Archive for year: 2016

In the world of mindfulness the acknowledgement that ‘thoughts become things’ leads to the understanding that we are all responsible for our own feelings. All that we think, feel and do will boost our mood either positively or negatively. The point is one of choice. It is only in awake-ness that we realise we have a choice. Up to that point of awakening we are simply on a default setting and do what we do because that is what we learn to be. So when we boost positively, how do we do it? Magically in Ayurvedic philosophy we have the answer to that it is in the different levels of mind, body and emotion that is called the chakra system. I’ll start from the bottom end and work up.

1: Muladhara – Base chakra – Red – Perineum – Gonads – Karma
This is your physical body, the meat and bones, the solid hardware of who you are. The mood boost at the red level is physical health. The mood boost here is to be fit and health. Choices include weight, diet and exercise. It is said that a healthy body equals a healthy mood. If you choose to be unhealthy and over weight and not exercise your mood will be down. If you choose to exercise be fit and eat well your mood will rise. If you develop a good relationship with your body doing a bit of exercise will raise you mood quickly.

2: Svadisthana – Energy chakra – Orange – Just below your navel – Adrenals – Hatha
This is your energetic body. When you add energy to the body, orange to red, you have life. in separation you have death. The energy at this level has several names – Bio-Energy, Chi, Ki, Prana, Etheric energy, Auric energy. Emotionally this is sensuality. It is a world of touch that includes massage and healing but also friendship, groups and belonging, social networks and family. When we become tense, when the meat and bones of the red level ache and are sore it is because the orange energy is blocked or is not flowing. When we get our body moving in exercise we allow the energy to flow. The social interactions of exercise classes enhances this effect. Zumba, Aerobics, Yoga and so on are all group activities that feed orange energy. At the level of a couple the act of making love, orgasm and most importantly foreplay and after play all allow for free flowing orange energy. To boost you mood at this level you need to develop and nurture your relationships and pay attention to the tensions in your body and do something about them, go for a massage, join a club, make love.

3: Manipura – Perceptual chakra – Yellow – Solar Plexus – Pancreas – Janana
This is the extrovert intellectual world of experience that includes words like, new experience, challenge, difference, newness, novelty and fun. When we have low yellow energy we may feel bored, tarnished, lack energy and feel subject to the same old, same old feeling of ground hog day.
The experience of perpetual routine, repetition and feeling trapped in a position or circumstances will create a low yellow mood. Boosting your yellow mood means fun, newness and challenge. Studying, learning new skills, taking up a hobby, reading a new book, meeting new people, when did you last do something new, play or do something just for the fun of it?

4: Anhatta – Emotional chakra – Green – Heart – Thymus – Bhakti
Agatha means ‘the unstuck sound’ it is the essence of self, of who you are. It is often expressed as the ego as either confidence, arrogance, or service, love and care, which is termed ‘Bhakti’ in Ayurveda. When our green mood is low we tend to become depressed, lack confidence and feel a lack of value or worth. Low green also means lack of energy and fatigue and is related to M.E. Chronic fatigue and the various myalgias. Green health comes from doing things that you can feel proud of. It might be achievements that come with great accolades or it might be the simple acts of giving or care. The law of attraction suggest that in giving we attract more of the same back to ourselves. To give love leads to receiving love. To give money leads to receiving money. When we feel in a low green mood often we become boosted by doing something for others. Unattached, egoless giving to others raises and boosts our mood.

5: Vishuddi – Cognitive chakra – Blue – Base of throat – Thyroid – Mantra
This is the internalised mind, cognition and conception, it is the store of information and long term memory. It is also the part of ourself that determines the rules that we live by, our sense of morality and of what is right and wrong. The two things that create the most low blue mood are dishonesty and disorganisation. This maybe our own disorganisation when we are unable to find things or forever turn up late or it might the frustration of the same behaviour from others. Honesty is a huge issue. When someone is unfaithful or let’s us down we can hold that hurt for a lifetime. If we have been dishonest the emotion that follows on is normally guilt and that may also drag us down. The blue part of the personality can easily become fixed. This is the part that comes up with phrases like ‘it is known fact that …’, or ‘everyone knows that’. Such fixed attitudes come from frozen emotion. Often our blue attitudes, concepts and ideas are born of solidified emotion that is the fixing. When these fixed attitudes are moved there is often a huge release of emotion that is termed an ‘abreaction’. Blue health and mood boost comes from being honest with yourself, doing the right thing and living ‘righteously’ thus avoiding feeling of guilt or regret. The second most important thing is learning to let go, as in step one of the live in the present book. While we hold on to past hurts and ideas we are unable to progress and develop as a person. All personal development begins with letting go of the unresolved past – also known as forgiveness.

6: Ajna – Intuitive chakra -Indigo – Centre of forehead – Pituitary – Raja
The intuitive mind is governed by meaning. The meaning of something is the sound behind the music, the substance behind the word, the feeling behind the emotion. It is the knowing without knowing. The heard sound of one hand clapping. Intuition tells us things beyond logic and cognition. The main tool in the intuitive arsenal is empathy. Sympathy is when we resonate with ‘our’ feelings of what ‘you’ are experiencing. Empathy is when we can walk in your shoes and feel what you are feeling directly. Many people who think they are empathic are really sympathetic and are re-interpreting the feelings of others into their own framework. When we have low intuition we have lost, or are losing, the meaning in life. ‘What is the point?’ The extreme of this is suicidal ideation being intuitively healthy is when life feels meaningful and purposeful. Often the key to this is in giving yourself time and value, in looking after your own needs. After all we cannot really look after others unless we feel good in ourselve. When did you last do something for you? What do you do to attend to your own wellbeing? Bottom line is ‘what you feed grows and what you starve dies’. If you want to live happily you need to feed yourself, to feed you emotional, intuitive self.

7: Shasaram – Creative chakra – Violet – Top of the head – Tantra
The creative mind is the tool of visualisation. The word Tantra is often mistaken to be about sexuality, actually it is about creativity. Tantra is the science of the imagination and it is the imagination that is the seed of creativity. In modern mindful psychology you will hear two main concepts. The first is that “thoughts become things” or “what you think about you bring about”. The second is we become what we visualise which is the basis of sports and performance psychology. We are all scriptwriters. Each day when we wake we decide on the day we will have. Before we attend a meeting or an interview we have already decided the outcome. Perhaps we should be saying that it is not thoughts that become things, it is the visualised images that we hold that are the script that we live. After all anxiety is when we imagine a future that may never happen and then live it in the present as though it has. Where as creativity is when we imagine a positive future and then work towards it. When we have a low level creative energy we visualise the worst possible outcomes and then go and live them out. To be creatively healthy we need to focus on those things and events that serve us well and then go and live those out. We are what we imagine ourselves to be.

8: Ashtanga – The whole – White
In the Ayurvedic world these different chakras where considered a path that was described as a. Yoga as in Karma, Hatha, Janana, Bhakti, Mantra, Raja, and Tantra. Each path was considered to be suited to different personality types enabling their self development. The alternative was to study all seven. This was termed Ashtanga or integral. The white signifies the total of all things, like light before it is split through a prism into the seven colours. Each colour is a subset of the whole. The white is the mixed balance of all the colours together. This equates to what we would call spirituality, consciousness or the higher self. It is only when we have boosted and balanced each of the colours that we can achieve or obtain Ashtanga.

Have a good look a yourself. Check your chakras. Which ones are open and working well and which are creating problems for you? The next step is to put things in place that will serve you well, boost your mood and emotions and create the best version of you that thee can possibly be.

Take care, be happy and live in the present

Sean X

Moment by moment, throughout our lives, we choose to invest our energy into being positive or negative. What we feed grows and what we starve dies. Do you choose to be positive or negative? Do you choose to be mindful or mindless?

Mindful people are always part of the answer.
When you are faced with an issue or a problem, perhaps it is for you or maybe for a friend or colleague, do you do your best to see the positive and attempt to make the situation better?

Mindless people are always part of the problem.
Of course it could be that you are so finely tuned into the negative that you always see the worst in every situation and end up saying things that make the situation even worse.

A mindful person always has a plan.
In response to difficult situations some people just go off half cock, headless chicken syndrome, and simply create more difficulties, because they do not plan or think ahead.

A mindless person always has an excuse.
Some people find other to blame, “it was not may fault”, ” I didn’t realise”, “It wasn’t me it was him”. We can always find an excuse or we can take responsibility for our action and who we are and choose to make it right.

Mindful people say: “Let me do it for you.”
When we all look after each other we can create heaven on earth. When you only look after yourself, to the detriment of others, we only create hell.

Mindless people say: “That is not my job.”
When we leave it to others and we expect them to get it right, then, no one’s needs get met. This is the height of mindlessness and the basis of most human problems.

A mindful person sees an answer for any problem.
When we do not have problems but we have challenges and opportunities, they can then lead to solutions and resolutions – life can change if we decide that it will.

A mindless person sees a problem to any answer.
Some people see that nothing is solvable, and that we only have problems, life is a road to hell in a handcart, it will never get better. This is a downward spiral to loss, depression and desperation.

A mindful person says: “It may be difficult but it’s possible.”
Mindful people never, never, never, never give up. Nothing is impossible everything can be solved, all can be achieved, life is good, anything can be solved.

A mindless person says: “It may be possible but it’s too difficult.”
Mindless people do not even give it a chance. They give up at the first hurdle. They assume the worst from the outset. They assume success is not for them. They concentrate and work on failure.

Mindful people see the past as what they learned, they challenge this, do not make it a habit and move forward.
Mindful people learn from what happened, they move forward and do not allow past emotional events to hold them back.

Mindless people remain attached to the past, become depressed and stuck.
Mindful people live in the present and purposefully and positively create their future. They get rid of the past through forgiveness and letting go.

Mindful people see their future with creative potential and positive expectation.
Mindful people see a positive future and bring it into their present and live it now. They assume that with positive intent all will turn out ok.

Mindless people see their future with fear, anxiety and negative expectation.
When we focus on negative futures and feel anxiety in the present we need to use mindfulness to live in the now and be happy. We can never be happy in the future. We can only be happy in the now.

Mindful or Mindless?
It is your choice moment by moment.

To be mindful, effective, and happy, you need to Live In The Present and treat everything that happens to you, whatever it is, as a wonderful opportunity to grow.

Life is good, if we want it to be.

Be Happy – choose mindfulness

Sean X

When you go to sleep at night you enter a deep sleep cycle known as non rapid eye movement or NREM. This is followed by a dream cycle known as rapid eye movement or REM. The time between going to sleep to the end of the dream cycle varies between 1.5 to 2 hours depending on the individual.

These cycles continue throughout the night so that most people will get between three and four cycles. The first cycle is mainly deep sleep with a little bit of dream and the last cycle is mainly dream. It is assumed that the deep sleep is about body rest and repair and the dream cycle is about emotional rest and repair.

When people become emotionally disturbed the dream cycle eats into the deep sleep cycle. In the extreme people get no rest because they are continually dreaming. The result is that you feel more tired when you wake than when you went to sleep. This often leads to an increasing sleep pattern so that people may end up sleeping for sixteen hours or more each, but getting more and more tired.

This is the most common symptom in all depressive illnesses. For some the sleep state is difficult to enter and although fatiguing it is safe. However some forms of sleep deprivation or insomnia can become life threatening.

Fatal insomnia
The condition occurs when proteins called prions in the brain become misshapen. Similar to CJD they damage the thalamus in the brain. This is the part of the brain that alters systems in the body that induce sleep

The thalamus is linked to the body’s sympathetic nervous system, which controls unconscious actions. It regulates the body’s unconscious actions, including hormone levels, temperature, blood pressure and heart rate. In healthy people, at night, hormone levels alter and blood pressure is dropped to induce slumber. But for those with fatal insomnia, these actions don’t happen and so they remain awake, in a permanent pre-sleep state.

Dream Sleep
If following an emotional disturbance dreams become very vivid and technicolor our rest is lost. When the dreams take over our sleep pattern we are discharged from sleep in the dream cycle and we do not get the rest from the deep sleep that we need. Although we may not remember what we were dreaming about, they still wake us, and unless we quickly write it down they are lost.

The difference between deep sleep and dream sleep is that if we wake in deep sleep we are groggy and may not know who we are or where we are until we orient ourselves. However in this state it is easy to go back to sleep. When we wake in dream sleep we are wide awake as though someone has switched the light on and we find it difficult to go back to sleep.

In this weeks podcast Ed and I talked about insomnia and sleep disturbance and suggest resources that may be of help. Improving and maintaining, your sleep pattern is fundamental to your emotional wellbeing.

Some ways to improve your sleep pattern are…