Tag Archives: stress

On Stress and Healing

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The Healing Code: a New Frontier in Restoring Health and Preventing Disease

The Healing Code Alexander Loyd PhD ND The Healing Code: a New Frontier in Restoring Health and Preventing Disease29th November 2014

By Carolanne Wright

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

When Dr. Alexander Loyd, a Naturopathic Doctor with a PhD in psychology, discovered an unconventional method to permanently heal his wife’s struggle with clinical depression, little did he realize at the time that it might be one of the most powerful healing modalities ever known. Thousands have benefited from the technique, including terminal cancer patients and those struggling with autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular disease or even illnesses which have no known cure. Best of all, the healing code is simple to use and only requires a few minutes a day to complete.

A case in point of the seemingly incredible healing capacity of the codes is Dr. Ben Johnson (ND, DO, NMD), a cancer specialist who used the method as a last resort after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig disease, a disorder with a high mortality rate without any known cure. After struggling with the disease for over a year, Dr. Johnson was completely symptom-free within three months of following the protocol.

The Basis of Healing

Although simple to perform, the code is a powerful healing tool, as it addresses the root cause of over 95 percent of all disease: stress. Research institutions such as Stanford, Harvard, the Mayo Clinic and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirm that chronic stress is one of the leading causes of illness.

Not to be confused with reiki, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or chakra healing, the codes use four specific energy points on the body to deactivate the underlying stress signal of “dis-ease”, while literally turning on the immune system.

At first glance, skeptics might dismiss the codes as “New Age” nonsense due to the simplicity of the protocol. But Dr. Christopher Hegarty, best-selling author and consultant to more than four hundred Fortune 500 companies, asserts otherwise:

“For many years I was a writer for Alternative Medicine Magazine, among others. I have SEEN IT ALL when it comes to natural health. I have not just tried the techniques and products; I have interacted with the creators and developers personally. I have researched, tested, interviewed clients exhaustively to determine what is the truth versus hype. The Healing Code is the easiest and most effective ‘do-it-yourself’ healing technique I have ever found! It works consistently, predictably, and quickly on a wide range of issues. In other words, ‘ITS THE REAL DEAL!’”

A Brief Overview

Dr. Loyd describes the basic method of using the codes in “The 6-Minute Antidote to Stress”…

First, choose which health issue you would like to heal. Then, bringing the fingers together into a beak-like point for each hand, position the fingertips over each of the following healing centers for 20 seconds each, cycling between the locations for a total of 6 minutes.

1. Directly over the Adam’s apple.

2. Half an inch above and behind both temples.

3. The spot between the bridge of the nose and the eyebrows.

4. Bottom back corner of the jawbone on both sides of the head.

Always use the codes in a private, quiet space where you can relax without interruption. “Aim all five fingers of both hands at the healing centers listed [above] for the amount of time indicated. The fingers need to be 2 to 3 inches away from the healing center they’re aiming at (as shown on the diagrams).” Repeat each session three times per day.

The full protocol, complete with case studies, can be found in Dr. Loyd’s book, The Healing Code.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2014/11/29/the-healing-code-a-new-frontier-in-restoring-health-and-preventing-disease/

Dealing With Stress

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HeartMath Corner‏

HeartMath Corner‏

Inside Stressing Out: What works and what doesn’t in the face of stress

March 24, 2014

 

When it comes to stress, most Americans don’t need a designated month to realize what they already know – stress is part of modern life and can’t always be avoided. Perhaps the most puzzling issue around stress is what really works when it comes to reducing it.

Recent surveys by the American Psychological Association (APA) reveal that stress is an increasing and on-going issue for Americans. More than one third (36 percent) of U.S. workers report experiencing work stress regularly, according to APA survey findings released in March. Another significant APA survey released in November revealed American families recognize they have high stress levels, but lack the time and willpower to make appropriate changes.

What is “stress?”

Stress comes from our perception and emotional reactions to an event or idea. It can be any feeling of anxiety, irritation, frustration, or hopelessness, etc.

Stress is not only created by a response to an external situation or event. A lot of daily stress is created by ongoing attitudes, that is, recurring feelings of agitation, worry, anxiety, anger, judgments, resentment, insecurities and self-doubt. These emotions are known to drain emotional energy while engaging in everyday life.

It is emotions—more than thoughts alone—activating physical changes that make up the “stress response.” Emotions trigger the autonomic nervous system and, in turn, trigger stress hormones that cause many harmful effects on the brain and body.

Stressful feelings actually lead to a chaotic pattern in the beat-to-beat changes in the heart’s rhythm–indicating that our nervous system is out of sync. When this happens, a cascade of over 1,400 biochemical changes are set in motion that have a wide range of effects on the body’s systems.

Why Today’s Stress is Different?

Experts say an important factor in today’s stress experience is that it’s not just about the single incident type of stress that naturally follows trauma, illness, job change, or other major life event. For most people it’s the wear and tear of daily life. What used to work for stress relief before may not be as effective today, because modern stress is more about the on-going levels people are experiencing.

Daily life stress can be difficult to change because of how the brain works. Through repeated experiences of stress, the brain learns to recognize the patterns of activity associated with “stress” as a familiar baseline, and in a sense, it becomes normal and comfortable. Without effective intervention, stress can become self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing.

Traditionally, stress research has focused on the mental processes that affect our perception and the body’s response to it. Some of today’s most pertinent stress research comes from the Institute of HeartMath, which has contributed greatly to the understanding the underlying mechanics of stress and its relationship to our patterned emotional responses.

HeartMath research examines the role of the emotional system in the stress process. Scientists discovered a critical link between stress, emotions, heart function and cognitive performance. From this research they have seen that while mental processes play a role in stress, the real fuel for the stress is unmanaged emotions. Simply put, emotions have the power to fuel a thought into a high-definition experience of stress.

According to the research, the harmful effects stress places on the brain and body are in fact the physiological repercussions of negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, fear, resentment, etc.

What Works and What Doesn’t Work

Most stress has an emotional source, yet until now most of the widely used stress management methods have not focused directly on emotions. Instead, more often they focus on distraction methods, quieting the mind or trying to relax.

These practices may be enjoyable – such as taking a hot bath, or treatments like massage and aromatherapy – yet the fact remains that real solutions need to address the root cause of stress. They need to transform the deeper, recurring emotional patterns that sustain stress-producing feelings. Without essential changes at the emotional level, any other stress-relief method is likely to be short-lived.

Emotion regulation (or self-regulation) techniques are a direct and powerful way to override and transform underlying patterns of unhealthy psychological, behavioral and physiological stress responses.

HeartMath has become a leader in this area. They have developed a scientifically-validated system of techniques, programs and technologies addressing the core of the stress response. HeartMath is helping people change how they respond to stress by giving them tools to build new habits that replace their old familiar stress response patterns, which results in increased resilience and more stress tolerance.

Emotions are Powerful Energy

Since emotions – in and of themselves – are a powerful energy, it takes an equally powerful energy to transform them. Research in the neurosciences has made it quite clear that emotional processes operate at a much higher speed than thoughts because they frequently bypass the mind’s entire linear reasoning process. Thus activation of positive emotions plays a critical role in breaking the stress cycle and effectively transforming stress at its source.

HeartMath techniques focus on replacing the old stress responses by drawing on positive emotions to cultivate new patterns and more productive attitudes. In addition, these techniques incorporate a process of changing one’s heart rhythm pattern.

Emotions are tightly connected to the heart, and not just metaphorically speaking. Using the measurement of heart rate variability – the naturally occurring beat-to-beat fluctuations in heart rate – HeartMath researchers have demonstrated that distinct heart rhythm patterns characterize different emotional states.

In general, emotional stress – including emotions such as anger, frustration and anxiety – leads to heart-rhythm patterns that appear incoherent and look erratic, disordered and jagged. This incoherent state puts more strain on the nervous system and the bodily organs, and it also inhibits the flow of communication and information being passed throughout all the body’s systems – the brain, heart and hormonal, immune and nervous systems.

In contrast, positive emotions – such as appreciation, care, compassion and love – generate an orderly sine wave-like pattern in the heart’s rhythms. Heart rhythms associated with positive emotions like appreciation are clearly more coherent than those generated during a negative emotional experience like frustration. As a result, communication between the brain, heart, and nervous system is enhanced.

Positive emotions are associated with a specific physiological state called coherence. This system-wide state is associated with improved physiological functioning, emotional stability and cognitive performance.

Emotion refocusing techniques are much like resetting a thermostat. A new comfort zone is established when healthier emotional patterns become familiar and positive attitudes – like new temperatures – are eventually acknowledged as the norm.

How it Works in Real-Time

According to positive psychology research positive emotions are critical to our effective adaptation to life’s challenges, and to our growth and development as human beings. They help to shape behavior by promoting helpfulness, generosity, and effective cooperation.

Using positive emotion-refocusing exercises in the moment that stress is experienced can help to change the perception of stress and greatly reduce or even stop the typical stress response when encountering a challenging or evoking situation.

Surgeons have one of the top five most stressful occupations as Dr. Joseph F. McCaffrey can attest to being a vascular surgeon at Auburn Memorial Hospital in New York. “When an anesthesiologist told me that he wouldn’t give his high-risk patient anesthesia because the patient hadn’t been evaluated properly, I almost lost it!” said Dr. McCaffrey. “This was the second such incident in less than a week. I was ready to blow up. I just about had my finger on the anesthesiologist’s chest, when I decided to use one of the techniques I learned from HeartMath.”

“Going through the technique’s steps I was able to transform my anger” Using the emotion refocusing technique enabled McCaffrey to clear his agitation and access a different perception. “I realized that the anesthesiologist was as interested in taking good care of the patient as I was. Keeping that common ground in mind, I was able to bring the anesthesiologist around to my point of view – without exploding.  I could have been an obnoxious surgeon, but that wouldn’t have made for a very collegial relationship,” said Dr. McCaffrey.

One of the most widely used emotion refocusing techniques is called Quick Coherence® and it was developed by HeartMath. This three-step tool helps to cultivate new heart coherence patterns and emotional responses.

As the simple steps are applied, the body’s functions synchronize to a coherent state, minimizing the experience of stress and allowing for a more intelligent response to the situation. HeartMath stress experts say the key lies in the third step of the technique in recalling positive emotions. Whenever stress buttons are being pushed, the following is useful to help refocus:

The Quick Coherence® Technique

1    Heart focus: Shift your attention to the area of the heart and breathe slowly and deeply.

2    Heart breathing: Keep your focus in the heart by gently breathing – five seconds in and five seconds out – through your heart. Do this two or three times before moving to the next step.

3    Heart feeling: Activate and sustain a genuine feeling of appreciation or care for someone or something in your life. Focus on the good heart feeling as you continue to breathe through the area of your heart.

Technologies for Resilience Coaching

There are devices that use heart rhythm feedback to help people measure their emotional state in real-time so users can learn what works when it comes to emotion management. Such devices, when applied with emotion refocusing techniques, allow users to manage stress and gain more control over their well-being.

There are a few technologies like this on the market; however the emWave® is the most widely used. Over 10,000 health professionals around the country use it to help patients that suffer from reoccurring stress and anxiety. The effectiveness of this technology has been documented by independent studies and peer review journals.

While the technology and method have proven successful for everyday stress, it’s also shown to be effective for more extreme stress issues. The U.S. military is now using this same approach with soldiers to help them manage symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therapists have also found the technology to work with children suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The take-home message is this: managing stress in a way that truly works – without avoiding it, neglecting it, trying to overpower it, or become a victim of it –begins and ends by focusing on the core of stress patterns: the emotional state. Thanks to science there are now very effective methods that have been developed and proven effective without requiring significant time investments and or major life changes.

from:    http://spiritofmaat.com/magazine/november-2014-the-divine-mother/heartmath-corner%E2%80%8F/

Ways to Change those Negative Habits

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7 Common Habits of Unhappy People

by Henrik Edberg

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Image by Mitya Kuznetsov (license).

.“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Marcel Proust

Circumstances can certainly make life unhappy. But a part – often a big part – of unhappiness comes from our own thinking, behavior and habits.

In this article I’d like to share 7 of the most destructive daily habits that can create quite a bit of unhappiness within and in your own little world.

But I’ll also share what has worked, what has helped me to minimize or overcome these habits in my life.

1. Aiming for perfection.

Does life has to be perfect before you are happy?

Do you have to behave in a perfect way and get perfect results to be happy?

Then happiness will not be easy to find. Setting the bar for your performance at an inhuman level usually leads to low self-esteem and feeling like you are not good enough even though you may have had a lot of good or excellent results. You and what you do is never enough good enough except maybe once in a while when feels like something goes just perfect.

How to overcome this habit:

Three things that helped me to kick the perfectionism habit and become more relaxed:

  • Go for good enough. Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a project or something else never being finished. So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to slack off. But simply realize that there is something called good enough and when you are there then you are finished with whatever you are doing.
  • Have a deadline. I set deadlines every time that start with a new premium guide. Because about a year ago, when I was working on my second e-book, I realized that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much.
  • Realize what it costs you when you buy into myths of perfection. This was a very powerful reason for me to let go of perfectionism and one I tell myself still if I find thoughts of perfection pop up in my mind. By watching too many movies, listening to too many songs and just taking in what the world is telling you it is very easy to be lulled into dreams of perfection. It sounds so good and wonderful and you want it.
    But in real life it clashes with reality and tends to cause much suffering and stress within you and in the people around you. It can harm or possibly lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. just because your expectations are out of this world. I find it very helpful to remind myself of this simple fact.

2. Living in a sea of negative voices.

No one is an island. Who we socialize with, what we read, watch and listen to has big effect on how we feel and think.

It becomes a lot harder to be happier if you let yourself be dragged down by negative voices. Voices that tell you that life will in large part always be unhappy, dangerous and filled with fear and limits. Voices that watch life from a negative perspective.

How to overcome this habit:

Replacing those negative voices with more positive influences is very powerful. It can be like a whole new world opening up.

So spend more time with positive people, inspiring music and books, movies and TV-shows that make you laugh and think about life in a new way.

You can start small. For example, try reading an uplifting blog or book or listen to an audio book while eating your breakfast one morning this week instead of reading the paper or watching the morning news on TV.

3. Getting stuck in the past and future too much.

Spending much of your time in the past and reliving old painful memories, conflicts, missed opportunities and so on can hurt whole lot. Spending much of your time in the future and imagining how things could go wrong at work, in your relationships and with your health can build into horrifying nightmare scenarios playing over and over in your head. Not being here right now in life as it happens can lead to missing out on a lot of wonderful experiences.

No good if you want to be happier.

How to overcome this habit:

It is pretty much impossible to not think about the past or the future. And it is of course important to plan for tomorrow and next year and to try to learn from your past.

But to dwell on those things rarely help.

So I try as best as I can to spend the rest of my time, the big part of my time each day, with living in the now. Just being here right now and being fully focused on these words I am writing and later as I cook and eat my lunch and work out be fully focused on doing that.

Whatever I am doing I try to be there fully and not drift off into the future or past.

If I do drift off then I focus only on my breathing for a few minutes or I sit still and take in what is all around me right now with all my senses for a short while. By doing either of those things I can realign myself with the present moment again.

4. Comparing yourself and your life to others and their lives.

One very common and destructive daily habit is to constantly compare your life and yourself to other people and their lives. You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on. And at the end of the day you pummel your self-esteem to the ground and you create a lot of negative feelings.

How to overcome this habit:

Replace that destructive habit with two other habits.

  • Compare yourself to yourself. First, instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you have made towards your goals. This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the good stuff you have done.
    You feel good about yourself without having to think less of other people.
  • Be kind. In my experience, the way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge and criticize people more and you tend to judge and criticize yourself more (often almost automatically). Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself.
    Focus on the positive things in yourself and in the people around you. Appreciate what is positive in yourself and others. This way you become more OK with yourself and the people in your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind.

And remember, you can’t win if you keep comparing. Just consciously realizing this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at something.

5. Focusing on the negative details in life.

Seeing the negative aspects of whichever situation you are in and dwelling on those details is a sure way to make yourself unhappy. And to drag down the mood for everyone around you.

How to overcome this habit:

Overcoming this habit can be tricky. One thing that has worked for me is to kick the perfectionism habit. You accept that things and situations will have their upsides and downsides rather than thinking that all details have to positive and excellent. You accept things as they are. This way you can let go emotionally and mentally of what is negative instead of dwelling on it and making mountains out of molehills.

Another thing that works is simply to focus on being constructive. Instead of focusing on dwelling and whining about the negative detail. You can do so by asking better questions. Questions like:

How can I turn this negative thing into something helpful or positive?
How can I solve this problem?

If I am faced with what I start thinking is a problem I may use a third solution, I may ask myself: who cares? I most often then realize that this isn’t really a problem in the long run at all.

6. Limiting life because you believe the world revolves around you.

If you think that the world revolves around you and you hold yourself back because you are afraid what people may think or say if you do something that different or new then you are putting some big limits on your life. How?

Well, you can become less open to trying new things and growing.You can think that the criticism and negativity you encounter is about you or that it is your fault all the time (while it in reality could be about the other person having bad week or you thinking that you can read minds). I have also found that my own shyness used to come from me thinking that people cared a great deal about what I was about to say or do.

How to overcome this habit:

  • Realize people don’t care too much about what you do. They have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. Yes, this might make you feel less important in your own head. But it also sets you free a bit more if you’d like that.
  • Focus outward. Instead of thinking about yourself and how people may perceive you all the time, focus outward on the people around you. Listen to them and help them. This will help you to raise your self-esteem and help you to reduce that self-centered focus.

7. Overcomplicating life.

Life can be pretty complicated. This can creates stress and unhappiness. But much of this is often created by us. Yes, the world may be becoming more complex but that doesn’t mean that we cannot create new habits that make your own lives a bit simpler.

How to overcome this habit:

Overcomplicating life can involve many habits but I’d like to suggest a few replacement habits to what have been a couple of my own most overcomplicating habits.

  • Splitting your focus and having your attention all over the place in everyday life. I replaced that complicating habit with just doing one thing at a time during my day, having a small to-do list with 2-3 very important items and writing down my most important goal on white board that I see each day.
  • Having too much stuff. I replaced that habit with regularly asking myself: have I used this in the past year? If not then I will give that thing away or throw it away.
  • Creating relationship problems of any kind in your mind. Reading minds is hard. So, instead ask questions and communicate. This will help you to minimize unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, negativity and waste or time and energy.
  • Getting lost in the in-box. I spend less time and energy on my email in-box by just checking it once a day and writing shorter emails (if possible not more than 5 sentences.)
  • Getting lost in stress and overwhelm. When stressed, lost in a problem or the past or future in your mind then, as I mentioned above, breathe with your belly for two minutes and just focus on the air going in and out. This will calm your body down and bring your mind back into the present moment again. Then you can start focusing on doing what is most important for you again
  • FROM:    http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2011/10/05/7-habits/

Yoga & Health

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9 Health Benefits of Yoga

yoga man

We’ve all heard at one time or another about how yoga is great for our holistic well-being and some of us have a daily yoga practice we do with that in mind. What you may not know is that the list of life enriching benefits of yoga just keeps on growing and here we look at several new discoveries about the wonderful benefits of yoga that have emerged in recent years. If you don’t incorporate some form of yoga into your daily life you may reconsider after reading this and become a yogi or yogini yourself!

Yoga gives an immune boost to breast cancer survivors

In breast cancer survivors, the Iyengar method of yoga not only promotes psychological well-being, but seems to offer immune system benefits as well, according to new research. The Iyengar method, created by B. K. S. Iyengar, “is considered to be one of the more active forms of yoga,” says lead researcher and presenter Pamela E. Schultz
“It still has the meditative component, but it’s been shown to have a physical output equivalent to a moderate-intensity exercise.” –Source

Yoga reverses the risk of heart disease

Ycan reverse the clinical and biochemical changes associated with metabolic syndrome, according to results of studies from Sweden and India. Waist circumference, blood pressure, blood sugar, and triglycerides were significantly lower, and “good” HDL cholesterol levels were higher in the yoga group as compared to controls, Agrawal’s team reports in the journal Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice. –Source

Yoga proven to help back pain

Research shows that regular yoga sessions may be an effective way to combat back pain. In one study, those who practised weekly 75-minute yoga classes made greater progress than those who took part in strengthening and stretching classes. The researchers found that at the end of 12 weeks patients in the yoga group were better able to do daily activities involving the back. After another 14 weeks they also reported less pain, and used less pain relieving drugs. –Source

Yoga enhances sexual performance

A study published in the December 2008 edition of The Journal of Sexual Medicine showed women who were not satisfied with their sex life experienced heightened arousal and better orgasms when they practiced yoga. Another study published in the same journal in 2007 showed yoga was the most effective solution for men dealing with premature ejaculation in comparison to Prozac and non-prescription drugs. –Source

Yoga can help heal in PTSD recovery

Recently Yoga has begun to be used as a treatment to aid in healing those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In a recent study, a group of female patients suffering from PTSD were taught Hatha Yoga in eight sessions while another group of female patients underwent eight sessions of group therapy. Those who finished the Yoga training showed a substantial improvement in symptoms such as “the frequency of intrusive thoughts and the severity of jangled nerves” in comparison to those who underwent group therapy. –Source

Yoga helps in weight control through mindfulness

According to a new study headed by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, people who practice yoga regularly are less likely to be obese. The reason isn’t necessarily the exercise part of yoga but the mindfulness part that promotes a slim body. It was found that middle-age people who practice yoga gained less weight over a ten year period than those who did not. This was independent of physical activity and dietary patterns. –Source

Yoga helps in stopping binge eating

According to research conducted at the University of The Rockies, binge eaters were encouraged to take part in a 10-week yoga therapy program. These participants saw a dramatic drop in their binge-eating episodes towards the end of the program. Every week, the program included an hour of yoga and group discussion afterwards that lasted half an hour. –Source

Yoga improves mood and reduces anxiety

Yet another study has confirmed that yoga can assist in the treatment of a wide range of psychological disorders, including depression, anxiety, and cardiac disease. Chris Streeter, MD, and his colleagues from Boston University School of Medicine discovered that it may be because of yoga’s ability to increase levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an endogenous antidepressant neurotransmitter present in the brain. –Source

It’s well known yoga reduces stress; now we know why

Research has suggested for some time that psychosocial interventions like meditation reduce the adverse effects of caregiver stress on physical and mental health. However, the pathways by which such psychosocial interventions impact biological processes are poorly understood. –Source

Source: “9 Life Enriching Benefits of Yoga”, from shift.is, by Paul Lenda

from:   http://theunboundedspirit.com/9-health-benefits-of-yoga/

Benefits of Writing

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Writing: Better than a Band-Aid?

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For those of us who write, we often feel a psychological or emotional release after writing, especially if we’ve tackled a difficult subject. It turns out this emotional release may work on an even deeper level. According to a new study from New Zealand, expressive writing helps wounds heal more quickly in older adults, a group prone to injuries.

The study, led by the University of Auckland’s Elizabeth Broadbent, worked with 49 healthy adults ages 64 to 97. All the participants were asked to write for 20 minutes a day for three consecutive days. Half were asked to “write about the most traumatic/upsetting experience in their life, delving into their deepest thoughts, feelings, and emotions about the event, ideally not previously shared with others.” The others were asked to “write about their daily activities for tomorrow, without mentioning emotions, opinions or beliefs.”

Then, all participants received a standard skin biopsy, and the resultant wounds were photographed and monitored over the next 11 days. On the 11th day after the biopsy, the wounds were completely healed on 76.2 percent of those who had done the expressive writing. That was true of only 42.1 percent of those who had written about everyday activities.

Interestingly, the participants who wrote expressively did not report lower levels of stress or a feeling of better emotional well-being. It seems that even though they were not consciously aware of feeling more relaxed, the expressive writing had triggered something in their bodies which significantly sped up their healing time.

Though it cannot always be scientifically explained, there is a strong connection between mental and physical well-being. By healing, or at least dealing with, an emotional wound through writing, these study participants were able to prompt their body’s physical healing response, proving, if nothing else, the incredible capabilities of the human mind and body for healing.

Image by jjpacres, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

from:    http://www.realitysandwich.com/writing_better_bandaid

THe Heart and Change

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How the Heart Helps You Chang

By Deborah Rozman

Ever tried to make a change in your life only to fail or come up short on motivation? We all have. What we’ve learned at HeartMath is that when you really want to change, reinforcement will come from your heart. Your heart wants to get out of the negative trap and not have to endure the hurt, resentment and anguish anymore of not making the change you say you want. When you’re ready, your heart will motivate you to improve your relationship, save your job, lose weight or write that book.

What many people don’t realize is that love is integral to motivation. Feelings of care and appreciation move you out of old hurts and resentments as you realize you don’t need to hang onto them as security any longer. Love makes it possible for you to shift to the wide-angle lens of perception. Take Shauna for instance. She was constantly annoyed by her parents. Every time she visited them, she felt her anger triggered. Then Shauna fell in love. Riding high and feeling great about herself, she saw her parents in a new way. Their reactions no longer bothered her. Instead of making her want to run a hundred miles, their reactions slipped off her like water off a duck’s back. Why?

When you’re in love, you open your heart more. The hormones released from being in love give you a more cushioned response to situations. You can build that same cushion from within. You don’t need to wait to fall in love. Learning how to self-generate more love in your system creates that cushion — so you don’t react as quickly to people or events with an angry survival response but respond with a centered response. The heart tools build security — a cushion of inside reinforcement — and inner security is what gives you the power to change.

The heart is really about transformation. That’s part of nature’s design. Your heart is what transforms the physiology of anger that drains your system into the physiology of love that gives you wholeness and effectiveness. You achieve this by replacing angry emotions with real care. Feelings of care and appreciation are the building blocks for love that you build inside yourself. When you replace the anger with care, you choose a more effective emotion. Care transforms perception. Care is an ingredient of intelligence that causes your entire system to work more harmoniously and respond more effectively to resistances that come up in life. Care gives you rhythm. Life happens, negative things happen. Self-generated care enables you to move through the resistances and inconveniences of life with more intelligence and less energy.

For example, say you are in a crowded airport and late getting to your plane. You start to anxiously push your way through the crowd, bumping into luggage and people, frustrated because you can’t move as fast as you need to. You’re angry at whoever is in your way. Your head is driving you. If you stop and use a heart tool, get centered in your heart, and find an attitude of appreciation or care, your flow changes. You see the openings in the throng and feel your way through in a rhythm, dancing around obstacles, getting to your gate with minimum energy expenditure. That’s what tuning to your heart rhythm can do.

The heart rhythm is subtle. To find a smooth rhythm when you need it requires a new reference place inside from which you respond — a heart-intelligent place. That reference place will feel different from your mechanical head, and you’ll come to recognize it. So how do you tell the difference? See my previous post, “Distinguishing Mind from Heart.”

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My heart has led me to change, as well. I knew I needed to go to bed earlier to get more sleep. I had been staying up late to have more time for me after a full day and often evening of work. I’d be tired in the morning and not as clear during the day, but it was hard to break out of that. When I finally got sick, I had a talk with my heart. It gave me a very clear feeling that I needed to turn off the TV and stop earlier and have that time to journal, meditate and create quality time for myself. Those self-care activities were far more rewarding than what I had been doing that I thought was rewarding. That quality time for myself refreshed me and felt really good. I find that if I do something nurturing – not just mind-stimulating – for me – it keeps my heart open and is fulfilling. Using “my time” to connect with my heart and having a creative dialogue between my heart and head inspires and empowers other positive changes in my life.

How do you bring the heart into the changes you want to make? Follow this adaptation of HeartMath’s Heart Lock-In® technique:

  1. Shift your attention to the area of your heart and breathe slowly and deeply.
  2. Activate and sustain a genuine feeling of appreciation or care for the thing you want to change.
  3. Radiate these feelings of care and appreciation toward yourself and your intention for five minutes or longer.
  4. When you catch your mind wandering, simply refocus your attention on the heart area and reconnect with feelings of care and appreciation or other heart qualities.
  5. Notice how this extended radiation of care has affected your body, emotions and thinking.
  6. As you complete your Heart Lock-In, be receptive to your heart’s intuitive guidance. Is there anything your heart would like you to know in this moment about your intention? Write down whatever you quietly sense.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           from:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heartmath-llc/life-changes_b_2846251.html?utm_hp_ref=gps-for-the-soul&ir=GPS%20for%20the%20Soul

On Opening the Compassionate Heart

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Pursuing the Awakening Warrior

Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of compassion, holding a piece of lapis lazuli at his heart representing the quality of Bodhichitta.

30th June 2012

By Rob Preece –  Wake Up World

In a world where sickness of heart is a cultural normality, it’s a long road to the heart of the Bodhisattva

When some of my Tibetan teachers first began to visit the West and teach Westerners, they were surprised or perhaps even shocked by something they experienced in us. When they described it in their own terms, they called it sok lung, a damage or blockage of the primary life supporting “energy-wind” or lung (in Sanskrit: prana ) within the heart chakra. What they recognized in this was that something about our way of life in the West was putting a kind of pressure in the heart that led to a deep yet subtle level of pain and depression of the energy there. One of the ways this manifests is in subtle yet deep insecurity and anxiety.

If we translate this into a more Western, psychological language, what we begin to understand is that there is something about the stresses and pressures we grow up with in the West that has a dramatic impact upon this very subtle energy in the heart. One of the most significant aspects of this problem is that we experience a much more accentuated sense of insecurity and alienation in the West because of the very nature of our culture and its expectations on us from a very early age. From early in our life we are more likely to experience separation from the mother and a far greater expectation to be independent and self-reliant. We grow up into a world that then demands that we survive and become an individual in an extremely competitive environment where the pressure to succeed is endemic. If we add to this the absence of a supportive sense of community and the often dysfunctional nature of the nuclear family, insecurity, anxiety and fear become a root emotional drive.

Is it any wonder that this alienation has an impact on the heart and the energy of the heart? The consequence is that we experience deep-rooted wounding to our sense of self, and our ego-identity is built on shaky ground from the very beginning.  It was this wounded sense of self that my Tibetan teachers recognized and as a result were at first somewhat at a loss as to how to address it in us. What becomes particularly problematic is that with the degree of wounding we have in the west it has become normal to be self-preoccupied and solely oriented to personal gain and personal gratification at the expense of others. Our culture seems to see the ruthless attainment of one’s own needs in a competitive world as something of an accolade. In the cutthroat political and corporate world being able to achieve and satisfy one’s own aspirations for power and status at the expense of others’ is encouraged. Our sickness of the heart has become a cultural normality.

From a Tibetan Buddhist point of view this wounding to the heart causes a contraction and closing around the heart chakra that cuts us off from a deep essential quality that is innate within us all. This is a quality of mind known in Sanskrit as Chitta. Chitta is often translated as mind, heart or essence and is a quality of mind that dwells in the heart chakra. But this is not our ordinary worldly conceptual mind, it is a deep quality of mind that is essentially clear, peaceful and pervaded by a natural compassion and loving kindness. Indeed it is our ordinary mind with its emotional entanglements and wounds that obscures this essential heart mind.

In the Tantric tradition this essential nature of mind is also known as clear-light mind and has a number of significant characteristics, one of which is its innate clarity and emptiness and the other is a potent innate vitality that brings with it a felt quality of joy, happiness and bliss. Our problem, if we like to see it as such, is that while this natural quality has never been defiled, it is, however, obscured by our gross ordinary mind and its emotional proliferations. As a result it is largely inaccessible to us. It has been described as being like a golden statue wrapped in filthy rags. From a Buddhist point of view if we are able to gradually clear these obscurations, then what naturally manifests is what could be called bodhichitta or the awakening mind or heart.

Our innate heart potential is the deep vitality of our mind’s natural, undefiled and clear nature. So long as we are still caught up in our primary wounds of the heart it is going to be extremely difficult to begin to awaken qualities such as compassion and loving-kindness. If I have deep-rooted feelings of low self-worth, lack of self-acceptance, feeling I am not good enough and so on, then these close the heart leading to Sok lung.

It is very easy to speak of opening the heart and having spiritual ideals of love and compassion, but if we have not addressed our essential wounding these will just be a kind of veneer of spiritual correctness burying deep wounds. To open the heart we must first begin to heal our sense of self. To do this we need to develop compassion and acceptance towards ourselves with all of our failings as well as gifts and qualities. The contraction around the heart then begins to soften, and the innate energy within the heart starts to awaken.  This may not always be comfortable because as we soften the contraction in the energy around the heart we re-awaken our wounds, but as we go deeper we can begin to feel the natural chitta that lies in the heart.

The term bodhichitta, which is often translated as the “awakening mind,” emerges from an opening of the heart and brings a deep compassion for the suffering of all beings. It also awakens a powerful quality of intention that is willing to dedicate life to the welfare of others. Bodhichitta is sometimes called the “great will,” but this is not the will of the ego but a deeper intention that requires that we surrender to the process of awakening to the state of wholeness or Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. It is like the shift from “I will” to “thy will be done.” While this “awakening mind” lies at the heart of Buddhist life it is something that emerges only when we have begun to heal our own wounds so that there is the fertile ground for its growth. Once present, as a quality of the heart, it will underlie everything we do in life, like a steady flowing river moving us towards the ocean of full awakening. It will then be natural to wish to dedicate our life to the welfare of others and indeed to the planet that so unconditionally supports us. Bodhichitta is the heart of the Bodhisattva, often translated as “the awakening warrior,” one who with courage engages with the journey of life to transform adversity into the path of awakening for the welfare of others.

About the Author

Rob Preece, author most recently of The Courage to Feel (Snow Lion, 2009) is a psychotherapist, spiritual mentor, leader of Tibetan mediation retreats, and an initiated Granicero (weather work) in the Nahua tradition.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2012/06/30/pursuing-the-awakening-warrior/