In other words, accepting your body as it is and spending less time thinking about it is the best way to live a leaner, healthier lifestyle.

We’re bombarded with images of unattainable, unrealistic, and unhealthy beauty. Start with an average model, who has a BMI of 16.5. Add lots of computer software and hours of editing. You end up with a distorted, imaginary, arguably non-human view of what purports to be a “normal” and beautiful body.

For some perspective, at my height of 5’8″ (173 cm), I would have to weigh 107.5 lb to have a BMI of 16.5. Since my normal weight is about 140 lb, I would have to lose all my body fat plus nearly 10 pounds of lean body tissue.

Then of course, I’d be airbrushed into oblivion. (To get an idea what is possible with digital enhancement, take a look at a weight loss session done with Adobe Photoshop software).

But here’s the paradox. Bizarrely, impossibly thin images are all around us. Yet more people are overweight and obese than ever before. Seems odd. You’d think that having more pressure would push people into the direction of losing weight, but the opposite is happening instead. Why?

Being a biologist I like to think that biology matters and can explain things more than, say, squishy things like feelings and perceptions. So I might have argued that weight loss was simply energy in (food) versus energy out (movement).

Looks like us geeks might have been a little simplistic.

In this week’s research review, we see that for people struggling with their weight, how they see their body is just as important as — if not more important than — the biology of their body.

Body image: evaluation and investment

We all went through an awkward stage as a teenagers. Heck, you may still be in an awkward stage 30 years later.

Looking in the mirror or fretting over a picture. Is that what I really look like?! The horror! If I could just lose/gain x pounds, lift this, and tuck that, THEN I would be happy. You know the drill.

Body image is how we perceive our physical appearance — good or bad — as well as how important your body perceptions are to you.  Body image is separated into two parts (aka attitudinal dimensions):

1. Evaluative body image: How you think and feel you look, as well as how happy you are with your body. This is your cognitive appraisal and associated emotions (aka what you think or feel). It doesn’t necessarily mean this is reality.

2. Body image investment: How important body image is to you and how much body image affects your daily life. Being preoccupied with the way your body looks (body concern) is a hallmark of dysfunctional body image investment. Another part of body image investment is social physique anxiety, which makes you anxious in social settings and during interactions with others because you feel that others are judging your body.

So, you might not like your body much (evaluation) but not really care an awful lot (investment). This might mean you treat your body like an ugly but necessary inconvenience, like having to clean out the cat’s litter box. Gross, but what are ya gonna do, you think.

Or, you might think you look great (evaluation) and find that greatness really, really important as well (investment), which might mean that you spend a lot of time being afraid of losing that hot bod.

Of course, many of us have the worst of both worlds. We don’t like our bodies, and because we’re so invested in body image, our perceived-grotesque physiques make us want to hide under a rock.

Whether evaluation and/or investment, we tend to think of “body image” as something that happens inside our head. But could it affect our actual bodies?

What role does body image play in weight loss?

In this week’s review, I look at whether improving body image may help women lose weight over a year-long behaviour change program.

Carraça EV, Silva MN, Markland D, Vieira PN, Minderico CS, Sardinha LB, Teixeira PJ. Body image change and improved eating self-regulation in a weight management intervention in women. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2011 Jul 18;8:75.

Methods

A group of obese women went through a year-long weight loss program that focused on behaviour changes.

You may be thinking, Well aren’t all weight loss programs behaviour changes? Yes, but this one focused on self-regulation of eating (with an approach known as self-determination theory) rather than calorie counting or specific meal plans.

Our own Lean Eating program at PN focuses on eating self-regulation, which bothers some people who may be expecting a auto-pilot type of approach. What — I don’t get a list of meals? Or a meal plan to follow? You mean I have to pay attention to how my body feels and I have to make decisions!?

Now, I get that it’s often easier to let other people make decisions for you. However, the advantage of self-regulated eating is that mindful, voluntary and self-directed eating is more sustainable long-term, while fostering independence. You learn the skills you need to eat better… for life… without someone else looking over your shoulder.

Scary at first, but a lot more sustainable and useful. (Trust us. We’ve helped thousands of clients.)

Self-regulation

Several factors guide self-regulation of eating:

• confidence that you can do it (eating self-efficacy);
• consciously controlled eating that isn’t too rigid (highly flexible cognitive restraint );
• less emotional eating; less eating triggered by specific situations; and less eating because of habits (reduced disinhibition including emotional, situational and habitual cues); and
• less perceived hunger.

The women also increased their level of physical activity, but as with the eating, there were no specific prescriptions for what to do each day.

Body image sessions

Half the women also went to body image enhancement sessions to improve their body acceptance and satisfaction (evaluative body image) and decrease their over-preoccupation with appearance (investment in body image).

Exercises to improve body acceptance and evaluation included:

• looking at a mirror and systematically looking at body parts;
• making realistic goals and expectations for their bodies; and
• creating a realistic ideal body based on their parents’ weight history and their body type.

Exercises to improve investment in appearance included:

• understanding body image;
• finding the cause of the disorder (what situations — social and personal — triggered dysfunction?);
• keeping a diary to record negative self-talk and the feelings it causes;
• helping the women to cope with prejudice;
• helping the women let go of the belief they need to look different in order to be happy.

How do you measure body image?

You might be wondering how you measure body image and the different parts that make it up. There are a series of questionnaires and scales to indicate someone’s body image.

For evaluative body image, one of the more interesting and easy scales to use and understand is the figure rating scale (Figure 1). This provides a series of body outlines numbered 1 (very thin) to 9 (very heavy).

Participants pick the number they think fits their actual body size, and then they pick the number that represents their ideal body size. The bigger the difference (self-ideal discrepancy) the more body image issues a participant has.

Keep in mind this is perceived body size, not real body size. People may actually be their ideal body size but not think so. If you think you’re a 9 on the scale but you’re really a 1, you’ve definitely got a problem.

Body image investment is assessed using questionnaires that ask things like:

• How often do you feel fat when taking a bath?
• How often has your body shape/size kept you from concentrating?
• How nervous do you feel about your body in social settings?

Figure 1: Figure Rating Scale. From Bhuiyan et al, 2003.

Results

Improved body image

The body image sessions worked. The women in these sessions improved both evaluative body image and body image investment.

Improved eating self-regulation & weight loss

Improving body image also improved eating self-regulation. With better eating, there was better weight loss.

The body image group lost 7.3% of their body weight, while the control group lost only 1.7% of their body weight.

It makes sense that better eating means more weight loss, but seems odd that a better body image would help weight loss. Wouldn’t you think that people should lose weight first… and then feel better about their bodies?

Not in this case. The group that got care, counselling, and compassion kicked ass. Goes against the drill sergeant/tough love approach, doesn’t it?

Using a mathematical model (partial least squares) the researchers found that changes in body image investment was a little more important for weight loss than body image evaluation. In other words, to lose weight, it’s more important to let go of rigid investment in body size and shape than it is to always feel great about yourself.

(After all, remember our hypothetical people who feel good about their body, but are afraid of losing it? They’re much more likely to rigidly control their eating and exercise, which sets them up for problems like diet rebounds, exercise compulsions, and binge eating later on. Plus, if you’re not as invested in your body image, you realize that small things like day-to-day weight fluctuations aren’t that big a deal.)

Conclusion

You’d think people would be motivated to change if they were unhappy with their body. In fact, the opposite is true: Greater body image dissatisfaction actually hinders weight loss.

You may need a certain amount of dissatisfaction with your current body if you want to change it, but more isn’t better. Pointing out that someone is overweight or obese, or beating up on yourself, doesn’t make you more motivated. Nor does it help you get leaner.

We know this to be true. In Lean Eating, we use an “awesomeness-based coaching” approach. We don’t spend time pointing out your “flaws” or “problem areas” (imaginary or otherwise). We find what’s already awesome about you, right now, no matter what your body looks like… and help you do and feel more of that.

(And just a warning: We have a Five-Pushup Rule in Lean Eating: Self-criticism gets you five pushups. We know that negative self-talk doesn’t do you any good. So we pushup that nasty stuff right outta you.)

This study shows that improving body image helps with weight loss. And it seems that spending less time worrying about how your body looks and how other people may scrutinize your body is a bigger part of the puzzle than how unhappy you are about your body.

Want to lose weight?

• Stop obsessing about your body. If possible, try to get “outside yourself” — into a bigger world full of activities, experiences, social causes, and other things more interesting than whether you can see your abs.
• Pursue self-acceptance, self-care and self-compassion… not self-criticism.
• Pay more attention to what you eat — eat slowly and mindfully.
• Move your body more.

Simple, but not necessarily easy.

Bottom line

Whether you’re coaching a client or are interesting in losing weight yourself, improving body image can help you lose weight.

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, accepting your body as it is and spending less time thinking about your body can improve your weight loss. You still have to eat a little less and move around a little more… but at the very least, you’ll also like yourself at the end of the day.

…

_______________________________________________________________

About Author

Helen Kollias, Ph.D. has earned a doctoral degree in Molecular Biology from York University (2006) with a specialization in the area of Muscle Development and Regeneration. Prior to her doctoral work, Dr. Kollias completed a Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology and Biochemistry at the University of Waterloo (2000) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Lethbridge (1996).

As a result of her academic training – covering exercise physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and biomechanics – Dr. Kollias has aquired a broad scientific knowledge that ranges from the cell to the whole body.

Although some folks are either all brain or all brawn, don’t let Dr. Kollias’ solid academic training fool you. In addition to the brains, she’s played varsity soccer, is a certified Level II NCCP (National Coaching Certification of Canada) soccer coach, and has coached both soccer and basketball. Further, she’s been involved in fitness and weight training for over 16 years, working, at one point, as a personal trainer.

Nowadays, Dr. Kollias is a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, studying Myostatin signaling and Muscular dystrophy.

In addition, she lends her considerable talents to the Precision Nutrition team as the Director of Research. In this role, she’s found a way to fuse her academic background in scientific research with ‘real world’ applications to create cool new experiments.

_______________________________________________________________

References

Bhuiyan AR, Gustat J, Srinivasan SR, Berenson GS. Differences in body shape representations among young adults from a biracial (Black-White), semirural community: the Bogalusa Heart Study. Am J Epidemiol. 2003 Oct 15;158(8):792-7.

I wasn’t aware fasting was used as a weight-loss plan until I read the “Intermittent Fasting” article on the Mindful Muscle blog. And, having read it, I found myself wanting to know more about supposed benefits and risks. My impression, from the article, was that outside of spiritual benefits, fasting was not an ideal method of weight loss.

Upon further research, what I found was contradictory. There were those who lauded fasting and those who emphatically denounced it. One aspect that appears to be universal—at least universal in the articles I delved through—is that no one actually prescribes it as a weight-loss method. Those who recommend fasting usually do so because of its supposed cleansing benefits, not because it was a guaranteed pound-shedder. To be honest, I find that a relief; the idea of not eating for a long period of time to lose weight just sounds too much like anorexia or starvation to me.

The Spiritual Side of Fasting

With the intent of centering oneself through fasting in a spiritual context, however, I can understand and appreciate the testimonies of practitioners. Depending on one’s religious or spiritual knowledge, many people have some familiarity of when fasting occurs today. Be it the fasting on Good Friday for many Christians, or the month of Ramadan for Muslims, it is still a prevalent practice in the religious realm. Its history is far reaching; ancient tribes, including Native Americans, would fast for a number of reasons, including penitence, fertility, and protection. (…fasting.html)

I read of one Christian man’s personal account of prayer and fasting as a means to finding answers from God. My first reaction, since the man also mentioned how historically fasting was often employed by Christians for answers, was that fasting for answers sounded a lot like a magic eight ball—hope you like the answer you get … and that it makes sense… But after thinking about it for awhile, and reading more and more how fasting is used a tool for centering oneself, I realized fasting and praying were more like remembering one’s goals, ethics, or hopes. It was a way to connect to higher thoughts and beliefs. As a Catholic, I practice fasting before mass and on days like Good Friday as a method to reflect upon Christ’s sacrifices and cleanse the soul, so to speak. I’d never thought to use fasting to find answers within myself, though I’m sure it isn’t just Christians who employ it for such purposes; there are also the accounts of less religious, more spiritually-oriented people using fasting as a means of centering themselves and focusing on higher thoughts.

A little more research revealed some nuances of spiritual fasting. For example, while Catholics may employ fasting as a reflective tool or to better empathize with the impoverished, the Eastern Orthodox may use fasting as a way to fight gluttony. Likewise, while the Jewish may use fasting as penance, Mormons may use it to pray for a special request. Buddhists and Hindus use fasting as a spiritual renewal of the mind—but this isn’t to say these benefits or tools don’t or can’t cross over into other religions. It was eye-opening, though, to see which religions emphasize what through fasting.

Fasting for Good Health

And while some would use the word “purification” to describe fasting, in terms of the mind and soul, it’s also the word used to describe the physical benefits of fasting—at least, if you’re a believer in the benefits of fasting. There is evidence that it can be both harmful and beneficial, depending on its length.

According to the studies I’ve read through, short-term fasting poses little threat unless one is already emaciated, on drugs, or pregnant. Short-term fasting is between twenty-four and thirty-six hours of abstaining from food. It seems that longer fasting (over several days) helps the body to cleanse itself of toxins. What I’ve gathered, however, is that there seems to be more advantage to shorter fasting periods with periods of caloric restriction; the lab results of Roy Walford and Richard Weindruch’s* studies point to this.

They performed tests on rodents, giving one group the all-access-buffet pass, the other group a restricted but still nutritive diet after hours of fasting. I think you can guess where this might be headed.

The rodents that fasted and were then given smaller portions of food than those rodents that ate whatever, whenever, had longer lives and less ailments. The researchers also had a group where adult rodents’ diets were changed from the unhealthy variety to the restricted and fasting diet. Problems like tumors or disease began to clear up and they, too, had longer lives than those that indulged their appetites.

If the improved longevity of rats’ lives doesn’t justify cutting out unnecessary treats in your life, there was another study, this time on humans, that shows how the food people eat can affect life expectancy.

In the late 19th century Sir Robert McCarrison** observed northern and southern Indians  and their eating habits. He found the northern Indians looked healthier than the southern Indians and discovered the diet of the northerners was richer in vegetables and fruits, with less intake of meat, than the southerners.

Okay, I’m not done spouting rat studies just yet because McCarrison took what he saw in his human observations and put them to the test. He fed one group of rats the exact same diet of the northerners, the other the diet of the southerners. The “northern” rats were healthy, happy little rodents with low mortality. The southern rats? They developed diseases … and they turned on each other. Perhaps the key to peace among men—and rats—is more vegetables.

McCarrison even did a study comparing an Indian diet to a British diet (you know, tea, biscuits and marmalade, meat, that sort of thing). According to the results, the British will soon eat each other.

All joking aside, though, this study certainly is fascinating and is convincing if one wants proof that a more balanced and restricted (this is where the fasting comes into play) diet correlates to a longer life with less health problems. There are numerous other studies that prove fasting is healthy and leads to a longer life with less problems (for a good summary of these studies, go here: http://www.systemanorway.com/default.asp?iId=JLHLK).

On the flip side, however, there are those that believe by fasting, especially for too long, the body is being deprived of nutrients. This leaves the body vulnerable and susceptible to illness.

Fasting as a Diet Fad

There’s also the danger of doing it for the wrong reason. There are celebrities out there who have had fasting-diets and there are people who try it for themselves, hoping to end up with the same results. This is starvation, not fasting, because the incentive is to lose weight and lose it fast—fasting for more than three days will definitely lead to problems, including liver damage, anemia, and muscle breakdown to name just a few.

Conclusion

The incentive of the person fasting makes all the difference. When one’s goal is not to lose weight, but to gain clarity of mind or to improve the quality of one’s life, there are definitely going to be advantages. For the person whose incentive is, let’s say, shallow, though, I think the fasting-diet would be yet another disappointing fad.

Bearing this in mind, it’s hard for me to enthusiastically recommend fasting, despite being convinced that the studies on longevity and better quality of life are proof that what we eat and how often we eat affect us. If a person truly employs fasting in combination with healthy caloric restriction, I can find no fault. With our culture’s obsessive dieting trend, though, I would rather recommend fasting for its mental merits. But at least we know, while we fast, there are physical benefits being gained in addition to our spiritual cleansing!

* For more on Weindruch and Walford’s research, go here: http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=496
** For more on McCarrison’s research, go here: http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2008/02/robert-mccarrison-straight-nutrition.html

…

_______________________________________________________________

About the “Seeker” of this Article

Chris Willitts is an entrepreneur, freelance web designer, and continuing student at the University of Michigan, where one of his primary focuses in academia is consciousness studies. He also teaches a 6-week meditation course that integrates positive psychology interventions called Illuminate Your Life With Purpose.

Chris founded Mindful Muscle - an online initiative that advocates mindfulness practices and believes these practices can revolutionize day-to-day living in modern societies, which can play a crucial role in elevating our collective consciousness, health, and human potentiality. For almost 10 years prior to Mindful Muscle, Chris was busy developing various other Internet ventures.

Be sure to check out Chris’s philosophy about meditation, mindful strength training and mindful living at www.mindfulmuscle.com

_______________________________________________________________

Following a cloud with our eye and drifting through the sky with it can be an easy and relaxing meditation.

When people use the phrase “head in the clouds,” they usually refer to a mental state that appears to be drifting rather than concentrating. For this reason, putting our heads in the clouds can be a wonderful meditation tool. Whether puffy and white or tinted with the colors of dawn and dusk or shades of gray, those vaporous sky dwellers can remind us of so many things about life and about ourselves.

For this meditation, we can find a physical place to relax and look upward, or we can look to the skies from within our imaginations. Directing our thoughts to the endless of expanse of sky that clouds inhabit, we feel our souls expand to reach beyond any seeming limitations. Following the clouds, we are free to unleash our imaginations. We may choose to merely drift along with them for a time, enjoying their distanced perspective on the world. Or we can look for messages in their fantastical shapes, or feel the joy of bounding between their immense billowy puffiness. However we interact with them, we do so from a peaceful place.

Clouds drift above the hustle of the world below, knowing they belong to another realm that cannot be affected by its frenzy, reminding us that peace is always available to us. By directing our vision beyond the ordinary, clouds also remind us of the illusion of appearances. While appearing to be solid, their vapor and mist appear like cotton balls ! from below, giving little indication of the heights they reach. Sometimes they may cast shadows, leaving us in shade, but like life’s difficulties clouds change shape and move onward, revealing the shining sun, twinkling stars, and blue sky that are behind them.

When a ray of light breaks through the clouds, their dramatic filtering only makes the light more beautiful by contrast, just as we can shine more brightly in the midst of life’s challenges. When we allow clouds to offer us a welcome respite, they help us visit the realm of illusion to see the truth beyond.

**To read more articles like this, please visit the DailyOM by clicking here

…

_______________________________________________________________

About the “Seeker” of this Article

Chris Willitts is an entrepreneur, freelance web designer, and continuing student at the University of Michigan, where one of his primary focuses in academia is consciousness studies. He also teaches a 6-week meditation course that integrates positive psychology interventions called Illuminate Your Life With Purpose.

Chris founded Mindful Muscle - an online initiative that advocates mindfulness practices and believes these practices can revolutionize day-to-day living in modern societies, which can play a crucial role in elevating our collective consciousness, health, and human potentiality. For almost 10 years prior to Mindful Muscle, Chris was busy developing various other Internet ventures.

Be sure to check out Chris’s philosophy about meditation, mindful strength training and mindful living at www.mindfulmuscle.com

_______________________________________________________________

It is easy to do, doesn’t require any radical change to your diet, and will have a more profound affect on your well-being than any standard “diet” could ever have.

Your body’s chemistry and the acid-alkaline balance

The human body is a very finely tuned machine. It is highly adaptable, to new environments and situations, but only when it’s internal environment is in balance. For example, the human body operates effectively when it is held at an internal temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Above 104 degrees, or below 97 degrees, and you will experience some significant problems. Your body is even more sensitive to acidic conditions, than it is to temperature.

The blood in your body, which makes up about 8% of its total weight, is a key regulator and indicator of your overall health. The blood is the medium through which oxygen and other nutrients are delivered to each and every cell in your body. In order for the blood to do its job effectively, it needs to be maintained in a very specific pH range. Specifically, a pH of 7.36-7.44; which is slightly alkaline. Even a minor deviation from this small range can be DEADLY.

You may remember from junior high science class that pH (and alkalinity) is measured on a 14 point scale, from 0 to 14; where a low score is extremely acidic (e.g. hydrochloric acid) and a high score is extremely alkaline. Pure water is neural, with a score of seven. You’ve heard about acid rain and environmental conditions that are causing death of all life in many of our world’s great waterways. Now imagine the same thing happening to the waterways inside your body, i.e. your bloodstream. It isn’t a pretty story, but there is something you can do to fix it, RIGHT NOW.

The foods you eat have a major impact on your body’s acid-alkaline balance. Digestion of processed foods, for example, will create acidic byproducts that flow into the bloodstream. The more processed foods (sugars, refined carbohydrates, etc.) you eat, the more acid-byproducts will be created and the more acidic your bloodstream will become.

In fact, it is not just processed foods that are acid-forming. Many animal products (e.g. high protein foods) starches and grains are also acid forming. Nitrogen, a byproduct of protein digestion, is acidic. Caffeine is also highly acid-forming.

On the contrary, fresh vegetables and fruits (especially citrus fruits like lemon) are highly alkalizing to the body. The most alkaline foods are leafy green vegetables (wheat grass, spinach, kale, etc.).

How do you know if your body is acidic or alkaline? You can test yourself by measuring the pH of your urine or saliva (less accurate) using pH strips from any pharmacy. The most accurate method is to test the blood. Most clinics that do blood-work should be able to do this for you. Of course, there is an even easier way to know if your body is alkaline. Just think about your diet. Are you consuming a lot of caffeine or alcohol? How about meat? How about breads, pasta or other starches? If so, you’re body is probably struggling to keep itself in an alkaline state. The impact on your overall wellness is too great to ignore.

The impact of an out-of-balance body

As I said before, the human body is highly adaptable. A mildly acidic condition for a short period of time will not have a big affect on your body. However, most people have extremely poor diets and highly stressful lives, which leads to chronically acidic conditions. This can be devastating to your body and overall well-being. Some of the negative affects include:

• bloating and water retention
• acne and other skin conditions
• weak hair or nails
• trouble maintaining weight
• trouble losing weight
• joint pain
• headaches
• irritability
• cramps
• indigestion
• frequent colds
• allergies

Weight gain and/or loss are some of the more apparent conditions. Are you having trouble losing those final 10 pounds? Or are you having trouble gaining lean muscle mass? Your body might be in a chronically acidic state.

When the body is in a acidic state, it will do whatever it takes to protect itself. For some people, this means retaining water and fat close to the body organs to protect them from the acid. For others, this means flushing the body of water and excess weight to “purge” itself. If you are underweight or overweight, you could have an acidic condition in your body.

Furthermore, in acidic body environments, pathogens such as yeasts and bacteria will thrive in your digestive tracks. In fact, research has even shown that cancer cells thrive in acidic environments, but perish in alkaline environments. As these pathogens thrive in your body, they will steal away the precious nutrients and energy that should be going to your body! If you wonder why all the food you eat doesn’t seem to give you energy, here is your answer!

The body was created to hold a slightly alkaline state for a reason. It is in this state that it is highly disease resistant, capable of repairing itself and energetic. Luckily, you can take a few easy steps today to start the healing process.

**To read the rest of this article @ Set Higher Standards, click here!

…

_______________________________________________________________

About the “Seeker” of this Article

Chris Willitts is an entrepreneur and student at the University of Michigan. One of his concentrations in academia is consciousness studies.

Chris founded Mindful Muscle - an online initiative that advocates mindfulness practices and believes these practices can revolutionize day-to-day living in modern societies, which can play a crucial role in elevating our collective consciousness, health, and human potentiality. For almost 10 years prior to Mindful Muscle, Chris was busy developing various other Internet ventures.

Be sure to check out Mindful Muscle’s philosophy about mindfulness and self-cultivation www.mindfulmuscle.com

_______________________________________________________________

Learning and understanding my own processes definitely affects my ability to maneuver and flow with greater ease and to create my own magickal life experience. Yet, there is still a collective timing for the really big things that has a design to it and cannot be premature. While we have specific paths and purposes, these are always linked to a higher good service, which will be a connective thread to bringing about the greatest collective web experience. And this cannot be forced or rushed.

This creates a need for embracing the perfection of each moment and always being mindful of living from the highest vibration and your highest potentials as you can, in order to not only create a personally fulfilling life, but to be of greatest service in helping that collective timing. Aligning with this is an all-encompassing, co-supportive experience, where portals will open once the collective is ready to walk through. This does not mean you can’t create and walk through portals on your own, but when the meaning and symbolism behind the experience is tied to service, then it is something that will require Divine Timing, aided by continually operating at full throttle you! So it’s never license to take an “I don’t care” or “I’m just one person, I can’t possibly affect the whole” attitude, as the more you each do your parts, the more you can simultaneously help affect the collective timing, as well as your own. When more people are ready, more portal opportunities open for us all.

Timing is definitely something to honor and not force, as well as trusting what you feel and learning what those feelings mean. I’ve seen this take place with so many of my major focuses, including my paintings and book, which all carry very deep collective healing energy. Many times, regardless of my own healing and understanding, my paintings, as well as book, were delayed and drawn out (sometimes months or years), as their collective impact was huge and I could not rush the healing process for others. Hence, they evolved in Divine Timing and I had to learn to embrace patience and come to understand the perfection that took me out of ego and into unconditional compassion.

You have to learn to get out of your own way in order to embrace a greater-you experience. What I have found is that if you flow and don’t force, then the process will be much easier and efficient, as well as enjoyable. The energy percolates during what seems to be the waiting period and much is actually getting done and lining up in unseen ways. Then, when you finally sit down to do something, it flows with effortless and seeming magick. This continually happens with each new journey I embark on.

It’s like being part of an alchemical pool of energy that we are all simultaneously elemental ingredients and co-magicians of.

Each portal requires varying ingredients, but when the ingredients reach just the right energetic mix, the portal does open. However, it is important to be conscious of embracing that moment, when it does, and walking through.

There may be times of dread and frustration, fear and impatience, as you move through the process of not knowing how to maneuver and learning to embrace this new flow. Ideas may only be seeded in you as an inspiration, an essence feeling, or abstract channeling, yet not come to fruition immediately. Take heed of these seedling thoughts and feelings, as they are setting up what is to come, as if you get a glimpse of the future before it happens, in order to create the space to grow into.

Any time you may try to sit down to do something and it feels forced or like a horrendous ordeal, heed that feeling and turn your attention elsewhere. It is not time. It means it is not yet ready, or there is something more to understand, see, or process. The universe is always trying to say… “Not yet. Just wait. It will come.”

For me, when I hit those closed and hard doors, I wait and devote that creative energy wanting out to other things, letting it percolate and build, while I listen for the next opening that welcomes me through. What once was a dreaded frustration of postponement is now an exciting burst of joy in presence and beauty, as I unwrap an artistic creation, layer by layer.

Embracing the perfection of Divine Timing is the message here that we can utilize in any and all areas of our lives. If something consistently feels forced, it likely isn’t time for one reason or another and likely you are going against something rather than flowing with it. The reason will become clear later. When we listen, magick unfolds and synchronicity can then take place in the most joyful of ways. If one thing isn’t working, work on something else, as there are probably elements of yourself you will discover in the process, or pieces that are needed before you can embark on the really challenging thing. Then the challenge becomes a piece of cake! - an extension of you in natural flow and synchronously symbolizes the now we are in. If you step into the rhythms and cycles (just like nature) and work with them rather than against them, you will find things much more effortless, fulfilling and ultimately more potent. This is a time of harmonic convergence and you are learning to integrate into this return to natural harmony, while releasing the old struggle you have become accustomed to. Step back and listen to what your heart is telling you. You will find the answer in this place you have forgotten to value and trust.

…

_______________________________________________________________

About the Author

A native Southern Californian, Tania Marie, is a visionary artist, designer, Reiki Master Teacher, intuitive healer and writer, as well as vegan raw foodist and world traveler. Her paintings, sacred tattoo designs, crystal pendants, articles, intuitive healing work and heart channeled inspirations have supported many people globally to find meaning, magic, joy, love inspiration and healing in their lives. Tania is the owner of Emerald Bridge, a compassionately conscious business which fuses visionary services and creations. Her ground-breaking and powerfully inspiring book, Spiritual Skin, is creating a transformative wave across the world, as it creates a new paradigm bridge between physical and spiritual through a thorough, transformatively healing and inspirational exploration of sacred tattoos.

A chameleon in life and art, her work is an organic, etheric synergy of “living art” with endearing depth. Tania has received notability as “one of the most inspiring modern artists of our time” and “one of the most intriguing and vivid visionary artists.”

Her heart channeling creations inspire people around the world to connect with their essence and joy, while supporting compassionate, conscious awareness. Tania’s devoted passion and service are to focus on heart-based projects intended to help support global peace, return to natural harmony and compassionate synergy.

Tania can be commissioned for events, paintings, design projects, as well as can be contacted with requests on classes of interest, including Reiki and art.

For more information about the book please visit: www.spiritualskin.com

For more information on Tania and her work please visit: www.taniamarie.com

_______________________________________________________________

A favorite component of my chest strength training workouts is push-ups. It may surprise you to know there are a lot of different ways to perform a push-up. Most often, push-ups are performed with momentum with little attention given to body position or targeting a specific muscle group. People often drop their hips, scrunch their shoulders, or over-arch their lower back in order to squeak out a few more reps. This is because push-ups are often tested against time or the exerciser is attempting to do the maximum number they can before failure.

The form you use for push-ups should be dependent on your specific goal. For chest workouts, I teach clients to do push-ups while holding the neutral spine, stabilizing the shoulder girdle, and isolating the chest muscles. Using this form is an effective way to use push-ups as part of your chest strength training workouts.

I used this push-up workout with a few clients to get add something new and different instead of the standard flat bench or flat dumbbell press. I call it the 100 push-up challenge. The goal is to perform 100 (women 70) push-ups at the beginning of your chest workout.

Step 1: As many push-ups as you can do starting with perfect form and control, and allowing your form to slip only a little. Use your form as a guide; if you cannot hold decent form, then you’ve worked until failure.

Step 2: Perform 25 sit-ups as a recovery.

Step 3: Repeat step 1 & 2 until you’ve done 100 total push-ups.

Note:  If you’re accustomed to doing push-ups, you may need to set your number higher than 100. Generally I’ve found that getting to 100 requires at least 3-4 sit-up breaks for most people.

Real Life Example
: Set 1 = 40 push-ups; 25 sit-ups
Set 2 = 25 push-ups; 25 sit-ups
Set 3 = 18 push-ups; 25 sit-ups
Set 4 = 10 push-ups; 25 sit-ups
Set 5 =   7 push-ups

Push-ups are often overlooked as an effective means for strengthening the chest because they are such a simple body weight exercise. The truth is body weight exercises are an excellent addition to any strength workout and can also be used in substitution for traditional strength training workouts.

When done correctly, body weight exercises are challenging, realistic, and relevant to real world movement including functional movement and athletic performance. They require you to stabilize yourself, activate your core, and control your body position as the target muscle group becomes fatigued.

Even if you opt-out of the 100 push-up challenge, I recommend incorporating some form of push-up into your chest strength training workouts as part of a super-set or as a simple warm-up before you being your standard workout.

…

_______________________________________________________________

About Author

Jes Reynolds has a B.S. in Kinesiology, is a personal trainer, online fitness teacher, and local news contributor who is passionate about health, fitness, human performance, and making her clients suffer.

Stay in touch with Jes by subscribing to Jes Reynolds Fitness or contact Jes directly at: Jes@JesReynolds.com

_______________________________________________________________

It’s no secret that humans are not entirely rational when it comes to weighing rewards. For example, we might be perfectly happy with how much money we’re making — until we find out how much more the guy in the next cubicle is being paid.

But a new study suggests that people who regularly practice Buddhist meditation actually process these common social situations differently — and the researchers have the brain scans to prove it.

Ulrich Kirk and collaborators at Baylor Medical College in Houston had 40 control subjects and 26 longtime meditators participate in a well-known experiment called the Ultimatum Game. It goes like this:

One person has a sum of money to split with another person. If the other person accepts the offer, they both walk away with cash in their pocket, but if he or she rejects the offer as too chintzy — which happens surprisingly often — neither receives anything.

The rational course is to accept any offer that is proposed, because getting something is better than nothing at all, but the Ultimatum Game suggests that for many people, emotion trumps reason. Being treated fairly is more important than coming out ahead financially.

Kirk’s subjects had $20 to split among themselves. When the offers were wildly asymmetrical (keeping $19 for oneself, while offering only $1), 72 percent of the controls refused the money, meaning both parties left empty-handed. But when the meditators played, only 46 percent rejected such blatantly unfair offers. More than half were willing to take whatever they were offered.

The test subjects played the game while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner, enabling the researchers to see which areas of their brains became active as they responded to various monetary offers. As in earlier experiments with the Ultimatum Game, the control subjects saw increased activity in a brain structure called the anterior insula when they were confronted with an unfair offer — an area linked to the emotion of disgust.

But the meditators’ brains reacted quite differently, activating brain areas associated with interoception — the representation of the body’s internal state. In fact, the researchers found very little overlap in the two groups’ neural responses.

Kirk, who recruited his meditators from the Houston Zen Center and other local Buddhist groups, wanted to explore a different mechanism for managing their emotions than the ones usually studied in cognitive neuroscience.

“To us it seemed that a more ecological way of doing this would be to see the effects of mindfulness,” he says. “Mindfulness, as opposed to emotion regulation, is using an outside perspective on one’s experiences, rather than changing their content (through distraction) or context (through reframing).”

To view the rest of this article, please click here where it’s originally published.

…

_______________________________________________________________

About the “Seeker” of this Article

Chris Willitts is an entrepreneur, freelance web designer, and continuing student at the University of Michigan, where one of his primary focuses in academia is consciousness studies. He also teaches a 6-week meditation course that integrates positive psychology interventions called Illuminate Your Life With Purpose.

Chris founded Mindful Muscle - an online initiative that advocates mindfulness practices and believes these practices can revolutionize day-to-day living in modern societies, which can play a crucial role in elevating our collective consciousness, health, and human potentiality. For almost 10 years prior to Mindful Muscle, Chris was busy developing various other Internet ventures.

Be sure to check out Chris’s philosophy about meditation, mindful strength training and mindful living at www.mindfulmuscle.com

_______________________________________________________________

PREPARING THE BODY FOR HEALING

Eckhart Tolle says this on page 143 in his book The Power of Now.

The first thing to remember is this: as long as you make an identity for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as part of your sense of self is invested in your emotional pain, you will unconsciously resist or sabotage every attempt you make to heal the pain. Why? Quite simply because you want to keep yourself intact, and the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an unconscious process, and the only way to overcome it, is to make it conscious. To suddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pain can be a shocking experience. The moment you realize this, you have broken the attachment.

The pain-body is an energy field, almost like an entity, that has become lodged in your inner space. It is life energy that has become trapped, energy that is no longer flowing. Of course, the pain-body is there because of certain things that happened in the past. It is the living part of you, and you identify with the past. A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth. It is the belief that other people and what they did to you are responsible for who you are now, for your emotional pain or your inability to be your true self. The truth is that the only power there is, is contained within this moment: it is the power of your presence.

All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future - and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past - and not enough presence.

Once you know that, you realize that you are responsible for your inner space now - nobody else is - and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now.

THE PAIN-BODY

There are two types of pain; one is present pain that occurs in the Now and the pain which is based on past events, usually from childhood experiences.

The pain-body is a very low vibratory frequency that feeds on pain, misery, drama, etc. It is unconsciousness and it feeds on unconsciousness. When you notice yourself in a reactive state, the pain-body is active and looking to be fed. Go into a place of allowing and observation, thereby supporting the raising of your vibratory state and the vibratory state of the pain-body. The pain-body consists of trapped life-energy that has split off from your total energy field and has temporarily become autonomous through the natural process of mind identification. Anything can trigger it, particularly if it resonates with a pattern from your past.

Tolle writes on page 30 - 33, that the pain-body is the dark shadow cast by the ego, it is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness. It is afraid of being found out. Its survival depends on your unconscious identification with it, as well as on your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you. But if you don’t face it, if you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to live it again and again. The pain-body may seem like a dangerous monster that you cannot bear to look at, but I assure you that it is an insubstantial phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence.

The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it. It can then rise up, take you over, `become you’ and live through you. It needs to get its `food’ through you. It will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain in whatever form: anger, destructiveness, hatred, grief, emotional drama, violence and even disease. So that the pain-body, when it takes you over, will create a situation in your life that creates its own energy frequency to feed on. Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible.

When you start to misidentify and become the watcher, the pain-body will try to trick you into identifying with it again. Although you are no longer energizing it through your identification, it has a certain momentum, just like a spinning wheel it will keep turning for a while, even though it is not being propelled. When you are present enough, it cannot control your thinking.

When a dark mood comes over you and you start getting into a negative mind-pattern, your thinking has become aligned with the pain-body and you have become unconscious (to be identified with some mental or emotional pattern) and vulnerable to the pain-body’s attack.

To summarize the process - focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think about it - don’t let the feeling turn into thinking. Don’t judge or analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside of you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of ‘the one who observes’ what is happening inside of you. Become aware of not only the emotional pain but also of `the one’ who observes, the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence.

On page 140 Tolle writes that - as a general rule, the major obstacle for men tends to be the thinking mind and the obstacle for women is the pain-body, although in certain individual cases, the opposite may be true and in others the two factors may be equal.

THE PAIN-BODY EXPLAINED IN OTHER WORDS

The following is from a Tolle/Winfrey webcast.

Thinking is a form of energy that happens to you all the time. Some thinking happens to you, like breathing, digestion, circulation, that the greatest part of most people’s thinking is involuntary, automatic, and repetitive. It is no more than a kind of mental static and fulfills no real purpose, but some thinking involves the human mind that seems to be hooked on my, me and my story.

This constant mind chatter keeps the negative emotions alive and personalizes everything and you become identified with that voice in your head, with its repetitive thought patterns and that is what most people are trapped in. It makes up their superficial personality with all their, the continuous repetitive judgment, and likes, and dislikes and prejudices and whatever makes up the content of their egoic mind. So people are trapped in that and derive a sense of self from that, which is ultimately insubstantial, conditioned by the past and not who they are with its repetitive thought patterns. And that is what most people are trapped in.this addiction to these negative thoughts in our head, which is at the root of humanity’s problems.

When you become aware of this you start the awakening and realize that there is a voice in the head that doesn’t stop speaking. When you realize, “Oh there’s…” and then you begin to realize what kinds of things the voice is saying: repetitive judgments and so on, negative thoughts about yourself, about other people, about situations you are in. Especially all these repetitive negative thoughts that many people are trapped with. You become aware of that. The power to stop the pain-body comes in with your awareness that there is a voice.

Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from the present moment. Many people are so attached to the past that they carry a burden, like carrying a huge sack on your back, a burden. You’re identified with that. And they believe that they’re unable to be present because the past prevents them from being present. But it can’t do that. You can step out of the stream of thinking. Take your attention into present, and immediately the past no longer has that power over you.

The core of all this is the pain-body. Any negative emotion that is not fully faced and seen for what it is in the moment it arises does not completely dissolve. The energy field of old but still very much alive emotion that lives in almost every human being is the pain-body.

So first realization is that there is something in me that seeks unhappiness, that seeks unpleasant experiences, that seeks more negativity because it feeds on those things. And if you can recognize that as it arises, then you’re no longer totally at the mercy of it.

Those things, negative thoughts, will feed to the pain-body. That is one of the favorite ways pain-body to feed is on your own thinking. So this is very important for people to realize, to observe within themselves that periodically in many people, an addiction to negativity arises.

The pain-body is the emotional aspect of the ego. So, really, pain-body is part of the ego, and it’s a very unhappy entity. But because its very existence consists of this unhappy vibration, it does not want an end to its unhappiness because an end to its unhappiness is the end to the pain-body.

Because pain-bodies are very cunning, very clever they know exactly what will make you unconscious and what will make you react. It’s a creature that’s like an alien force inside of us.

Although the body is very intelligent, it cannot tell the difference between an actual situation and a thought. It reacts to every thought as if it were a reality. It doesn’t know it’s just a thought. To the body, a worrisome, fearful thought means ‘I’m in danger,’ and it responds accordingly. There is a buildup of energy, but since the danger is only a mental fiction, the energy has no outlet. The rest of the energy turns toxic, interferes with the harmonious functioning of the body, and that is what makes people sick.

So it’s very important to clear up your mind so that you stop the continuous negativity of the egoic self-talk, as we call it. So recognize it, and then step out of that stream of thinking into the present moment, take one or two conscious breaths. You’ve stepped out of the stream of thinking. Or feel the inner body, feel the aliveness in your arms, your hands, your legs. Put your attention there.

You have stepped out of the stream of thinking. Or look at something and bring your full consciousness to the act of perception. For example, a tree or a flower, anything natural is best. Look at anything natural. Give it your full attention that takes you out of the stream of thinking. Or any natural sound, a bird, the wind.

THE POWER OF THE NOW MOMENT

After the mind is ready to relax and be in conscious no thought, you can rise above thought and be in the moment where the constant thinking stops. To the ego, only the past and future matter, it is always trying to keep the past alive and projects itself into the future as it expects fulfillment there. When you think of a present feeling, by definition the present becomes the past. The solution is to be in the moment of conscious no thought. Be in your breathe. Even the present is seen as a means to an end, an end that lies in the mind projected future. The present no thought moment holds the key to liberation.

ACCESSING THE POWER OF NOW

As Tolle writes in Practicing the Power of Now, you can do this to access the power of Now. Follow the breath with your attention as it moves in and out of your body. Breathe into your body and feel your abdomen expanding and contracting slightly with each inhalation and exhalation.

If you find it easy to visualize, close your eyes and see yourself surrounded by light, or immersed in a luminous substance - a sea of consciousness. Then breathe in that light. Feel that luminous substance filling up your body and making it luminous also.

HOW TO DISSOLVE NEGATIVE THINKING

I (Tolle) was writing The Power of Now, and writing about accumulated emotions. And then I was taking a break and went into the park and sat on a bench by a pond, and I saw two ducks approaching on the pond, and suddenly, maybe one duck or, one duck got close, too close to the other. Suddenly they started getting into a fight. It lasted for about 30 seconds, and then they both separated, swam off in opposite directions. They were still agitated, both of them, and then both ducks kind of lifted themselves up on the water and vigorously flapped their wings a few times. They almost stood up on the water, and moving on. And then suddenly they were totally peaceful again and swam off.

The example of the ducks is right on as negative energy takes it’s toll when stored. We humans can release unwanted negative energy by letting it go and not dwell on it.

HOW TO DISSOLVE THE PAIN-BODY

You can achieve the conscious no thought state of mind by BEING AWARE OF THE GAP BETWEEN TWO THOUGHTS AND FOCUSING YOUR AWARENESS WITH IT This will enter you into the Now.

RELEASING BY BREATHING

This was written by Tolle. As for your past events and memories, don’t try to block them out. When they come to your attention, notice them and give them acknowledgement, then breathe them out. They will keep coming back, in harder and harder forms, until you acknowledge them. To get caught up in them - to get caught up in the drama of them again - will replant them further and further within. Notice the memory, any emotions or bodily responses, then breathe them out. Breathing puts you in the present and allows you to release - to clean, clear, organize and reorganize. Breathe.

Go into your breath when you notice any symptom. Whatever the situation, whatever the symptom, whenever we hang onto what we think it’s about, we limit it from being all that it is about. Perhaps the `negative’ thought has been a symptom. Let it go…like putting it in a balloon and letting it go up, up and away… release it, not through your thoughts but through a letting it go on it’s own journey. Breathe, with no thought…with a quiet mind, a peaceful mind, and an open heart. No thought. What we think we know…thinking we know what it’s about keeps it in a box…let it out of the box and allow it to be whatever it is… and it most often is way beyond our awareness. Breathe.

…… on a personal level by focusing on your breathing it is the start of a process …… this means that many thoughts are reduced to one …… this thought with practice becomes an awareness …… which when you are ready, becomes a feeling or emotion …… this feeling lasts for seconds, which with practice becomes minutes and so on and time disappears……

When you breathe, the breath enters through your feet, like a straw sucking from the unending sea of consciousness and moves up through the legs, chest and body, down through the arms and hands and back up the arms to the head. Notice the breath inside your physical and inner bodies.

The exhale breathe leaves through your feet. This is your spiritual body feeling our breath.
You may decide to visualize the in-breath as white and the out-breath a black. Do what is natural.

THE STOMACH AS A TRUE INDICATOR

Notice that your stomach is a true indicator of your bodies feelings. It talks to you of how it feels and therefore, how you feel. If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection. The thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth, the relative truth of your state of Mind, at that time. The stomach is a gauge for your breathing and releasing your troublesome thoughts. You may start off by taking a few minutes to release/breathe every hour, or when a thought enters your mind. It’s up to you in your choice.

When the mind connects with the body, emotion is created. When we don’t connect with those emotions, they appear in physical form as a dis-ease. With a connection, emotions come either from love or fear. Fear based emotions can overtake us if allowed and appear as the pain-body, as noted above. When you bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, it cannot survive the awareness. It has taught you by it’s presence and is sent back to the universe. By cradling this fear as you would a baby, you give love to your fear. P`taah.

Spirit wants to get your attention, so that self awareness can lead to enlightenment. It starts with a whisper, leading to conversation loudness, then louder voices, then shouting and so it progressively goes to an life altering dis-ease, then to a life ending ill-ness. Ideally we react to the whisper, but we typically go through a lot of pain before we `get it` and acknowledge and act on the message.

MENTAL MOVIES

“A chief cause of unhappiness is what is called mental movies. Mental movies are a misuse of the imagination. You know how it goes. You have a painful experience with someone, then run it over and over in your mind. You visualize what you said, what he did, how you both felt. As awful as it is, you feel compelled to repeat the film day and night. It is as if you were locked inside a theater playing a horror movie.

To break out be aware that you ARE running a mental movie. Be conscious of its mechanical hold on your mind. Then, by deliberate choice, break it off. Shake your head and break it off. Now, at this instant, take a quick look. Where is your pain? It is not there. It has disappeared. You have now accomplished something great. You have proved that you CAN snap the film and its tyrannical pain. You are free and you are free RIGHT NOW.

Try the above method for yourself. Even though you succeed at first for just a split second, you have succeeded completely! Now realizing that small success is possible, you can advance to great success!”….VERNON HOWARD

TRANSFORMING ILLNESS INTO ENLIGHTENMENT

As Tolle writes on pg 183 - 4, illness is part of your life situation. As such it has a past and a future. As there are no problems in the Now, there is no illness either. The belief in a label that someone attaches to your condition, it keeps the condition in place, empowers it and makes it a seemingly solid reality out of a temporary imbalance. It gives it not only reality and solidity, but also a continuity in time that it did not have before. By focusing on the instant and refraining from labeling it mentally, illness is reduced.

Illness is not the problem. You are the problem, as long as the egoic mind is in control. If you have a major illness, use it for enlightenment. Anything “bad” that happens in your life - use it for enlightenment. Withdraw time from the illness. Do not give it any past or future. Let it force you into intense present-moment awareness.

Then gradually focus more on the feeling. Don’t get attached to any visual image. You are now in your body. You have accessed the power of Now.

**Original Online Source: YourHealthOnline.com

…

_______________________________________________________________

About the “Seeker” of this Article

Chris Willitts is an entrepreneur, freelance web designer, and continuing student at the University of Michigan, where one of his primary focuses in academia is consciousness studies. He also teaches a 6-week meditation course that integrates positive psychology interventions called Illuminate Your Life With Purpose.

Chris founded Mindful Muscle - an online initiative that advocates mindfulness practices and believes these practices can revolutionize day-to-day living in modern societies, which can play a crucial role in elevating our collective consciousness, health, and human potentiality. For almost 10 years prior to Mindful Muscle, Chris was busy developing various other Internet ventures.

Be sure to check out Chris’s philosophy about meditation, mindful strength training and mindful living at www.mindfulmuscle.com

_______________________________________________________________

Since time immemorial, certain men and women have felt called to heal the sick, to safeguard knowledge, to guide the lost, and to commune with the spirit world. These unique individuals, known as shamans, were mystics and seers, repositories of wisdom, and keepers of herbal lore. During those periods when ignorance loomed large in the world, shamans across the globe bided their time, peacefully practicing their practical yet refined arts in the jungle, mountains, deserts, and tundra that protected them from those who misunderstood shamanism. Today, however, shamanism has reemerged, as modern men and women feel the same call to service that their ancestors felt long ago. Also, as more individuals explore the notion that healing necessarily involves the soul as well as the physical self, people are consulting shamans in their search for wellness, wisdom, and guidance.

The word shaman literally means “he or she who knows.” Shamanism is an art that has not changed in any quantifiable way for millennia and is not bound to any particular form of spirituality. It is grounded on the principle that the visible world is saturated with unseen forces that influence the lives of human beings.

Shamans, in addition to acting as fonts of wisdom, are dedicated to diagnosing and curing human suffering—whether emotional, physical, or spiritual. To treat an illness, a shaman may communicate with the spirit world in order to connect more directly with the soul of their patient or with the force causing ill health. They often work closely with animal guides, plant and earth spirits, or your spirit guides, and may make use of use of herbal remedies to supplement other forms of treatment. Shamans, as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual realms, recognize that all objects are in manner alive and retain information that can be utilized to heal.

Shamanism is powerful in part because its practitioners tailor healing to the individual needs of those who seek them out.

A shaman manipulates energy, giving you power where you have lost it and removing misplaced energy lurking within you. When you seek out a shaman, they will endeavor to know and understand you before treating you. In this way, they can provide you with therapies that act on your whole being, positively influencing your body as well as your soul.

**To read more articles like this, please visit the DailyOM by clicking here

…

_______________________________________________________________

About the “Seeker” of this Article

Chris Willitts is an entrepreneur, freelance web designer, and continuing student at the University of Michigan, where one of his primary focuses in academia is consciousness studies. He also teaches a 6-week meditation course that integrates positive psychology interventions called Illuminate Your Life With Purpose.

Chris founded Mindful Muscle - an online initiative that advocates mindfulness practices and believes these practices can revolutionize day-to-day living in modern societies, which can play a crucial role in elevating our collective consciousness, health, and human potentiality. For almost 10 years prior to Mindful Muscle, Chris was busy developing various other Internet ventures.

Be sure to check out Chris’s philosophy about meditation, mindful strength training and mindful living at www.mindfulmuscle.com

_______________________________________________________________

We all posses a widely unknown powerful energy called Kundalini which sits at the base of our spine.

In the classic Hatha yoga and Tantra traditions, each person is believed to possess a great reservoir of dormant feminine energy. This raw creative energy lies tightly coiled at the base of the spine. It is often associated with the serpent. Kundalini energy is part of the life force, so there is always a minute amount flowing through your subtle body. Only when properly understood and awakened can it express its full potential, rising through you and energizing your senses. It is possible to awaken your Kundalini through different forms of meditation or yoga, though the process should be undertaken slowly. A hasty opening of the Kundalini center can cause headaches and other physical symptoms. Raised properly, Kundalini energy has the potential to spring forth as active kinetic energy that may result in altered states of consciousness.

Once you have tapped into your Kundalini, what you experience will be unique. Some people experience the rising of the Kundalini upward through the chakras as spreading warmth and a feeling of extreme well being. Others find they have more energy and libido and are consistently happier. If you awaken your Kundalini, you may find yourself getting sick less often.  You may be thinking about raising your Kundalini on your own. One way to do this is to draw the Kundalini up through the Shushumna, the passageway that travels through the center of your body toward the head, by visualizing the energy as a serpent traveling upward. But only bring it up a little at a time and use caution. If you experience headaches or a burning sensation, you may be going to fast and should consult a teacher.

Though awakening the Kundalini can be a difficult experience, it can also be a rewarding and exciting one. As the raw energy of the Kundalini is transformed into a potent storehouse of refined energy waiting to be utilized, you will be tapping into a rich source of creativity and awareness.

**To read more articles like this, please visit the DailyOM by clicking here

…

_______________________________________________________________

About the “Seeker” of this Article

Chris Willitts is an entrepreneur, freelance web designer, and continuing student at the University of Michigan, where one of his primary focuses in academia is consciousness studies. He also teaches a 6-week meditation course that integrates positive psychology interventions called Illuminate Your Life With Purpose.

Chris founded Mindful Muscle - an online initiative that advocates mindfulness practices and believes these practices can revolutionize day-to-day living in modern societies, which can play a crucial role in elevating our collective consciousness, health, and human potentiality. For almost 10 years prior to Mindful Muscle, Chris was busy developing various other Internet ventures.

Be sure to check out Chris’s philosophy about meditation, mindful strength training and mindful living at www.mindfulmuscle.com

_______________________________________________________________