By Guest Blogger on May 8, 2012
In the past couple of months I experienced an unprecedented bad case of eczema. What started off as an innocuous patch of dermatitis, contained on one of my fingers, spread angrily all over my chest and stomach and onto my back, and finally, to each of my four limbs.
It wasn’t pretty, and it eventually got me really down, which obviously did not help!
Since becoming an almost organic vegan, my diet has been more or less in first gear over the past few years, so I knew that the eczema was caused by the stress I was experiencing in my current living situation. So much so, that the only thing that finally cleared it up was taking a few weeks away from the environment. No amount of fresh green vegetable juice seemed to help clear this completely, affirming my theory that your mental health can manifest in your physical health.
While I tried to get my stress levels under control, a good friend told me about bathing in oatmeal to sooth inflamed skin. The porridge bath, as I now like call it, is cheap as chips and really easy!
There are just two easy steps:
1. Take the leg of an old pair of pantyhose, and fill it with about a cup of oatmeal.
2. Tie it off, and immerse it in a warm bath
Make sure that you keep the bath water warm, as lounging in hot water warms your blood, which, if you are prone to eczema or psoriasis, can further inflame the skin.
The water will become milky after a few minutes, and the ball of oatmeal will drip with a thick porridge between your fingers when you squeeze it.
The thick, syrupy-like oat milk feels amazing when massaged into your skin and (even if you don’t have eczema) is an excellent natural moisturizer in its own right. Plus, it’s cheap enough to regularly bathe in.
The Mind and Body Connection
In addition to your physical self, the bath is also beneficial for your mind. It’s the perfect time to meditate and let go of any stresses that may have caused unnecessary worry during your day or week. Visualize what happened to cause you to feel how you do, accept it and then try to let it go.
I have a few meditations that I have used to help relieve stress and ultimately my clear skin, but my favorite technique for letting go is the visualization technique. Unlike other meditations, the visualization technique requires you to envision what you want. Not only did I want peace of mind, but I also wanted clear skin.
I have three meditations that helped me to achieve this:
1. Visualize yourself breathing in grey matter, or the worried feeling you have, as you inhale through your nose. As you exhale through your mouth, visualize yourself releasing the worry, in the form of pink or golden sparkles.
2. Visualize your body as the color red, which represents the rash. Concentrate on watching the angry red slowly change to an alkalizing green color, which starts at your toes, and then slowly extends all over your body, until it finally creeps up to your head, where any red remains are released with each exhale.
3. Visualize the steam coming off the water as representative of your stresses, and watch it dissipate into the atmosphere. This is basic, but effective.
The scenarios are limitless!
I realize that to some people it might sound a little bit crazy, but it really does work!
This technique was inspired by a colleague with whom I used to work. She told me that when she had cancer, she would spend days meditating by visualizing her body as a real-life game of Pac Man. Her good cells were represented by a hungry Pac Man who would go around her body, slowly conquering all of the cancerous cells, until they had all been swallowed and destroyed.
Eventually, along with a few other fundamental life changes, she was declared cancer free.
Pretty impressive!
The mind can be as powerful a tool as we choose it to be. Just as we exercise our bodies, we also need to exercise our minds by way of meditation to create the lives we want: healthy, happy and stress-free.
Caitlyn Smith is a music- and veggie-loving wayfarer who discovered health and wellness after a cancer diagnosis in 2006. She lives on the north coast of Australia, and is committed to revolutionizing the way we approach food, health and our busy lives.
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By Guest Blogger on May 3, 2012
I don’t meditate.
I know, I know. I’ve read everything you’ve read about meditation. It’s good for your health, it helps with manifestation, it keeps you young, it enhances your intuition, it increases creativity and productivity … the list of positive benefits is endless, right? And according to our beloved Kris Carr, it’s a prerequisite for Crazy Sexy success!
Ouch. Am I in trouble?
I’ve tried meditation. Yes, I have! While it was supposed to reduce my stress, I found the results to be just the opposite. I did it so wrong so many times that I gave myself quite the head trip. Furthermore, on the days I didn’t try meditating (which were many), I felt guilty. Oh, I thought, if I could just manage that five minutes a day, my life would be completely transformed for the better!
But I couldn’t.
And it wasn’t.
Not one to be deterred, I continued my search for the transformation I was seeking, and, ever so fortunately, I found it.
It all started in a class (a meditation class, might I add!), where I overheard two women speaking about a book that they enjoyed. The title of the book caught my attention, and I mosyed (butted?) my way into their conversation.
“What’s that you say?” I asked.
They gave me the scoop, and what happened next was a long story I’ll make short: I bought the book, called the author, hired her as my life coach, flew to Vermont and spent three transformative days in retreat with her and her husband, twice, I broke through writer’s block after 10 years of trying to do so, worked through a ton of emotional stuff, yada yada yada.
What’s more, I learned all about my past lives and that I have spent multiple lifetimes in meditation. Further, I learned that when we have experienced something enough over the course of many lifetimes, we don’t need to come back and repeat it again. We’re supposed to do some new things. Switch it up.
That means I don’t have to keep pushing myself to meditate anymore.
That might not be the case for you, but there is one more extremely important thing I learned by going through this process, and this one does pertain to you.
I learned about my Soul.
I actually met my Soul (well, ahem, that was in a meditation). I saw what my Soul looked like and I found out its name. I learned what my Soul’s personality is like (yes, our Souls have a personality!). I even learned all about what my Soul brought me into this lifetime to do … aka, my Soul Mission.
Additionally, I learned about Soul/Personality Integration. What that means is I learned how to integrate my Soul’s personality with my own personality in order to become uber-connected at all times.
Whether I’m working, playing, exercising, hanging out, sleeping … you name it. I am in touch with my Soul at every moment, every single day of my life, without meditating.
How can you do that too? I will give you my very top tip, the easiest and simplest one of them all.
Talk to your Soul.
That’s right, just talk to It.
Start asking your Soul questions. You can simply say, “Hi, Soul. What’s your name?” And wait for your answer to come to you intuitively. It may not come to you immediately, but it will come to you, alright.
You can say, “Hey Soul, I need some assistance here. Can you please help me figure this out?” Your help will be on the way, I guarantee it.
You might also say, “I don’t know how to do this, Soul! Will you please do this for me?” Sometimes you can just put things right into your Soul’s capable hands. I do it all the time!
Your Soul is God. It’s a piece of God within you. When you connect with your Soul, there’s a heck of a lot of power that comes along with that.
Guess what else? Your Soul actually wants to connect with you. It wants to be known! It wants you to talk to it and ask it for help. It very much wants to be a part of your life.
And here’s the bonus (at least it was for me): Your Soul is not going to hold you to a strict meditation practice in order to be in a relationship with you. You can be a non-meditator and also be completely soulful.
Try this and see for yourself. It’s utterly mind-blowing, really. Once you get hooked, you’ll never turn back.
As for all those other health benefits you might miss out on by not meditating? Well, for that, I’m relying on green juice.
Kim Patron is a writer, online life coach and soul mission astrologer. To learn more about your Soul, your Soul Mission and Soul/Personality Integration, visit her website at soulestialservices.com.
Photo credit: duncan c
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By Guest Blogger on April 26, 2012
From an outside perspective, one could be forgiven for wondering if I took my cues from Goldilocks when it comes to practicing yoga: trying all of the styles, repeatedly, only to find one “too hot,” the next “too hard,” etc. … quickly moving on to the next, except that I never found one that was just right. It certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying.
When I say I tried every kind of yoga, I mean every kind, including pre-natal and laughter. I barely made it in the door of the pre-natal class when my pregnant friend outed my lack of fetus for all to hear: “She’s not really pregnant, you know.” From then on, the class was largely made up of, “Now girls, focus on your babies … and Sara you can …” Though I was humbled and in awe of the ease with which several of these heavily pregnant women maneuvered their way through the poses. It was, in hindsight, one of the worst yoga experiences I’ve had simply for the fact that it only managed to enhance my lack of connection with the practice, the instructor and my fellow classmates.
Laughter yoga, though deceptively simple in theory, is anything but. First, one must consider the fact that if you manage to convince a friend to come to class with you, though highly unlikely, they will quite possibly never speak to you again. Second, keep in mind that the term yoga is used loosely to describe a room of adults engaging in embarrassing and sometimes ridiculous behavior in an effort to incite laughter in themselves and each other. The “Pretend you’re in an elevator and someone just farted” exercise is about as far from savasana as one can get.
The commonality that ran through all the classes, from yin to vinyasa, from the opening “om” to the final corpse pose, was my inability to get beyond the frustration I felt over the absence and lack in my practice. Sure I was reaping the physical benefits like a tighter tush, but I wanted that proverbial spiritual carrot that I felt was being dangled in front of me every time I stepped into a studio. I wanted enlightenment and well-being. Devotees far and wide claim that it “changed their lives.” Who wouldn’t want some of that? I certainly did.
Thinking slow might be the way to go, I tried Hatha. Nothing. Faster. I tried Flow. Faster. Faster. Don’t stop. I tried Ashtanga. Still nothing. Maybe Bikram’s. It’s sweaty. Maybe Anusara. It’s Tantric-based. Nope. Nada. Maybe it was the instructor. I tried a man. I tried a woman. It became overwhelmingly clear that my g-spot did not seem to lie between my y-o and a-spot.
Instead of writing into Cosmo as one tends to do with this sort of dissatisfaction with an unfulfilling long term relationship, I ended up signing up for a yoga retreat in Tulum. At this point, I’d written yoga off deciding we’d be friends, but that there would be no torrid love affair. It simply wasn’t in the cards. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun.
Except that fun was not in the cards on day one. It was, instead, an exercise in pseudo frustration, first in meditation then in power yoga (pseudo because one can only be so frustrated in paradise). Meditation had been an epic battle between me and my busy brain. “Is this right?” “How should I feel?” “My leg’s itchy.” “Am I calm enough?” “Am I peaceful?” “Breathe.” I spent the entire time obsessing about how I thought I ought to feel and what was the right way to meditate. Yoga was essentially a sequel with: “Is my foot in the right place?” and a “Will I ever look like Seane Corn?” thrown in for good measure.
After class, wanting to put as much distance between me and the classroom I headed for the labyrinth on the edge of the resort’s property. I’d read about it the night before while checking in. It said, “Labyrinths are an ancient form of walking meditation typically used for contemplation, centering, becoming fully present in the moment or tuning into universal wisdom…” Yes, please. Who wouldn’t want a helping of universal wisdom with a side of insight?
I stood at the opening, took a few deep breaths and tried to feel “spiritual.” I walked slowly. Immediately, as if on cue, my mind started up: “Am I walking slow enough?” “Should I look up or down?” “Do I feel relaxed?” “Am I meditating?” “Do I feel enlightened?” As I turned the first corner, completely caught up in my mental morass, I managed to stub my toe quite hard on one of the huge pieces of coral that made up the labyrinth. After I worried about the ramifications of swearing in a sacred place, it dawned on me that that was a wake up call. “Pay attention! You’re missing the point. You’re missing everything.” There I was on the edge of the ocean in paradise, but I was so caught up in my thoughts and expectations that I was missing it all and robbing myself of a potentially a-maze-ing experience. This message rang true with me in terms of meditation, yoga, and life as a whole. I kept letting the how get in the way of the why. The final words from the description of the labyrinth rang truest: “There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to walk a labyrinth, simply slow down, breathe, and follow your spirit.”
This isn’t a fairytale with a happily ever after. I still struggle on the mat and in life, as we all do. But whenever I feel my busy brain grasping frantically for the hows instead of the whys, I think of the moral of the coral.
Sara Kinninmont is a writer living in Vancouver, Canada. When not feverishly collecting frequent flyer miles or lavishing attention of her French Bulldog, Pork Chop, she channels the Eager Beaver and lives like she gives a damn!
Photo credit: bikeracer
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By Leslie Carr Psy.D. on March 16, 2012
This article is about the simple but significant role that the act of “noticing” plays in our psychological lives. While at first blush it may seem basic, do not be fooled. Truly noticing our thoughts, feelings and behaviors is the first – and quite possibly the most important – ingredient in creating desired change. While it seems magnificently simple, it is, in fact, positively revolutionary.
Now, what do I mean by “noticing” exactly? What I’m talking about primarily here is the importance of bringing conscious awareness to any needed area of one’s life. It’s a concept that’s central to meditation, as well as the analytically oriented therapies, and it’s part of why those two friends go hand-in-hand so well.
The reason that this is so important is because, sadly, so many of us often sleepwalk through life. We make decisions unconsciously based on past conditioning. We get overwhelmed with all the things on our proverbial plates and we go on autopilot. We binge drink. We emotionally eat. We say mean things to ourselves that we don’t even hear, because they barely register above the din of all the other thoughts jostling around in our monkey minds. But when we look – when we truly look – at ourselves, without judgment or reaction, we see what needs to be changed.
The irony of our psychological lives is that the difficulties that we face often aren’t nearly as problematic as the things that we unconsciously do to avoid the emotions that they evoke. In an effort to make negative feelings go away, we deny them and repress them, project them and displace them, or try to numb them with sex and drugs or shopping (or work or TV or the Internet – the list goes on). In the short term we find relief; but in the long term those coping mechanisms create more problems for us than the original issues ever could have.
Therapy and mindfulness-based practices are helpful because we get to take our thoughts and feelings out in the cool light of day and look at them for what they really are. In therapy, not only do we get to notice what we hear ourselves saying out loud, but we also get to borrow somebody else’s brain for a time and see what they notice too. Sometimes, from there, there’s something we can do about what we’ve noticed (you know the expression, the first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging that you have one); but frankly, often all we need to do is simply mentally acknowledge the thing that has otherwise been hidden from us all this time.
Let me give you an example of what I refer to as Radical Noticing. A couple of months ago I began working with a new client whose primary concern was that she was drinking too much. She was starting to worry that she might be an alcoholic, but a funny thing happened once we started talking with each other: She started to notice things, and one by one something that I can only term a “cascade of noticing” started to take place.
First, she began noticing that drinking didn’t make her feel very good; she would wake up every morning feeling crappy and wondering why she was doing this to herself. Even the act of getting drunk had lost its novelty, and she noticed that she wasn’t enjoying it anymore. Next, she started noticing the prompts and triggers that led to her nightly escapades: Primarily it was her husband coming home from work every day and instigating cocktail hour.
Soon, she started to notice that she didn’t want to do that anymore. From there, she started to notice more things. One, that it was hard at first to fight this entrenched pattern that the two of them had created, and that why it was hard was partially because she felt socially isolated with him. She also started to notice that she craved doing other things, and making new friends, and soon after it became clear to both of us that she actually wasn’t an alcoholic at all – she just had been locked into a pattern that really wasn’t working for her. While negotiating this change of lifestyle with her husband was difficult to be sure, things fell into place pretty quickly after that, because she realized that she was engaging in a pattern that wasn’t serving her anymore.
Recently when we were in session together, she actually exclaimed (I’m not even kidding here), “I never would have imagined that simply noticing my thoughts and behavior would make such a big difference!” And how. Therapy is a complex process, and while I’ll admit that it’s not normally quite this extreme in terms of how many things can change from a simple turning of our attention, I think this story is a great example of how powerful this shift in orientation can be.
Have you ever experienced a moment of awakening where you suddenly realized that you were doing something that you weren’t consciously aware of? Or have you had a sudden realization that you were thinking or feeling something that had previously been hidden from you? Please tell me in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
For more information about this author please visit http://www.lesliecarr.com/.
Photo credit: Xomiele
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By Gabrielle Bernstein on February 3, 2012
Let’s face it: Sometimes romantic relationships can be totally nightmarish instead of wonderful. While there are a lot of reasons romance can be tough, most of the time the chaos begins within.
As a student and teacher of the metaphysical text A Course in Miracles, I’ve come to understand how our ego (fear mind) wreaks havoc in the romantic arena. The Course guides us to see how we project our fear and neuroses onto our current partners–and it shines light on how we seek completion and self-worth in the arms of another.
Let’s demystify the ways the ego gets to work in romance–here are some of the big illusions that can really take us down.
Diggin’ Up the Past
Many people carry disastrous relationship experiences from the past into the present moment. Holding on to anger from your last relationship inevitably transfers negative vibes to the next one. This anger sabotages the possibility of creating a healthy new relationship, keeping you rooted in your history instead of the now.
Future Tripping
Do you envision walking down the aisle after just one date? If so, trust that you’re not alone. The ego loves to future trip when it comes to romance. When the ego runs your romantic life, it’s easy to get caught up in the belief that you’re unsafe without a romantic partner. This mentality hooks you into future tripping, because without that future plan you feel incomplete. The result? It puts tons of pressure on your partner … and makes you seem like a major head case for planning that far ahead.
McSpecial with a Side of Fries
I’m gonna be blunt here: When your source of happiness is another human being, you’re totally screwed. The ego convinces you that all the love you need is in one “special” person. This is what the Course calls a “special love relationship.” This kind of relationship isn’t like your other relationships–you come to believe you need this one special person to feel whole. The special love relationship is exclusive, and it makes that one person better than you and everyone else.
But the ego doesn’t stop there. It convinces you that you can’t live without this “special” partner, which is the root cause of codependency. This fear-based thinking leads you to do whatever it takes to make that special person happy so that they don’t leave. You become inauthentic and subservient so that you don’t lose your special relationship. You put the needs of others in front of your own and deny your true feelings. And it’s all done in the name of special love.
Sound familiar? I bet it does. Romantic relationships are the ego’s playground, and nine times out of ten our ego will turn the chance of romantic bliss into a freakin’ horrorshow by feeding us illusions.
The first step towards clearing the ego’s chaotic perception of romance is to become brutally honest about how you dig up the past, future trip and make partners special. Looking at your ego head-on is a powerful way to weaken its grip.
A Course in Miracles teaches us that relationships are opportunities for awesome spiritual growth. Rather than get all heady about what went wrong in the past, let’s focus on what you can change today. Outlined below are key principles that will help guide you to release fear in romance and cultivate more love in your life.
No One is Sent to Anyone by Accident
A Course in Miracles teaches us that there are “no chance encounters.” All encounters offer us the opportunity to transform fear to love and create a miracle. Accept that relationships are assignments to learn and grow. This new attitude will allow you to begin to appreciate the partner who brings up all your funky issues–because you’ll know the learning that is available to you.
Special ain’t so special
Ask yourself whom you have made special. It’s likely that the same lucky person is also the person you attack most in your mind. Special love makes us neurotic, controlling, and insecure. We think we love our special partner, but really we fear them and hate them for not calling back or doing what we want them to do. We feel so beholden to this special partner because the ego makes us believe that we’re missing something and that we can only feel complete in the arms of someone else. Set yourself free from your special illusions by simply recognizing whom you have made special. When you recognize this ego chaos, you diminish its power. You can see the ego in action and choose to begin the process of letting it go.
The Invisible Matchmaker
A beautiful practice that A Course in Miracles suggests is that we turn our relationships over to the care of our inner guide. When we consciously allow our ego to run our romantic life, we stay stuck in nasty patterns. Invite the spirit of love to guide your perceptions. Simply say: “Spirit, Inner Guide, God [whatever you wish], I invite you to take these fears from me. Help me release my romantic fears from the past and my need to control the future. Clear space for fearless love.”
MediDATE
Another major tool for releasing romantic fears is to begin a meditation practice. Begin your MediDATING practice with an awesome forgiveness meditation:
Sit comfortably in a quiet space.
Breathe deeply in your nose and out your mouth.
In your mind’s eye invite your partner into your meditation.
(It can be someone you’re currently in a relationship with or someone from your past. It can even be someone you’ve dreamed of being with.)
Hold a vision in your mind of this person standing before you.
As you breathe in envision a ball of golden light growing in your heart.
On the exhale extend this light to your partner.
On the inhale breathe in the light.
On the exhale extend the light.
Continue inhaling and exhaling until all you see is light.
Whatever your relationship status–whether you’re married, single or dating–taking these steps can be truly transformative. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, so take this opportunity to release romantic fears and clear space for more love.
Want more powerful romance tips and meditations? Join me on Feb. 8 on LiveStream Video or in New York at ABC’s Deepak Homebase for my MediDATING launch lecture. Get all the details here: www.gabbyb.tv/mediDATE.
Photo credit: Darwin Bell
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