Meditation to Improve Your Health and Wellness

Meditation can take many different forms, from secular relaxation to Zen Buddhism but, whichever type you try, meditation can improve your health and wellness by slowing your heart rate, improving blood flow, relieving muscle tension, and minimizing the release of stress hormones.

You are not what you think you are, but .....WHAT YOU THINK, YOU ARE.

There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking.  ---William James

Perhaps  the most important mental  and spiritual principal ever discovered is that you become what you is going on outside of you is a reflection of what is going on inside of you.   You can tell the inner condition of a person by looking at the outer conditions of his or her life.   And it cannot be otherwise.  

Your mind is extraordinarily powerful.   Your thoughts control and determine almost everything that happens to you.   They can raise or lower your heart rate, improve or interfere with your digestion, change the chemical composition of your blood, and help you to sleep or keep you awake at night.  

Your thought can make you happy or sad, sometimes in an instant.  They can make you alert and aware, or distracted and depressed.  They can make you popular or unpopular, confident or insecure, positive or negative.  Your thoughts can make your feel powerful or powerless, a victim or a victor, a hero or a coward.  

In your material life, your thoughts can make you a success or a failure, prosperous or poverty-stricken, respected or ignored.  Your thoughts, the actions that they trigger, determine your whole life.   And the best news of all is that they are completely under your own control.  

As children we are born with no self-concepts.   Every idea, opinion, feeling, attitude, or value you have as an adult you learned from childhood.  Everything you are today is the result of an idea or impression you took in and accepted as true.   When you believe something to be true, it becomes true for you, whatever the fact may be.   You are not what you think you are, but what you THINK, YOU ARE. 

Most parents tell their children they can be or do anything they set your minds to but, their way of living and speaking does not model or demonstrate the truth of these words.   What is your life mirroring back to you and your family?   Do you need to change your thinking?   

Daily Contemplation

“How is this even freakin possible?” the voice inside my head moaned as I faced a challenge of one more issue. “I’ve already done this……I have already dealt with this issue years ago.”  Sound familiar?

I had already “been there, done that.”  No more lessons, thank you very much.   You too?

I know none of us want to hear this, but your issues are about YOU. Your daily job is about your awareness. And once you understand that nothing that happens in your life is separate from you – then you master success in many areas.....and can no longer blame anyone else for your difficulties.   This true for us collectively as people and as a nation.  

This is not about striving for perpetual meditative bliss. This is about living from a place of power and the willingness to listen to the on-going guidance it brings.  And when that 'old' familiar emotional button gets triggered acknowledge it too without letting it take hold of you or giving it any power or assigning it any meaning.  It just is......

Oprah says that your life is always speaking to you.

Are  you listening?

I’d go a step further. I’d tell you that even before the externals of your life speaks to you, your inner self speaks to you.

Listening to these signals is critical to your everyday happiness. Some call it intuition. Some call it “gut instinct.” Either way, you must pay attention.

If you don't, not only are you ignoring your intuition which is your guidance system, but when you ignore it long enough over a long period of time it can manifest into physical symptoms that might send you to the doctor.   Why not listen first?  

Awareness of the present moment.   We thrive in the present moment.  It’s the only real thing there is.  It’s where all your answers reside and our listening abilities increase.  And one great side benefit for me is better memory.   Who doesn't need that these days?   

Spend regular time unplugged. Practice just being. Especilly during those times when you get emotionally triggered.   Just stay with it without taking any outside action and watch it transform.   It will I promise.  This is not just for yogis.   It’s for ALL of us. 

Managing and Understanding Pain Workshop

Wednesdays, September 26 to October 17  

7:00 PM to 9:00 PM     

$195.00

The course is intended to help individuals understand what chronic pain is. You will be asked to delve into your pain experience by tracking it on a daily basis which is included in Dr. Margaret Caudill’s workbook “Managing Pain Before It Manages You.”

This program will teach you skills for coping with sadness, anxiety, or anger associated with chronic pain. It includes methods for communicating your needs clearly and expressing yourself effectively to those around you.

Emerson Health & Wellness Center       

310 Baker Ave Extension

Concord, MA

1-978-287-3777

Register on line

http://www.emersonhospital.org/HealthResources/HealthWellnessClasses.aspx

Peggy Flood, RN-BC, MS, AOCN has over 20 years’ experience as a Clinical Nurse Specialist.  At Emerson Hospital she developed a successful Pain Resource program.  Peggy provided in-house consults for patients and assisted physicians and nurses in developing treatment plans for patients in pain.  Peggy is on the Steering Council and is the Co-Chair of the Education Council of the Massachusetts Pain Initiative.  She has presented programs on managing pain to both healthcare professionals and the community.

Fran Spayne, MA, Holistic Therapist/Inspirational Life Coach/ Reiki Master.

For over 30 years, Fran has devoted her life to helping others heal their minds to find peace and joy in daily living and the world.  She has taught courses all over New England to adults, parents, students, hospital staff and educators on the power of the mind, the mind body connection, the universal law of attraction, spirituality (ACIM), visualization & meditation. 

The decision to forgive touches you to the core.

Researchers at the University of Pisa in Italy are now using functional magnetic resonance imaging to see if the answer lies within the brain.    They asked people to imagine forgiving someone and then observed changes in the cerebral blood flow, which signaled the parts of the brain that became more active.   They found that several regions lit-up, especially areas that regulate emotional responses, moral judgments, perceptions, of physical pain, and decision making.   By creating this kind of neural map, researchers hope to learn more about how forgiveness works on both a physical and a psychological level.

FORGIVENESS

 Being unwilling to forgive is a terrible thing to do to yourself. Bitterness is like swallowing a teaspoon of poison every day. It accumulates and harms you. It’s impossible to be healthy and free when you keep yourself bound to the past. Yes, it’s true that other may have not behave well. Sometimes we feel that if we forgive them, then we’re saying that what they did to us was okay when it is not.....and never will be.

Where Are The Answers?

The hallmark of Albert Einstein's genius was that he could figure out complex problems and equations simply by thinking about them.   Do you think you can do that?  Do you think everyone of us can do that?  

We are taught learning comes from school and reading more books.   But this idea is based on the presumption that knowledge exists outside of us.   None  of us were taught to go within to learn something or to solve a problem, yet that's where the greatest wisdom lies.  

If we all just encourage one child to foster this knowing, what a totally different world it would be.