Saturday, March 16, 2024

Yoga Is Skill In Action


The basis practice of yoga is self-inquiry which, through this process, we create change within ourselves. Before I started practicing yoga, I was more selfish and immature. The grass always seemed greener on the other side of the fence. Yoga changed my world perspective and philosophy in a way that has helped me live my life with more grace and integrity. I care for myself and others more deeply, my eating habits have become conscious choices and my friendships have evolved. I no longer spend time with people who are addicted to drinking and drugs, or those that spend their time gossiping about other people. I look for people who help me feel good about myself and those who are more happy and have goals in their life.

Friday, March 15, 2024

What is Hypnosis

For weight-loss hypnosis by Zoe Featherstone, click on the arrow!
If your only contact with hypnosis has been seeing a hypnotist perform on stage, then you might think hypnosis is simply a form of entertainment. While hypnosis can be used for entertainment (and some people have made a lot of money doing just that!) it´s only part of the story. Hypnosis is so much more than that.

Believe it or not, hypnosis is entirely natural. Any ideas you might have held about it being a mysterious art should be disposed of completely. The image of a caped demon forcing you to look into his eyes and subequently turning you into a zombie, incapable of doing anything other than what your 'master' commands, is a lot of nonsense. It might make for good television or stretch the special effects department working on a Hollywood blockbuster, but in truth these represntations are little more than exaggerations of certain aspects of hypnosis.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Low Self Esteem?

 
There are many causes of low self esteem. It is a largely unrecognised condition that controls your life, reduces your enjoyment of life, causes you to not succeed in life, either in the work environment or in personal relationships. Especially, you might allow yourself to be badly treated by other people - or treat other people badly - and you might not be ambitious for yourself or your children. You might not realise just how low your self esteem is. Working to improve your self worth is something you can do for yourself. 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Breathing!

Breathing is one of life's most basic necessities. Adults take in an average of almost 25,000 breaths each day, and that's just at rest. While it's true that most of us don't stop to think about the breathing we do each day, it's important to recognize the health benefits of doing so. Take in a breath right now. It comes so naturally, doesn't it? You may not realize that you can greatly improve the way you feel inside and out, just by consciously controlling how you breathe, for even as little as an hour each day.

When you breathe in the air around you, your lungs transfer the oxygen into your blood. This oxygen is necessary for life's building block, our cells, to live and create within us. When you breathe out, carbon dioxide and other metabolic wastes are removed from the blood and back out into the air. For those with impaired respiratory function, such as cardiac patients or asthma sufferers, the result of improper breathing is a catastrophic build-up of toxins and extremely low levels of oxygen in the blood. The good news is that even those of us with impaired respiration can benefit from intentionally controlling our breathing.



Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Naikan Therapy


Naikan Therapy was developed by a Buddhist monk in the 1940s. It involves self examination, looking inside and is an aid to mental health. It asks three questions:

What have I received from this person?

What have I given to this person? 

What trouble have I caused this person? 

The Goddess Dewi Ratih


From the Moon Goddess Diary by Nicci Garaicoa: Dewi Ratih the Hindu Moon Goddess.

Dewi Ratih is worshipped throughout Indonesia and Bali for her breathtaking beauty and grace. Legend has it that the giant Kali Rau fell desperately and completely in love with her as she was the most beautiful of all goddesses; however, Dewi Ratih did not love him back and refused to marry him. He was enraged and tried to steal immortality from the Gods so he could pursue and win her heart. But his plan was discovered and the King of the Gods, Dewa Wisnu, followed him to cut off his head with his magical disc but he was too late, and the immortal drink had been taken and Kali Rau’s head became immortal. 

Monday, March 11, 2024

Dealing with Difficult People



There are many techniques for managing people you find are difficult to deal with. Many would prefer to leave a situation rather than use the methods that have been tried and tested over time by others and have been found to work in the majority of cases. However, sometimes, yes, it is necessary to leave a situation where someone's patterns are honed to get the best of yours. Whether it be a parent, spouse, child, work colleague, it is usually a power issue. Do not give away your power. Have clear boundaries. Remain distant and obscure if necessary. Knowledge is power. Use affirmations to contradict your soft natured patterns. Keep your sense of humour. Don't try to fix them. Say 'no' and mean it!


Sunday, March 10, 2024

Brief History of Humankind

 
With a PhD in History, the eminent Dr Yuval Noah Harari speaks about the history of human beings, from the author of best-selling book 'Sapiens'. A fascinating lecture from RSA Animate. 

Giant Cell Arteritis

After experiencing painful headaches, hair falling out, deeply disturbing potential loss of vision and hearing, patients are aggressively railroaded into temporal artery biopsies, often on both sides of the head. This extremely invasive surgery, at a time of inflammation of these delicate arteries, to cut through and micro-suture, with often delayed wound healing, is outrageous when non invasive scans are available, especially as the result does not matter, as a negative does not mean that GCA is not present and the treatment is the same as a positive test for giant cells. This operation is very expensive and dangerous. Wound healing is often a problem when other means of diagnosis are available.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Person Centred Therapy

 
What is PCA? 
Carl Rogers (1902-1987) was the founder of Person Centred Approach otherwise known as Client Centred Therapy and this developed into Student Centred Learning and additional practices. He developed this method of counselling and therapy to counteract a patriarchal, dominant and overbearing and sometimes abusive power dynamic that therapists and teachers had in the past. He came from a Christian background in the USA and researched the data in order to find out which type of therapy helped the client to recover most from neurosis and even more serious mental illness. 

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Neuro Linguistic Programming

What is NLP? 
NLP was developed in the early 1970s by John Grinder, a linguistics expert at the University of California, and Richard Bandler, a Gestalt therapist and computer programmer. Together they made a study of three leading therapeutic practitioners, Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson. They discovered that patterns could assist learning and development and that these could be applied to psychology in the areas of education, business and counselling.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Psychosynthesis

Psychosynthesis is described as the 'psychology with a soul'. It was developed by Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974), an Italian psychiatrist who travelled widely in his early life and spoke many languages. He was the creator of Psychosynthesis, a form of humanistic and transpersonal psychotherapy. It is principally based on the understanding that our personality is comprised of many sub personalities which act like musicians playing in an orchestra without a maestro. By gaining understanding of these sub personalities, we can bring them into harmony, so they create a wonderful piece of music that enables us to have a flourishing life. Love, wisdom and creativity are goals of this therapy. Psychosynthesis uses creative visualisation (also called guided imagery) to access our unconscious mind and inform our understanding of the way we think and feel. Assagioli was imprisoned by the Faschsts and spent his time in meditation. This influenced his work later in life. 

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Bullying!

There are always posts on social media about narcissism and psychopathy, but bullying is a symptom, often seen from childhood that develops - if allowed to and not addressed - into a personality disorder that includes these two very common traits. 

Bullying features extraordinary strategies that are easily identified. It is amazing that young children display these strategies, but if we look at dogs especially and other pack animals, such as apes and chimps, we see these strategies are being portrayed. Humans are also pack animals and bullying is a pack animal behaviour. 

Bullying involves a perpetrator and a victim and the bully uses personal attacks, put-downs, invalidations, accusations, name calling, blaming, intimidation, aggression, threats, criticisms and judgements, shaming, slander or libel, in fact, anything that controls and undermines the victim’s confidence, and removes their standing and credibility in the eyes of others, so they are silenced and left powerless and distraught. It is very stressful for the victim who will often suffer mental health problems, such as anxiety, panic attacks, depression and loss of self esteem, and inability to concentrate. They may also have physical illness related to stress, and often they don’t do well in school or in the workplace, taking time out to avoid the bully. The perpetrator feels all powerful and satisfied with their abilities to cause trauma. Usually jealousy is the cause! 

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Self Actualisation Qualities

 

According to Maslow, self-actualizing people share the following qualities:

  • Truth: honest, reality, beauty, pure, clean and unadulterated completeness
  • Goodness: rightness, desirability, uprightness, benevolence, honesty
  • Beauty: rightness, form, aliveness, simplicity, richness, wholeness, perfection, completion,
  • Wholeness: unity, integration, tendency to oneness, interconnectedness, simplicity, organization, structure, order, not dissociated, synergy
  • Dichotomy: transcendence, acceptance, resolution, integration, polarities, opposites, contradictions
  • Aliveness: process, not-deadness, spontaneity, self-regulation, full-functioning
  • Uniqueness: idiosyncrasy, individuality, non comparability, novelty
  • Perfection: nothing superfluous, nothing lacking, everything in its right place, just-rightness, suitability, justice
  • Necessity: inevitability: it must be just that way, not changed in any slightest way
  • Completion: ending, justice, fulfillment
  • Justice: fairness, suitability, disinterestedness, non partiality,
  • Order: lawfulness, rightness, perfectly arranged
  • Simplicity: abstract, essential skeletal, bluntness
  • Richness: differentiation, complexity, intricacy, totality
  • Effortlessness: ease; lack of strain, striving, or difficulty
  • Playfulness: fun, joy, amusement
  • Self-sufficiency: autonomy, independence, self-determining.

Hellerwork


   This is an excellent video on Hellerwork (founder Joseph Heller) which is a body therapy which releases and realignes the body so that the body can work well and comfortably. When this is done, the emotions and mind automatically feel better. The method is suitable for repetitive strain injury or for long term structural pain caused through an accident but here, working on the theory of body armouring through emotional distress, the muscles and joints tense and result in stored tention which can be released through bodywork. 


Sunday, February 18, 2024

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Who was Rumi? 
His life dated from 1207 - 1273, a writer, teacher, Sufi mystic from Persia. His father was a religious teacher and he studied under a Sufi master, a mystic practice that seeks to unite to the divine within the Godhead, a mystical journey and transpersonal attainment. His work became the basis for the Mevlevi Dervish Order which has music from the Afghan and Iranian traditions. 

Are you a Perfectionist?

Perfectionism can be disabling with attendant anxiety and low self of self esteem. The Nirvana Fallacy is an academic definition. For many, perfectionism is painful and the person is very tough on themselves. Of course, we need surgeons, vehicle drivers, and other professionals that do their work to the highest standards. However, we also need to be kind to ourselves, to understand that our health and wellbeing must be given priority as this helps us to be high achievers and accomplish a great deal in all areas of our life. 

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Whirling Dervishes

     
This whirling dance of the dervishes is conducted to produce a trance state where the dancers gain meditation union with the Divine. The word 'dervish' is a 'holy man' of the Islamic faith who follows the mystic path of the Sufis. The dervish, Jalal al Din Rumi, was taught whirling by Shams of Tabriz. He was a Sufi poet from Persia was born in Northern Afghanistan in 1207 and wrote 25000 poems of great wisdom and profound spirituality, often based on love and transporting the reader to mystical states. Rashad Field travelled widely through the Himalayas and also studied Sufism in Turkey where he was initiated into the Mevlevi Order of Dervishes. He is the author of a series of esoteric books which are highly recommended for those interested in mysticism. 

Saturday, February 10, 2024

A Better World is Possible

Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: A Better World is Possible by Bruce Nixon, Published by: O-Books as Paperback: £14.99 and E book: £8.23 409 pages Visit Author’s website where you can download your free ebook: www.brucenixon.com

Bruce Nixon is a veteran change agent, activist, writer, speaker, facilitator and business school teacher and he is passionate about sustainability, global justice, inclusive democracy and non-violence. In this comprehensive book, he brings all his knowledge and experience into the analysis of the state we are in, how we got here, and – more importantly – how we can turn things around and create a new and positive society by facing “the biggest challenge in our history”.

Friday, February 9, 2024

The story of the New Age

So what is the New Age about? This term means different things to different people, just as the word ‘spirituality’ means different things to different people. Terms need to be defined if we are to be able to understand each other. The New Age is a time of great atomisation, as it applauds individuality and everyone’s right to define the world as they please. It is a huge worldwide movement, made possible by the explosion of free information which is available on the internet. Many spiritual seekers find themselves getting lost in its vast choices and some become cynical about its more trivial aspects.


Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Richard Barratt on Communal Values


 
Instead of being 'The Best IN the World', we need to be thinking of being 'The Best FOR the World!' Richard Barratt was a Civil Engineer for 20 years and then became involved in Eastern Philosophy, the work of Abraham Maslow and the importance of personal and societal transformation. To transform ourself - and our world - our soul needs to be activated. Our conditioning creates discontent, but by working on ourself, we become contented. He suggests there are 7 levels of consciousness which lead to a new paradign for leadership. 

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Who was Origen of Alexandria?

I would like to introduce readers to this philosopher. His name was Origen and he lived from 185-254AD. He was a writer and teacher of early Christianity and is considered to be the Father of Christian mysticism. He believed in reincarnation and the three aspects of the trinity, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He believed that those in power should pray, yet not pray for material goods but a better understanding of God. 

Friday, February 2, 2024

The Consciousness Revolution by Ian Legg

Bruce Lipton speaking about consciousness! The human brain has an estimated 100 billion neurons. Each neuron consists of a vast collection of atoms and an even vaster collection of subatomic particles. It operates like a computer but is much more powerful. Most office computers have the capacity to community with outside computers such as vast data banks, through a "modem" connected to a telephon line. The human mind, under certain circumstances, appears to have this same capacitiy. It appears that it can be triggered to interact with other minds and universal forces. Famed psychologist Karl Jung called this the "Universal Consciousness". World famous Biologist Rupert Sheldrake refers to it as the morphogenetic field. We call it The Super Mind

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

A Healing Meditation

 This video meditation created by Jo Barnard with text by Wendy Stokes. The meditation might cause a light trance, so do not drive a vehicle. Allow 30 minutes to fully relax without interruption. Make yourself comfortable, take a couple of deep breaths, close your eyes and enjoy the experience.   www.wendystokes.co.uk