Why do we need a day when we can rest, read the paper, meditation and not have anything scheduled? Because the body as well as the mind/spirit need quiet time to renew it’s cellular and spiritual nature. Your body is actively replacing millions of cells all the time. Your skin constantly replaces cells, your brain immune system replaces it’s blood cells once a month. So if you want to be healthy, give you immune system a chance to fight bacteria and viruses, take a day off.

Plan your day ahead of time. If you work on the weekends, plan to take a day during the week to have a day of rest. If you relax half a day on Sunday but volunteer at your church the other half, find another 1/2 day another time.

Taking a break from all activities will actually cost you less in health costs than if you try to work everyday. So put yourself first on that day regardless of who else needs help, with the exception of the care of small children if you can’t find a baby-sitter. Make a file of helpers who can take over when you need help or when you go out of town. Some type A people do much better relaxing out of town, or out of their house. Read the rest of this entry »

The biggest problem to meditating is quieting the mind. Your own mind does more damage to yourself than all of the national wars, the local disasters, and current upsets and betrayals in your life. So start out by getting in a hot bath (put in some Epsom salts) after you have done some form of exercise: dancing, swimming, stretching, walking, or jogging.

Now with your body and mind ready to relax, remember some pleasant event from your past. Visual where you were and who was with you, smell the surroundings, hear the sounds around you and remember touching something or someone around you. If you find yourself “going into obsessive bad feelings, gently return to your wonderful scene. Feeling good, towel off and go to your meditation place.

Ask your higher power, guardian angel, or spirit guide to surround you with protection and help you clear your mind. Ask for guidance in a situation that is bothering you if you find yourself thinking about it instead of clearing your mind. Don’t try to solve the problem yourself, in fact, do everything you can to not go over it. When it comes to mind, tell yourself STOP.

Sitting up (not lying down), take a breath in through your nose and then let the breath out with your mouth. This increases alpha waves and will make it more difficult to stay tense. Focus on this process until you feel yourself “spacing out”. Continue with your breathing and let yourself enjoy the mind wandering or images that come to your mind. It is ok to go to sleep or drift in and out of alpha or beta waves. (Beta is your ordinary state of mine when awake).

If you do wake up later, focus on the first thing that comes to your mind. Is it a feeling of relaxation? Did you get an answer to a bothersome situation in your life.? Did you go into Theta (the deepest state of meditation) and did more time pass by than you thought? Whatever happened, your heart and respiration relaxed and improved your health.

If all else fails with clearing you mind, look up some of your local meditation groups and try out different methods until you find one that works. I like Kreiya Yoga personally.

Using your mind body spirit and helpers in making decisions.

Remember the last time that you were unfairly attacked or belittled for no reason, or maybe someone just pushed the right button.  The stomach draws into a tight ball and breathing gets shallow.  Your body is deciding whether to fight or take flight,  your blood pressure goes up and brain nerve endings are frazzled (unfortunately often losing some actual  mobility to connect).  Prolonged anxiety actually causes permanent damage to these brain synapses.   What do you do?

Fighting back, with the boss, a friend, or a partner rarely solves any problems and can be the ending of a job or partnership.  So what to do?  Practice hearing something that made you angry and think of a better way you could have handled it.  Sometimes asking a question that isn’t defensive, or giving a comforting statement will slow down the attack.  Or when your mind is in a knot, trying to think of something–just don’t say anything.  Let the person continue.  Then come out with a statement like:  I really do like my job and I would be glad to ——–or: I love you and let me know what you think I should have done.While the person continues, practices deep breathing until you can figure out the best way to handle the situation.

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There are some, including me, that believe some of the children born today are more advanced in their personalities and soul development than were previous generations.  Some children–I call them Star Babies–show empathetic development as early as 18 months.  This is far in advance of previous normal child development scales.  These children should not be subjected to the harshness of some TV programs.
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The public doesn’t pay much attention to Sigmund Freud, the discoverer of our unconscious.  But our unconscious, some call it the sub-conscious is always with us.  Any negative self-concept that we hatched somewhere in our lifetime is ongoing.  After I approached a certain age, I was using the phrase “brain-dead” when ever I made a mistake, until I realized the impact of calling myself that.  I seemed to be having more trouble remembering after I started using it!  So instead I have switched to the phrase:  “Mary, you are a genius”, when I have done something right.

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1.  Buy yourself a notebook to record your dreams and leave on a prominent place by your bed.  Look at it before you go to bed.

2.  When you wake up (without an alarm) just lay there and try to remember any dream or dream fragment that you can.  If you wake up to an alarm, turn it off, and before you do anything else try to remember if you were dreaming when the alarm went off.

3.  Grab your notebook and if in a hurry just dot down the basic parts of the dream.  Later in the day when you have time fill in all the details you can remember and date the page.  For those not in a hurry write in everything you can remember about the dream.  Describe in as much detail as possible–physical objects, places, settings, people involved and describe how you are feeling.

4. Using some dream books (list at end of this page), analyze your own dream as best you can.  If you have no books, free associate to each segment of the dream.  For example, if you dream of an angry animal, try to remember any current or past  incidents where you or another person or animal had a heated exchange or perhaps where you were upset but didn’t express it.  Sometimes it will be an incident that you watched on TV before you went to bed–another reason for not watching sad or inflammatory news.

5. Try to correlate your dream with current events in the life.  Nightmares are a bad omen for current relationships, projects, or are a sign that you are not taking care of yourself.

6.  Dreams, however, are often “contrary” so that a dream of having and spending a lot  of money may not be as good for your future money supply  as a dream where you are watching your expenses.

7.  Some dreams are prophetic and more often will occur within a 6 week period of having the dream.

8.  List of helpful books:  The Dreamer’s Dictionary by Lady Stearn Robinson & Tom Corbett, 1994; Zolar’s Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Dreams, 2004; and 10,000 Dreams Interpreted by Pamela Ball, 1996.