eventually manifest in your body. Harmonious thoughts and emotions create a healthy body. Emotional baggage is the inner conflict between the thoughts and emotions which manifests as illness.
Sometimes it's relatively easily to identify the conflict by examining the nature of your illness. Sometimes it's not so easy, and I can help you through the processes that are available to unearth the conflict. Once you identify the source of the conflict, you can begin the release and healing process, and create the wellness you desire and deserve!
I say this without any hint of sarcasm, honest, but I really love it when science catches up with three-thousand year old Chinese medicine. That can be a great motivator to people who want to try a holistic health modality but aren't sure if it works.
I have here a pamphlet sent out as an invitation to subscribe to "Prevention," a magazine dedicated to health and wellness.
One of the articles is titled "The 60-Second Bone Builder." The article does not mention Chinese medicine, but the advice given in how to build bone density is the very essence of one of the movement positions in Eight Pieces of Brocade Qigong, a practice proven to increase bone density!
The article Says, "…..high impact exercises put strain on your bones, stimulating new bone growth." A little further down it says, "You need to subject your bones to more impact than what they're used to," agrees an MD at Stanford University. So if you're inactive, start walking. And if you're already walking, add a simple 60-second jog."
The reason for jogging is that bones, because they are so dense, need the additional impact as resistance. Just as you build muscles with resistance training by lifting weights, you build bone density with resistance of high-impact exercises.
In the Eight Pieces of Brocade Qigong, there is a position that includes exactly this type of high-impact training. (See the end of the article for results of a study of qigong on bone density.)
The practice is this: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, letting your arms hang loosely and naturally at your sides. Rise up on your toes for a count of three and then drop so that your heels hit the ground with a thud. Do this for one minute. When done, stand still and breathe deeply for about a minute.
There you have it: a high-impact, bone-building practice that is so simple you can do it any time and any where.
Almost everyone gets stressed out during this busy holiday season. However, stress suppresses the immune system, so the last thing you want to be during the holidays is stressed because it leaves you vulnerable to illness.
There is one very simple thing you do all the time, and when done mindfully, can reduce stress. You can do it anywhere, anytime, for a couple minutes or even a half-hour. It's simple, easy, effective……have you guessed what it is?
Yes, it's breathing.
Breathing mindfully is one of the best and fastest ways to reduce stress whether you are caught in traffic or a long line at the checkout counter of the department store or have just arrived home at the end of a hectic day.
Breathing mindfully means paying attention to your breath, to follow the breath as you inhale and exhale. You need not intentionally breathe deeply though you may find that you are breathing more deeply as you practice, and that's good because it can help relieve muscular tension. Breathing shallowly deprives your muscles of much-needed oxygen and they become tense as a result. Just breathing slowly and deeply can relieve a lot of tension in your legs and back and shoulders.
To practice: as you inhale (through the nose only, please) follow the path the air takes, and feel the coolness in your throat as the air travels to your lungs. You may pause to enjoy the sensation if you like, but pausing isn't required. As you exhale, you will pay attention to the breath as it leaves your lungs and warms the throat, and here you may exhale through the mouth if you like.
To add an extra mind-body dimension of stress relief and relaxation, as you exhale, set the intention to relax simply by repeating "I am relaxed" as you practice, and may even be a little playful by emphasizing different words as you say it, first emphasizing "I" then "am" then "relaxed." If you are a visual person, you may also visualize the release of all your tensions, just watch them leave your body as thought they were riding the crest of a wave of breath, and say good-bye to each as they leave: "Good-bye, work stress, good-bye traffic jam," and so on.
The more fun you have with this practice, the more stress it will relieve and the faster you will feel better!
We all know how feeling happy is one creative way to wellness, and that feelings of gratitude are very powerful creators of wellness as well as happiness. It seems that some scientists have confirmed it: Gratitude increases happiness
This is an article that was run in Bottom Line Secrets Newsletter of November 19, 2009
Science Discovers the Secret to Happiness By Robert A. Emmons, PhD University of California, Davis
Surprise: Research suggests that becoming more grateful could make each of us 25% happier -- and that being happy is the key to a longer, more successful life.
Our lives do not just seem better when we are happy -- they actually become better, according to a 2005 analysis of hundreds of psychological studies. Happy people tend to have longer, more loving marriages... are healthier... live an average of seven to nine years longer than chronically unhappy people... and have more successful careers. According to one study, happy college graduates had annual salaries $25,000 higher than unhappy graduates 16 years after graduation.
While an endless procession of self-help gurus have claimed to know the path to happiness, psychological studies generally have failed to confirm that proposed happiness strategies actually work.
One notable exception: Research conducted in the past decade appears to indicate that we can become happier by feeling more gratitude.
Bottom Line/Retirement asked psychology professor Robert A. Emmons, PhD, of the University of California, Davis, for more information...
What is "gratitude" to a psychologist?
In simple terms, gratitude is our affirmation of a benefit that we have received and our recognition that this benefit has come to us from outside of ourselves.
You say that becoming more grateful will make us happier. How do we know that it isn’t the other way around -- happiness creates gratitude?
Our research suggests that increases in happiness do not lead to increases in gratitude, but that increases in gratitude do in fact increase happiness. We designed a study to test this. Participants were divided into two groups, each of which were initially equally happy. Members of one of these groups were asked to write in a journal the things that they were grateful for, which made them more conscious of and grateful for the good fortune that came their way. At the end of the study, the journal-keeping group was 25% happier than members of the group that did not keep gratitude journals.
Why does feeling gratitude make us happier?
Primarily, I believe, it is because gratitude increases our sense of connection to other people. Having strong relationships is the single best predictor of happiness, and our relationships become stronger when we acknowledge the support we receive from those around us. Acknowledging the support we receive from others provides us with confirmation that we have value in other people’s eyes. Gratitude also buffers us from envy, resentment and regret, emotions that inhibit happiness.
Why do people often have trouble being grateful for what they have?
Lots of reasons. Most of us are fortunate to have pretty good lives, so our default reaction might be to take the benefits that come our way for granted. Consumerism and other cultural pressures can foster a sense that we deserve even more than we have. Our desire to see ourselves as self-sufficient makes it difficult to admit that someone else has helped us. And admitting gratitude can create uncomfortable feelings of indebtedness.
Can we consciously choose to become more grateful and thus happier? Yes, I do believe it is a choice. Chronically unhappy people do not greatly differ from happy people in terms of their life circumstances -- they just approach life with a different set of attitudes. Unhappy people tend to see themselves as victims of their past, and feel entitled or exaggeratedly deserving when good fortune comes their way. Happy people are thankful that good things happen to them -- even though their lives might be no better than those of the unhappy people next door. We cannot always alter the events of our lives, but we can alter our attitudes.
What, specifically, can we do to become more grateful?
Make an effort to speak about your life using words of gratitude even if you do not feel very grateful. Though it seems counterintuitive, we can become more grateful by forcing ourselves to feign gratefulness that we do not initially feel. Speak in terms of gifts and givers, not regrets and setbacks. Refer to yourself as blessed or fortunate, not deserving or lacking. Say that you live in abundance, not in need. For example, say "I feel so grateful when I can sleep through the night," rather than "Most nights I wake up every few hours."
Incidentally, if you are struggling to get to sleep at night, don’t count sheep, count your blessings. Grateful people sleep better and longer than ungrateful people, and wake feeling more refreshed.
What is the secret to being grateful in the face of struggle or tragedy?
The secret is not to wait until tragedy strikes. Become more grateful while your life is running smoothly, so that gratitude becomes an ingrained part of your "psychological immune system." That will make it easier to view difficulties as temporary and surmountable setbacks, or even as opportunities in disguise.
A grateful person mourns the passing of a close friend, but he/she also feels lucky to have known the friend as long as he did, and is glad that he has so many other friends remaining.
Many prayers are expressions of gratitude. So, do religious people have an advantage when it comes to actually feeling gratitude and being happy?
Yes, to some degree. One of the foundations of virtually every religion is that people should give thanks to God and to each other. Religious texts and religious teachings typically provide models of how to be grateful, such as prayers of gratitude and rituals of giving thanks. Spirituality appears to be particularly helpful for maintaining a grateful outlook in the face of suffering and adversity.
Bottom Line/Retirement interviewed Robert A. Emmons, PhD, professor of psychology, University of California, Davis. A leading scholar of positive psychology, he is author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (Houghton Mifflin).
That's the end of the article.
So, if you want to be happy which leads to wellness, one of the things you can do is start a gratitude journal and before you go to sleep at night, record two or three things for which you are grateful. You will sleep better, feel better, and feed that happiness that creates wellness!
Have a Great (and Grateful!) Week.
Michelle Providing a source of inspiration and wellness through the unity of Mind, Body & Breath.
Today's tip is about using Imagination and Inspiration
Do you realize that there isn't one thing we have today that was not first created in someone's imagination. Just think about that for a minute…..every single man-made thing we have, from spoons and forks to space shuttles, started as a gleam in someone's eye! Here is the best part: once the eye "saw" the creation, the mind opened to the inspiration of how to accomplish the idea or manifest the project.
I call this the "Ah-ha! Instruction Manual." It's the inspiration that delivers into your mind all the diagrams and instructions on how to manifest your idea into physical reality.
You can do this with wellness, too. Your body is the creation of your mind and emotions.
Use this creative connection to spend time every day imagining your increasing wellness. I do not advise trying to go from where you are, presuming you are unwell, to imagining perfect health. For one thing, there really isn't any such thing as "perfect health!" Every moment of the day, your body is regenerating, disposing of used cells, creating new ones, and your immune system is working to protect you from whatever bacteria or virus you've just been exposed. You never reach perfection; health and wellness is an ongoing process!
So, each day, spend time using your imagination to create wellness. You may even use a statement or affirmation that you repeat (and say it out loud, please!) that goes something like, "Every day, I feel happier and become more healthy and strong." Repeating your statement out loud gives it even more power and believability than just reading it.
Here is the Inspiration part: once you have made this statement and commitment to your wellness, it will "suddenly occur" to you to do things. This may include changing your diet to organic foods, or eliminating dairy, or eating more whole grains. You may also be inspired to start walking outdoors for 15 or 30 minutes a day, or to go swimming twice a week, or visit with friends more often, go to lectures at the library, or engage in some other activity you enjoy, some activity that makes you Happy!
I stress happy because feelings are a crucial aspect of how this Imagination/Inspiration program works and how you create wellness. You simply can't create wellness when you are feeling fear, depression, anger or other negative emotions. When you feel unhappy, your body reacts with stress which immediately undermines the immune system and produces a host of other unhealthy physical reactions. Happiness restores immune system strength and helps your body to engage in health-restoring activities, both inner activities like the increase of revitalizing hormones, and outer activities like choosing good nutrition and lifestyle habits.
For a little while every day, remember to use your imagination to create wellness, and let inspiration be your guide on how to there from here!
This article about Tonglen was originally published on one of my blogs back in January 2007, but I have known of and have successfully used the practice since 2005.
Tonglen is an ancient healing practice that is getting some much-deserved publicity these days and deserves another “day in the sun” here. Though I wrote this over a three and a half years ago, and originally sent it to an email group I once belonged to, I do continue to use the practice when in need of self-healing. I hope you find it useful!
Tonglen (sometimes spelled "tonglin" for folks who would like to do some research of their own) is apparently a practice that comes to us from Tibet.
It is practiced entirely through breathing. As the fellow in the book (cited below) says, "If you can breathe in and out, you can practice tonglin."
As you inhale, you think of people you want to help who are suffering. You can visualize those people if you know them, or think of their names and locations if you do not. You may work on specific problems, or do general work.
As you think of them, you inhale and bring into yourself their pain and suffering. Do not worry that you will somehow be contaminated by their problems; you will transform and exhale the problems almost immediately.
You exhale, and send with the outgoing breath healing, relief, or compassion. (Compassion is one of the most powerful emotions in the universe.) When you exhale, imagine and see your breath as flowing expansively outward, reaching all the people whom you are trying to help.
It's not a forceful practice (you don't "suck in" as much air as you can and then force it across the room as you exhale), but it is deliberate; you should pay attention to each inhale and exhale, and breathe with the intention and purpose of accepting suffering of, and sending healing to, others.
And here is a very interesting point about this practice if you are doing it for yourself. If you can breathe in the suffering and pain of other people who are experiencing the same thing as you, you are sharing the burden of your suffering and thereby reducing it ("a burden shared is a burden lessened" as they say). As you breathe out healing, you heal not only others with the same affliction, but yourself.
I believe the key here is to set aside the "I" and merge with the "us." It is not recommended that you work on just yourself; you should include others who are experiencing the same thing you are. You need not do this on an individual or personal basis (you may not know the name or location of a person with the same problem), but there are 6 billion people in the world today: whatever you are experiencing, you are certainly not alone.
To work on yourself, when you inhale, say or think or intend something like "I breathe in the suffering of all of us who have a pain in their left arm" (or whatever your problem is.) Your problem need not be physical, this practice may be used to relieve anger, sadness, grief, or other emotions.). Exhale and say/think/intend "I offer (or send) healing to all of us."
If, at the end of your practice for the day or session, you should feel that you are still connected to someone else's suffering or problems, disconnect by saying "I am done now," or simply "Good-bye!" Repeat if necessary. (Sometimes, if we are working on an emotional problem that triggers us, it will bring up troubling things which we must dismiss for the time being. You could always work on it again during another healing session if needed.)
FYI, I learned about this in a book by Andrew Weiss titled Beginning Mindfulness, New World Library, Novato CA, 2004, ISBN 1577314417. The book presents a ten-week mindfulness course, and the practice for the tenth week is tonglen. There is a Buddhist slant to the material, but the author incorporates other practices as well.
A couple of anecdotal stories:
I used the tonglen method four days ago (Thur, Apr 14, 2005) on my arm; I have carpal tunnel, and have had pain of one kind or another in my hands every day for the past three years. (I am having massage therapy for the condition. That helps quite a bit, but sometimes I move the wrong way, or grasp something the wrong way, and it aggravates the condition.) The other day, my left arm, from the heel of the hand to the shoulder, was just about killing me. I did this tonglen practice for ten to fifteen minutes, and my left hand has been completely pain free ever since....and I do mean completely pain free which is nothing short of a miracle! It may start bothering me again, but the last four days have been heaven as far as my left hand is concerned! :-)
As an update (Sunday, May 22, 2005) I'd like to add here that I have been having some carpal tunnel problems lately (mostly because the keyboard is at the wrong height again...will have to fix that!), but a few minutes doing Tonglen relieves the pain admirably.
Further update (Monday, June 13, 2005): in the past couple of weeks I've also used this method to relieve an annoying tooth problem. I walk every evening for 10 to 15 minutes, and I practice this healing method while I walk, breathing in pain and breathing out healing. It's an incredibly wonderful practice.
Here is some of the feedback I received on this post:
Massage therapy helped my carpel tunnel without surgery too. Due to neck & back problems from a fall from a tree when I was a child, I had been going to the chiropractor 2-3 times a week, then got it down to once a week or less....then realized my Buddhist practice, which includes some tonglen, relieved me of having to go to the chiropractor. I had learned of tonglen practice from reading Pema Chodron. She also has a CD which explains tonglen.
I like your version/explanation of tonglen best..... :-)......much more simplified than Pema Chodron's. However, if someone wants to read/study Pema Chodron's, I recommend her CD which, for me, was easier to understand than her book. Her book is "Start Where You Are". The CD, book & daily inspiration cards are in a set titled "The Compassion Box.”
~SB~
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I just wanted to Thank You for this Tonglen Healing. This morning coming in from watering, I slipped on the tile and twisted a muscle in my shoulder blade. I thought, good excuse to go and do the Tonglen Technique. I did, I sat and did the breathing and letting it heal through. I like that you add others into the technique as well. It made me feel real good… The muscle now barley has any little twinge left in it at all. I am just taking it easy and continue to do the breathing. Thanks again and I will definitely add this easy technique to my list of uses!
~J~
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I tried Tonglen once, on my stomach ache, and it really did work! Thanks for sharing with us that wonderful technique. :)
I have a wonderful teaching for you today about Nature. The direction this came from is somewhat unusual, but that’s the thing about Wisdom; you just never know what direction it’s going to come from, so always keep your eyes and ears open!
I am doing some editing for a friend of mine who I’ll call Richard since that’s his name. Richard is a retired Doctor of Chiropractic who now devotes his time to his Golden Bridge Seminars where he shares the wisdom Abraham as channeled by Esther Hicks who writes books and travels with her husband Jerry.
One of the main teachings of Abraham is to “go with the flow,” or “go downstream.” To get what you want out of life, to be where you want to be and in the circumstances and relationships and prosperity and places that are right for you, you do not need to struggle. Struggling is considered to be going upstream. You paddle and paddle and struggle and struggle, and where does it really get you? Nowhere.
Now, the reason I mention Richard today is that I am editing a manuscript for him. There is a miracle described in there, and you are going to have to read the book to learn what that is, but meanwhile….
While working on his manuscript, I came across a simple sentence that leapt off the page and just sort of hit me right between the eyes. I don’t know if this philosophy came to Richard before or after his interest in the Abraham-Hicks teachings manifested, but if it were before, I certainly can understand his attraction to the Abraham teachings and the Law of Attraction.
Richard’s philosophy is simple, and – as these things often are – simply profound: “Nature needs no help, just no interference.”
Just think about that for a moment and how it could relate to your health. Your wellness is in the hands of your immune system. Think about the ways you may be interfering with Nature and compromising your immune system by being exposed to household chemicals, eating an unhealthy diet, and living a stressed-out lifestyle. Certainly, none of those are in alignment or harmony with Nature or her “go with the flow, go downstream” advice.
As a Doctor of Chiropractic, Richard’s main interest was wellness, and his philosophy is a perfect reflection of his belief, and certainly aligns with the Abraham teachings as well!
If you are floating downstream, you are not “helping” Nature by paddling, and likewise, if you are floating you are not interfering with or hampering your harmony with Nature. Floating means letting Nature take its course
In the area of wellness, what this means is that when your body’s immune system, which is Nature’s way of keeping you healthy, is operating at peak efficiency, it can handle any disease to which you are exposed, either externally such as the flu or strep throat, or internally such as cancer or even arthritis. It is only when Nature – meaning your immune system – is compromised that you fall prey to disease.
If you want real wellness, there are two things you should do. First: Expect miracles, for that is how you create them. Second: Don’t get in Mother Nature’s way when she’s working to restore your health! Support your immune system by getting enough sleep, eating healthy, organic foods, and minimizing the stress that suppresses proper immune system function.
Seriously, I am going to post this statement where I can see it and be reminded of its wisdom every day, and I hope you do, too!
Remember: “Nature needs no help, just no interference.”
Today’s tip is an excerpt about the healing power of love.
This is a quote from pages 285 – 287 of the book Spontaneous Evolution by Bruce Lipton, PhD. In this segment, he’s talking about a man who is a medical doctor turned energy healer after receiving the message "Your work is to heal with love" during meditation.
That doctor’s name is Leonard Laskow, and his website where you may learn more about him and his book Healing With Love, as well as read articles, interviews and research papers is http://www.laskow.net/index.shtml
Lipton’s book describes some scientific experiments that Dr Laskow did with cancer cells in Petri dishes and the healing power of love, and that is what I’ll share with you here today.
"Laskow held three culture dishes that contained tumor cells in his hand while maintaining a state of focused healing consciousness. As an experimental control, a non-healer in another room held in his hands three other Petri dishes, inoculated with the same tumor cells. The non-healer was assigned a reading task while holding the cultures so that he would be distracted from influencing the cultured cells with his own intentions.
"Laskow experimented with several different emotional intentions while holding the cells, all of which sought to activate the natural force of coherence in the Universe. The most effective intention, the one that caused the cancer cells to diminish their growth by 39 percent, was "Return to the natural order and harmony of the normal cell line." When Laskow added visual imagery to the intention, the healing effects doubled.
"So, what's love got to do with it? As Laskow reports in his book Healing With Love, his intention was not to destroy the cancer cells but to allow them to exist as part of universal creation. Love, he explained, is the "impulse toward unity, non-separation, wholeness. While love can take many forms, its essence is relatedness." Laskow believes that the opposite of love is not hate but separation. While there are many different modes for accessing and using healing energy, Laskow's protocol involves connecting with the condition instead of separating from it."
"When we experience an illness or a life condition that we would prefer not to have, our first impulse is to cast it out. We tend to think of illness as a foreign invader that attacks us rather than something we co-create. However, when we truly own our participation in the condition, even if we don't understand the reason, we become responsible participants in directing our fate.
"With the awareness that our mind shapes our biology, we can recognize that we have the opportunity to change our minds and, thus, create a healthier biology. Given what we now know about the intelligence and functionality of our cells, maybe we can begin by humbly apologizing to our inner citizens and thank them for putting up with us! When we take the step of consciously loving our cells, we affirm that we are co-creating participants, not victims of life.
"An illness or disharmonious condition occurs when something is misformed or deformed. Healing, therefore, involves transformation to change the dysfunctional form. Here is Laskow's simple four-step transformational healing process:
"Step One: Inform yourself about what has already materialized in form. Telling the truth is the first step toward responsibility.
"Step Two: Conform to the condition by loving it rather than creating separation. Resonating with the form allows us more influence over its organization.
"Step Three: Unform the condition by releasing it. "It is this observer's intent," said Laskow, "that converts particulate matter to its wave form and its wave form back into matter."
"Step Four: Reform the released energy to conform to our purpose and desire. This is the letting go part where we send our intention into he Universe without attachment.
"Even when releasing the diseased condition, there is connection and not separation. Laskow wrote: "When you accept and love the parts of yourself you want to reject or change, you create an opportunity to discover the positive live force behind them." That old Biblical word atonement can be reinterpreted as at-one-ment through which we make ourselves at one with whatever condition we would have otherwise rejected.
"In the quantum Universe where everything is connected, love is the glue that holds things together. Said Laskow, "Love is a universal pattern of resonant energy." In this sense, two or more tuning forks vibrating together are in love with each other, just as two or more humans can resonate in a palpable field of connectedness, joy, and even ecstasy. Love, he said, "is the universal harmonic.”
End quote.
We all have the capacity to do this. I hope that along with whatever healing modalities you use, you will include the healing power of love to bring you back into harmony, happiness, and health!
Today’s tip is about a practice called Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT.
Although I have not used this myself, I was told about it by two psychologists who think very highly of the practice.
EFT was created by Gary Craig. In his manual, he explains it like this: “EFT is based on the discovery that imbalances in the body’s energy system have profound effects on one’s personal psychology. Correcting these imbalances, which is done by tapping on certain body locations, often leads to rapid remedies.”
There are many success stories not only concerning emotional wellness by people who have used the process to overcome anxiety and fear, but many cases where physical pain and illness have been cured as well.
Given what the practice is, I’m not surprised! It appears to be a combination between acupressure, where tapping instead of direct continual pressure is applied to various acupuncture points, and EMDR.
In Chinese medicine, every energy acupuncture channel not only corresponds to bodily organs and physical wellness but emotional wellness, too, so even though I haven’t tried EFT myself, I can see how it would be of great benefit on the principles of Chinese medicine alone.
Another facet of the EFT practice includes eye movements that resemble and possibly are related to a practice called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR. EMDR helps people overcome past experiences that trigger negative emotions and beliefs, and can relieve emotional distress. I have seen EMDR used in several cases involving young girls suffering from emotional traumas, and it did them a world of good. It’s a very effective healing modality.
So, if you are struggling with a physical or emotional issue, give EFT a try! You can download the basic manual for free from the website www.emofree.com
There are also additional materials including DVDs that may be purchased, but the free manual is all you need to get started with this wonderfully easy and holistic wellness technique!
This is a Daoist story about how beliefs create reality, and about attachment, from the Book of Lieh-Tzü translated by Lionel Giles in 1912.
“There was once a man who, though born in Yen, was brought up in Ch'u, and it was only in his old age that he returned to his native country.
”Yen was the northernmost State of ancient China, while Ch'u was bounded by the left bank of the Yangtsze.
”On the way thither, as they were passing through the Chin State, a fellow-traveler played a practical joke on him.
“Pointing to the city he said: 'Here is the capital of the Yen State'; whereupon the old man flushed with excitement. Pointing out a certain shrine, he told him that it was his own village altar, and the old man heaved a deep sigh. Then he showed him a house, and said: 'This is where your ancestors lived'; and the tears welled up in his eyes. Finally, a mound was pointed out to him as the tomb where his ancestors lay buried, whereupon the old man could control himself no longer, and wept aloud.
“But his fellow-traveler burst into roars of laughter. 'I have been hoaxing you,' he cried; 'this is only the Chin State.'
“His victim was greatly mortified; and when he arrived at his journey's end, and really did see before him the city and altars of Yen, with the actual abode and tombs of his ancestors, his emotion was much less acute.”
As you can see, the traveler’s belief that he was in his ancestral town created his reality and generated a lot of strong emotions for him even though it wasn’t true. Before you react to any statements or thoughts that may generate an emotional charge for you, make sure they are a reflection of reality.
Attachment can also generate strong emotions, just as did the attachment of the man to his native land. After he had spent his strong emotions believing the wrong place to be his homeland, his attachment became less and when he did arrive at his destination, he was able to view it with the detachment and calmness that bring about health and wellness.
The tip for this week is two-fold; before you believe something, make sure it’s real, and detachment allows you to maintain your harmony, happiness, and health.
Since tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox, it seems appropriate to talk about balance.
What balance is not, is a state of frozen equilibrium. Balance is all about living in harmony with life’s up and down cycles.
Think back to playing on a see-saw or teeter-totter when you were a child. If you sat there in perfect balance, going neither up nor down, that was no fun. The fun was swooshing up when you pushed off with your feet, and then landing with a bump when you came back down.
Life is a dynamic process, and the fun is often found in the many activities that fuel your busy schedule like work, sports, family outings, and running those seemingly endless errands we all have on our To-Do lists.
However, in order to create or maintain excellent health, you don’t want to be landing with a bump at the end of the day or the end of the week. That’s what robs you of good health.
When you have a few busy days in a row, schedule some down time to relax and rejuvenate, finish reading that book you started, or call an old friend to catch up on the latest news, or go for a leisurely walk in the woods or a park to get some fresh air.
If you have to dine on fast foods while dashing between appointments most of the week, treat yourself to a home-made dinner of fresh foods on the weekend. Don’t look at cooking as a chore, see your meal as a gift to yourself of healthy nutrients!
Take some time out to meditate, even if it’s only a few minutes a day in which you focus on your breathing. The effects of meditation are cumulative; the more often you do it, the longer-lasting are the benefits of improved focus and attention, healthy blood pressure levels, and greatly reduced levels of stress hormones that deplete your immune system and leave you vulnerable.
So, have fun on that teeter-totter because that’s what life is all about; it should be fun, but make sure you are in control of how hard you land!
Your tip this week is actually coming from Eckhart Tolle in his book A New Earth.
I was reading this the other night, and he's talking about the "modalities of awakened doing" which means how we live our lives and do all the things that we do in a conscious manner.
He talks about the three modalities of Enjoyment, Enthusiasm, and Acceptance. While Enjoyment and Enthusiasm probably don't need a whole lot of explanation, Acceptance is really interesting in the way he presents it, and that is what I want to talk about today.
I’m going to read from his book A New Earth, pages 296 to 297.
"Acceptance
"Whatever you cannot enjoy doing, you can at least accept that this is what you have to do. Acceptance means: For now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly.
"Performing an action in the state of acceptance means you are at peace while you do it. That peace is a subtle energy vibration which flows into what you do. On the surface, acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it is active and creative because it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, that subtle energy vibration, is consciousness, and one of the ways in which it enters this world is through surrendered action, one aspect of which is acceptance.
"If you can neither enjoy or bring acceptance to what you do – stop. Otherwise, you are not taking responsibility for the only thing you can really take responsibility for, which also happens to be the one thing that really matters: your state of consciousness. And if you are not taking responsibility for your state of consciousness, you are not taking responsibility for life."
That's the end of our quote.
Remember, every single thing you do, every attitude you bring to those things, is a vibration that you are putting out into the universe.
You are also taking it in to your body and creating your outer physical being as well as your inner physical being.
So, this week, think about Acceptance when you're doing something that is not your "cup of tea" as they say. Just accept that there it is, and that's how it is, and if you don't like it you know it's going to get better!
Today's tip is about reliving a joyful or sacred experience.
At least twice in the past week I've heard people talk about a really fantastic experience they had, and end with the lament that they wish they could experience that again. The reason they say they can't is because it was a special time, or those exact circumstances will never be repeated therefore they will never be able to enjoy that experience again.
The fact is, you can go there anytime you desire through your memory and imagination.
You do this a dozen times a day, but usually you tune into past experiences that create feelings of anger or sadness that create poor health, like an argument you had with your mate, or the guy who cut you off on the drive to work. When you think about it later, don't you feel the same intensity of emotions you felt at the time the event took place? Of course you do!
I think people tune into these experiences because they get an adrenaline rush: anger is nearly always rooted in fear, and fear evokes the fight-or-flight response and the rush of adrenaline to fight or flee. It also shuts-down the immune system so all your bodily resources are available for survival. When you experience that feeling of anger or fear, even in retrospect to an experience hours or days after the event itself, your immune system goes on vacation so your body can put all its attention on fighting or fleeing even though you don't have any reason At That Moment to fight or flee.
Your imagination is a very powerful tool, and your body can't tell if the experience in your mind is happening "now" or not. Every thought you have, you are having Now; every feeling evoked by those thoughts is happening Now. To your body, every experience is Now!
Use that as a tool toward health and wellness! Tune in to past experiences that make you feel happiness, joy, and love. You can relive those wonderful and fantastic moments just as easily as you can the moments of harsh feelings.
The only tools you need to re-experience a joyful or sacred moment in your life is your imagination and your willingness to revisit the experience. Not only will you bring those moments alive again and bask in those wonderful feelings, your body will be producing hormones to create excellent health as you do it!
This week, I am sharing a video with you from the Abraham-Hicks selection on YouTube. The topic is weight loss, and in terms of Creative Health, the advice given by Abraham through Esther Hicks certainly offers the best in Mind-Body Creation of a healthy attitude toward food and the attainment of your perfect weight: it has to be in the mind before it can manifest in the body!
Here is the description of the video:
"Abraham, translated by Esther Hicks, responds to a question from a woman has tried every diet, done every exercise, and still cannot lose weight.
"Sidestepping the usual - and often frustrating - approaches to the problem, Abraham lays the foundation of a mental attitude that brings to bear the power of Law of Attraction to create the most effective technique ever presented for losing weight.
"Excerpted from the 2 hour and 20 minute program "Think And Get Slim: Natural Weight Loss" which is available on DVD and CD from Abraham-Hicks.
"Recorded September 8, 2006 in San Antonio, TX."
If you are in Bend, Oregon and would like to learn about local Abraham-Hicks gatherings and workshops, please visit the website of Golden Bridge Seminars at http://www.goldenbridgeseminars.com/
