The Lost Land of Shambhala

Legends abound of a lost land of great beauty, a paradise where superhuman feats are conducted by its people who have great esoteric knowledge! Theosophists suggested this land was in the Gobi Desert, the Chinese say in the Kun Lun Mountains. Greek and Middle Eastern sources say it is in thevAltae Mountains and some Taoistscsay in Szechwan and Tibet. Hungarians say it is in the Syr Darla River and Russians say it is in the Belovodye. In 1923 an expedition was sent to the Kokushi Mountains but never returned.
Perhaps the person most likely to have known where this mysterious land can be found is a Tibetan abbot who wrote 'The Path to Shambala' who describes the entrance to the lost land as being in Mongolia. This mystical land is also known as 'Shangri'La'.

Baha'i

 

The Baha'i religion was founded by Mizra Hasayn Ali in Iran and this faith has now spread across the world. It is both peace-loving and humanitarian and it praises equality and kindness. There are no clergy, rites or sacraments and there is an emphasis on caring for all species, and for the planet, hence vegetarianism.

Albert Ellis - Rational Emotive Therapy

This is a video of Albert Ellis (1913-2007), creator of Rational Emotive Psychotherapy (RT). Out of the three demonstrations, Fritz Perls, Carl Rogers and Albert Ellis, Ellis is my favourite! His therapy is direct, clear and can be confrontational but it works quickly and profoundly.Albert Ellis has always been a favourite of mine. He seems to be able to get to the heart of the situation (but does not often spare the client's feelings!). 

The Philosophy and Psychology of Loneliness by Ben Lazare Mijuskovic

Mind Body & Soul Ezine Recommended Book Review: Feeling Lonesome: The Philosophy and Psychology of Loneliness by Ben Mijuskovic, 205 pages in hardback and kindle formats:

This book presents an intricate, interdisciplinary evaluation of loneliness that examines the relation of consciousness to loneliness. It views loneliness from the inside as a universal human condition rather than attempting to explain it away as an aberration, a mental disorder, or a temporary state to be addressed by superficial therapy and/or psychiatric medication. The book: 

What are Runes?

Runes are letters of an alphabet that developed from extremely ancient illustrations, each of which once had a specific meaning. These gradually developed into an ancient form of writing, which can be traced back from markings that appeared on rocks as early as the neolithic period. Among the signs engraved on these early Runes were parts of the body, weapons, animals and variations on the square, circle and swastika.

Later on, these symbols became simplified into abstract hieroglyphics,  wich were composed of lines that no longer resembled specific objects. In addition to being used to communicate ideas, Runic letter images were considered so powerful and magical that they were inscribed into tools, weapons, rocks, altars and personal items. In addition, from these earliest of days, these magical markings were inscribed into wooden pieces that were thrown down and "read" as an early form of fortune telling. 

Save our seas!

Fishing is taking place throughout the Earth's oceans at such a pace that our oceans are dying and many fish species are now extinct and many are extremely unhealthy with all kinds of dangerous pollutants both for them and for us when we consume them. Ocean acidification is caused by pollution, global warming is causing the seas to heat up, causing the death of many fish and mammals who are suffering. When fish stock are low, more farm land is required for farm animals which create more carbon emissions. Governments and institutions need to realise that the future of people - our children and grandchildren's - lives are at stake. Only buy fish from sustainable sources! 

The body scan - relaxation technique

Learn to relax anywhere, anytime with the body scan relaxation technique

Do you constantly feel the strain of tension in your head, jaw, neck, shoulders or abdomen and find it hard to unwind? Have you been advised to relax but nobody's really explained how you're supposed to do that, exactly?

Tension and stress can creep up on you unawares. As far as you know, you are just getting on with your life and dealing with stuff, and you may not even notice a fixed frown developing on your face. Or the permanent tightness across your shoulders. You might perhaps notice that you are not sleeping so well, but it may not occur to you to connect this with a lack of relaxation in your life. Many people don't realize that relaxing - taking it easy and doing nothing - is actually as essential to health as activity.

The Lakota Way of Life

Praise, flattery, exaggerated manners and fine, high-sounding words were no part of Lakota politeness. Excessive manners were put down as insincere, and the constant talker was considered rude and thoughtless. Conversation was never begun at once, or in a hurried manner.

How to Make a Vision Board

 

You can skip the advert at the beginning of the video.

Your brain will work tirelessly to achieve the statements you give your subconscious mind. And when those statements are the affirmations and images of your goals, you are destined to achieve them!

Creating a vision board is probably one of the most valuable visualization tools available to you. This powerful tool serves as your image of the future - a tangible representation of where you are going. It represents your dreams, your goals, and your ideal life.
Because your mind responds strongly to visual stimulation-by representing your goals with pictures and images-you will actually strengthen and stimulate your emotions...  and your emotions are the vibrational energy that activates the Law of Attraction. The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words,” certainly holds true here.
If you have already defined your dreams, it’s time to illustrate them visually.

Ho'oponopono

'I love you' 'I am sorry' 'please forgive me' 'thank you'

These four exclamations are the basis of Ho'oponopono, an ancient Polynesian Kahuna method of healing. The belief that mistakes, errors, stress, anger, guilt, resentment, grief break the Kapu spiritual laws and create ill health is the basis of this practice. The answer is to be open about our faults, seek forgiveness and forgive others. Defining the transgression, prayer and restitution forbwrongdoing is the answer. Parents who are unhappy can make their children unwell, can cause social disorder and other difficulties. Ho'oponopono is a mental cleansing, providing restitution; the words mean correct, good, upright,  oral, just, virtuous, fair, restoration, righteous, amend, release, rectify, adjust, tidy up, make orderly, ought, should, must.

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! 

Simone Weil

Who was Simone Weil?

Simone was born in France and lived from 1909 to 1943. She was an intellectual and mystic, and taught philosophy and the politics of socialism. During WWII she was an activist in the dangerous French underground movement and previously she was involved in the Spanish Civil War. She died of Tuberculosis and her correspondences were discovered and published posthumously.  

Peak Experiences

In studying accounts of peak experiences, Maslow identified a manner of thought he called "Being-cognition" (or "B-cognition"), which is holistic and accepting, as opposed to the evaluative "Deficiency-cognition" (or "D-cognition"), and values he called "Being-values" He listed the B-values as:

• Truth: honesty; reality; simplicity; richness; oughtness; beauty; pure, clean and unadulterated; completeness; essentiality
• Goodness: rightness; desirability; oughtness; justice; benevolence; honesty
• Beauty: rightness; form; aliveness; simplicity; richness; wholeness; perfection; completion; uniqueness; honesty
• Wholeness: unity; integration; tendency to one-ness; interconnectedness; simplicity; organization; structure; dichotomy-transcendence; order
• Aliveness: process; non-deadness; spontaneity; self-regulation; full-functioning
• Uniqueness: idiosyncrasy; individuality; non-comparability; novelty
• Perfection: necessity; just-right-ness; just-so-ness; inevitability; suitability; justice; completeness; "oughtness"
• Completion: ending; finality; justice; "it's finished"; fulfillment; finis and telos; destiny; fate
• Justice: fairness; orderliness; lawfulness; "oughtness"
• Simplicity: honesty; essentiality; abstract, essential, skeletal structure
• Richness: differentiation, complexity; intricacy
• Effortlessness: ease; lack of strain, striving or difficulty; grace; perfect, beautiful functioning
• Playfulness: fun; joy; amusement; gaiety; humor; exuberance; effortlessness
• Self-sufficiency: autonomy; independence; not-needing-other-than-itself-in-order-to-be-itself; self-determining; environment-transcendence; separateness; living by its own laws.

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.

John Gray on Health and Happiness

In a personal message to the Administrator of the Mind Body Spirit Magazine, John Gray writes "So much of my work can be summed by saying, "If you don't know your past, you will not know your future! I try to help people move forward by looking at their past mistakes and removing the blocks that are holding them back from finding happiness. Basically, unloading their baggage so they can enjoy their future (which is usally a combination of parents, siblings, friends, exes, etc) and is also the basis for most of my health work - unloading the baggage from past health decisions, which can be a combination of poor diet, not enough exercise, genetic traits and even prescribed medications.

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. 

Get into Alpha!

 

Meditation is quick and easy and can be conducted anywhere! There are amazing statistics for those who meditate regularly. It is promoted as a miracle pastime, and can improve health of the body, mind and emotions.

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!

A Call to Greatness - Bruce Nixon

“The 21st Century Revolution - A Call to Greatness" by Bruce Nixon is book is for people all over the world who want to prevent the environmental catastrophe and create a happier, fairer, more peaceful world. It will help you make sense of the situation, find solutions and decide how you can participate in bringing about the radical changes that are needed.

 The greatest challenges in human history

• Climate Chaos and Destruction of the Eco-system
• Growing Economic Injustice
• Resolving Conflict without Violence and Valuing Difference
• Radical Reform of out-dated Democracy
• And, that key part, the need for “ordinary people” to inform and empower themselves.

All these are interrelated; everything is connected. For instance the tragedy of mass migration results from this mix. So this book offers whole system analysis and whole system solutions.

Highly Sensitive People

  

Are you highly sensitive or hyper aware? With apologies for the advert at the beginning which you can skip if you like, the video is enlightening and worth watching. 

HSPs are often highly empathic and open to the needs of others, they have a keen sense of justice and are often highly intelligent. 

They might be very sensitive to loud noises, intensity of light, changes in temperature, and the moods of other people. They might be a person who needs to chose their friends, their work and their environment carefully so as not to becomed overwhelmed.

 They often like their own company, to be in the company of one other person and may find crowds are threatening to their sense of control. They are often shy, retiring or reclusive. They feel stress intensely, and might also find their energies quickly depleted. 

Bioenergetics

What is Bioenergetics? 

Bioenergetics is the study and practice of using energy within the body in better ways. It is based upon the controversial work of Wilheim Reich and was created by two of Reich's students, principally Alexander Lowen, who included some of the theories of Reich's tutor, Sigmund Freud. It focuses on releasing unconscious blocks within the body that cause headaches, backache, etc., through physical exercises so that the person becomes more physically and psychologically free.

Tai Chi Ch'uan

This is a form of ancient graceful exercise, yoga and it is also a martial art which is performed as a strengthening for the body and meditation for the mind. It also helps deportment and eases joints and strengthens muscles. Slow, purposeful moves increase energy, chi, and is popular throughout the world, especially in China where it is used as a community exercise, often performed in public. To assist wellbeing, reduce stress and provide grace and poise.

Solo Vision Quest

 

The Vision Quest was held by native tribal people of the Americas and was a time spent alone in nature to learn about themselves and about other species, to be thankful for the water we drink, the song of the birds for comfort and the breeze in the trees for company. We can do this in our time, perhaps with fasting, with meditation, with kindness and love for all we see, hear, feel and experience. This video was made in 2011 but the information does not go out of date.  

Mind Mapping Demonstration

Designed by the late Tony Buzan in the 1970s, this is a very useful way of collating psychological material. This video demonstrates how to create a 'mind map'. I use them all the time as a writer to organise the information for my feature articles. The most simple form is a spidergram, which has been available since my childhood days.

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.

Martin Buber

Who was Martin Buber?
1878 - 1965  Born in Vienna, he was a direct descendant to a notable Jewish family. Carl Marx was a distant cousin. He read philosophy and questioned his religious beliefs. He retold many traditional tales, he supported a Jewish and Arab state, he rejected the terms 'philosopher' and 'theologian' though his life is hallmarked by both disciplines of study for which he received many awards. He was an existentialist and a story-teller who came from generations of Rabbis. and was nominated on 10 occasions for the Nobel Prize for Literature and for the Peace Prize on seven occasions. He contributed to many fields of study throughout his lifetime and his 'I' - 'Thou' was influenced by the therapeautic encounter work of Jacob L Moreno. 

What is Focusing?

  

Eugene Gendlin developed this technique with other psychologists at the University of Chicago in the 1960s as a result of research that was conducted between therapists and their clients. They discovered that the clients who were in touch with their felt sense achieved greater and quicker recovery from distress. Focusing helps us to feel what is happening at the present time, creating a greater sense of truth and reality.  

Milton Erickson

Who was Milton Erickson?
1901 - 1980 Erickson was a hypnotherapist who was successful due to his personal experience and innovative mind. Pacing, intense listening, acknowledgement and acceptance of the client's perception, is a vital tool to change. Respecting another's way of seeing the world! Families, work environments, politics, health, schooling, all can benefit from pacing - a person centred method! He described their ongoing experience, what they felt, thought and saw. It gave access to the unconscious mind. The Milton Model was a way in which he used vague words to produce a trance like state in his clients.

M. Scott Peck

Who was M. Scott Peck?
Scott Peck lived from 1936 - 2005. He was an American psychiatrist, a Christian, and best selling author. ‘The Road Less Traveled’ and ‘People of the Lie’. These were his most well known books.  His childhood was in New York City and his parents were Quakers. He served in the US Army in Japan as a psychiatrist. Delayed gratification, kindness and authenticity were his basic teachings. 

The chant of 'OM'

The word 'om' has several meanings:

• The Sound of All Sounds
• The Sound of the Universe
• The Sound of Creation
• The Beginning of Life

It contains 4 separate parts: ah-oh-mmm and silence. 

Sit comfortably with your back straight. Inhale. On the exhalation begin chanting 'om' . Pause, inhale and exhale and chant again in a regular rhythm and without strain.

Yoga Meditations

 

Yoga Meditations: 

Sit comfortably with your eyes closed.

Exhale and inhale deeply a few times.

Breathe naturally while you focus on the following:

Yoga is a deep well into which we can tap, drawing forth whatever we need to bring ourselves into wholeness and balance.  

Ask yourself what will bring wholeness and balance to your life. 

Wait for an image or an idea to arise. 

Be still with that vision or thought for  few minutes. 

Breathe.

Benefits of Meditation

“Indian artifacts show the history of meditation dates back 5,000 years. Researchers suggest that primitive hunting and gathering societies may have discovered meditation and its many different states of consciousness while gazing into the flames of their fires. The history of Meditation has evolved over thousands of years, into a structured practice that people use daily.

Spiritism

During Spiritualism’s heyday, philanthropists, political activists, (including vegetarians and animal welfare activists), and all kinds of intellectuals and Establishment figures believed that spirits in the Afterlife could be contacted to aid learning and help those in the physical world live a better life. Queen Victoria and the royal family are said to be ardent believers. Spiritualism’s ‘Pope’, the flamboyant socialist Hannen Swaffer (who opposed capital punishment and always wore a hat) was an ardent campaigner for Spiritualism. 

The Value of Work

If you want to prosper, enjoy your work. I love working! Being productive! Being busy! I accomplish so much! Every moment of every day, I get through so much! I feel healthy, powerful, productive, fulfilled, learning, and I earn money too and I help other people and myself! Work - yes please! Whether volunteering, paid or unpaid, work is the answer! 

Weight Loss Hypnosis

 

This is a weight-loss hypnosis video created by Zoe Featherstone with text by Wendy Stokes for salt, sugar and fat reduction.