Awareness helps us understand and neutralize situations, allowing them to feel less personal. Unconscious patterns like bullying, judgment, and anger become conscious as our awareness grows. As the saying goes, “hurt people hurt people.” When awareness grows, and we become conscious of our emotions, we are more able to transcend behaviors that cause us (or others) to be hurt
Posts filed under Health and Wellness
You're in Good Hands
I arrived at my first physical therapy (PT) appointment with my daughter alongside me, resting in her car seat. Within the first few moments of small talk, the physical therapist, Emma, asked me about my profession. After sharing with her that I, too, am a physical therapist, she assumed I was aware of and familiar with PFPT. That was not the case.
What is Aura Photography?
The ability to “see” our energy fields within the limited light spectrum of the human eye. Kirlian photography was the first method of showing energy fields. Officially invented in 1939 by Semyon Davidovitch Kirlian, it didn’t come into mainstream notability until the late 50’s, demonstrating that all living things have an aura.
Vaccine Visions
It was 5 a.m., and I had not yet slept in any meaningful way. I spent the night drifting in and out of wakefulness, my body feeling like it had lost the ability to regulate my temperature: I was simultaneously hot while also experiencing chills. I was on the edges of a migraine, the arm where I had received my second Covid vaccine was too tender to lie on, and periodically nausea washed through me.
Dream Your Way to a Healthier Consciousness
In every class I teach targeted to discuss sleep, inevitably a few students say they have “never dreamed.” Tactfully, I point out that it’s highly improbable. Not remembering a dream is not proof that one does not dream. It is, however, an indication that they are not yet utilizing the gifts of the dream state.
Importance of Honoring
We honor ourselves by honoring not only the past, but the present, and the future as well. Honoring the past includes people, places, phases of life, and memorable events. Honoring the present includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we honor the future through making space for our hopes, dreams, and wants.
Societies throughout history and across cultures have grasped the importance of honoring through the creation of an innumerable variety of ceremonies that facilitate it. Let’s contemplate the concept of honoring further.
On Courage and Resilience
Rollo May was the first to introduce me to the idea that there are different types of courage. I was reminded of this idea through a Facebook meme I came across recently which listed six types of courage. All of us are naturally courageous in some ways, and not so much in others. All of us could increase our resilience with different types of situations requiring courage, should we want to. Keep in mind Aristotle’s golden mean idea, which views too much courage as recklessness, and too little as cowardice.
When Parts of Us Stay Behind
An interesting thing happened to me when I returned from a long awaited and wonderful summer vacation back home. I didn’t even recognize what was going on until after some time passed and I noticed I wasn’t quite myself, I needed more time than usual to adjust to my everyday life; it was as if I wasn’t all here.
Corona Retreat
Solitary retreats are a familiar experience for me. I’ve been taking off into the woods to retreat all of my adult life. After I had cancer ten years ago, I scheduled these retreats as many as six times per year to support my healing process. Retreating alone has been an important piece of my self-care and a way to deepen into my meditation practice.
Heart Power
How is your heart today? Are you taking good care of your hard-working, delicate organ? It is definitely doing its best to take good care of you. Let’s give a little love back to the heart with some techniques that balance the anahata (sanskrit for “heart”) chakra.
Above and Beyond Self Care
2018 and 2019 seemed to be the years of “Self-Care.” It was advocated in every store and every social media platform. “Take care of you first.” “Do what you need and if others don’t understand, that’s their problem.”
Certainly, becoming exhausted from busy-ness serves no one well nor anyone long term. Yet, in all the well-meant advocating for self-love, the greater need for this message wasn’t being delivered. Mental and physical self care is important because it is the means to clear thinking and understanding. This then yields the SO needed empathetic actions within our larger communities and in our higher spiritual walks.
Helping People Poop
I never grew up thinking I wanted to help people poop.
Of course, I do a lot more than that. Many people find my practice by searching for relief from their GI (gastrointestinal symptoms) such as acid reflux, bloating, abdominal pain, feelings of being overly full, fatigue, foggy brain, poor sleep quality, and a desire to decrease their dietary restrictions. But for many people, they also want to do something very simple - have regular bowel movements.
Healing Anxiety Naturally
Along my personal journey to find natural healing for anxiety, I made two exciting discoveries that changed my life and gave me the relief I needed to heal from a lifetime of unease. These two discoveries have become the foundation of my work as a holistic health practitioner, and as I work to help others reclaim a more vibrant level of wellbeing, joy, and health in their lives.
Why Practice Mindfulness?
by Barbara Newell
When Laura Cowan interviewed me for her cover article in the current Crazy Wisdom Journal, we touched on the two main avenues of practice for cultivating mindfulness in everyday life. Ms. Cowan wrote candidly about the parent’s classic dilemma: wanting to enjoy the proven benefits of mindfulness in relating with herself, with her loved ones, and all the ups and downs we all encounter in life, yet feeling stretched too thin to add another item to the to-do list. The avenue of finding small ways to be more present right in the midst of what’s already happening throughout the day came naturally to the forefront of our interview.
The other avenue is the one commonly referred to as “formal practice.” It doesn’t have to mean sitting in the lotus position at an altar with incense burning (as lovely as any or all of these things can be). It simply means setting aside some minutes in which we don’t do anything else except reconnect, again and again, with our “home base” of mindful presence.
For many people, this home base is following our breathing; others find a different anchor works better for them. In it we give ourselves full permission to let go of our agendas. Every time we notice our mind has wandered off (as human minds are wont to do!), over and over again, we bring the mind back to this home base of spacious, kind presence. It seems so simple – which it is – and yet countless people have found it really makes a difference.
One well-known, busy mom I know made herself a deal one day many years ago now. She vowed that henceforth she would meditate every day – and - she gave herself what she calls the “back door” that it didn’t matter for how long. There were times, particularly when her son was quite young, when it was just taking a few conscious breaths and saying the briefest prayer at night, on the edge of her bed, before keeling over; yet her promise to herself made a real difference.
These two approaches to cultivating mindfulness very much support each other. When we take a few dedicated moments to really pause and reconnect with wakeful, caring presence to our own heart, it’s much easier throughout the day and week to take the micro-pause in a challenging moment - even a single, mindful breath - that gives us just enough room to check in with ourselves and respond to the situation instead of habitually reacting to it in a way we may regret later.
Similarly, when we do take short windows of opportunity to resource ourselves throughout an active day - how about just enjoying a few refreshing, conscious breaths when we’re at a stoplight, instead of looking down at our phone for the hundredth time? - there will be less accumulated restlessness when we do take those dedicated minutes to come back to the miracle of our living, breathing body, here in the present moment.
Recently I recalled a brief exchange that took place nearly 25 years ago, when I was quite new to meditation. I was just meeting a woman living with metastatic, stage 4 breast cancer. Within a couple minutes we somehow discovered that both of us were meditators. Suddenly her dark-brown eyes bored intently into mine, with a fierce gaze from which life’s trivialities clearly had been burned away. She got straight to the point: “When the mind is in the present moment... there is no fear.”
My mind came to a complete stop. It was beyond question this woman knew what she was talking about. I knew that I needed this practice.
I am grateful to her.
You can reach Barbara Newell at Grove Emotional Health Collaborative’s office on Main Street at www.groveemotionalhealth.com or by contacting her at barbara@groveemotionalhealth.com and (734) 224-3822 x113.
To learn more about Barbara, read Crazy Wisdom Kids in the Community—Mindfulness with Barbara Newell, Joy Aleccia, and Anique Pegeron from issue #73.
Related Content:
Featured
Slowing Down to Open Up
I’ve quite frankly found it pretty challenging to routinely bend to the gifts of quiet time. Not being much for coffee, cigarettes, or wine, it seemed I even missed the American rituals that build in a pause.
I found a pause recently, though, in a gift from a wise friend. A modern, clear, silicon hot water bottle. So handsome in its simplicity, just fill with boiling water. Then retire, cradling the hot little pillow. And let the heat creep across, from silicon to bones. Nothing one can do to rush a hot water bottle. No dial to crank up. But there is something about a capable hot water bottle that encourages sighs of release. An unwinding. A melding.
Good Vibrations
I took my first steps on a spiritual path with the Universal Great Brotherhood. I remember my revered teacher, the Elder Brother, giving a talk during one of his visits to Ann Arbor. He looked around the room at all of our shining faces and said “Everything vibrates. I’m vibrating, you’re vibrating and, pointing to the table where his water glass was perched, even this table is vibrating. Can you see it? Can you sense it?”
Voices of Double Up in America
As a young mom and graduate student, this shopper, now in her mid-thirties, used Double Up Food Bucks during her last year in school—stretching her food dollars at the farmers markets for fresh, nutritious produce for her family. Today, she’s a social worker in the area and a Double Up volunteer who refers others with food needs to the program.
The Zen of Ballet
I am encouraged and inspired by the number of adults enrolling in ballet who have never studied before, or may have only had a year or two of lessons. A common thread among these different personalities seems to be a “beginner mind set”, an openness to trying something new, willingness to persist as difficulties arise and the sense of satisfaction that comes from finally getting it.
Water Works
I never leave the house without it. If I forget it, guess what? I’m going back for it. I take it everywhere I go. It even sits on my bedside table each night. It has become my staple. I’m lost without it. It’s refreshing, tastes great (especially infused!) and the best part is, it’s doing wonders for my body. I’m talking about water, of course.
5 Tips for Making Healthier Choices at Summer BBQs
Summer is a wonderful time for getting outside and being active. But when it comes to eating healthy, there can be an awful lot of temptation — especially with summer holidays and BBQs. By following the tips below, you can have fun and feel good about your choices at the same time.
The westbound traffic on Interstate 94 is at a crawl this morning and I couldn’t be happier. It’s a Wednesday and brilliant sunshine glints in my rear view mirror.