Celestial Meditation Nights help you recover your peace of mind, relax your body, and connect to your Soul, your true essence. You deserve to feel better.
“You deserve to feel better,” was the slogan for my business, The Massage Clinic, with four offices in Stratford, Milford, Orange, and West Haven, CT. I offered Meditation Nights once a month to the community for 8 years before I retired. A total of 8,000 appointments were held at The Massage Clinic for holistic health counseling as well as for massage therapy.
These meditation nights were very popular because they were a drop out of time, just as they are for you now, to reclaim parts of you that might have been lost in the shuffle of life.
Pay attention to your feelings, emotions, and moods because they tell on you, especially when you might be overwhelmed with juggling everything begging for your attention.
Now Historic Yoga, 58 Main Street (Rt 131), Sturbridge, MA, will be hosting Celestial Meditation Nights on the last Sunday of each month from 7-8 p.m. Everyone deserves a break now and then.
Keeping schedules are important, but so is self-care. When was the last time you took time out of your busy schedule, not to work or do an activity, but just listen and relax while uplifting yourself in an enjoyable setting?
The following is an article written by a person diagnosed with autism who is helping the world to understand, breaking barriers to ignorance and harsh judgment in the process. This post can also help people newly diagnosed with autism. I think it is time to recognize the fact that people diagnosed with autism are perfect as they are, not how others expect them to be. The paradox between what is considered to be “normal” and masking behaviors needs to be better understood. The world will be a better place if we can substitute empathy and compassion for ignorance and judgment.
“Masking is something I don’t think people understand very well.
“If you’re not familiar with masking at all, it is when a person hides socially unacceptable traits or behaviors and demonstrates or mirrors socially acceptable behaviors or traits.
“On the surface, it appears like someone is being knowingly and intentionally fake in order to fool their way into friendships, relationships and spaces they wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.
“But I was masking for 34 years before finally receiving an autism diagnosis WITHOUT CONSCIOUSLY KNOWING I WAS DOING IT.
“Intent is where I think most people get hung up. If they’re aware of masking at all, they assume it is done with the intent to deceive.
“What is *actually* happening is an instinctive and primal response to social trauma that is operating beneath the conscious awareness of the person who is doing it.
“Our modern Western society likes to fancy itself as a collection of individuals who are all “self-reliant.” If that were true, no one at all would panic about things like supply chain disruptions leading to empty grocery store shelves and Tom Hank’s “Castaway” wouldn’t have been quite so compelling if everyone lived entirely on their own with no help from anybody.
“We are FAR more interconnected, and interdependent, than we’d like to think. I view modern Western society as that precocious teenager with a haughty attitude who writes moody emo songs about what a loner they are and how they don’t need anyone… from their parent’s basement.
“The fact is, no human is an island. We ALL rely on one another. We ALL need connection with other human beings in order to survive.
“We think of ‘survival basics’ as things like food, water, shelter, etc., but think of Castaway again for a moment. Didn’t Tom Hanks have all those things? He figured out how to acquire food, water, and shelter, didn’t he? If those survival basics were all he needed, shouldn’t he have been surviving really well and having a great time? Physically, he was surviving. Mentally? Emotionally? The guy befriended a volleyball just to have some company.
“CONNECTION is just as much a ‘survival basic’ as food, water, and shelter. It is one of the very first things that we instinctively seek out as babies. And we do so because we cannot survive alone. Not as babies, not as children, not as adolescents, not even as adults.
“If it’s so hardwired into us to seek out connection, it makes sense that it would be the primal, subconscious part of our brain which would be in charge of a social coping mechanism like masking.
“That is how someone like me can go over three decades of life without knowing consciously that they are doing it.
“As I grew up, subtle (and not-so-subtle) feedback alerted me to the fact that my natural state of being was socially unacceptable. Most of this was happening mostly below the level of conscious awareness. So, subconsciously, I began to mirror others.
“Mirroring is something that even several species of animals do. It’s the reason why cats sit on books and laptops that their owners are trying to use – they’re *mirroring* their owners as a social behavior, to show shared interest, to connect.
“Certain species of penguins mirror, several other species of birds, several species of primates, etc. There are probably examples of mirroring in EVERY social species.
“And as animals don’t *quite* have the same level of consciousness as humans do, it is very clear that this is a behavior that is engaged in as an instinctual survival strategy, to meet the basic survival need of connection, not a conscious-level manipulation.
“Cats aren’t intentionally trying to deceive their owners when they are mirroring their owners, are they? They’re trying to CONNECT with their owners.
“And especially when we are young, connection is EXTREMELY important, speaking from a survival perspective. We are not yet able to meet our own needs. We need connection with family, caregivers, teachers, friends.
“So of COURSE, if we perceive that the way we are is endangering that connection, without even knowing it, we will begin to hide or downplay those elements of ourselves and to emulate the more socially acceptable qualities we have observed.
“That is what masking is. That is what mirroring is. It is a subconscious, instinctive attempt to gain one of the most important basics of survival there is: connection.
“It’s very known that many autistic people mask. In fact, I would argue one of the main distinctions between autistic people who non-autistic people perceive as “high functioning” and autistic people who non-autistic people perceive as “low functioning” is whether or not they mask.
“I would also argue that autistic people are FAR from the only human beings who mask.
“I would even go so far as to argue that masking IS a main component in non-autistic social communication. Except, instead of calling it “masking” non-autistic people call it “manners.”
“Or they call it their “work persona.”
“Hi! How are you?”
“I’m good, how are you?”
“Good, thanks for asking! Lovely weather we’re having today, isn’t it?”
“It is! Hopefully the weather stays good for the game tonight.”
“Fingers crossed! I need to get going to run some errands, but it was great running into you!”
“You too! Take care!”
“There’s an actual name for this type of conversation, but my internet isn’t working at the moment and I can’t look it up lol.
“It’s a type of communication where the point of the communication ISN’T to actually exchange information. The point is to follow along a prescribed script as a demonstration of politeness. In such a communication, it is seen as IMPOLITE to answer the question of “how are you?” with any answer beyond “good.”
“It involves potentially hiding someone’s true state and presenting only the socially acceptable state. Let’s say someone, a non-autistic someone, was having an absolutely terrible, stressful day. An acquaintance bumps into them and asks, “hi! How are you?” The non-autistic person is, truthfully, having an awful day. But they will most likely attempt a smile and reflexively respond, “good! How are you?”
“It would be seen as a social faux pas for them to answer with the true information: ‘I’m really struggling right now. Today has been so stressful and horrible, it’s the worst day I’ve had in a long time.’ That would brand them as a ‘negative’ person and it would be seen as rude to ‘burden’ the acquaintance with that information. Being branded as ‘negative’ and as someone who doesn’t follow basic rules of politeness will generally also involve that person being avoided socially, which is the opposite of connection. So, they hide it.
“I think that one of the main reasons why non-autistic people struggle to see autistic people who can and do mask as being “truly” autistic is because masking is such a huge part of non-autistic social discourse, and the ability to mask then is seen as a mark of someone being ‘normal’ (which, to a non-autistic person, is synonymous with being non-autistic.)
“In fact, one of the first traits that set apart autistic people from non-autistic people WAS being socially honest and blunt in that honesty. Think: Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory.
“In recent decades, diagnostic criteria, following better studies into neurodevelopmental ‘disorders’ like autism, have broadened to embrace autistic people who mask. It’s not that there are suddenly more autistic people, it’s that autistic people who have historically been excluded because of too-narrow diagnostic criteria are now being included.
“Autistic people who mask tend to be regarded as FAKERS all the way around. People who are not well-educated in neurodevelopmental conditions tend to think someone is ONLY autistic if they are blunt and/or can’t speak at all. So, they think any autistic person who can do a convincing impression of a non-autistic person can’t possibly be autistic.
“Then, if they are educated on masking, they then think autistic people who mask are inherently dishonest, or intentionally dishonest.
“The truth is, some autistic people can and do mask, and do so largely subconsciously as a survival strategy. Some autistic people can’t or don’t mask, and those tend to be the autistic people that others regard as ‘low functioning.’
“But we are equally autistic, those of us who mask and those of us who don’t.
“The reason why I also keep putting ‘high functioning’ and ‘low functioning’ in quotes is because functioning isn’t static, it is dynamic. There are times when I have the energy and mental bandwidth to mask, and times I don’t. And that’s about the extent of my control over masking.
“Since my autism diagnosis in 2019, I became consciously aware of masking and that I had been doing it my whole life. And that created a sort of conundrum for me, because now I can SEE myself doing it, but I can’t STOP myself from doing it. The only thing that stops the masking is when I literally CAN’T anymore because I don’t have the energy to.
“I WANT to stop masking. I don’t like that I do it. I do recognize that masking has the potential to help me gain more and better survival opportunities, but to hold on to those opportunities, things like relationships, jobs, etc., that mask must be maintained in perpetuity.
“Masking is energetically expensive. It takes a LOT of energy to do it on the scale that an autistic person has to do it, because we’re not just masking having a bad day, like the non-autistic person in the example above. We are masking WHO WE ARE.
“So, when I don’t have the energy, I don’t mask. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I don’t make facial expressions, and if I can talk in that moment, it is with a monotone voice, usually in one-word answers. In these moments, I seem very obviously autistic to the outside world. But I’m still the same person when I have the energy to mask and to seem talkative and gregarious. I’m still just as autistic.
“MY theory is that people who are regarded as ‘low functioning’ simply have even more sensory processing issues than I do, and it takes so much energy to just try to deal with that that they don’t have the energy to mask.
“I have sensory processing disorder and I also have auditory processing disorder. I have executive functioning disorder. But every autistic person is an individual with varying degrees of difficulty in all of these areas. I have a TON of problems with bright lights – bright sunlight, bright fluorescent lights, overhead lights of any kind, etc. I have a TON of problems with overlapping noises – lots of people talking at once, different songs playing at the same time, etc. I have a TON of problems with heat – I overheat very easily and when I do, I can’t focus on a damn thing. I have a TON of problems with certain textures of fabrics and seams, and I have to wear my socks inside out.
“But I am certain there are autistic people who struggle with these things to an even bigger degree, and if all their available mental and physical energy went to trying to manage that, they wouldn’t HAVE any energy left for masking.
“I truly think that is the main difference between autistic people who are deemed ‘high functioning’ and those who are deemed ‘low functioning.’
“This is already extremely long but bear with me for one more analogy.
“A woman is in labor. At the beginning of labor, she’s still able to talk, maybe even joke a little. She’s still able to follow most of the social rules of politeness. As labor progresses and she’s experiencing an increasing amount of pain and discomfort, she’s less talkative and maybe a little more blunt and a little more curt in her responses to people. When she gets even further into transition, and the pushing stage, she is now in more acute pain and discomfort than she ever has been in her entire life. It is ALL she can focus on. She may not speak at all and if someone tries to ask her a question she may even scream or swear at them.
“Even if she’s someone who, when not in labor, never wanted anyone to see her without makeup, she now is so focused on the physical process that she does not care that her hair, wet with sweat, is stuck to her face, that her mascara is running down her face, that she’s half naked in front of an entire room of people. She’s grunting and moaning and screaming, this person who under normal circumstances takes great pains to always be proper and polite. She may even be among the 80% of women who poop when she gives birth, and she may do it right in front of a room full of people.
“In the same way, I think this is EXACTLY what’s going on with “severely” autistic people. When you’re so completely overwhelmed by intense physical discomfort and pain, you don’t have the energy or ability to talk or to be polite. You may even be so focused on those discomforts and pains that you go to the bathroom without realizing it. (And of course, there are other differences. For instance, some autistic people ALSO have co-occurring intellectual disability, previously called mental retardation.)
“I’ve given birth twice and I am also autistic. Going through the different stages of birth is a very good corollary for the different stages of sensory struggles and having the energy to observe normal social niceties.
“In short, I think ALL humans, as a social species, engage in masking and mirroring, unless they are in acute physical pain and discomfort, as pregnant people are while in labor and as autistic people who experience extreme sensory processing issues are.”
I hope this helps people to have more empathy, compassion, and understanding when dealing with each other.
Don’t waste time, energy, nor money trying to stop the dysfunctional waves of your life. Rather, learn how to focus on a more productive and joyous path forward around them. You are not a victim of your life.
You can blame personalities, your thoughts, feelings, and emotions, or other people, places, or things, but the bottom line is, the rudder of your ship of life, (or the fin of your surfboard), when used expertly, can direct you out of chaos and into calm waters.
This sounds like common sense at first, until that turbulent and unexpected wave crashes into your life, attempting to drown you by diverting your attention during the momentary catastrophe. Chaos ensues, along with a sense of non-reality, or feeling lost.
Remember, you are the master of your ship (or surfboard), not the crisis, your health, nor the situation in which you find yourself. You are not alone. You are worthy. You are loved. You are love.
If you spend more time with your next positive step forward as opposed to focusing on the problem that is right in front of you, you will be able to circumvent the trips that trap you. This is good next-time advice. We all learn from our own mistakes. It’s a learning curve discovering what works best for you. Medications can help with depression, anxiety and panic attacks, but even if you are on medication, you will still arrive at the point of this post eventually. It is more helpful to you to get there sooner than later. Just know you can feel better.
“You Deserve To Feel Better,” was the motto of my business, The Massage Clinic, where I saw over 5,000 clients in over eight years. Yes, many came for massage, but they all received holistic health counseling, in addition to the many holistic health counseling clients that came through the doors of the four Connecticut offices.
I know. I can hear your reasons why this won’t work from where I am typing this at this moment:
“But this is my reality now!”
“I can’t deny my reality!”
“That’s wishful thinking!”
“My reality is a living hell!”
No. Those statements above are all part of self-sabotage waiting to fall on your head.
The minute you CHANGE HOW YOU ARE THINKING is the moment you begin to heal mind, body and spirit.
Yes, it IS possible to change how you are thinking. The resistance is in not WANTING to change this negative habit. It’s like the Laws of Thermodynamics, things in motion want to stay in motion, while things at rest tend to stay at rest. It’s call inertia.
Here is where positive self-talk comes in. This is why self-affirming mantras come in. They work 100% of the time, unless you listen to your previous negative programming rather than allowing your mind the possibility of new and unfamiliar refreshing thoughts. Old habits are simply easier for the mind to do. Bad habits are like that. You can change any habit you want to. You will never change any habit you do not want to. How much emotional misery do you wish to tolerate before you give these suggestions a serious try?
NEVER GET OFF ANY MEDICATIONS UNLESS YOUR DOCTOR TELLS YOU TO.
When was the last time you read an inspirational book?
When was the last time you tried something new, like gardening, going for walks, taking a ride to the ocean, hiking through a forest, or star gazing?
When was the last time you called an old (or young – going for levity here) friend, or made a new friend?
What are your negative bad-habit excuses?
I’ve yet to find a person who really embraces change, or loves change, that is, until the breath of long-awaited change reorders your life into something better, easier, more peaceful, empathetic, compassionate, and loving.
I once attended a western medicine conference on brain health and thinking. It was all about depression and how to deal with it. That program advocated for waiting, doing nothing, because they found out that if you do nothing, EVENTUALLY, I guess when the moon is in the right house, or the stars align exactly correctly for your horoscope chart, then the new day will come, and the depressed patient would sooner or later, have a better outlook. Of course, their method of treating depression also centered around the approved drugs they prescribed and the side-effects they encountered (naturally). This last counseling part was all they had, just wait it out.
I was so angry at the advice these western medicine nurses were dishing out like Carter’s Little Liver Pills (from back in the day when I grew up hearing this), that I stormed out of the conference when it was over. I could tell by the first few questions I presented to them about alternative methods of healing, that they would not consider anything else. They said, “Yes, but … it’s good to know if you do nothing the day will come when things get better.”
The questions and answers that were asked and answered infuriated me because I am trained in drugless therapies that work 100% of the time, unless they are not followed. The results using holistic health counseling protocols is astounding, in my experience.
Yes, they were correct. If you do nothing, one day the sun will shine again on your life. Of course, with their plan, you may have to wait an hour, a day, a month, a year, or years, but yes, their plan will EVENTUALLY work.
But why wait when holistic health counseling has proven that drugless therapies do work, and usually much quicker?
Holistic health counseling begins where western medicine leaves off, after taking years of counseling sessions, to find out WHY something is happening. “Who Cares Why?” as my Ph.D. counseling professor, Dr. Dolores Seymour, wrote in her book with this same title. At some point, which is the point I start with, begin to make a new plan, new positive habits. You’ve got this.
Getting a diagnosis does not solve the problem. It can help, I am not saying that it does not. But whether or not you have a diagnosis for what is happening to you and why you are feeling the way that you do, it is not the end of the path of healing. It is only the beginning, obviously. Prior to getting a diagnosis, you are treading water, staying in the same place, getting the same results. Even western medicine makes positive progress when they switch from, “Why is this happening?” to “Here are some mental and emotional thoughts that can assist you in such moments of depression and dysfunction.”
Yes, western medicine counselors do eventually get to this point, but usually they begin with reliving your childhood, your past paradigms of thoughts, words, and actions. This can take years. The point is, even when, and if, you eventually get “there,” you STILL need to begin with, “Are you willing, ready, and able to heal your mind, body, and spirit?”
12 SOLUTIONS
Are you ready to be lifted from the emotional baggage that is sinking you? Firmly MAKE A DECISION that you are ready, willing, and able to feel better, because, YES, you can.
Know you can begin your healing process today. Believe it. Tell that negative voice inside you, which is your ego, to be quiet. Know that from now on, you are in charge of you, not that negative, nagging voice. Your ego helps to keep you alive, but sometimes it thinks it is running the show. It is not. You and your DECISIONS are in charge of your life.
You do not need to explain your reasons nor your life to everyone. Ignore anyone telling you that this does not work, because it truly does work 100% of the time, unless you stop doing it, which will leave you back where you started, unfulfilled and frustrated with the loss of your personal power.
DECIDE TO CHOOSE peace, happiness and joy over anxiety, sadness, and gloom or other manifestations including anger, which is just a release valve of frustration. Stop being so harsh with yourself. If you could have done better, you would have. Forgive yourself and others and move on. Keep at it.
Begin saying a mantra in the direction you want to feel. For example, if you are feeling you are not worthy, repeat, “I AM WORTHY.” Go in the bathroom, car, or anywhere you have privacy. Stand in front of a mirror and say out loud to yourself, “I AM WORTHY” for five straight minutes. Say it with conviction. There is a healing vibration that takes place within your mind and body. To your Soul, this is a welcome recognition of who and what you truly are. Do this the first thing in the morning, before lunch, and before you go to sleep. Remember, you are breaking a bad habit. You will most likely not feel like doing any of this. Do it anyway. It works.
Write down your positive goals for your future. Write down short-term goals for how you plan on dealing with people, places, and things. Be specific. Also write down a few long-term goals. By writing these goals down, even if you never read them again, you are inscribing your intentions in your memory. The more you read over them, the more they will come naturally to you. Read them over often.
Get at least 15-20 minutes of exercise every day, whether you feel like it or not. It might be helpful for you to join a cycling, Yoga, or walking group. You may prefer to do this all on your own. Either way works, as long as you do it. Again, if you are still reading this, inertia has taken over depressive moods, making it necessary to kick its lazy butt. Even standing in your living room, doing stretches and deep breathing exercises works. Just do it.
Write down in your journal what you are eating. You truly are what you eat. What is it that is eating you? MAKE A DECISION to only eat foods that are healthy. Again, your ego might fight you on this point. Bad habits are hard to break. Make small changes rather than big unsustainable ones. Drink 8 glasses of water a day. If you are not a water drinker, get a 32-ounce bottle and guzzle it all at once, twice a day, as if you were taking medicine. Your brain is a hydroelectric machine. You need to hydrate your dehydrated brain. Did you know that you cannot think clearly with a dehydrated brain? This is especially helpful for the older population.
Get at least 8 hours of sleep per night. Yes, the most valiant among us, and doctors in hospitals, can survive on just 4 hours of sleep a night, or even less than that sometimes, but no one wants to have a sleep-deprived doctor work on them, nor be around anyone who sleeps less, because the truth is, no matter how well you think you can operate with less sleep, human beings are meant to regenerate their bodies, minds, and spirits/Souls by adequate sleep.
Know that it takes 21 days to break any habit, especially dysfunctional, life-long habits that have become hard-wired in the patterns that make you tick. If you fail at doing this, start again, and again. Continue with this process, which costs you nothing but your own desire, time, and energy. YOU ARE WORTHY of a life well-lived. This is a new path, a new idea. Yes, it is work to work on improving yourself holistically. But this work has no negative side-effects except to heal the depression and dysfunction which has sabotaged you thus far. This works side-by-side any doctor who prescribes you medication. There are no contraindications with this holistic health program. It is behavior modification you are seeking to achieve, replacing negative habits with positive ones.
BE THE DUCK. BE LIKE TEFLON. I used to keep a porcelain duck in each of my four offices as a reminder for them to BE THE DUCK. What does that mean? Notice how a duck simply floats on the water. When it wants to go in a new direction, it does not furiously flap its wings on the water in a temper tantrum. No, it simply makes a DECISION to fly off in the direction it wants to go. Also, when the duck eats from the muck at the bottom of the water, taking in what serves it and leaving the rest. The dirt and muck do not stick to the duck. It slides off easily, without any effort by the duck. Of course, an oil slick is another story! Still, with correct adherence to protocols that work, such as you sticking to these self-help suggestions, you can be free of the issues that have sabotaged you.
Concentrate on you. You are the one who keeps the measure of your success, no one else. Everyone has enough to do by taking care of their own selves. This is a self-help program which can only help you help yourself. You do not have to do any of this. You have the free will to keep on exactly where you are. These are merely suggestions of steps you can take if you want to feel better.
Stress, anxiety, and panic are humanity’s common dysfunctional responses worldwide, regardless of race, creed or gender, age, relationships, differences, and/or out-of-control tensions. The common solution that works 100 percent of the time is to induce the relaxation response by the use of forgiveness, understanding, peace, inspiration, tolerance, and kindness for most human interactions.
Stress, anxiety, and panic affect humanity systemically all over this beautiful world. Yes, it is really a beautiful place to live when we focus on the things that build us up, and find pathways to peace, building bridges for the common good, tolerance, and kindness. It is possible to find life-affirming solutions even in the most dire situations. One solution that works for all people everywhere is activating the relaxation response. This heals people, relationships, and the Earth. The question is, how?
Unbridled stress wreaks havoc in our lives. Often, we try to control the uncontrollable, then get stressed out when the impossible is inevitable, as if we can control what is outside us before we learn how to control what is inside us, our human emotions and our feelings.
Recognize the traps that trip you up, such as when you attempt to manipulate others, or when others try to do the same thing to you. Trial and error soon prove to you that this is not the way to run a business, or have relationships with friends and family, or anyone else. Manipulation of others seemingly strips you of your personal free will, but only if you let it.
Make a decision to “be the duck,” or “be like Teflon,” and allow the mean and cruel ways of others slide off you if this is happening to you. If they knew better, they would do better. Since they do not know better, you do not need to be influenced by their ignorance anymore. There is no benefit to you to take on the dysfunction of others. If you choose to make amends with others, at least be honest with each other. Pretending is never sustainable.
Emotional and psychological manipulations are warped negative behavior modification paradigms as a way others try to get you to do their bidding or act in a particular way for their benefit. It is seldom used for your benefit. Sometimes it only occurs to you after someone has usurped your free will in this way, appealing to your sense with their version of fairness or justice.
Emotional blackmail is a manipulation tactic of warped behavior modification which only works to some extent, as long as others play along in the same psychological game. An example of this kind of emotional blackmail is when a person tells you not to speak to them about a common third party or else you will be excluded from their presence also. Cults do this.
The key is to recognize when you are being drawn into thoughts and behaviors of others which go against what you want to think, say, and do. It is a power struggle for your personal power. Either they win and you obey them by never speaking of the person they want to shun with them, or you will be shunned too. You have a right to think and speak your mind without threats by others who supposedly know and love you. It is a choice you make to stand up for your personal beliefs.
Methods of guilt, obligation, fear, (known as FOG), and manipulation are usually short lived and tend to blow up in the faces of those involved. No one likes to be manipulated, nor feel the stress, anxiety, and panic to which these situations give birth. Truth always comes out in the end.
Re-member, you are in charge of you, not anyone else. Re-membering, as in re-connecting, means to align yourself with your original Spark of Life, the thing that makes you tick, the Light of your Spirit/Soul, the life which animates you.
No healing can take place as long as the “game” of manipulation and emotional blackmail is in play. Sadly, this is no game. Healing can take place, but not as long as the pawns of the game pretend along with the manipulator that the faux reality is real, and everything is alright. Healing can only take place with honest communication between all parties. Relationship stress can be relieved. Healing is possible for all involved, with a foundation of love, honesty, and forgiveness.
A good example of this is depicted in the Home Alone movie when Macauley Culkin as Kevin, meets his scary neighbor, Roberts Blossom as Marley, in a church. Marley tells Kevin that he does not need to be afraid of him anymore and explains that he is listening to his granddaughter practicing in the choir, they only way he gets to see her since her family does not speak to him anymore. With all the wisdom of a child, Kevin encourages him to take advantage of the Christmas holiday good cheer to connect with the family. The sage advice is taken, and the family rift is healed.
What the obstinate relationship manipulator does not realize is that they are also hurting themselves while continuing to commiserate their poison with others. It creates a life of hiding and constantly beating the dirge drum of dysfunctional memories rather than healing what is broken. The unforgiven memories take on a life of their own, overshadowing every other personal decision, where to live, who will be where, and conniving plans to not cross paths in a life-long avoidance dance. Their faux reality can make them feel empowered until they come across the person they pretend is not there, then they flee the reality of their own making with wings on their feet.
Be honest with yourself. Take stock of your emotional self and your thought process. What is your end goal? If you cannot solve major dilemmas at the moment, what are your short-term goals? Focus on what you can do, not what you cannot do. Making these goals helps to calm the mind, knowing you are working on something positive. Take a deep breath.
To get at the root cause of the problem, focus on your emotional and psychological process. This is where your personal power resides, inside of you, in your will, determination, and desire for good and healing. Take a stand within your heart, mind, and voice to reclaim your free will and personal power. This will bring you peace. Brainstorm on only positive remedies and notice what suddenly comes to mind.
This is also the same solution if you desire a stronger meditation or prayer life. Rather than trying to find the right church, the right club, or the right group of social friends, for example, you will make more progress if you take some quiet time, go within, and connect with your personal Spark of Divine Love and Light within you.
I am not saying you don’t need external support systems. How many times have you spun your wheels “out there,” and come back exhausted and worn out? There is an expression that fits this point:
“If we don’t go within, we go without.”
While it is good to know what your stressors are and know how to avoid them, nothing takes the place of growing an interior life of peace, affirmation, and inspiration. Take a lesson from Albert Einstein, Nichola Tesla, and Henry Ford. They each took time out of their day for meditation, then suddenly came across amazing enlightenments. The same thing can work for you.
This also brings an added benefit of enthusiasm, inner strength, and determination.
Meditation is the way to peace. Start right where you are. Notice Albert Einstein, Nichola Tesla, nor Henry Ford beat themselves up emotionally, spiritually, nor physically, saying how unworthy nor sinful they are. No, they simply took time to quiet the mind and connect with the Universal Source of Life Energy.
You will grow in peacefulness, serenity and tranquility if you take at least 15 minutes a day for some time apart, just for you. Think of it as your oasis of peace, a time just for you filled with connection to the Source of All Universal Life Energy.
Take a walk, jog, saunter or sit in nature using your five senses. Each time your mind wanders to the problems of the day, remind yourself of your mission for this 15-20 minute quiet time. Bring yourself back to finding the most beautiful site, the most beautiful sound, the most beautiful smell, the most beautiful touch, and the most beautiful taste, which might be a refreshing glass of lemonade when you get back. Find the wonder. Look for it. Let all other thoughts float on by. Find the amazing wonder of the moment.
It is not selfish to take care of the self. We are the temple of Divine Breath walking on this planet, touching the lives of others, healing them with our love and tenderness. We cannot do this if we have abused ourselves by not taking very good care of us.
Lastly, realize that the lessons we refuse to learn in this life determine what sort of life we assign to ourselves in the next.
Let’s delve a little deeper into the self-help tools that are available to you when you get caught in the trap of stress, anxiety, depression, and panic attacks.
We can use laughter and humor to move us out of anxiety and panic in almost all situations.
It helps to understand the deeper levels of you. By getting a better handle of how and when you lose control, you can see the patterns that throw you on the runaway merry-go-round anxiety trip. First of all, breathe. Take a deep, real deep breath right now. Take as many breaths as you need and focus on the fact that you can feel better by the end of this article.
Understand that no one wakes up in the morning and says, “I think I am going to make the worst decisions I can today. No matter what happens, I am going to shoot myself in the foot, and purposely mess up all of my plans and everyone’s else’s plans. On purpose, I am going to lie, cheat, steal, and be the worst possible person I can be.”
That is not the way things usually work. See if any of the following scenarios fit you, then try their remedies. You will feel better.
I will first caution you of the almost immediate voice answering you back in your head, you know, that self-sabotaging voice that says, “Oh, this is stupid. This won’t work.” Or for those of us who have spent years studying depression, anxiety and panic attacks, our often-over-educated ego dogmatically rears up and dictates, “That is not the way I was trained. These recommendations do not follow the protocol I was taught. There cannot be any other way to treat these symptoms other than the one way I know.”
Surprise, oh yes there is.
The other self-sabotage trap is to think, “I’ve already tried this. It does not work.” It is true that if you stop thinking and doing the self-help cure, it will not work. But if you do not give up, it does work.
You may be in the trap of giving away your personal power. Anxiety and panic issues have everything to do with giving away your power.
Are you still breathing? Oh yes, breathing. Let your shoulders detach from your ear lobes. Allow yourself to smile about this. It’s OK.
The very act of smiling, even if you force yourself to smile for no reason, begins the mental process of lightening the tone of yourself. This is why Laughter Yoga works. You are in charge of you. You can feel better if you want to. The question is, do you want to feel better? Be honest with yourself. History does not need to repeat itself unless you want it to.
You are not a victim unless you choose to be. Self-talk and self-improvement work even if you are on medication, or not on medication. Know that you are not bound by your past history to keep repeating patterns of dysfunction. You do have a choice. Again, do not listen to that self-sabotaging voice that says you always were and always will be stressed, depressed, and full of anxiety and panic attacks. You can stop all that NOW. History does not have to repeat itself.
Smile and relax as you understand that you really do have a choice. It haseverythingto do with the decisions you make. Until now, you may not have realized that you have a choice in deciding which thoughts you want to keep, and which thoughts are hurting you and you want to let go of. Until now you may have felt like a victim to your thoughts.
You might need a mental chisel to scrape that negative-thinking addiction out of your thinking process. If negative thinking, commenting, and behaviors have been deeply ingrained into the fabric of your mind, as if you were caught in an undertow carrying you out to the sea of despair, it may take longer to turn yourself around. Just know that it is possible to get out of that current of negative thinking. It can also happen in the blink of an eye. You simply have to want to do it.
Your thoughts do not think you. You think your thoughts. If you do not like how the way you are thinking is making you feel, CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS. DECIDE TO THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE. You CAN do this. You have within yourself the ability to decide not to let any person, place or thing intefere with your desires, hopes, dreams and reality.
How can you do this?
Think of the next possible step, the next lighter thought. See yourself on the road to recovery. No matter how many times you have tried this before, think of these attempts to get back in control of your life as training for this time, when you firmly set your sights on your recovery. YOU CAN DO THIS.
No one has control over you and your thoughts. Even if you are confined and in prison with real brick walls, you still have control of how you think, and how you are going to conduct yourself from now on. That is a dramatic example. I use it because each of us thinks our situation is so unique, so much more difficult than anyone else’s. This is not the case. These recommendations work 100 percent of the time. The only time they do not work is when we stop doing them. It is simply a negative habit you have reinforced which blinds you to other positive solutions.
You might feel more comfortable taking baby steps. Or perhaps you have had enough of living like this and decide to take huge leaps out of the habit of anxiety and panic. How fast you get out of the dysfunctional habit of anxiety and panic largely depends on how much we can take trying on new behaviors. It will feel strange at first to allow yourself to think in new ways. It will feel odd to laugh at yourself, to lighten up.
Even if it is not the case immediately, see yourself as whole, happy, in control of your life, in control of your thoughts. Refuse to be a puppet for others anymore. Refuse to be a puppet of the negativity in your mind. Do the things that if you were in control of your life that you would do. Bring in flowers, music, better lighting, good aromas. Even if you are telling yourself this is the opposite of how you are feeling, you CAN change how you feel by staying with it.
Keep with it, like flipping a switch, you are in charge of you. Be stubborn and dig your heels in and refuse to follow that old familiar path of negativity that leads you directly where you do not want to go. If there are people, places or things that are adversely affecting your mood, avoid them if at all humanly possible. This is a new beginning.
When your mind finds itself thinking of the worry or the problem, be gentle. Tell yourself you will worry later. For right now, DECIDE you will only think of positive, loving, healing solutions for yourself. You can do this.
I am board certified by The National Accreditation and Certification Board, as a graduate of The American Institute of Holistic Health and Wellness. As a holistic health counselor and practitioner, drugless therapies have been my life’s work which has helped over 5,000 people. If you have tried and failed before, I encourage you to try again, with a new outlook for a better, more fulfilling future.
While you know how to take care of your physical health, sometimes you might have the tendency to pay less attention to your mental health, trying to be valiant in the face of insurmountable situations. It’s as if you could only think better, you would do better. A bad habit to avoid is emotionally beating yourself up when that does not happen. You need to take better care of your mind. It is the first leg of your Mind-Body-Spirit Tripod which keeps you stable as a human being. It is not a New Age metaphysical concept. It is a reality of your complete Self.
Are repeating emotions and thought patterns beginning to occur to you?
Do the same shortcomings show up at unexpected moments?
Why did I say “YES” to this project?
With physical health issues, we tend to take care of the things we need to take care of. If we ignore the first symptoms of a problem, the pain associated with the physical problem usually sends us to the doctor, even if it is inconvenient.
But mental health issues often have another hurdle to jump over. Our pride, which is fed by our insane ego, suggests to us that if we were mentally strong enough, then we could simply wish our problems away, or worse yet, our insane ego might suggest that you are feeling so good, you should get off your medications because you do not need them anymore.
NEVER GET OFF ANY MEDICATIONS WITHOUT THE ADVICE OF YOUR DOCTOR WHO PRESCRIBED THEM.
The following considerations work both for people currently on medications, and for those who are not on medications.
Let’s go back.
Twice now, I have referred to the ego as the insane ego. The ego very much wants to have a loud voice, no matter how shy you might be, to keep you alive. The ego does not like to have its voice squelched. However, the ego can make its presence known so loudly that you trip over it time after time. So, I will be referring to your unbridled ego as the insane ego.
Your insane ego can rear up when you first become aware that you might be mentally unbalanced, overly frightened or overwhelmed, by suggesting that this problem “is all in your mind,” and that, “It will go away.”
Guess what?
Problems, mental or otherwise do not go away when we do not deal with them.
It is important for good mental health, to acknowledge your feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong. They simply are. Unpleasant feelings like guilt, unworthiness, grief, and depression do not magically transform themselves by stuffing them deep, down inside you, or denying them.
First, we need to acknowledge them. Sometimes these feelings are so strong they create a physical pain, like a migraine headache, but that’s just the symptom of the emotional pain. Migraine headaches are usually not the root problem. Know this, once you identify the source of the problem and deal with it, the pain begins to lessen, while your personal power grows stronger.
Whatever you focus on grows. The more you focus on the anxiety, the more the anxiety grows. The more you concentrate on panic attacks, the stronger and more frequent they can occur. The good news is, the more you focus on relaxation, and doing the things that bring on the relaxation response, the more you will unwind and heal.
While it is not healthy to pretend that you do not have anxiety, it is healthy to have a conscious plan including self-talk and mantras. You can keep repeating phrases which are higher in vibrational frequency to yourself to re-train your mind in how to think. Yes, there are times medications are needed, but quite often using these simple self-help tools work to reduce stress, restore mental balance and increase self-esteem without them. The good news is self-talk and mantras always work, unless you stop using them.
For panic attacks, remember to breathe. Nowadays we do not breathe right. When we do breathe, we do not get the same amount of oxygen as we did a century ago due to so much pollution in the air. Plus, we are cutting down the rainforests in the world, which are the lungs of the planet. So, remember to take slow, deep breaths. After taking 15 slow, deep breaths, your blood pressure usually returns to normal.
Cutting down the Amazon Rainforest
You need to know, if this hasn’t occurred to you already, that you are not going to “feel” like doing any of this.
Once the negative habit of anxiety has rooted in you, a little voice inside of you will start by telling you, “This is stupid,” or “It won’t work,” or “I don’t feel like it.” It’s like you have the negative you on one side, and the positive at-least-wants-to-try-to-be-positive you on the other side. Realize this beforehand so you expect it, then consciously take the steps to get better anyway.
Yes, you can feel better.
To reduce stress, make sure each day includes stretching, Yoga or walking. Remember to move your body in five different directions. For example, you could do a forward bend, arch your back backwards, lean from the waist to one side sliding your hand down your outer calf or wherever you can reach, then do the same thing on the other side. Lastly, do some sort of twist, gently. None of these moves need to be extreme. They just need to be done. This helps you by releasing those feel-good endorphins. Start by doing this for five minutes, then gradually over a few days increase to 15-20 minutes each day, rain or shine.
Listen to happy music you like. Relaxing music helps a lot.
Know too that the world is not going to come to an end if you do not get everything on your to-do list done. Your head already knows this, yet somehow, we place enormous burdens on ourselves, out of a misguided goal of perfection. Accept yourself right where you are, right now, with all limitations you see. Ask your Higher-Self, your I AM Presence, for the assistance you need. It is not that you are perfect if or when you get 900 things done in a day. Give yourself permission to be you and enjoy the wonder of every moment.
Migraine headaches, sciatica, joint pain, bad moods, fear, anxiety, panic attacks, and depression are a few of the crippling signs to watch out for that let you know you have taken on too much. If this resonates with you, adjust your schedule, and/or change your personal paradigms. These can be toxic relationship changes or finding a new job situation.
The body tells on itself, even when you are not listening. You do know what makes you tick. With the business of everyday life, constant demands by others, and work, school, health and personal schedules, over-extension can invade even the best made plans. It is healthy to push ourselves for a short amount of time, but it is not only unhealthy to overexert your body, mind, and spirit until there is nothing left of you, it can shut you down completely, even to an early death. When you drive a machine beyond its breaking point, it breaks. You are worth so much more than a machine.
Still, if we fail to heed the warning signs, body systems shut down. You might think you can handle anything, but the reality is, you are not a machine, nor should you want to be. It is not a testament to you that you can endure more stress than the lift off of a rocket into outer space. That is truly the tell-tale mark of an egomaniac.
How do you put the pieces of yourself together after major life changes, the death of loved ones, and the demise of all you held to be true, which proved to be otherwise?
Breathe. Just breathe. Be gentle. Go slow. Life is not a race. Meditate on why you are here on Earth in the first place. You chose to be born for a reason. Do you know your life’s mission and dharma yet?
It is no accident you are here, however you got here, and whatever the circumstance. The world needs you. You are not insignificant.
If you have yet to map out your next steps, look around you. What is calling for your attention? Is it healthy to pour your energy into this project at this moment in time, or is it time to move on?
Be honest with yourself. If you do not deal with the dysfunction you observe, you are doomed to keep repeating the patterns that have sabotaged you until you tackle the issue head on. All of this information sounds like common sense, but when you are in the thick of a gut-wrenching or heart-throbbing situation, you may not be able to see the forest for the trees.
Migraine headaches, sciatica, joint pain, bad moods, fear, anxiety, panic attacks, and depression are a few of the crippling signs to watch out for that let you know you have taken on too much. If this resonates with you, adjust your schedule, and/or change your personal paradigms. These can be toxic relationship changes or finding a new job situation.
Regardless of what anyone else tells you, no one, no spouse, no boss, no friend or family member is in charge of your health nor happiness. No one should ever tell you that you are to be on call for them 24-hours a day, 7-days a week. Even a life-saving surgeon at the hospital has other medical staff to back up the life-saving care.
It’s time to stop treating people as objects. You are worth more than that.
Migraine headaches, depression, stress, anxiety, and panic attacks are side-effects, not the problem you may think you have. When you go to the doctor or mental health provider to prescribe medications for migraine headaches, depression, stress, anxiety, and panic attacks, you are only dealing with the secondary cause your malaise. Why not eradicate the primary cause of your issue?
While reading this meme you might ridicule the solutions suggested, while simultaneously thinking that your problem is far worse, or that you are not understood by the people in whom you confide.
Think of a lawn filled with dandelion weeds as the pain and anguish you are feeling. Simply mowing the lawn and cutting off the heads of the flowering weeds does not eradicate them. The roots are still present, growing deeper and resistant to the mower, which is actually spreading them. This is the exact opposite of the relief you are seeking.
Facing the actual problem in your life that is leading to recurrent migraine headaches, depression, stress, anxiety, and panic attacks takes courage. Just because something seems insurmountable does not mean that it is. It takes a concerted effort to rid the lawn of weeds, just as it does to annihilate the root causes of mental and physical malady.
SOLUTIONS:
Honor yourself by taking time out, at least 15 minutes, out of your day, not doing anything else, nor doing two things at once, like driving AND counting that as your 15-minute recouperation.
Consciously do slow rhythmic breathing. Inhale for the same count as you exhale, focusing on each breath. Do this for about 2 minutes.
As you take in your next breath, tense the area around your eyes, hold tightly, and relax your eyes as you exhale.
Breathe in and clench your teeth and jaw, hold, then relax your teeth and jaw on the exhale.
Raise your shoulders as you breathe in, hold and imagine your shoulders connected to your ears, then relax your shoulders as you exhale.
Tense in your upper and lower arms as you inhale, hold arm tension as if you are back in school holding heavy books, then relax your arms as you exhale.
Make a hard fist in each hand on your inhale, hold tightly, then relax your hands and fingers as you exhale.
Tense your abdomen as you breathe in, hold for a moment, then relax on your next outbreath.
Tense your buttocks, hips, and legs as you breathe in, hold tightly, then relax those muscles as you exhale.
Curl your toes tightly as you inhale, hold tightly, then relax them on the exhale.
Take relaxing breaths with each inhale and exhale for 3 minutes.
Simply relaxing your breath for 15 minutes lowers blood pressure.
The above is an excellent self-help tool to relax, reduce stress, tension, anxiety, and panic. But sometime life presents situations for us to deal with when we are not ready or willing to do so. We need to be fully conscious of the changes in our lives. We need to find the time to review our lives from time to time.
How much pain, loss of work, and lack of pleasure in life are you willing to put up with, rather than deal with the cause, not just the symptoms of your life?
Courage is not having no fear. Courage is facing your issues head on, as opposed to carrying the heavy mental and emotional burdens on your mind, shoulders, and stomach. Notice the parts of your body that try to capture your attention when you deny the reality of your life. Yes, even your stomach physically can get into the mental and emotional trash can of your life.
Notice also, that the body tells on itself. Your body manifests all function and dysfunction of your feelings, such as getting an upset stomach or an ulcer from being emotionally upset. The bigger the emotional upset, the bigger the physical manifestation is in your body. You may also notice heat radiating from certain areas of your body where the excess worry, stress, and/or pain reside, extending out from your body as tangible heat in your aura. This is also felt by the person standing next to you.
Weighing the benefits of over-committing yourself or excusing the real reason for the negative way you are feeling, only leads to fertilizing more of what you do not want to live with, such as a body constantly and repeatedly registering mental and emotional pain and anguish.
Think of the first time you got that migraine headache.
How old were you?
What was going on?
How often does this pattern repeat today?
Do migraine headaches still play a part in your life today?
Pay attention to the major events in your life. Were migraine headaches present at your wedding or other poignant moments?
Looking at your life as a whole, not just isolated events, can point to the solutions you know deep down inside yourself that you need to make, address, or readjust.
Putting up with recurring pain is not the solution. If the root cause of recurrent pain is physical, medical or chiropractic solutions can help. But if the root cause of the migraine headaches, depression, stress, anxiety, or panic attacks is mental or emotional, then dealing with the root cause of the issue, not the symptom is the solution.
Why wear down your mental and emotional health, affecting your personality and the reality you are choosing, when coming to grips with changing your relationship, employment, or other outer conditions can heal you completely?
Yes, you DO have a choice. This brings us to another important point.
How much do you matter?
How much do you matter to the other people around you?
How much of you do you give away to make those around you happy, at your own expense?
YOU ARE WORTHY.
YOU ARE WORTHY OF A PAIN-FREE LIFE.
YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVE.
YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVING YOURSELF.
YOU ARE WORTHY OF HEALING YOURSELF.
YOU ARE WORTHY OF BEING HAPPY.
YOU ARE WORTHY.
Seek a holistic health counselor is you need support in changing your life, lifestyle, honoring exactly who you are as you are right at this moment.
Are you a little stressed out? Are you fighting with the dragons within you? Do you want to gain control? The Dragon is giving you a clue.
Notice in the above picture that the Phoenix is rising to meet the Dragon, which is clinging to two blue Baoding Balls. This is a representation of you each time you feel yourself beginning to be out-of-control, not knowing which way to turn. What is a person to do with the conflict and turmoil within when the pressure mounts and temperature rises?
Why is the Dragon clinging to those blue Baoding Balls?
Baoding Balls are more than just your average stress balls. They are an invention with a deep oriental history of chi merged with the practice of traditional Chinese medicine. Older than the Great Wall of China, their popularity is still growing around the world due to the many benefits they provide for the mind, body, and environment, according to https://www.boadingballs.com/.
Let me add that mind over matter thinking is one of the greatest self-help decisions you can make in times of confusion. You are in charge of you, not your fears, not your worries, and not your forecasting gloom and doom. While you might have your own inner dragons, remember you also have your Pheonix rising. Listen to your better selves.
But there is more involved than simply changing your mind. There are also physical things you can do to center yourself. Your body tells on you. When you do not listen to your body, it begins little by little to catch your attention, until after days, months, or years of you ignoring symptoms and putting up with those inconveniences, it demands attention in shutting parts of itself down, requiring major repair or dramatic healing of various dis-eases.
Being strong and pretending to be strong are two different things. Your body knows the difference, even if you are pretending not to notice. While the adage “fake it until you make it” works for short stints until you gain your stability, you literally need to calm down.
Calming down might be the last thing you think of in the middle of a crisis, but it is the only thing that can assist you, allowing you to think clearly. Meditation and contemplation work great, when they work. Yet there are times when relationships are falling apart, jobs are lost, and dis-eases claim the lives of those we love. Staying calm in these moments seems to be a paradox.
There are physical things your body can do to alleviate stress and struggle. Exercise, like walking, Yoga, or going to the gym will help the mind with the extra oxygen intake, as well as muscle movement. But these practical suggestions might be way out of the realm of possibility at moments like these. There are times when the stress is beyond the physical ability to exercise, meditate, contemplate, or even pray past the one sentence plea.
Working with Baoding Balls, revolving them in the palms of your hands, actually calms the mind, body, and spirit. While it is a physical movement you do with your hands, it is also a meditative thing you can do than calms the mind and the spirit.
You need to not listen to that nagging inner voice that tells you immediately, “That won’t work,” or “That is stupid,” or any other self-sabotage bad habit that keeps you stuck right in the dysfunction. People get used to the dysfunction, pain, and/or negative situation that they know, making positive change seem out of reach. Please know that it is not.
Physically, the body has meridian lines that both begin and end at the tips of your fingers. EMTs know that if someone is appearing to have a heart attack, it helps if they apply pressure from their knee as they kneel next to the patient, on the patient’s ring finger of the left hand, a heart meridian point. This kind of technique also works with Baoding Balls.
Baoding Balls are metal balls small enough to hold in one hand. They are also known as Chinese “balls for ball practice” exercise balls, Chinese health balls, Chinese meditation balls, and Chinese medicine balls. Baoding Balls are used by rotating two or more balls repeatedly in the hand. They are intended to improve finger dexterity, relax the hand, or aid in the recovery of muscle strength and motor skills after surgery. Baoding Balls have helped people suffering from arthritis, stress, and stroke to practice kung fu, play sports, and play music. Baoding Balls work similarly to Western stress balls.
For the Mind – When your mind is stressed out, you have trouble focusing and relaxing. Stress can cause you to age faster and the effects on your health are very negative. Baoding Balls are unique because the way you use them is very rhythmic and relaxing. Rotating the balls is very calming and releases healthy energy by stimulating acupressure points. Baoding Balls also can have musical chimes, when rotated, produce a pleasant melody helping you meditate achieving Zen and harmony.
For the Healthy Body – In our modern world, Baoding Balls for the body is likely more relevant today than before. Our daily lives task our body with repetitive motions. Joints and muscles risk injury by overuse when working at our desks and doing other activities. This has led to conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis, arthritis, nerve damage, etc. Baoding Balls stretches the tendons and muscles and works the muscles in balance so one muscle is not overused. The motion of the exercise increases circulation and reduces inflammation on the nerves. Baoding Balls also incorporate the healing effects of Chinese medicine by targeting the meridians of your hand. These elements can be explored further on our website.
For the Stronger Body – Just as there are Baoding Balls great for stress management, Baoding Balls are also made for strength and hand coordination. In ancient times they would use stone or iron balls to build hand and arm strength. It was often used with martial arts. Today, stone balls still exist with iron balls replaced by the more popular steel balls. People greatly interested to build strength and dexterity would start with 2 balls and increase the speed or the number of balls they could work with. There are methods and techniques to go beyond 5 balls in one hand. It really is amazing.
For Long Life and Longevity – The longest living emperor of China, emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, attributed his long life to his daily practice with Baoding Balls. They were prescribed by his personal doctor and the results were a leading reason for the spread of the practice. A healthier mind and body will be beneficial to your longevity and lower stress will keep you feeling younger.
For the Environment – Baoding Balls can be a work of art, often given as gifts to elders. Baoding Balls are painstakingly hand designed by craftsmen featuring beautiful cloisonne artwork and hand painted artistry. Another technique is by hand engraving elegant designs on metal balls. They are functional and beautiful to look at. Similarly, Baoding Balls made from gemstones such as jade can be a stunning and eye-catching piece to your surroundings while bringing in the positive metaphysical energy of the gemstone. Keeping one of these kinds of Baoding Balls is like adding a piece of art to your environment while being functional at the same time. As in feng shui, beauty triggers positive feelings and positive changes.
Here are some traps to avoid those thoughts and emotions that hijack your mind and memories like an unattended runaway train careening down the mountainside cliff of depression. Following each trap is the mental health tip to remind yourself of in the New Year 2022.
Notice the word “remind,” as in correcting your mind that the erroneous notion of energizing negative perceived thoughts and emotions are your reality, and all else is non-reality. Reset your mind, remind yourself to be fully present in the present moment.
Avoid the mental gymnastics of mental moving-making reruns that keep you living in the past, clouding your present moment, and overshadowing your future.
Trap: Feeling depressed and recalling to the present moment all of the injustices everyone individually has ever done to you.
Tip: Learn from the past as you review your life at this moment. Discover what went right and what went wrong. Stop lamenting. You cannot change the past. But you can make more life-affirming decisions with compassionate understanding in how you handle similar situations in the future.
Trap: Wallowing in old familiar hurts, mental anguish, and regrets, refusing to think of anything other than those worn-out painful memories.
Tip: Change the record on your mental record player. Change these negative pre-recorded tapes stuck on rerun. You can change negative thoughts and obsessions by mentally putting them on the back shelf of your mind. You are not denying these things happened. They are part of your lived experience. They are fodder the life lessons as they came to you, reminders not to slip back into what did not work for you. But these past negative experiences need not dominate your current every thought, word, nor action. By mentally setting them aside, you make room for more constructive thoughts, decisions, and positive alternatives, allowing you to live in the beautiful gift of the present moment.
Trap: Stubbornly refusing to dodge the bullets of self-sabotage when you recognize it is beginning to happen. This is just as addictive as drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, or any other addiction.
Tip: What you focus on grows. Consciously tell yourself to think of more positive thoughts, even when a part of you fights this notion. That is part of the self-sabotage trap. This is the ego running full steam ahead, much like a two-year-old temper tantrum. Don’t give in to it. Stop being a victim. You are not a victim of your thoughts. You think your thoughts. Your thoughts do not think you. Reclaim your personal power by constructive alternative thoughts, words, and actions. Come back to the present. Release the past for a better present and future.
Trap: You feel helpless, with no energy.
Tip: At the moment of feeling lethargic, inertia is at work. Things in motion tend to stay in motion. Things at rest, including you, tend to stay at rest. This is the law of thermodynamics at play. The key to a stuffy, bottled-up house is to open the windows and let the sun and breeze in. It starts with a concept. Change what you are thinking about to a good memory, a fun time, a moment that made you smile. Naturally this does not change the past experiences. Still, make a new plan to improve some aspect of yourself, or to look at others with more empathy, both for yourself and them. Take a ride in nature. Get a bouquet of flowers. Cook something delicious. Boil cinnamon and cloves in water on the stove. This aroma, like citrus aromas help to lift moods.
Trap: Mentally feeling and acknowledging you are in a negative mood, over, and over, and over in your mind, because that’s the way you are feeling.
Tip: Moods follow thoughts, always. It is never the other way around. The way to change your dark, negative moods is to think more positive thoughts. It is a mental switch you flip in your mind. This is a conscious decision you make. Make a positive, life-affirming plan. Make lots of plans. Brainstorm positive alternatives and choose one to follow.
It might seem like you have a bucket of cement encasing your body, mind, and spirit, as if you do not have a choice after a year of disappointments, crippling seclusion, and mandated changes to your life for the greater preservation of all people. Do not fall victim to this self-sabotage. Know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Also remember that now is not forever. Things can get better, no matter what is going on in your life.
Things can also get worse, much worse, depending on how much you want to torment yourself by negative thoughts. You are in charge of you, no one else. The choice is yours.
Know that now is not all there is. The future is bright for you, in all ways. There is much to discover in this life. There are opportunities and new therapies yet to discover. Science discovers new things every day. Find the hope, the joy and the abundance of all good things. That is my New Year’s wish for you.
Do you ever find yourself rushing around until life’s no fun? Is your to-do-list longer than the distance from here to the moon? Will you turn into a purple pumpkin if you do not get it all done? How is your blood pressure? Having any physical side effects to stress yet? Is your speech coming out faster than a sonic jet? Texting, eating, drinking, on the cell phone while driving, see the problem? Are you addicted to activity? Where’s the balance?
Breathe.
You are in control of you, not your schedule.
You are in control of you, not other people.
You are in control of you, not the situation.
If the merry-go-round of life is going too fast for you, stop and simplify. Find your balance point. It is literally a matter of life and death. The fastest way to age is to live a life of prolonged, severe stress. Stress brings on major, serious illness and death.
Everyone can push extra hard in life, for a short while, to help someone out, to rise to the occasion, or if the job demands a short but strenuous burst of energy from you. Your employer does not own the rights to your life. You do.
No one can sustain prolonged stress. The body breaks down. Your emotional self breaks down. It is not what nature intended for you on the day you were born. At first you may not associate various ailments and symptoms as stress related. Stress is not a natural state for us. Stress is not good for us, no matter how used to it we are.
How do we break out of this extremely addictive, self-destructive habit of racing through life like a chicken with its head cut off? Like changing any other habit, it is going to take 21 days to try on new habits of relaxation techniques, slow breathing exercises, body stretching, aerobic activity, walking, jogging, bike riding or swimming. You know what works for you. Give yourself breaks. Breaks are lifesaving.
Take a moment to watch how nature works. Roses do not rush to bloom. They take their time. They open and unfold slowly, all in good time. Savor each moment in this life. You are here for a reason. If you fly through your life too fast, you will miss so much. We all have 24 hours in a day. How you spend it really is up to you.
It is a mistake to give everything on your agenda the same emergency intensity, as if completing each task is equivalent to putting out a fire. You are a human being, not a machine. We all know this. It is good to be reminded from time to time, not to take ourselves so seriously. When you’re stressed, the first thing to go is your sense of humor. That’s a clue.
Lao Tzu once said, “Nature Does Not Hurry, Yet Everything Is Accomplished.”
We are made from nature. We are made of the stuff of the earth. Our vitamins and minerals replenish what we deplete each day, such as magnesium, zinc, copper, calcium, etc.
Stress, worry, anxiety and panic solve nothing. You already know this. It shuts you down, makes you so sick that you want to crawl in a hole or not even get up. They are lower vibrations that do not serve you. You can drop them if you choose to. It truly is a choice. Remember, you think your thoughts. Your thoughts do not think you. If you have had enough of something, or some thought, change it. Switch on some music. Take a walk in nature with a focus on seeing, hearing, touching and feeling a flower, a bird, or even observing people in a coffee shop. Taste an inviting hot chocolate, chai tea, coffee or pomegranate juice, something that sounds good to you. Reach out to that friend that makes you laugh. Raise your vibrations.
It helps to change the constant negative tape that the ego wants to run over and over again in your head. Once you recognize that this tape is no longer serving you to your highest good, you can simply change it. You are in charge of you, not your insane ego that wants to run amuck. The ego thinks it is in charge of you, wants to be in charge of you. The most wonderful news is that it is not!
You are in charge of you, of what you think, of what you deem to be important, of what your next positive steps will be, of what you want your mood to be. Again, remember, moods ALWAYS follow thoughts, not the other way around.
The light is within you. You are light. You are love. The more you read this, the more it will become second nature to you. There is more to you than you know or realize. As soon as you discover something new about yourself, something else new pops up for your awareness and consciousness to take in. You are more than your thoughts. You are more than your body. You are even more than your spirit. There is so much more to you than you realize.
BASIC MASTER TEACHER WORKSHOP
OCTOBER 9-11, 2021
Step Into Your Mastery ~ Step Into Your Power
Seats Available: 4
Cost: $377, due by September 25, 2021 so registration to the International School of Esoteric Sciences can take place, and the manual, which is copyrighted and trademarked, can be produced and received in time for the workshop.
PREREQUISITE for this Basic Master Teacher Workshop is the Basic Master Workshop and/or the New Paradigm 13D MDT Workshop. Students will need to provide their certificate numbers for the certified courses they have taken, allowing them to take this workshop. This Basic Master Teacher Workshop is a three-day workshop where students will learn how to teach:
What Self-Mastery Means to You as an Individual
The Responsibilities of Mastery
Responsibility to Students of a Master Teacher
How to Activate Others
How to Clear Energy Blockages from the Bodies
Hands On and Activation Practice
How to Facilitate a Workshop
Channeling
Staying in Touch and the Foundation
On Freedom and Boundaries
Upon completion of this workshop, students will be able to teach the New Paradigm Multidimensional Transformation (NPMDT) Basic Master Workshop. John Armitage, co-founder of the NPMDT Workshops, along with Germain, teaches the 13D Master Teacher nine-day workshop.
13D MDT WORKSHOP
NOVEMBER 13-14, 2021
AND
NOVEMBER 20-21, 2021
Remember Who You Are
Seats Available: 4
Cost for this NPMDT 4-Day 13D MDT Workshop is $482 due October 30, 2021, in order that registration in the International School of Esoteric Sciences can take place, and the certificate, and manual (which is both copyrighted and trademarked), will be published and received in time for this workshop.
If you would like to connect on a more expanded level with all energies of the New Paradigm Multi-Dimension Transformation, consider registering for the upcoming 13D Multidimensional Transformation Workshop taking place November 13-14, 2021, AND November 20-21, 2021. For anyone on the path to personal transformation and self-realization this workshop is a real gift to the self. In this amazing workshop in a systematic and thorough, well-crafted whole the participant is brought back into strong contact with their own personal true core essence.
A deep rebalancing of the mind/body/electro-magnetic system can be realized. The individual usually takes a huge step forward on their own personal path of transformation. The biggest requirement is to be able to allow and let go.
The personal capacity to receive and share energy will grow impressively in this School of Esoteric Sciences course of the workshop and continue to do so afterwards. I am a certified teacher of this international school.
Course Duration: 4 days (minimum 32 hours)
Prerequisite:No prerequisites. Anyone who feels called to can take this course.
As the year winds down, it is a good time to go within and receive 13 meditations and activations. These are not one-size-fits-all-activations, allowing for individual energetic, personal growth, development, and awareness to bloom.
This 13D MDT Workshop includes 13 multidimensional activations of the most expansive and most recent evolutionary energies available to humanity on this planet. Also included are clearings, code activations, and personal activations including 12 dimensions of these personal transformation energies, plus the 13th activation which opens you to further ones as they become available to humanity and as you are ready.
Students are responsible to bring their own snacks, beverages, and lunches.
This 13D MDT or the Basic Master Workshop is a prerequisite to take the Basic Master Teacher Workshop. It is also a prerequisite to take the nine-day 13D Master Teacher Workshop, which is only taught by John Armitage.
To register for these NPMDT Workshops, email linhourihan@yahoo.com, or call 413-245-0129.
These workshops are a wonderful time away from your everyday life filling you with renewal, balance, breathing, inspiration Love Without Conditions, and Non-judgment.
Click on this healing music video and listen to it while you read the following meditation. Rest between verses. Picture yourself in the scene. Go with the flow. Then you will gently be brought back into yourself, awakening to the present moment.
Take a moment out of the day to listen to this calming meditation. Refocus on balancing your cellular structure. See your DNA expanding with the radiance of Love and Light of your Divine Presence, your Mighty I AM Presence. Re-member who and what you are, a child of the Light, a child of Love, a child of Harmony where ever you go.
When was the last time you took time out of the day to meditate? Now is the time.
Invite in the Masters and Ascended Masters, the Saints and good angels, your own guardian angel. Be present with them. Listen to the guidance that comes to your mind. They are here for you.
Who is your spiritual guide? Who is your animal guide? Are your ancestors with you? Imagine them here with you now. Feel the peace. Feel the wonder. Allow yourself to heal. This is your time.
Let the roots of your energy field sink deep into the core of Mother Earth, Lady Gaia, while the radiance of your energy system expands through your auric field, all the way to Mother/Father God, Source of all Life.
Notice how you free you feel. If you feel any constriction let it drop away from you, to be transmuted by the cleansing, balancing, revitalizing energy of the Earth, just like seeds planted in the ground arise to new Life.
Allow any problem, conflict, or situation that is weighing on your mind to melt away with the flow of the music, one of the greatest healers of all. Others will have to heal themselves for the moment. Right now, this is about you healing anything that is calling out for your attention.
Listen to the gentle flow of water washing over any negativity, all restrictions, apparent obstacles, cleansing the cobwebs of your mind you had not realized were there. Soak in the shallow pools of gently moving water that invite you in, providing you with refreshment and soothing vibrations of this Living Liquid Crystalline Light.
Now is the time to release judgments, all judgments and justifications for judgments. You now realize that these mental constrictions are what is holding you back on your advancement on your path to Enlightenment. You see that it is a paradox to work towards Enlightenment while hanging on to the dregs of judgment, about yourself, about others, and about every other situation.
Now is the time to let go what no longer serves you, no matter how long you have held on to it, or it has held onto you. Habits may have served you for a time, but if these habits are not building you up, it is time to let them go. It takes 21 days to change a habit. Dysfunction, addiction, and harmful choices may have created old and familiar paths you are used to. But if they are not serving your highest good, it is time to release them and allow the new waters of rebirth to enter your mind, spirit, and body, in that order.
Your body is a tape recorder of your Life. Your body tells on itself. When you push your body too far, too fast, and go out of balance, you break your body in some way. Sometimes you are simply working out karma. Still, you know you have the ability to create better situations for your body. Focus now on what you deem to be the best way to take care of your physical body. Is it diet and exercise you need? Is it Yoga, stretching, and meditation calling for your attention? Do you need to visit your doctor? You listen more carefully, making a conscious plan to address the needs of your body as they present themselves.
Next you release the need to be right. As you open your hand in the moving waters, the needs of the ego are gently taken down stream where they will be sunken in the silt, to be reborn as water lilies and lotus blossoms in the next season.
Now is not forever. Everything you are going through has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Relax, knowing this allows a new breath of Life to enter your being. Cycles of new beginnings appear when the old and outworn creation needs to dissolve. Change is the Law of Life, making way for new experiences, new thoughts, new revelations in personal growth. It is the path of Ascension.
You sense you are an eternal being, always was, and always will be. By your thoughts you walk familiar paths you have not tread before, knowing the way to go, by instinct, by that knowing beyond all knowing, feeding your soul through the reality you live. All is One.
You recognize the necessity to monitor your thoughts, your very own creations born out of your creative genius. Do you like what you have created by your thoughts? You can change your thoughts at any moment. You think your thoughts. Your thoughts do not think you. Your thoughts are powered by your free will choice. You are not a victim of your thoughts. You acknowledge you are a free being, created in Freedom, Love, and Light. You are the manifestation of Divine Energy on Mother Earth at this time. Your mind relaxes in re-membering this. What are you re-membering? You are re-membering to Source, since you are the Divine Spark of Source in physical form right now.
You bask in the pleasure of coming to know who you truly are. Yours are the only hands with which the Divine has to work on this beautiful Mother Earth. Your words are the eternal words which the Divine uses to elevate every person, place, and thing around you. Words are eternal. You can never un-speak words, nor take them back. Words are powerful energies at your command. Use them wisely. You make amends when necessary, since you are on the road to perfection, but not perfect yet: Otherwise you would already be Ascended.
Your soul drinks in the refreshing realization of Its origin, a Divine Spark born of Infinite Divine Love-Light-Life-Energy, which some call God. You were born by the breath of Wisdom, enlivening your eternal soul. Your soul is the Silver Cord of Ecclesiastes 12:6,7, which returns back to Source when you trade this life for another. Ascension is the goal of your soul after lifetimes of learning how to love in no-loving situations, perfecting your motives, your thoughts, your words, and your actions, matching that held within the spark of your Divine and Mighty I AM Presence.
Fill yourself up with Love, overflowing the chalice of your heart with crystalline Light, warmth of understanding that you are embraced by the freedom of your soul, the essence of you, discovering greater depths and dimensions of your personality, your path, and your eventual Ascension from this plane.
You feel the peace that knows no bounds. You float in the etheric sea of this grace. You are One with the Divine in ways you are hauntingly familiar, with the sense that you have been here before, immersed in the sea of Love and Light since before you were ever born, One with the Divine, in the Divine, because of the Divine.
Now, you begin to feel your fingers and your toes, wiggling them as you stir to come back to the present reality. Imagine taking a fresh lemon and rolling it on the table, getting to so juicy that when you cut it, the fragrance will fill the room. You feel your mouth salivating just thinking about it. Shake your head from side to side. Shake your hands as if you were drying them from the water. Bring your awareness back to the present time.
Thank the Masters, Ascended Masters, Saints, good Angels, your Guardian Angel, and your Spirit and Animal guides who walked along side of you during this meditation. You are now ready for the rest of your day.
Do you ever find yourself rushing around until life’s no fun? Is your to-do-list longer than the distance from here to the moon? Will you turn into a purple pumpkin if you do not get it all done? How is your blood pressure? Having any physical side effects to stress yet? Is your speech coming out faster than a sonic jet? Texting, eating, drinking, on the cell phone while driving, see the problem? Are you addicted to activity? Where’s the balance?
Breathe.
You are in control of you, not your schedule.
You are in control of you, not other people.
You are in control of you, not the situation.
If the merry-go-round of life is going too fast for you, stop and simplify. Find your balance point. It is literally a matter of life and death. The fastest way to age is to live a life of prolonged, severe stress. Stress brings on major, serious illness and death.
Everyone can push extra hard in life, for a short while, to help someone out, to rise to the occasion, or if the job demands a short but strenuous burst of energy from you. Your employer does not own the rights to your life. You do.
No one can sustain prolongued stress. The body breaks down. Your emotional self breaks down. It is not what nature intended for you on the day you were born. At first you may not associate various ailments and symptoms as stress related. Stress is not a natural state for us. Stress is not good for us, no matter how used to it we are.
How do we break out of this extremely addictive, self-destructive habit of racing through life like a chicken with its head cut off? Like changing any other habit, it is going to take 21 days to try on new habits of relaxation techniques, slow breathing exercises, body stretching, aerobic activity, walking, jogging, bike riding or swimming. You know what works for you. Give yourself breaks. Breaks are life saving.
Take a moment to watch how nature works. Roses do not rush to bloom. They take their time. They open and unfold slowly, all in good time. Savor each moment in this life. You are here for a reason. If you fly through your life too fast, you will miss so much. We all have 24 hours in a day. How you spend it really is up to you.
It is a mistake to give everything on your agenda the same emergency intensity, as if completing each task is equivilent to putting out a fire. You are a human being, not a machine. We all know this. It is good to be reminded from time to time, not to take ourself so seriously. When you’re stressed, the first thing to go is your sense of humor. That’s a clue.
Lao Tzu once said, “Nature Does Not Hurry, Yet Everything Is Accomplished.”
We are made from nature. We are made of the stuff of the earth. Our vitamins and minerals replenish what we deplete each day, such as magnesium, zinc, copper, calcium, etc.
Stress, worry, anxiety and panic solve nothing. You already know this. It shuts you down, makes you so sick that you want to crawl in a hole or not even get up. They are lower vibrations that do not serve you. You can drop them if you choose to. It truly is a choice. Remember, you think your thoughts. Your thoughts do not think you. If you have had enough of something, or some thought, change it. Switch on some music. Take a walk in nature with a focus on seeing, hearing, touching and feeling a flower, a bird, or even observing people in a coffee shop. Taste an inviting hot chocolate, chai tea, coffee or pomegranate juice, something that sounds good to you. Reach out to that friend that makes you laugh. Raise your vibrations.
It helps to change the constant negative tape that the ego wants to run over and over again in your head. Once you recognize that this tape is no longer serving you to your highest good, you can simply change it. You are in charge of you, not your insane ego that wants to run amuck. The ego thinks it is in charge of you, wants to be in charge of you. The most wonderful news is that it is not!
You are in charge of you, of what you think, of what you deem to be important, of what your next positive steps will be, of what you want your mood to be. Again, remember, moods ALWAYS follow thoughts, not the other way around.
The light is within you. You are light. You are love. The more you read this, the more it will become second nature to you. There is more to you than you know or realize. As soon as you discover something new about yourself, something else new pops up for your awareness and consciousness to take in. You are more than your thoughts. You are more than your body. You are even more than your spirit. There is so much more to you than you realize.
If you would like to connect on a more expanded level with all of your multi-dimensions discussed here, consider registering for the upcoming 13D Multidimensional Transformation Workshop taking place April 25-28, 2019. Register at: linhourihan@yahoo.com. Read the following post for more details. It is a wonderful time away from your everyday life filling you with renewal, balance, breathing and inspiration.
There once was a boy who cried, “Wolf!” Everything he thought, he got, though there was never enough of the stuff to fill him up, no matter how much he tried. There was a hollow place inside him that nothing could fill. It confused him greatly until the day when he learned how easy it was to manipulate others, as if they could fill this ego gap. But the gap was a trap. His ideas, how grand, swirled around in his head. Sure, trouble always followed, but there were those who bailed him out of every jam, every time. He was learning.
This was all he knew. It was an imaginary world where he would be king, played out in real time. What he did not know was how to be honest and true, neither to himself, nor others. Truth was what he made it out to be. He lived in a pretend world of his own making. He learned fast how others would follow his lead in any direction he wanted to go. If he beckoned to anyone, they would come running, since there was always a reward. The problem those around him soon discovered, was that there was also a punishment for not jumping at his every command. He was learning.
He just had to create a façade, something contrived yet plausibly believable. It was ingenious how this plan worked for him, time and again. He tested it often, crying out, “Wolf!” to see who would come running. But come running they all did. He was learning.
What he did not know was what he was doing to himself, to his mind, to his body, to his spirit, to his very soul. He was changing from an innocent boy into a caricature of the human puppet he wished to be. He was like Pinocchio in reverse, a real boy turning into a puppet performing for others on the world’s stage. Something was being born in him he did not recognize, but it was fun for him to think that he could pull the strings of others. Some called it narcissism, perversion, and some even called it malevolent, the birth of a sociopath, so deep was his disassociation from reality. He was learning.
In his world, somehow different from the world everyone else lived in, his reality was what he made it. He garnered a flock of admiring pigeons around him, eating from the crumbs that fell to the floor. They loved it, gobbling up every seed that was sown. He was learning.
He noticed that more and more pigeons came to his beck and call. He thought himself popular. After all, no one else had as many pigeons as he had. He even learned from the pigeons, how they could strut and puff up their own feathers. He was learning.
But the seed was expensive, so he went back to feeding them crumbs from his leftovers. He decided that, since they were believing everything that he was telling them, that he would just tell them, that the crumbs were better for them. Obviously, crumbs were cheaper since they were free. He figured out it was easier to lie than to be bothered with all the problems of him telling the truth. After all, they were only pigeons. He was learning.
Interestingly, the pigeons bought the lie and started telling other birds of all kinds that the crumbs from the boy were the best, tastiest, healthiest morsels they had ever tasted. Other birds believed the pigeons. They traded their high-quality seeds for the crumbs of the boy. The pigeons did not want to be without food. Fear grabbed their bird brains, the pigeons and many of the other birds, and they all willingly dumbed down to the point where they believed the lie was the truth. Now all the pigeons and other birds passed this knowledge on to their children. The plan was working great. The boy was learning.
Then the day arrived when the owls came to see what all the fuss was about, crumbs over seeds. The owls listened and tasted the crumbs. While it did fill them up, the crumbs did not taste as good as the seed did. The owls tried to tell the pigeons the truth of the matter. The pigeons refused to listen. They reasoned, “What did the owls know anyway?” The owls never met the boy, nor heard these words from his mouth. They did. The boy continued to learn.
Season after season the lies were handed down as truth, fiction replacing fact. Slowly the pigeons began dying. The baby pigeons were dying too. They blamed their fate on the owls who showed up rather than on the truth of the matter, that there was no nutrition in the crumbs from the boy, only more lies. Some of the pigeons came to their senses and realized that they felt so much better with the good seed they used to eat. It took time to convert the other bird brains into changing their belief that the seed would make them healthy again. Slowly, one by one, more pigeons gradually came over to the seed side of healthy bird life. The boy learned and became sacred.
How in the world was he going to control the pigeons and all the other birds now that the truth was uncovered? Failure was not an option. He stopped feeding crumbs to the pigeons who changed allegiances. That would teach them a lesson. If they died, that was no concern to him. That was their decision. His narcissism and sociopathy grew with his every breath. He had no feeling for the pigeons that died. He had no feelings at all, except those that fed the bottomless pit of his monstrous ego. He stopped learning.
The pigeons and owls began to flourish, even when he said they would not. The bird brains learned they had to think for themselves. They corrected the errors they had passed onto their children, in order that they could also live better and longer. In time, all the pigeons and owls valued fact over fiction, and good seed over crumbs. They continued learning.
The boy’s mind started playing tricks on him. He had lost control of his ego, which now dominated his every thought, word, and action. When things did not go his way, he knew no way out. He screamed at the pigeons and the owls. He had temper tantrums. How sad it was to see him refuse to grow up when all the time he could choose to recognize that he could be better. He could apologize to the pigeons and owls but somehow that seemed impossible. He did not want to take personal responsibility for the death of all those pigeons. Forgiveness, one way or the other, escaped his understanding. He cried, “Wolf!” one last time, but no one came running. He stopped learning.
The moral of the story is: Truth always comes out in the end. Better to stand by yourself in the truth than in a flock of pigeons who choose ignorance over intelligent knowledge. Decide not to be anyone’s puppet ever again. Forgiveness is always possible, for yourself and others.
Positive decision making is the stable anchor to the emotional storms that brew on the popular tides of drama and outrage that carry us out to turbulent seas. Making firm, positive decisions, and sticking
Balanced Stress Stops Panic Attacks
to them in times of emotional upset is like the eye of the storm around us. It is possible for us to have chaos all around, yet remain calm and in control, as long as we realize that we are in control of ourselves, and no one else. We are not puppets, unless we choose to be.
How many times do we find ourselves playing the victim to life’s drama, or the martyr?
Sometimes we are in the midst of chaotic situations, and conflicting options by ever changing life situations; while other times we can find ourselves playing out our part in our own or someone else’s drama.
Do we realize how much we are drawn into someone else’s drama by our own choices?
Do we see patterns of habitually being drawn into others’ drama?
Do we find ourselves in the all too familiar role of self-inflicted drama ourselves?
Let someone else dare to have a different opinion that we have, and there lies the negative seeds of conflict. Water these with our thoughts and feelings, and there we go, off again to our next dramatic event, triggering our own self-sabotage emotional wound. Poor us.
Moods follow thoughts, ALWAYS.
Feelings motivate thoughts, ALWAYS.
If you don’t like how you are feeling, change how you are thinking. Yes, that is possible.
Power the positive ideas, even in apparently dire situations. We can all think more clearly once we allow ourselves to drop the stress and anxiety. Please know that this is possible.
Panic attacks, stress, anxiety and dysfunction all stem from our perception of reality. What you think about, you bring about. While we may not be immediately able to change the situation before us, we can change our perception, and how we internalize it.
Internalizing problems until the thoughts make us physically and mentally sick helps no one. It is not necessary to do this to ourselves. The day we decide to take positive action in what we think about, and fuel positive solutions with our feelings, is the day we begin to heal. Allow dysfunctional thoughts to drift away. Instead, focus the energy of your feelings in the positive direction you wish to go.
Living with extreme stress, anxiety and panic attacks does not have to remain a way of life for you. You and I are not victims to life, even in current turbulent times. On one hand we know this. Sometimes we jump on the band wagon of the power of the positive thinking train, but get derailed when we do not take care of our own emotional health. How can we do this better?
Helpful tips for stronger emotional health:
*Just because someone else is mad, sad or any other negative emotion, does not mean that you have to be too. This is not compassion, nor empathy.
* Now is not forever.
* In overwhelming situations, the thing to remember is, “People before things.”
* Moods follow thoughts, ALWAYS. If you don’t like how you are feeling, change how you are thinking.
* Jump off the merry-go-round of dysfunction, drama, and anything you do not want in our life by deciding to do that, powered by your God-given free will.
* Decide from now on, exactly what and who you want in your lives.
* Life is too short to be manipulated or abused by others.
* You are in control of your own life, not other people.
* Stop being a people pleaser. It is not your job to sacrifice your own happiness in order to make other people happy.
* Recognize when you are fueling the feelings you do not wish to have, and you will stop reaping what you are sowing.
*Stop finding any excuse used to pit human beings against each other under any pretense, especially with commercial purposes and/or racist, greedy, or political agendas. These are the excuses for all discord, and all wars that have ever occurred. It IS possible to work together for the good of all.
*Love, peace, compassion, empathy, and understanding are life’s only reasonable and valid solutions. All else is pure ego and destruction.
These suggestions will help everyone worldwide, but especially those of us in the United States of America. If we want to subdue hate groups of all kinds gone wild, we need to concentrate on kindness and love and only peaceful, positive solutions.
There is a light within all of us, not just in some of us. Relax, take a deep breath, and begin, or begin again. This light is the light of life. If you are reading this, then you have this light. It illuminates your imagination, fuels your hope, shines on your mind to see things in a new way for finding solutions.
The bottom line is, it all starts with making a decision of what you want in our life, and sticking to it. What you focus on grows. Only focus on positive solutions.
It does not matter if you are observing anything in nature, a relationship, or any activity, including the political scene. Remember, it is the observer, not the observed that is the reality. If you do not like what you are seeing, feeling or thinking, you will dramatically change the outcome on its present course by lifting the vibrations of your next highest thoughts, words and actions in the direction you wish to go, or have succeed.
Quantum Theory is the impetus at work. It works every time. It is the foundation of holistic health, bodywork and energywork. What you think about, you bring about. It is how you manifest good things in your life.
Thoughts, words and actions are living things. They are not stagnant. They are pulsating and energizing in one way or another, depending on the focus you put on them. There is no judgment here. It simply works.
For example, if I decide to stay angry (or jealous, frustrated, inferior, any negative emotion) because I feel I am justified to be angry (or jealous, frustrated, inferior, any negative emotion), and I dig my heels in refusing to budge, because that is the way I am feeling; then there is no way I will allow myself to release the negative emotion and will not get happy. In this case, what I am focusing on actually shuts me down, bringing on depression, anxiety, panic and stress to the point of hair falling out, if I do not rectify the situation by my very next thought. That is my own free-will choice. I can choose the positive or the negative approach. Choices are not thrust upon me. I freely have the freedom of what to think.
No one is a victim of their thoughts. Thoughts do not run rampant in our minds, controling our thoughtless words and renegade actions. Notice how you are feeling. Feelings are a dead give away to the thoughts you allow. The more you think any thought, the more you are the observer of the thought. The more you observe your thoughts in any particular mindset, the more the thought begins to transform, taking on a life of its own through your decisions and actions.
You, the observer, are the reality of your personal life, your home life, your social life, your work life, your spiritual life, and your political life. The supposed reality you witness by your focused attention playing out in the world today is what has manifested by your past focused energy. When you decide you no longer want what you have created, you change your thoughts and go in a brand new direction. This works individually and collectively.
The pendulum of your thoughts is not static. It is dynamic. This pendulum of thought swings from side to side, from far right to far left. But with enough concentrated attention through your observation, you begin the chain of events that changes what you are observing.
This is a good principle in life to remember when it comes to the political scene. I advise you to only concentrate on the positive message, and good ideas you can personally promote. Avoid concentrating on what you do not want, which will naturally, through cause and affect make that grow. Negative (criticism, judgmental, condemnation) is always counterproductive to your goal.
Construction of positive messaging, sharing your positive thoughts about what you consider the good candidate to do for you, your friends and your family, and considering why you feel the way you do, will build up the necessary energy of goodwill, integrity, honesty and valor. This is a solid foundation built on integrity and honesty.
Notice how negative thoughts and messages often include what you do not want, like, dishonesty, manipulation, and gaming the system. There is no honor in negative messaging. I compare it to shaking the hornets nest. No good can come of that reality.
To concentrate on what you do not want energizes more of what you do not want. Many of us are by now saturated by what we do not want. Let us decide to be done with that.
This can be a hard habit to change. But when you find yourself going against the good you decide to do, and find yourself backsliding to the contagious negative messaging against the other side, tell yourself, “STOP!”
That single word is a trigger to switch gears, much like flipping the switch at the junction for the train to continue moving along in a different direction. The train does not come to a complete stop at the switch site, unless ordered to from the main control center in case of oncoming train traffic. No, the train usually simply continues on another track by the conscious choice of the conductor.
You can also switch gears in your head. It does not take any more energy to say the good of the situation, the plan, the new positive solution as opposed to the critical, judgmental, condemnation of the negative side of things.
Whatever you focus on grows. What do you want to grow faster?
Remembering Quantum Theory and how it applies to your life, is the single best piece of advise I can give on how to heal a person, and how to heal a nation. It always works.
The following information is from the Weizmann Institute of Science and recorded in Science Daily:
Pro-Life is more than pro-white life. Pro-Life is loving the value of life of every skin color in the rainbow of
CAMDEN, NJ – OCTOBER 11: A homeless man named Bob waits for donations from passing motorists on October 11, 2012 in Camden, New Jersey. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Camden, New Jersey is now the most impoverished city in the United States with nearly 32,000 of Camden’s residents living below the poverty line. Camden, which sits just over the bridge from more affluent Philadelphia, also has a chronic crime problem with 48 recorded homicides this year alone. A lack of jobs has been a feature of life in Camden since the city lost most of its manufacturing base in the late 60’s and 1970’s. While the state unemployment rate is about 9.9 percent, Camden’s is estimated at 19 percent. Camden is not alone. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
humanity. Pro-Life loves and honors all people, including those who are black, brown, and every other manifestation of human color. Pro-Life offers equal protection under the law for people of every skin color.
Pro-Life is more than pro-unborn children’s lives. Pro-Life stands up for the lives of all children in their upbringing, education, protecting them from predators in every area of life. Pro-Life protects all children born into this world from every harm, including removing public food programs from their families, leaving the family and their children destitute.
Pro-Life is more than pro-rich life. Pro-Life is the loving of all people, including taking care of the poor among us, who may find themselves without food, homes and the bare essentials for every aspect of human life, in order to exist.
Pro-Life is more than pro-religious life. Pro-Life does not ignore science, since God made everything, including the knowledge of science, technology and all matter. Pro-Life is not ignorant. Pro-Life investigates everything, including the science showing how God manifested the world with tangible facts.
Pro-Life is more than pro-only God can heal. Pro-Life welcomes the wisdom of good health, such as the biblical physician, Luke taught and performed. Pro-Life listens to all medical advice from qualified doctors, listening to accurate facts, void of political and financial agendas.
Pro-Life is more than pro-English life. Pro-Life is loving all human life regardless of where they were born on this earth, including Mexico, South Africa, Kenya, Vietnam, Korea, China, and every other non-white nation. It was not that long ago that Italian and Irish people were also treated as non-white, second class citizens and were shunned from the work places in America, the literal human melting pot of the world.
Pro-Life is more than English-speaking life. Pro-Life reaches all people of every language. Pro-Life does not tolorate prejudice against people who speak a different language or accent.
Pro-Life is more than pro-young people. Pro-Life is the loving value of senior citizens, regardless of their age, respecting and protecting them from all forms of discrimination, in the work place and all areas of life.
Pro-Life is more than pro-able-bodied people. Pro-Life honors all human life, regardless of illness, disfigurement, those missing limbs, physical limitations, and obvious uncontrolable movements of numerous diseases.
Pro-Life is more than the pro-perfect minded people. Pro-Life acknowledges and supports people with all forms of mental illness, including stress, anxiety, and panic attacks.
Pro-Life is more than pro-perfect speech in all people. Pro-Life loves and supports people with all manner of speech impediments, including people who have had strokes resulting with slurred speech.
Pro-Life is more than words. Pro-Life does not condone making fun of people who are different from us, publically or privately. Prejudice against any person, especially if it harms their reputation, is not just an opinion. It is a hate crime.
Pro-Life is more than pro-male life. Pro-Life treats people equally regardless of their gender in every area of life, giving equal pay for equal work, including employment benefits, marriage, and respect in all areas of life.
Pro-Life is more than pro-professional life. Pro-Life supports all human life, including those who have lost their professions and are out of work. Pro-Life believes that there ought not be a financial floor any human being can fall beneath, nor would Pro-Life tell people who have tried and failed through no fault of their own to obtain work to,”Go get a job,” which is a judgment against such people. Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:1 “Stop judging!”
Pro-Life does not end with children in utero. Pro-Life believes this is only the beginning of their lives. Anyone voting for Pro-Life regards the value and God-given right to life in all of life, not just part of it.
There is more to thinking, speaking and acting Pro-Life than abortion. Pro-Life would not abort funds, homes, food, clothing, education and everything else mentioned in this post. Everyone declaring that they are Pro-Life needs to step up in all areas covered by the words, Pro-Life, without exceptions that only serve to show their prejudice.
Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan and me around 1973 at a Pro-Life Meeting of the Worcester Diocese
If people do not agree with these Pro-Life Statements, they ought not call themselves Pro-Life. I attended one of the first Pro-Life meetings with the late Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan in the Worcester Diocese when abortion first became legal.
St Francis showed us how to reverence all of life. He was Pro-Life not only for human beings, but also for all animals and everything in nature, and would never have stood by silently on the subjects of global warming and climate change. There is more to what the words “Pro-Life” mean.
Antidote: Never hand over your God-given personal power or relinquish your God-given free will to any person, place or thing at any time for any reason, ever.
Beware of modern day cults, especially those that tell you they are not a cult.
I am writing this for the many people in these modern times, who, for some reason, were looking for that something more in life, and got caught up in a devil’s web of diversion and dark human inspiration, a cult, and who desperately wish to get out.
YES, YOU CAN GET OUT!
There is more than one cult present in the world today. All of them deny that they are a cult. But there are 14 tell-tale marks present in all cults. The following post points out these life-altering pitfalls to watch out for. Most cults are under the flag of religion, like the cult of the “Rosary” within the Catholic Church, while some entire religions are also steeped in cult practices.
However, cult followers can also carry the cult flag by following political leaders. This political type of cult leader is transformed by his “followers” into a god-like leader, when in fact, he is merely just another human being. Any rebutal is met by his faithful cult followers, no matter how much truth there is in the facts, with the cult-like wave of resistence. They support, no matter what truth and facts point out.
People’s Magazine sponsored a television show in 2019 on the cult, Word of Faith Fellowship, (under the disguise of religion) which oddly enough is attracting modern day men, women and children into its criminally abusive practices. This cult is one of many popping up these days.
Whether you have been involved with this or any other cult-like religious or political group, reclaim your mental, physical and spiritual self as soon as possible. Fear of being abused in any or all of these forms is not the path to the loving God. Fear of being abused is a faulty human-manipulation-tactic used as social-structural, social-psychological, inter-behavior patterns to get you to submit your will to the misguided will of the cult group.
Fear is the ultimate weapon cults use.
God never intended for you to become a slave to someone else’s idea of how to know and/or follow God. Cult ministers are not more worthy of being human than you. They do not know more than you about loving and following God, despite what their forceful words erroneously imply. One day in the presence of cult ministers, leaders or any other title they use to inflate their own self-worth, is enough to shine a light on the soon to erupt volcano of emotional, physical and spiritual harm they eventually unleash.
Physical abuses can be seen. But the seemingly invisible mental abuses they inflict on their unsuspecting subjects is not God-inspired, at least not by the Good God, Father of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Theirs is an un-holy god of deception, manipulation, fear, obligation and guilt.
Listen to that inner voice inside yourself, your conscience, and realize you are right to escape the cult. Cults are evil personified, no matter what they say to the opposite. Cults are heavy into guilt motivation, but that does not make them right. You already know this.
What cult ministers do know is how to exert concerted effort to influence, bully, control, manipulate, exploit, and in the worst cases to abuse your body, mind and spirit in their unholy aim. This is abuse. This is mental abuse. This is physical abuse. This is spiritual abuse.
Escape from these abusers as soon as humanly possible.
Abuse in all these forms is criminal and must not be tolerated by any human being on earth.
Hitting a man, woman or child with an 18 inch long wooden paddle for four straight hours while getting screamed at as if one has the devil himself inside the victim is not sanctioned by God, no matter what reasons cult ministers give to support their aggressive, self-serving and deranged goals.
In some cases, other “parishioners” push, hit and scream at the offending party for hours on end. No one has a right to put their hands on you or scream at you for hours. This is torture and criminal.
All cults have similar characteristics. Here is a list of 14 characteristics that help to define a cult:
“• The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader, and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
• Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
• Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, or debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
• The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (e.g., members must get permission to date, change jobs, or marry or leaders prescribe what to wear, where to live, whether to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
• The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and its members (e.g., the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
• The group has a polarized, us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
• The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders, or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
• The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (e.g., lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
• The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and control members. Often this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
• Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
• The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
• The group is preoccupied with making money.
• Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
• Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.” Taken from the online article Characteristics of Cults,” by Janna Lalich and Michael Pantone.
“The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave — or even consider leaving — the group,” say Janja Lalich and Michael Langone in their online article Characteristics of Cults.
Excerpts are from the book, Take Back Your Life: Recovering From Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeline Tobias at Bay Tree Publishing.
Stand up for your God-given gift of free will. Use your free will to get out. No one owns the rights to your life. Your life, body, mind and soul belong to you. God loves you. God forgives you. You are a child of God here on earth. Only you can live your life. If you have given over the rights to your mind, body or spirit to other religious or political groups, or any other group claiming rights over you, use your free will to walk away. Those are not your friends. Friends do not usurp your God-given rights.
While it is important to acknowledge important information that directly affects us everyday, it is equally important not to loose our Spirit of Love and Light Energy as we go through each day of our life.
It is not helpful to absorb every negative feeling as we keep up with local, national and world atrocities. Internalizing negative emotion on a constant basis as it unfolds before us will make us mentally and physically sick. There is no place in the body that is meant to store excess stress, anxiety, panic and discordant energy. The stomach holds food, the lungs hold oxygen, but excess stress, anxiety, panic and continual discord will breakdown the human body into dis-ease, better known as disease.
Beating the dysfunctional drum of the negative emotions of anger and fear (which is the root cause of anger), though you may feel justified, still ignites an imbalance, which feeds on itself like an avalanche down a steep snow slope, burying everything it its path. It is not necessary to feed on fear for lack of knowing what else to do. We need to rein in our misqualified energy and transmute it into positive, life-giving action that makes a real and lasting change. This is possible for you to do.
What is an effective action we can take to make our voices heard in a way that shines a positive light on the problems we need to address, in the energy of love and unity, not hate and division?
In these days we can take our pick of topics we want to address: racism; tackling the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression; global warming and climate change causing wildfires sweeping across the USA; pollution affecting our oceans, lakes and rivers; farming practices that won’t kill our ozone layer any further; saving the rainforests which are the lungs of our planet; inequality in the work force between men and women; gender equality; oppression and suppression of voting rights in every oligarch, autocrat or dictatorship leaning country; or the current, out-of-control COVID-19 (Sars Co2 – or any other name we switch this particular coronavirus to) pandemic which is nearing 25 million confirmed cases worldwide, and nearly 850,000 deaths worldwide. The USA has nearly 6 million confirmed cases alone, and since yesterday has increased by at least 46,000 cases. The sadest note of all regarding the pandemic is that the USA tops the list of countries worldwide, including Third World Countries. This what happens when we place intuition and guess work above science. It did not have to happen like this. We could have stopped it the same way President Obama stopped Ebola from spreading across the USA. That worked.
Still, we make our own choices, to go along with ignorance, or proven science. The choice is ours. But it seems that ignorance and denial has not stopped this invisible so called “hoax” of a disease, at least the families of the nearly 850,000 dead people worldwide, nor the families of the nearly 181,000 dead people in the USA, would call this pandemic a “hoax.” Most medical doctors, including Dr. Fauci, tell us that these numbers are most likely higher, not lower, than what has been reported since we still do not have tests for everyone who needs to be tested, as opposed to what some are professing. Some of us die at home alone, untested and uncounted.
Racism, a fear-driven ideology, is present across the globe, not particular to one nation. Racism affects gender equality in addition to skin color, as does differences in religious and spiritual beliefs, as if there is a different God for each of the thousands of belief systems out there. Rasicm is a man-made creation which can respond positively to life-affirming, positive solutions that build up communities. Using discordant energies that promote division only serve to exacerbate the situation, not solve it.
It takes a great deal of integrity, fortitude, and creativity to address systemic racism in the warped minds of people who are ingrained with faux facts since birth, that one race, color, creed, age or gender is better than another because of man-made, inequitable agendas fueled by greed and selfishness rather than decisions made for the good of all.
We are facing the problems of pollution which feed the flames of global warming and climate change, raging in the wildfires burning out of control, caring not for which side of politics is present. Global warming and climate change have no political agenda as the polar caps are melting. They just melt, releasing unknown pathogens and illnesses that have been frozen for thousands of years, regardless of the denial that it is happening to the degree it is.
Doing nothing has not and will not ever solve a dilemma or a situation that desperately needs changing. Ignoring problems that need to be addressed is like holding an air-filled beach ball under water. The longer and deeper it is held under pressure, the greater equal and opposite reaction occurs. We all know this.
Now is not the time for outrageous and outlandish words and actions that will undermine the very problem our hearts, minds and voices are stirring us to face. We cannot deny reality, nor can we sit by, watch and do nothing, as if denying the problem will make it go away.
Now is the time to map out positive, life-affirming solutions, laws, changes in our thinking, even if we stand alone on the island of our peers and co-workers. Now is the time for Truth, Light and Loving solutions. Money is not the bottom line. It never has been. Money is an energy exchange.
What do you want to invest in, money or humanity? Keep in mind, money burns in wildfires just as well as the trees from which it is made.
and she orders all things well.” Wisdom of Solomn 7: 22b – 8:1
You are nature. You have the ability to let wisdom grow within you. Everyone can do this by allowing our human nature to grow in awareness to greater and greater degrees until we become wise in the things that really matter in this life.
Wisdom is key to solving personal, social, economic and financial, political and environmental imbalances that all human beings have created and contributed to. Growing in wisdom is the beginning of taking responsibility for ourselves and the world.
See all your thoughts and words before the spotless mirror of wisdom to determine the most humane, most loving and most Light and Life generating actions.
We live in untenable times. Many of us have lost our homes, our jobs and in the worst cases, to date over 176,000 of us in the USA have lost our lives to a world-wide pandemic. Here in the USA, we have 5,713,776 confirmed cases of COVID-19, which include over 48,000 new cases today 8/22/20 alone. The USA leads the world in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths related to it. Worldwide, there have been nearly 23 million confirmed cases, and almost 800,000 deaths. Yes, there have been 14,715,412 recoveries worldwide.
People argue the technical reasons for these deaths, saying they are from other causes which are also present, or even telling others not to call it a world-wide pandemic, or “promote fear” by reporting on the numbers, as if by denying the deathwave that has crossed our country will stop its march, or to whatever name we change this killer virus. Denying reality does not change it.
Denial of climate change and lobal warming also does not stop its reality. The wildfire season has now hit our western shores and spreading inland, destroying forests, the lungs of our planet, while simultaneously compromising our own lungs and lives. The denial of climate change and global warming do not reflect the reality we are living in, with megastorms, hurricanes and tornados, and heat waves in recording breaking numbers. It would be supposed reasons to sink into despair, if it were not for one thing.
Despair will not lift any of us out of the situations in which we are finding ourselves these days. No one will solve any situation through despair. We know this. To dwell on our present situation as if that is all there is and ever will be, is to decide to stay stuck exactly where you are finding yourself now. Concentrating on self-deflating feelings are the bucket of cement that will ensure that nothing changes. People these days are so into not denying their feelings that they make the common mistake of recognizing and validating their feelings, with thinking they need to stay with these feelings because that is how they are feeling. As long as we buy this lie, we will not heal.
If personal safety is an issue, CALL someone. With staying home, abusive situations can escalate. No one has a right to harm you.
What are the signs we need to watch out for?
The other person always criticizing you.
The other person always telling you what to do.
Having to answer to the other person.
Having to keep to the time schedule of the other person.
Always having to ask for permission to think, say or do anything.
Having the other person always manipulating you.
We all have the God-given right to life. We all have the right to live our lives the best way we see fit. We do not need to live our lives under someone’s thumb.
We do not need to live our lives in debilitating fear, obligation and guilt of someone else injuring ourselves or themselves in some way.
There are suicide prevention hotlines. There are abuse hotlines. There are mental health providers.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255
National Domestic Abuse Hotline: 800-799-7233
Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN): 800-656-4673
You and I, unless we are specially trained with degrees in these mental health fields, are not trained to deal with these real life and death matters. Yes, we care about the people in our lives. We serve no one when we shut ourselves down along with the manipulating and/or mentally sick person. That is not helping.
What will lift us out of despair?
1. Acknowledge your feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are.
2. Decide to change your feelings from those of despair, depression, helplessness or any other dysfunctional negative feelings that is binding you into fear and immobilization.
3. Realize that deciding not to stay stuck with despair, depression, helplessness or any other dysfunctional negative feeling does not invalidate the feelings, nor you.
4. Make a conscious choice as to what feeling you want to have, the next lighter feeling in freedom which you can think.
5. Focus only on the feeling you are planning to achieve. Notice I did not say “trying” to achieve. The words “trying” is an open door to failure. It is a way out for you to be able to say, “At least I tried.” Do not “try” to do anything. DO IT. Realize that you can be happy, right where you are, in a line waiting for food, speaking with others in life-affirming statements on the streets, which bring about other possibilities and opportunities not yet realized.
6. Organize your thoughts, words and actions. Be the change you wish to see in the world around you. By encouraging others in positive ways, you encourage yourself. As long as you are living, breathing and moving, you have the ability to change despair into functional conversations with positive plans to help yourself and others. Make sure you use your voice to VOTE. No one can take away your human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
7. Know that you are not alone. While resposible people remain wearing masks and social distancing, we can reach out by cell phones and social media, zoom, Skype and many other current ways to build each other up, support noble ideas for the common good of all people; and change ignorance into intelligence. Where there is darkness, shine your light of a smile, encouraging words to yourself and your family and friends, and be the Light on the hill for all to see by.
I only chose 7 suggestions out of a thousand I could mention. Perhaps one of these triggers another thought, which then brings you to an even better thought. Go with the next highest vibration of thought to lift you out of despair.
It all begins with with a DECISION to feel better. These times are tough, but they are not the end. You are stronger than you realize. We grow in character when we face tough times.
I used to pray for patience, a lot, until I realized one day that by praying for patience, I was inviting in adversity, so I could practice my patience! That is when I DECIDED to claim and fully realize, that I had all the patience I needed. It worked! I simply needed to act on that realization in order to move forward and create abundance of all good things in my life, compared to only witnessing the adversity.
We can re-build our lives. We cannot bring back those who have lost their lives, of course, but we can take the necessary next steps forward in our healing process. Now is not forever. There is so much we can do to help ourselves, and others, in this time of uncertainty.
Choose only thoughts, words and actions based on LOVE and LIGHT. All else harms you and the whole of humanity.
Imagine you are here ~ no worries ~ nothing to do ~ RELAX
We need to take care of our mental health, in addition to our physical health. Our mental health is important. We need to take better care of it. With physical health issues, we tend to take care of the things we need to take care of. If we ignore the first symptoms of a problem, the pain associated with the physical problem usually sends us to the doctor, even if it is inconvienient.
But those of us with mental health issues often have another hurdle to jump. Our pride, which is fed by our insane ego, suggests to us that if we were mentally strong enough, then we could simply wish our problems away, or worse yet, our insane ego might suggest that you are feeling so good, you should get off your medications because you do not need them anymore.
NEVER GET OFF ANY MEDICATIONS WITHOUT THE ADVISE OF YOUR DOCTOR WHO PRESCRIBED THEM.
Whatever you focus on grows.
The following considerations work both for people currently on medications, and for those who are not on medications.
Let’s go back. Twice now I’ve referred to the ego as the insane ego. The ego very much wants to have a loud voice, no matter how shy you might be, in order to keep you alive. It does not like to have its voice squelshed. However, our ego can make its presence known so loudly that we trip over it time after time. So I will be refering to our unbridaled ego as the insane ego.
Our insane ego can rear up when we first become aware that we might be mentally unbalanced, overly frightened or overwhelmed, by suggesting that this problem “is all in your mind,” and that “It will go away.” Guess what? Problems, mental or otherwise do not go away when we do not deal with them.
It is important for good mental health, to acknowledge our feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong. They simply are. Unpleasant feelings like guilt, unworthiness, grief, and depression do not magically transform themselves by stuffing them deep, down inside you, or denying them. First we need to acknowledge them. Sometimes these feelings are so strong they create a physical pain, but that’s just the symptom of the emotional pain. Know this, once you identify the source of the problem and deal with it, the pain begins to lessen, while your personal power grows stronger.
Whatever you focus on grows. The more you focus on the anxiety, the more the anxiety grows. The good news is, the more you focus on relaxation, and doing the things that bring on the relaxation response, the more you will unwind and heal.
While it is not healthy to pretend we do not have anxiety, it is healthy to have a conscious plan including self-talk and mantras, simply phrases we keep repeating to ourselves to re-train our mind in how we think. Yes, there are times medications are needed, but quite often using these simple self-help tools work to reduce stress, restore mental balance and increase self esteem without them.
For panic attacks, remember to breathe. Nowadays we do not breathe right. When we do breathe, we do not get the same amount of oxygen as we did a century ago due to so much pollution in the air. Plus we are cutting down the rainforests in the world, which are the lungs of the planet. So, remember to take slow, deep breaths. After taking 15 slow, deep breaths, your blood pressure usually returns to normal.
You need to know, if this hasn’t occurred to you already, that you are not going to “feel” like doing any of this. Once the negative habit of anxiety has rooted in you, a little voice inside of you will start by telling you, “This is stupid,” or “It won’t work,” or “I don’t feel like it.” It’s like you have the negative you on one side, and the positive at-least-wants-to-try-to-be-positive you on the other side. Realize this before hand so you expect it, then consciously take the steps to get better anyway.
Yes, you can get better.
To reduce stress, make sure each day includes stretching, Yoga or walking. Remember to move your body in five different directions. For example, you could do a forward bend, arch your back backwards, lean from the waist to one side sliding your hand down your outer calf or whereever you can reach, then do the same thing on the other side. Lastly, do some sort of twist, gently. None of these moves need to be extreme. They just need to be done. This helps you by releasing those feel-good endorphines. Start by doing this for five minutes, then gradually over a few days increase to 15-20 minutes each day, rain or shine.
Listen to happy music you like. Relaxing music helps a lot.
Know too that the world is not going to come to an end if you do not get everything on your to-do list done. Your head already knows this, yet somehow we place enormous burdens on ourselves, out of a mis-guided goal of perfection. Accept yourself right where you are, right now, with all limitations you see. Ask the good God who made you for the assistance you need. It is not that you are perfect if or when you get 900 things done in a day. Give yourself permission to be you and enjoy the wonder.
Namaste The God in Me recognizes the God in You Have A Beautiful Day!
Whether you have been spending too much of your own Energy on Energy sapping activities, boredom, or Energy sapping thoughts, how do you recover? The Pure Life Energy you are made of, that your Spirit is made of, comes directly from the Source of All Energy. It is Intelligent, Substance and Pure Energy. It is your I AM Presence. It is your Free Will. It is boundless. It is a great help to you and me to remember this. Energy has many forms and ways it regenerates Itself.
Signs of low Energy are stress, anxiety, panic, panic attacks, depression, frustration, fear and anger, just to name a few symptoms. You do not have to stay in this low vibration of life if you do not want to. It is not up to someone else to get you out of this Energy slump. It is not up to waiting until one glorious day, you discover that you finally have Energy as one of the courses I took erroneously pontificated.
The biggest waste of money I ever spent on obtaining Continuing Education Credits (CEUs) for my therapy business, was when I took an 8 hour certification class on psychological health, specifically dealing with depression and low Energy symptoms. I almost ran out of this well-meaning, but ignorant class when the pinnacle point on how to get out of depression was to do nothing, absolutely nothing. The reason for this, the teacher said, was that the fact is, if you do absolutely nothing, eventually, one day, when a new breeze blows in and the stars all align (she didn’t say the breeze and star part), happiness will return on its own.
From that statement on during my 8 hour stint in my chosen seat, I felt intense anger at the truth of the matter that, yes, in fact, if you do absolutely nothing, in a week, a month or a year, eventually you will have more Energy and the happiness that results. This knowledge was supposed to soothe the savage soul of depression and the like.
BUT WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE TO WAIT A WEEK, A MONTH OR A YEAR TO HAVE MORE ENERGY AND FIND HAPPINESS, WHEN ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS THE FOLLOWING THINGS:
MOODS: Begin with your thinking. Moods follow thoughts – ALWAYS. It is never the other way around. If you do not like how you are feeling, change what you are thinking about. Yourself will argue with yourself about this. Usually the next thought is, “This is not true. This cannot be. I have tried this before. This won’t work.” This is your ego rearing its head because your ego does not like change. Your ego wants to be right. Even if you are miserable, the ego is comfortable with what it knows. Rock the boat with your ego and you will have that two-year-old temper tamtrum inside yourself. The key is to not let the ego win. To say to yourself, “This is the mood I am in, because this is how I am feeling,” is to stay in this mood that you do not want. You might think it is good to validate whatever mood you are in. Remember, what you think about you bring about. The feelings about the thoughts you are having is what is creating your moods. Moods do not ultimately cause you to feel the way you do; thoughts bolstered by your feelings do. Yes, you CAN change yout thoughts. You can get more Energy, even in the toughest of situations.
THOUGHTS: Nothing raises your Energy faster that changing what you are thinking about. Take a moment to notice what you think about most of your day. What are you allowing in to your consciousness, subconscious and super conscious mind on a consistant basis? I know, I am still speaking about the varous aspects of ego. The idea is you have a choice of HOW you take in information, AND, what you think, say and do after that. Ignorance is not bliss. You and I do need to be aware of what is going on within us, under our own roofs, in our communities, in our countries and in the world at large. But HOW we deal with this information must be conscious, on-purpose thoughts. Re-Member your I AM Presence, your Spirit, which is the kingdom of God WITHIN YOU (Luke 17:21). Unless your next thoughts are positive and constructive, these thoughts will sap the Energy Field, first around you, then settle within your mind, body and soul. Your thoughts get “ill” before your body gets “ill.” Your Spirit remains the Source of your Energy, your I AM Presence, because it is your direct line to the Source of All Energy. So when you finally get sick and tired of being sick and tired, or not wanting to put up with the things and thoughts you have been putting up with, which are bringing you down, you decide to CHANGE HOW YOU ARE THINKING, SAYING AND DOING, and think, say and do something else. Then, a fresh breeze sweeps through your mind. New ideas are born.
WORDS: After your thoughts, nothing can build you up or tear you down faster that how you choose to use your spoken and unspoken words (Unspoken words, of course, are thoughts). What do you spend your waking hours talking about? Do you gossip? When you see dysfunction around you, do you speak of constructive problem solving? Do you SPEND your energy on THE EMOTION of your words? Do you speak words of wisdom? How do you convey your words? Do your words convey joy? Do your words convey fear? Do your words speak Truth? Do you use your words as a means of control? Do you use your words as a weapon? Do you use your words as a soothing balm in hurtful situations? Do your words hold judgments? Ponder how you use your words, written or spoken. The spoken words have the benefit of tone and inflection. Words spoken in person have the benefit of your eyes meeting the eyes of those you are speaking with, which also better provide the intention of the words you say. The written word comes across much more harsh. Our minds can twist the tone and intention of the writer, based on our own experiences, or lack of experiences. WORDS ARE POWER. Jesus is known as the Word, for example. Words are a form of Energy. Words are the manifestation of our fertilized thoughts. Our Words have the Power to make things happen, or stop them in their tracks. Careful and conscious use of our Words are key to building up our Energy Field around us, as well as infusing Love and Light Energy from the Source of All Good, into our lives.
ACTIONS: We spend and receive Energy by the actions we choose to take. Actions done for positive, life-affirming goals brings an equal measure of Energy to your Spirit. There is a sense of satisfaction that blesses your Spirit, as with a job well done. It is a direct result of the Law of Cause and Effect, or the Law of Karma. Some people call this seed faith planting. It is the basic premise of giving and receiving. It works for good and lack of good. It simply works. Actions taken with misqualified or dark intention saps your Energy. Re-Member, Energy comes from the SOURCE of ALL ENERGY, which is boundless. I specify “Re-Member” in this exact presentation of the Word Remember, because, again, you have Energy from the Source of ALL Energy. You are Re-Membering yourself, aligning yourself with this Source, of which you are intricately a part. When you decide to work with this Boundless Energy, you will be filled to the brim with the same Energy. As soon as your thoughts sink to the lowest common denominator, feelings of self-sabotage set in, words mimic the thought patterns, followed by in-action or loss of drive to do anything. Actions taken without previous Thoughts and Words can be rash and self-sabotaging. Have you ever spent your Energy in retribution, or on dark or negative goals? That is like shooting yourself in the foot. Lingering Thoughts hang around, going over and over things you might wish you did differently, again sapping your energy. You may accomplish the sinister goal, but it will not only sap your Energy, it puts you on the defense, requiring you to keep up the negative attitude or justification of similar thoughts and words, day after day, and year after year, which are ultimately draining.
This is nothing new. We see in our lives and in the world areas that are calling for our attention. How are we to respond? This is important. You and I will have the measure of Energy with which we are dealing or not dealing with the situations Life presents us with. LOVE is the Energy that is the most powerful, life sustaining, and Life generating. Lack of LOVE in all its hideous forms is the fastest drain of Energy.
If you want more Energy, decide to use your Thoughts, Words and Actions to build up, not tear down.
Some of us come into our own at an early age, knowing just who we are with all of our strengths and our weaknesses. Others of us come into this internal and
You are not a victim, nor a martyr, unless you choose to be. You have a choice.
external knowing later in life, while some of us carry on to the end, never really knowing all the dimensions of what makes us tick, or what our mission in this lifetime is. There are so many factors that shape a person, his or her emotional self, personality and personal likes and dislikes, religious and personal beliefs, self-esteem and personal empowerment issues.
There are some of us who live one part of our live, and mature later in some aspect of ourselves. Life has a way of teaching, molding, expanding us to reach for the new horizons we now see.
We have a right to our feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong. The key is, if you do not like how you are feeling, CHANGE HOW YOU ARE THINKING. Yes, you can. This works 100 percent of the time. Yesterday’s post might help in this realization and how to put it into practice.
This post, originally from 2012, is timely since the COVID-19 pandemic has weighed down on us circumstances no one could have foreseen. Today we have reached 1,471,718 confirmed cases in the USA, and 85,901 deaths. Worldwide there are 4,474,502 confirmed cases with 303,297 deaths. There are real victims in this pandemic. This post is not addressing these victims, just to be clear. This post is addressing the times we sometimes, through habit or choice, choose to be a victim by our own thinking. In these cases, we are living under self-imposed victimhood and martyrdom. This post can help.
Self-esteem, like every other human trait mentioned here, is a living, pulsating energy. Your self-esteem is a living entity, fed every minute of every day by your own thoughts, in addition to the thoughts and attitudes of those who raised you, the schools you went to, the friends and people of influence around you, and the attitudes regarding the value of life you have finally adopted.
What role do you play in your own life?
Do you like how you are feeling?
Your feelings are key to assessing where you are at in your personal development. Denying your feelings is a sign of weakness, not strength.
Everyone from time to time feels empowered. On occasion, we find ourselves in situations of disempowerment. This is the human condition. Two people can grow up in similar situations, yet, one person comes out strong, while the other person comes out of the same set of circumstances emotionally scarred by taking on the role of victim or martyr that he or she has chosen to assume. Why is this?
In order for self-esteem to fully blossom, we need to pull out the noxious weeds of self-imposed victimhood and martyrdom. Some of us cling to these dysfunctions as if they are badges of accomplishment to be worn into every life situation. We could succeed if it were not for this, that, or the other thing that stopped us. Recognize all seeds of negative self-messaging the second it comes to mind.
When bad things happen to us in our lives, we have two choices, not just one. The worse choice we can make is to succumb to the lower sense of self, then act out the role of being a victim, as “woe is me,” that of living out our life as a martyr. The best choice we can make is to identify with our higher self, recognizing that we are a beautiful work of creation.
Now in this time of COVID-19 attempting to call all the shots, you and I can realize that it is our choice how we deal with new beginnings. What was once a viable employment now leans on creativity and ingenuity to make something new. We may not have thought of creating a new online business, grow fruits and vegetables to feed our families, or other ideas that come to mind. Are you a good cook? Do you like to sew? Are you good with tools?
Brainstorm possibilities. Rome was not built in a day.
Do not allow yourself to ever think, agree or believe negative messages about yourself. Accept yourself, right where you are, with all of the history and happenings that have ever happened to you. If there is something about yourself you wish to change for the better, then become aware and consciously work on that.
Liberate yourself from self-imposed negativity. Yes, you can. You are not a victim unless you want to be. You are not a martyr unless you choose to take that role on. But why would you do either? Often people choose these roles of dysfunction because they have learned they can manipulate others by doing so. It is good to take stock of our true motives. Accept who you are now, and consciously grow in the reality that you are worthy.
When you have done all you can possibly do to keep yourself and your family safe during this coronavirus pandemic,
Is my anxiety serving me?
worrying about it solves nothing. You and I both know this. So how do we step out of fear from obvious threats that surround us?
Here are some mental health tools that work 100 percent of the time.
They will not work if you mentally argue against them. In this post I am asking you to put aside any negative thoughts such as, “This doesn’t (can’t, won’t) work,” and “I’ve tried this before,” and “My situation is different,” and “I have been diagnosed with depression (trauma, Autism, any other mental health label).” As long as we hang our hat on our special reason for why we are the way we are, we seldom seek to apply the mental health tools that alleviate stress, anxiety, panic and panic attacks.
Stop hanging on to the reason you are the way you are. Instead, cling to the time-tested words that have helped so many people rise above the crippling drama that can shut you down.
Let me repeat that these mental health tools work 100 percent of the time. Try them out for 21 days. It takes 21 days to change a habit. It is sad to see in today’s society how we more readily grab onto labels of dysfunction as opposed to labels that help us move out of dysfunction. It does help to have a starting point, as long as that starting point does not become the reason you do not decide to move forward to improve your mental health. Yes, we have to deal with the mental health challenges, just know they are not insurmountable.
MENTALLY
“Remember, only your beliefs about yourself can affect the way you feel … only your thoughts can affect your emotions.” Dr. Dolores Seymour
People who did not listen to the labels that were put on them include Walt Disney and Albert Einstein. Disney was told by a newspaper owner to pursue a line of work other than drawing because he didn’t have any creative ideas. Einstein’s schoolmaster told him he would never amount to much. Neither one of them stopped their dreams because of labels that were imposed upon them. They heard the labels with all their limitations, and went ahead to create their own life.
If you have a diagnosis or label others or you give yourself, know that you are not limited mentally, physically or spiritually by these labels. They are not a justification for the way you are. What you have is a unique set of circumstances that you work with, not that define you, even if you are in a wheelchair.
It helps to realize that you decide for yourself what is right or wrong. Others can tell you what is right or wrong for them, but they cannot tell you what is right or wrong for you because they are not in your shoes. It all depends on your perspective to determine what is right or wrong.
“The choice is yours. Today, every day, can be an adventure as you turn crises into opportunities.” Dr. Dolores Seymour
Change your daily goals based on today’s circumstances. Perhaps you had set goals to diet, exercise, go to work, plant a garden, do project with the kids, and paint the house last month. This month you are faced with a global pandemic, social distancing and quarantine and not knowing whether or not to go out in public as businesses open and your inner self is revolting from staying inside. What do you do?
Mental health is important no matter which course of action you take, stay inside or go outside. Whatever you decide, even if it is to stay inside because you just learned that children do in fact get COVID-19, but show it with different symptoms, you still come to ground point zero. How are you going to mentally handle this? It was not in your original plan.
Change is the only constant in life. Go with the flow. Fighting change is a no win battle, like attempting to stop an avalanche careening down a mountain while valiantly using a snowboard to resist it. Stop fighting change and figure out the best way for you to snowboard down that mountain. Staying stuck will immobilize you.
Try this plan instead:
1. Stop all negative thoughts that come into your mind. Stop the blame. Stop the guilt. Any time a negative or anxious thought comes to mind say CANCEL.
2. Know your limitations and work with them. If you have triggers that send you spiraling out of control, learn to recognize them. The sooner you see them manifesting in your day, the better you will be able to deal with them. You are in control of you, not your limitations. You are in control of your feelings and emotions, no matter how strong and scary they feel. Your feelings and emotions are not in control of you. You are very powerful. Whatever you tell yourself, you will be. When you learn to validate and know yourself better, you will be able to decide how you want to feel. The choice is yours. Feelings, emotions and moods follow thoughts ALWAYS. It is never the other way around.
IF YOU DO NOT LIKE HOW YOU ARE FEELING, CHANGE HOW YOU ARE THINKING.
3. Say a positive statement, also known as a mantra, that will help you stay focused on your new mental health plan. This works, unless you use your free will not do do it. Say this positive statement often throughout the day, on the hour each hour, or use triggers like, each time you touch a door knob. Say this simple statement of affirmation in the positive, such as, “I am a positive person,” not “I am not a negative person.” Say this mantra even if it is not how you are feeling. If you concentrate on how you are feeling (what I call belly-button gazing), you will keep feeling how you are feeling. Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are. But only focusing on how you are feeling at the moment is like walking round with your feet stuck in buckets of cement, expecting to magically feel better. Drop the negativity. Choose a mantra of how you WANT to feel. Start the statement with the words “I am …”
Positive mantras to choose from if you can’t think of any are:
I am happy
I am content
I am at peace
I am whole
I am able to do this
I am confident
I am in control of me
I am in control of my thoughts
PHYSICAL
You and I have choices and decisions to make. If you and I do not make our own choices, others will fill in the void and make them for us. Do you want to be more fully in control of you? You can be, no matter your past history. Your previous history is not your destiny.
It is interesting to know that any positive changes you decide to make in your life do not have to be done with over-the-top drama. You can peacefully make the changes you wish to make. Once you decide to act rather than to react to life, peace will flood your life, even in the midst of this pandemic and other people’s drama. You become the captain of your life ship. You no longer are the shipmate of ship-wrecked emotions and meltdowns.
Sometimes, many people around you will not know exactly how to respond to the new you. People do not like change, most like the status quo. You might find people trying to put you back into the box you just got yourself out of. Others are not in charge of you. This also does not have to be confrontational. You do not need to match their emotion, frustration nor outrage. You can remain emotionally level and simply be the new you.
Decide on how you wish to improve your physical health, even if it is just to go for a walk or a less populated park, go for a ride in the car for a sight-seeing adventure, or do stretches inside your living room.
Maybe you are an introvert and would like to improve your diet or physical health independently. There’s nothing wrong with that. Validate where you are, set goals, improve your oxygen intake and go at your own pace. Setting goals for each day and week will get you to where you want to be. Go at your own pace.
Your body is supported by the tripod of life, mind, body, spirit. You need all three to be healthy for a whole and productive life. Without one of these healthy legs to support you, you fall down. Make sure to take good care of each one of them.
SPIRITUALLY
You and I each have our own walk of faith and beliefs that have gotten us this far in life. We need faith to feed our soul. People who live life without attention to their spirit/soul will gravitate to the materialistic and consumeristic things in life in a misguided attempt to fill the void in life that only God can fill. Some of us have deep spiritual lives. God is the only one that can fill this part of us. We can have interests in painting, music, sports, friends, but all of these interests, as fulfilling as they are, are no match for how God can fill a soul who is ready to embark on that spiritual journey.
Find a good book on prayer and meditation. At this time of social distancing, online prayer meetings and social gatherings for meditations or spiritual community outreach are recommended.
As good as social settings are for friendship, individual prayer feeds the soul the best. After all, it is an individual journey we are all taking here on earth. We are born alone, thanks to the grace of God. In the end of our life, we go back to God. Now is the time to foster growth in getting to know the Creator of all love, faith and hope. If there ever was a time for faith hope and love, it is now.
All of these mental health tools are drugless therapies. You can do this.
I am an international holistic health counselor/practitioner, using this blog as a worldwide outreach since its inception in 2012, and a 2005 graduate of the American Institute of Holistic Health & Wellness, studying under Dr. Dolores Seymour, director of the school and author of WHO CARES WHY.
The American Institute of Holistic Health & Wellness is accredited by the American Association of Drugless Professionals, and the National Accreditation and Certification Board. This is a lifetime and international certification. I have studied extensively in the fields of holistic health in mind, body and spirit which naturally includes counseling on all life issues, and bodywork.
This blog addresses mental health, physical health and spiritual health. There are drugless therapies that work very well most of the time when applied, and have no chemical side effects, obviously, except when they are not followed.
I am trained in M.I.N.D.S. Holistic Alternative Psychology, with an emphasis on methods, individualized plans of action, fostering the ability of the individual to reach his or her highest potential physically, emotionally and spiritually; with advanced perspectives of positive personal growth, changing attitudes from negative to positive; enhancing intuition and self-discovery through creative endeavors, and improving health as impacted by psychological states.
I work with M.I.N.D.S. Wellness & Body/Mind Consciousness, which features positive self-analysis/awareness, self-control development programs, conditioning the healing mind, controlling mood swings, anxiety, avoiding depression and raising self-esteem to its highest level.
M.I.N.D.S. Meta-Psychology is person centered rather than technically oriented, and focuses on psychological health, consciousness, human possibilities, and challenges of body, mind and spiritual development. A person cannot heal in any program void of attention to their own spiritual development. As a matter of fact, many mental and physical ailments can be rooted when spiritual sickness is at the root of the problem.
I am a former member of the Branford Hall Career Institute Advisory Board; and former owner of The Massage Clinic, LLC which had four offices in Connecticut.
I am a retired certified Qigong instructor (2011), teaching Qigong healing and breathing applications for levels 1, 2 and 3. Qigong is a 4,000 year old Chinese medicine practice that moves “chi,” the life giving energy of the body. The health-promoting effects of Qigong are:
1) Improves the motion of blood, warms the blood and enhances whole body circulation.
2) Stimulates appetite, sexual function, assimilation of nutrients and digestion/elimination.
3) Accelerates metabolism, weight loss, decreases need for sleep.
4) Bolsters the immune system by reducing cortisol, a known inhibitor of cytokine production.
5) Develops dexterity, reflexes, and prevents osteoporosis in clinical studies.
6) Opens arteries allowing greater brain-based microcirculation to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
7) Enhances mental acuity, focus and concentration. The Qi (chi, life force, prana) draws focus and trains the mind.
8) Helps us to calm down, relax and become more peaceful.
9) Focuses mental, physical and spiritual energies together as one.
This particular Qigong Class included a food component, tying the energy of food to the energy of Qigong, and using food as medicine. Chemical medications attempt to mimic the benefits and properties of organic plant life, including fruits and vegetables and using their stems, spores and seeds. Clinical studies have been done on so many diseases, like diabetes, which can be reversed by eating certain foods high in phytochemicals. I wish to share the information I have learned about how foods work to heal our bodies.
I am a 2001 graduate of the DoveStar Institute of Holistic Technology of New Hampshire. I am now retired from bodywork, focusing on my online outreach to the world through this blog, Enlightenment Ministry.
This blog is my legacy, a healing gift to the world in need of hope, kindness, empathy, compassion, encouragement, truth, forgiveness, faith, and love. I am here for you if you need me. Please feel free to leave a comment or question, and I will get back to you, free of charge. Click on the gray COMMENT word at the top left of any post to leave a comment or ask a question, and I will respond to you. Enlightenment Ministry is my healing gift to the world so much in need of healing at this time. There is much we can do to help ourselves to feel better mentally, emotionally, psychologically, physically, and even spiritually.
Mind, body, spirit healing involves these three legs of the wellness tripod. If one of these legs of the mind, body, spirit is missing, your tripod, which reflects your total wellness, will topple over. Each of us needs a life in balance to be whole.
Here is a bit more about my personal and educational history. While my five children were growing up, I initiated the first Girl Scout troop in Hopedale, MA, and served as a member of Hopedale Girl’s Softball Board of Directors.
I was co-chairman with the elementary school principal on the school council’s 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act. When I was not allowed to bring in a curriculum including ethics in light of the elementary school’s sex education program, (since the school already taught ethics on school yard behavior and how to interact with students and teachers), at the request of many parents, I decided to write The Virtue of Virtues, to help parents in teaching virtues and moral character education to their children. The Virtue of Virtues is now available to all home schools, Catholic CCD and Christian programs, as well as to parents and anyone wishing to re-discover The Virtue of Virtues worldwide.
The single most constant in my life is God, Father of Jesus Christ. All glory, praise and honor to God, the Father of All Creation, through His Son, Jesus Christ, who gifts us all with His Holy Spirit. My motto in my high school yearbook was, “With God, all things are possible.”
I have had a close walk with God since I was a very young child, attending daily Mass with my mother ever since I could walk to Mass with her. I think I might have been the only five-year-old who loved Holy Hour, because I loved feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit when we prayed. God has answered my most impossible prayers. For a while I thought I would become a nun, but five children, 12 grandchildren later, and caring for six foster children in the middle of all of them in their younger years, showed me a different path for my life.
I hold a teacher training certificate as well as a Master Catechist certification from the Worcester Diocese in the Catholic Church.
I have taught religious education to all ages including preparation for First Holy Communion, First Penance, Confirmation and Bible studies for adults for over 50 years, and am the author of The Virtue of Virtues, subtitled A CCD TEXTBOOK, second printing is now available both in softcover and eBook at:
I taught The Virtue of Virtues in CCD classes as part of the 6th grade Catholic curriculums. However, The Virtue of Virtues is perfect for grades five through eight. It was first published in 1999. It is now out for its second printing from iUniverse Publishers.
Within the Catholic Church, I attended a Women’s Cursillo including Leader’s School often giving the Study Talk on Cursillo Weekends. I have attended Life In The Spirit Retreats, Marriage Encounter, and led women’s and group retreats. I also became a supernumerary within Opus Dei, a personal prelature under the direct auspice of the Pope, before I left to study all religions, to better understand all humanity much better.
I am also the author of MYSTERY OF THE STURBRIDGE KEYS, subtitled Christmas Unlocked. This book goes back in time to the days of Old Sturbridge Village (1830’s), starting at the Christmas by Candlelight celebration in real time, back to the days of the Underground Railroad, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, and back further to the days of Noah and the Nephilim, and to the days of the birth of Jesus. It is available at:
I am a former feature writer and news correspondent for The Milford Daily News, and Laconia Daily Sun. I am also published in the book, “More Weddings, Funerals And Rites of Passage,” subtitled “More Sample Ceremonies for Celebrants, Officiate and Ministers” by Rev. Amy E. Long. I am among the contributing authors.
Isn’t it wonderful to know that your previous history is not your destiny? You can manage your stress in a way thatYour previous history is not your destiny. Use psycholoogical tools and techniques to help you cope and feel better. diminishes, or even eliminates it, even in today’s COVID-19 pandemic. Here are some psychological tools and techniques that can help you cope and feel better. We can all use that these days. Will how we think and process extreme difficulties change our physical realities? No. We cannot wish bad things to stop happening. What does change is the way we psychologically handle our current crisis. It makes all the difference in the world how we acknowledge and respond, directly resulting in how feel. Most of us want to feel better. Dr. Dolores Seymour, director of the American Institute of Holistic Health and Wellness, explains time-tested techniques of how to release our baggage in the video below.
Psychological tools and techniques that help us humans process the stress that sometimes sends us into anxiety and panic attacks, work very effectively. To argue their validity or non-validity prior to trying them is lack of understanding how the human brain works. At this very moment, we have the ability to feel better or worse, simply by what we choose to think on any given subject, followed by the actions we decide to take, or not. Who does not want to feel better in dark and oppressive situations?
Our doctors and nurses in hospitals and nursing homes are on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Those of us who have been directly affected, physically, emotionally either by helping others, or who are the ones who were helped by these earthly angels, appreciate and support these valiant workers more than words can say. Everyone is affected in dealing with changes in employment, social distancing and new ways of doing things. Change is inevitable. Change is the only constant in life. It is how we deal with all of the above that can help or hurt us psychologically.
Whether it is you who is in a tenuous situation, someone around you, or the world at large, you have the ability to not only cope, but to excel in how you walk through this day. This video can help.
If you do not like how you are feeing, change how you are thinking. This works 100 percent of the time. Yes, you can. This next short video is part 2 of a 4 part series on free holistic healing counseling support amid the changing times and social distancing guidelines we are following these days. There are numerous posts in this blog I have written in the past on natural, holistic healing without the use of chemical medications.
Even if you take medications for relief with stress and its affect on your moods, you will still get to this starting point of self care and self improvement suggestions mentioned in this post. With or without medications, if you want to feel better, you will arrive at this exact point. Your moods involve your thinking, what you choose to think about. Did you realize you are the one who is choosing to think your thoughts, that they do not think you?
What you think about, you bring about. You are so powerful, that at this very moment, if you think you have had enough with this cloud of stress, or depression, or anxiety, however it is manifesting for you, you can stop it, turn it around, and begin to have a beautiful day. Yes, you can.
Now you will hear from my instructor from the American Institute of Holistic Health and Wellness, Dr. Dolores Seymour. She will tell you what I have been telling you all along.
If you would like further communication with me on this or any other post, simply click on the light gray comment word at the top left of this post. I will get back to you.
worldwide outreach since its inception in 2012, and a 2005 graduate of the American Institute of Holistic Health & Wellness, studying under Dr. Dolores Seymour, director of the school and author of WHO CARES WHY.
I am trained in M.I.N.D.S. Holistic Alternative Psychology, with an emphasis on methods, individualized plans of action, fostering the ability of the individual to reach his or her highest potential physically, emotionally and spiritually; with advanced perspectives of positive personal growth, changing attitudes from negative to positive; enhancing intuition and self-discovery through creative endeavors, and improving health as impacted by psychological states.
UNIVERSAL WISDOM ENLIGHTENMENT™ LLC 