Do It Now : Personal Growth

Awaken your Chi and boost your energy

Aside from nutrition, the aspect of health that most excites me is energy healing: the many ways we can direct and stimulate energy to enhance our physical and emotional wellbeing.

It's nothing new...energy manipulation has been around at least since the ancient Egyptians used it...but after being ignored or even disparaged by conventional medicine, it has made its way back into modern therapies. And it now has the authority of quantum physics behind it.

I'll be writing lots more on this topic in future. In fact, I'll soon be starting up a website devoted entirely to research, experimentation and dialogue in this area. That's how important I think it is.

One enormous  benefit is that anyone can use energy healing to improve their and their loved ones' health. Once you learn some of these techniques, you will realise that YOU are the key to your health and wellbeing. Everything else.. doctors, counsellors, medicines, diet, exercise and so on...are simply tools you can use to support your determination to be healthy and happy.

In other words, all healing begins within YOU.

Big stuff to think about, but I have learned from personal experience that once you recognise and begin to use your inherent healing power, you will feel incredibly liberated.

Here's a technique to get you started. It's from the ancient Chinese practice of Qi Gong (the source of Tai Chi and Kung Fu). It's a fun way to get energized!

Qi Gong technique to stimulate your chi (qi)

As we sleep, our energy pathways (meridians) slow down and energy can become trapped in our organs and energy centres.  This exercise will get your energy (chi) flowing in the morning or whenever you need an energy boost.

 - Starting at the inside of your feet, continuously slap your body with short fast firm slaps:

-    up the inside of the legs, then up the outside of the legs

-  up the buttocks, up the sides of the pelvis, and across the abdomen

-   from the hand of each arm along the lower then the upper surface of the arm

-   up the chest across to both shoulders.

-   along the shoulders from outside in, then up the back as far as you can reach.

-   Rub your scalp vigorously.

-   Rub your kidney area (just above each buttock) to release chi that is stored there, also to help remove toxins trapped there.

Now why not take a moment to appreciate what you have just done? Gratitude always amplifies the positive effects.

The Single Greatest Threat to Your Heart

Michael Jackson died from Sudden Cardiac Arrest, most likely, I suspect, because he was deeply unhappy. Here's why I think that.

Unlike heart attack, which is caused by a blockage in the coronary artery, cardiac arrest is when the heart just stops beating.

Even a healthy heart can go into sudden arrest. It could be trauma to the head, or you just can't breathe so your heart cannot get oxygen. Or your emotions may have cause the heart to send chaotic messages to the brain.

You Can Worry Yourself to Death or Die of a Broken Heart

 Mental or emotional stress put a lot of pressure on the heart and also on your  mmune and hormonal systems. Even a few minutes of anger, despair or anxiety can instantly depress your immune system by 50%.

Your emotions can also change your heart rate causing fibrillation, i.e. irregular heart rhythms, and also disrupting the heart's energy frequencies. These effects have resulted in some important research. If you're at all concerned about your heart health, read this:

- Research shows that people with high levels of anxiety are 6 times more likely to suffer sudden cardiac death than calmer people ((Kawachi et al).

- According to the Mayo Clinic, emotional stress is the strongest  predictor of cardiac arrest and heart attacks...more than diet, inactivity or smoking!

- Feelings of helplessness increase danger of cardiac death by a whopping 60% (Rosenman) .

Fear, anger, anxiety, despair or frustration throw your heart rhythms into disharmony, resulting in system-wide disorder. The results include fibrillation, and lowered heart and lung function disrupting the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain and sudden cardiac arrest. These reactions can occur regardless of your health, or risk of heart disease!

Remove the Single Greatest Threat to Your Heart

Manage your stress and cultivate more love and appreciation every day.

That’s it.

Exercise because your body needs to move and it makes you feel good…eat wholesome food because you ARE what you eat, not because you are live in fear of all the horrible diseases that could strike you down, not out of guilt or because you are ashamed of your appearance.  

Be happy. Enjoy life. 

Look forward to future posts where I'll explain more about the major influence of emotions on your heart.

 

Sugar and Heart Disease

In light of last week's drastic immune response to sugar overload, I'm looking more closely into the health effects of sugar. Not the sugar that nature has provided for our delight and health... I'm on the warpath against refined sugars, the kind the food processing industry relies on the make their dead food palatable, and to keep us addicted to sweet tastes.

Some health practitioners and researchers have been warning us for decades that sugar is behind major health problems, including heart disease. More recently, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and other institutions reported that lowering our blood sugar levels reduces the risk of coronary heart disease.  That goes for both diabetics and people without  diabetes (Sept. 12, 2005, issue,  Archives of Internal Medicine).

One twenty-four year study that women (it was a woman-only study) who drank two or more sugar-sweetened drinks a day had a 35% increased risk of heart disease. (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition).

Soft- and sugary drinks are sweetened with fructose, usually fructose corn syrup, a form of sugar well known to raise triglyceride levels. Triglycerides increase risk of heart disease. So do high uric levels, another side effect of fructose.

Do you really think that the multibillion dollar processed food industry or the giant sugar industry care one whit for your or your children’s health? Well, consider this: fructose is the primary sweetener used in children’s drinks, candies and processed foods targeted specifically at children.

If you eat sweets, at least stay away from fructose, especially fructose corn syrup. Your children will be healthier without it, and so will you.

 

Sweet Poison: Why Sugar is So Bad for You

Have you ever wondered why we are afflicted with so many degenerative diseases, most of which were virtually unknown just 200 years ago?

No. It's not due to improved diagnosis. It's our lifestyle. And the major culprits are

       Toxins         Stress       Inactivity        ........ and     SUGAR


Yes, and unnatural fats. But sugar is the poison that, if unchecked, will do you in.

I received a very timely reminder of this last week. My well-intentioned daughter brought me a bag of coloured popcorn...you know, that coloured sugar-encrusted stuff. I used to love it, but sensibly, I have avoided it for years. Heaven only knows what I was thinking last week, but I ate the whole bag! I felt guilty, just a little, and brushed it off as a lapse of sanity.

The next morning, I awoke with a massive headache, and aching all over. Hmm  Must be coming down with something, I thought, and made myself a cup of lemon tea. By noon, I could hardly move. No sniffles. No blocked nose. No watery head. Just pain and extreme weakness. I even considered reading up on fibromyalgia.

By late afternoon I could barely move, and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, my throat was feeling kind of tight, always a sign that my immune system is struggling. Later, I developed a cold sore on my mouth, and soon noticed an abscess in my nose. What the heck??

Then it dawned on me. Sugar! and all those food colours. I'd almost knocked my immune system off the tracks! And I am still recovering.

But don't we need sugar? Yes, we need nature's sugars, and we need them in the quantities that nature provides....occasional honey, fruits when in season...that sort of thing. But the average person gets loads more sugar than that.

We now eat so much sugar that our bodies cannot cope. 

"According to Dr. James Scala, at the end of the 1700s sugar consumption was less than 20 pounds per person per year. By the end of the 1800s, sugar consumption had risen to 63 pounds annually. Now, 100 years later, the average American eats 152 pounds of sugar each year!" (from http://www.shareguide.com)

Our bodies were not designed to be flooded with sugar. They are literally being poisoned by the amount of sugar we consume!

And half the time, we don't even recognise that we're eating it. Sugar comes not only in the white or tan crystalline form. It comes to us via of all kinds of packaged and processed food  disguised as sucrose, corn sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, lactose and maltose. If you see ingredients ending in -ose, you are eating sugar.

Is that really so bad, I hear you ask?  Yes, it is. Don't worry about buttering your toast or eating chicken with the skin on. People have lived long healthy lives eating natural fats, but once we start eating lots of sugar, we become sicker. It's the same everywhere in the world.

Must-See Sugar Facts for Those Who Like Lists

Dr. Nancy Appleton PhD lists 146 proven ways that sugar ruins your health. Read and determine to be liberated!   

Go to http://rheumatic.org/sugar.htm

        Lots of yummy, juicy, sweet fruit. 

Otherwise, try to limit yourself to 10-20 gm sugar now and then. Perhaps a little good quality chocolate or..licorice (my favourite).

 

What Could Be Holding Back Your Dream Recall?

Are you still having trouble getting in touch with your unconscious, or with dream recall?

There could be several reasons...well, many, but more often than not, it's one or more of these:

*You're not doing the work
The universe is generous, yes, but it doesn't give you something for nothing. Thinking about it is not enough. You have to do the actions. Review the steps and follow them all, at least for two weeks...Even if you don't really believe them. Just keep an open mind. After all, you've got nothing to lose but a little of your time, and a whole lot to gain.

*Your conscious mind is getting in the way
OK. I know I just said you have to do the actions, but by that, I just mean do the steps. Just do them, and leave the rest up to your unconscious. Don't worry about how it works, or why. You're not responsible for that. If you try to manage the process, you put out energy that will interfere with the energy that is trying to work for you. It's like trying to tune into a radio station that's being blocked by another frequency. Just do the steps, then let go. With practice, you can do it.

 *You've got an inner conflict
This is what happened to me when I stopped recalling my dreams. I still had my dream journal beside my bed, ready to recall my dreams on waking, but gradually, they stopped coming. It was a mystery. I did the steps, but they still didn't come...until one night, I demanded, 'Just let me remember one damn dream!'  And I got my response. I woke up in the middle of the night, my throat tight with fear, crying. I had a terrible nightmare. That's when I realised why I couldn't recall my dreams...because I was afraid of them. I never knew when I'd get a nightmare.

Your inner conflict could be about your goals. eg. Your goal may be wealth, but you might hold a deep-seated belief that money is the root of all evil. Or your goal might be to improve your relationship with your child, yet you still hold onto blame and feeling victimised.

Your inner conflict could be about dreams or the unconscious. You want to get in touch, but are afraid of what you'll dredge up (like me with the nightmares). Or you might not really want to know what your unconscious has to say because you only trust your conscious mind.

That's why getting in touch with your unconscious often requires some kind of inner work or healing. No matter. It's all  a part of your psychic and spiritual growth.

   (Come out, come out wherever you are)

If you're still not ready, don't feel bad. Just try to be honest with yourself, and accept that your feelings serve a purpose (eg. self-protection). Sooner or later, you may be ready to proceed.  It's all part of the spiritual journey.

It can help to talk about your reservations, and also about your progress. Living transparently is incredibly liberating...though potentially embarrassing.  

As for my inner conflict and the nightmares, at the time I chose not to remember my dreams, and for years, only the occasional one stayed with me.   Now my dreams are staying with me more and more, and they are quickly becoming the kinds of complex symbolic communications that I love unravelling. 

Stick with it, and get the guidance from within that you seek.

                       

Tosca's new blog design

It's me changing my mind again. I'm not one of those women for can't decide what to wear to the market, but I do get very fussy about what I write on. The lilacs were too bright; the green was too dull. I think I've found something I can live with....for a while at least.

Hope you like it. (I don't have a dog in real life, but he's cute, isn't he?)

Seeking Guidance from Your Dreams

Still not much success with my dreams, but I keep persisting. I guess my unconscious is still sulking from being told to shut up years ago when I was prone to really bad nightmares, so i have to coax it out again. Come out come out wherever you are.

There's nothing supernatural about calling up dreams. It's one of our natural abilities, like telepathic communication and sensing others' energy. We all do it all the time, without even knowing it. It's just a bit harder to do it consciously and when you want to. Especially if you failed to appreciate your unconscious when it did speak to you.

Anyway, I gave a little talk on calling on the unconscious, and shared the method that worked for me for a long time before I ungratefully demanded that the dreams stop. It's the same process I'm using now to get back into touch with my dreams and their messages from the deep.

(Thanks Jane for reminding me to make friends again with my unconscious, and thanks to Gustave
Dore for this dreamlike drawing. It reminds me of some of my shadowy dreamscapes).

Basically, here's my 7 step process:

1. (This step is for your conscious mind) Do the groundwork

Decide what it is you want (new house, better job, health, love …), then write down everything that might help or influence your decision (how much it costs, your skills, good and bad points etc)

2. Disconnect from your conscious mind

        You can do this by putting yourself into deep relaxation, meditating, or just wait until you’re dropping off to sleep or just waking up

3. Get the attention of your unconscious mind

Talk to your unconscious. Thank it for serving you so well, and let it know you want to get in touch and seek guidance

4. Give Clear directions

Tell your unconscious exactly what kind of guidance you want. Put it into a single statement, if possible.

5.  Make your request 3 times and in 3 different ways

Do this at least once a day until you get the insights you need. Don’t try to tell your unconscious how to help you. Just tell it what you want, and trust in its wisdom

6. Pay attention, listen

Your answer may come in unexpected ways, all at once or a little at a time. Note any insights, feelings, impressions or dreams, even if they don’t make sense. Sometimes the answer is in the pattern.

7. Acknowledge your successes

Appreciation has powerful energy, and brings you more into alignment with your higher consciousness (which is where your unconscious gets its wisdom). Recognise the results of your efforts, no matter how small, and look for ripple effects from the insights you receive. Thank your inner guide. Acknowledge that your success is due to your effort.

 Now, don't expect immediate results. Be patient. Your unconscious might have to work its way through all sorts of hidden doubts and contradictions that you're not even aware of.

 Oh, and keep in mind that your unconscious is very practical and obedient. It you don’t apply your insights in your daily life, your unconscious will get the message that you don’t really mean it when you ask for guidance. So put your insights into immediate action.

Let me know how it goes.

P.S.

Jane is wonderful counsellor and life coach who can help you overcome or resolve persistent emotional issues or limited thinking. Get in touch with her at Email: Jane@cchangecoaching.com.au

Web: www.cchangecoaching.com.au      Say hello from me.

Heart Health and Energy

I'm reading some fascinating research on the heart. It is much more than a blood pump.
Your heart radiates more and stronger energy frequencies than any other part of the body, even the brain.

 

Just imagine! Your feelings of love, gratitude and compassion shine around you with marvellous brightness, helping to restore balance and wellbeing to those around you...people, plants and your environment. 

And this radiance is measurable for up to around 3 meters! yet it extends far beyond that. People, animals and plants have been shown to respond to another's emotions from across the world.

 

Surely this is reason enough to realise that you are a light in the world, and to clear that light of all negativity and fear.

 

I'll write lots more about the heart soon. I'm deep in research right now.

 

Lots of love

The image is from the Heartmath Institute. If you truly want to keep your heart healthy visit their website and read their research. You'll also pick up real gems of information like research reported by the Mayo Clinic that emotional stress is the strongest predictor  of cardiac arrest and heart attacks...more than diet, smoking or exercise!