You’re living in a world of wonder. You and your family are in supreme health. The best in healthy medical alternatives and organic foods are available and in abundant supply. You quiver in appreciation of your constant good fortune…
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ―
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Jesse marveled at the huge boil that had developed on his nine-year-old daughter’s shoulder. It seemed to appear overnight though his daughter said it had been developing for days but wasn’t painful until now, which is why she was finally showing it to him. It was an odd thing to behold on such a sweet young person. Have you ever been surprised at what some of the health concerns or complications that your offspring develop or bring home?
He washed it as his mother had instructed over the phone and applied warm compresses to bring it to a head. This ‘wonder’ was complicated with the fact that his sweet young daughter was just diagnosed as having Type 2 Diabetes. As his Parent Mentor, I pointed out that this situation was just another blaring opportunity to utilize the healing properties of the relationship between meditation, healthy eating, exercise and plant medicine (reference my prior blogs – links link to ‘exercise’ & plant medicine).
“Today half the kids have some form of chronic disease. Half the kids! … 20% of the kids are on some kind of medication… GMOs, junk food, white flour, white sugar, and in some cases, vaccinations, Ritalin, etc… these aren’t good for your brain.” ~
Dr. Gabriel Cousens
Dr. Gabriel Cousens spoke at length with me about the benefits of the vegan diet and meditation at the FROM PARENTING PAIN TO PARENTING PEACE World Summit. Here’s a clip…
Jesse had just gotten clear on the idea that his daughter had diabetes. It took a while to sink in because he was well aware of how dangerous diabetes is due to his own issues with it. It’s possible complications of long-term disability or loss of life were not lost on him! It took a while to sink in because he already had more than his share of worry and simply resisted the idea. Do you ever ‘get used to’ the idea that your child has a chronic dangerous illness?
The introduction of this boil or any other illness added another layer of stress and worry. He said, “Skin breaks can lead to infections that can lead to abscesses that can lead to blood infections and on and on… I feel personally responsible for her having these problems because I feel I’ve passed this on to her!” I countered, “Let’s focus on solutions. The problems are only as big as we make them.”
“There are far too many possible influences, including diet, for us to consider than what you may or may not have passed on genetically. Let’s see if we can get back to ground zero (meaning zero or minimal consumption of toxins). Let’s work our way back to optimal health. Doing it for yourself is doing it for your offspring as well.” Can we agree that we parents heavily influence what food stuffs come into the house and are served as meals and snacks?
“What the parents are eating influences what happens tremendously. The parent, the spiritual warrior, has to be willing to push themselves to do the most healthy things for themselves. It takes spiritual courage to be fully alive.” ~
Dr. Gabriel Cousens
Our bodies are made of the stuff of the earth: oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, etc. It stands to reason that if we have the cleanest interaction possible at the basic cellular level, a lot of error can be avoided! Let’s get back to that healthy person underneath all of that sickness.
When we respect and act on the fact that stress of some kind is at the heart of all disease, we give ourselves a headstart in achieving the solutions. ‘Dis ease’ is to be countered with ‘ease’. ‘Ease’ is the key objective of meditaton.
“Meditation makes the entire nervous system go into a field of coherence.” ~
Deepak Chopra
Can you see how a three-pronged strategy that addresses the body, mind AND spirit could work to bring a more complete solution? Addressing the body through nutrition, exercise and alternative medicine is a basic sound move. Addressing the mind and spirit through meditation is a core, all-encompassing move. Being willing and actually pushing yourself to do the most healthy things for yourself and your offspring is the difference between success and failure on many different levels!!! What do YOU choose?
Jesse chose the three-pronged strategy. He and his daughter are currently well past worry and ‘dis ease’. Financial worries and relationship with women worries compounded the stress he felt in his life, in general. Now, that ‘worry’ stress is all gone.
He says, “It took me a while to get into the meditation thing but the more I did it, the more relaxed I got in general. Solutions to problems appeared almost as fast as the worrisome thought about problem itself. Maggie (his daughter) and I both have our weight and blood glucose under complete control. She meditates too.” He goes on to say, “The essential oils recipe you had us use has helped tremendously with keeping our numbers in the healthy range. Our doctors are very impressed.”
Getting back to the healthy person beneath our illnesses is THE most important thing we can do for ourselves and our offspring. Are there situations where you think someone is ‘born ill’? Of course, we have instances where babies are born ill and, even in this situation, there is the healthy baby inside that must be revealed… freed of the illness.
Doctors, conventional and wholistic, ideally focus on getting us back to that pure, clean and strong healthy cellular structure, that healthy person inside. The truth is “modern medicine, for all its advances, knows less than 10 percent of what your body knows instinctively.” ~
Deepak Chopra Developing our trust in our connection to healing properties of nature and it’s symbiotic relationship with our minds and spirit will take us a lot further along in time and in a much happier state.
The ’placebo effect’ is the glaring evidence of this truth! According to The U.S. Department of Health, 30 to 75% of cures happen with sugar pills because the patient ‘believes’ they have been given a drug. How is the healing happening without the ‘medicine’? I say, close to 100% can be cured if they/we tap into that inner resource that is All That Is!!! This ‘tapping’ is done most effectively with meditation.
My prescription for health and happiness as preventative medicine, should you choose to engage it, is: meditation > nutrition > exercise > fulfilling work/creativity > community/giving.
Start your day with a minimum of 20 minutes of meditation and stay with your quiet mind most of the time throughout your day. This is challenging but well worth it. If you’re new to meditation start with 5 minutes of quiet mind and work your way up to (and past) 20 minutes. It may take you 20 minutes just to get to your quiet mind!!! If that’s the case, then still hang out there for 5 minutes or as long as you can.
Make a point of having the highest and best nutrition (consume mostly grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables and oily fish) and, if necessary, wholistic medicine and remedies for your body.
Exercise to a sweat daily. This could be 10 – 30 minutes minimum, depending on what you do. Do something you enjoy… make a point of enjoying something…
Engage in work that you love and/or creative projects that fulfill you. Many of us feel locked into dead-end jobs or unpleasant work environments. It’s critical to save energy for projects that light you up! Things that make you feel alive!!! Press into Life!!! That is why we ‘re here!
Give 100% attention to the humans (rather than cell phones, TVs, etc.) in your space as a priority whether at home or community. Seek community. Enjoy the ‘collective energy’ of your ‘brothers and sisters’. This energy is critical for emotional well-being and health. Being in community also gives us more of a built-in opportunity to ‘give’.
The CDC says that about one in three adults has high blood pressure, and it kills 1,000 people per day. ‘Giving’ lowers blood pressure on par with taking medications and is obviously a far healthier way to get the job done! Here is an article by Dale Nirvani Pfeifer that discusses this phenomenon more in depth, https://upliftconnect.com/secret-to-better-health/.
I urge all of us to ‘know’ that we’re living in a world of wonder. You and your family are in supreme health. The best in healthy medical alternatives and organic foods ARE available and in abundant supply and when you ‘know’ that, you quiver in appreciation of your constant good fortune and…
By all means, believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
IMAGINE you’re happily giving yourself and your family Big Pharma drugs when you find out… hey… the body can heal itself?!! … and when it doesn’t, often the only thing necessary is plant medicine to help along. Did you know the best thing to help the body’s healing process and/or work to prevent health problems is plant medicine, also known as ‘alternative medicine’?
Did Big Pharma(aka The Pharmaceutical Industry’s massive pharmaceutical companies that make literally billions of dollars every year) start up about 200 years ago? Yep, it started with the bastardization of botanical and mineral compounds at least 200 years ago, around the 1800s, and hit the lab running into synthetics that have now invaded us physically to the point where we’re addicted. Most of us are not allowed to even get high on them anymore… we just take ‘em and take ’em. They keep Americans regularly supplied with a medicine cabinet’s worth of pills and all other manner of ‘legal drugs’ and medical devices.
I just produced, I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Joy Bernstein and Bella Shing on the benefits of using essential oils (EO) to help calm yourself and your offspring. I’ve been particularly interested in natural remedies and health science since I was in my early 20s. Here’s a 3min. clip from our 45min interview.
It’s time we get back to our natural roots,
for the sake of our health, our family’s health and our pocket-books (does anyone say pocket-books in place of wallets anymore?) Natural herbs and their essences not only aid in the healing processes of our physical and emotional being but research shows that the essential oils of plants help the body to self-correct the root cause of problems! Can you see how this can save you money on health issues in the long (and short) run?
Herbal medicines are plant-based medicines made from differing combinations of plant parts e.g. leaves, flowers or roots. Each part can have different medicinal uses and the many types of chemical constituents require different extraction methods. Essential Oils are the highly concentrated naturally occurring, volatile aromatic compounds are found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants.
FACT: Essential Oils are 50 -70% more potent than herbs. For example, it takes three tons of plant material to produce one pound of oil! They have the potential to affect every cell of the body within 20 minutes and then be metabolized like other nutrients (Jager et al., 1992, 1996)
“For my family, once we started to incorporate the right oils we saw significant improvement in skin, respiratory function, digestive cleansing and focus just to name a few! It was significant in our recovery from autism in terms of supporting a strong immune system, brain health and deep sleep!”~ JM of SustainablyHealthy.net
Essential Oils (EO) help me get sound sleep when I have trouble sleeping, cleans my digestive system when it’s due for one and supplements made from them make sure I get the best nutrition I can. Our food suffers these days even if it’s organic. It doesn’t pack the nutritional punch it once did because our soils are depleted and overworked and, unfortunately, junk food still attacks me every now and then…
Recently, I helped a dear friend get rid of laryngitis and at another time, a festering pus sore using EO. The sore was the result of the doctor having to laser off a rather large skin cancer and the medicine she gave him wasn’t working to heal him 2 weeks later!
The site was getting redder and redderand the medicine on the sore was just sitting there getting yellower and yellower even though he showered and reapplied the medication daily as instructed. I washed the entire area gently with lavender water (that’s all I had on hand), put 1 drop of melaleuca and 1 drop of lavender on the wound with 1 drop of lavender on the surrounding redness. Covered it with a large gauze to cover the entire treatment area.
The doctor had given him large bandaidsthat just covered the wound. I think he may be allergic to the adhesive on the bandaids which I think created a lot of that redness in the surrounding area. There was significant improvement in healing of the entire area THE VERY NEXT DAY!!!
In addition to Big Pharma’s rogue activity, the billion dollar personal care industry has many products that contribute significantly to our health woes as well, without giving it a second thought! Shop wisely. One of my most favorite references, Dr. Axe, goes deep here on the detrimental effects of artificial fragrances and household chemicals… https://draxe.com/dangers-synthetic-scents/
Here’s the thing… I love us. I love you! Your family, we, deserve the best of everything. Continuing to ply ourselves consciously (or unconsciously) with whatever Big Pharma and the commercial industries-at-large bombard us with through doctors or continuous commercial activity has to be stopped by US.
Don’t get me wrong. I know that doctors and clinics and hospitals have their place and they serve a significant purpose when preventative measures and good diet have been ignored. Let’s just begin now to stop ignoring what is good for us, better for us.
In my 20s, I discovered the book “Back To Eden” by Dr. Jethro Kloss. He won me over with “God has provided a remedy for every disease that might afflict us. Satan cannot afflict anyone with any disease for which God has not provided a remedy. Our Creator foresaw the wretched condition of mankind in these days and made provision in Nature for all the ills of man.” This struck the ‘truth cord’ in me and I’ve been a health and wellness proponent ever since.
I supposed I got my deep interestin this subject from my Mother. She disclosed to me that she was once interested in nursing and had become an LVN (Licensed Practical Nurse). When I asked her why she had not continued she didn’t want to talk about it except to say that “you NEVER want to be on a position where you are helpless, need to be in a hospital and at the mercy of doctors having to cut into you.” ‘Nuff said. My journey into keeping myself out of the hospital began!
It was logical to me at the timethat I would need to do the best job I could of keeping myself healthy. (I’ve done this to a large degree though I had my son via C-section.) The natural extension of that for me was that I began to automatically want to ‘doctor’ on my friends! This enthusiasm has been met with varying degrees of welcome. When my offer of help is declined, I’m unfazed. That’s how I know I love it!
Do you have someone in your life who’s that way?… always offering unsolicited advice for healthcare, dietary care, etc? How annoying is that for you? We mean well.
There was a near disaster once though… this illustrates the need for using even natural medicine safely. A very dear friend of mine’s mother was stricken with severe constipation. She said, “My bowels just don’t move.”
She went on to say, “If they do move, very little happens and I’m extremely uncomfortable most of the time because it. The doctors give me stuff but nothing really works.” I came up with a remedy for her that involved psyllium husks, golden seal, drinking lots of water and massaging her abdomen with very strict instructions as to frequency and timing and went on my merry way (I live about 3 hours away from her). I checked back with her periodically to see that she was staying on schedule and she said that she was.
WELL!Her daughter happened to go up to visit her one weekend. She called and said she found her mother writhing in pain and took her to the toilet where her mom proceeded to take this “continuous and unending dump in the toilet”!!! She and her mother thought she was going to die!!! Afterward, she called AGAIN, gave me an earful in very strong language and told me she was just one inch from coming over to my place and whipping my ass!!! I promised to never ‘doctor’ on her mother again.
Years later when I saw her mother, she told me it was a bad episode but she has never been constipated since! There was no way to tell by that late date what in my instructions she got wrong but she was very grateful that I had helped her. I suspect she was not drinking enough water.
But I digress, today we’re talking about essential oils (EO). Know what else is great about them? You can cook with them as well! You, no doubt, cook with the herbs and spices. Look at them in a whole new way now. Appreciate what they REALLY bring to a dish other than the taste. TEACH THE CHILDREN and your offspring! It’s up to US to make these changes! Fun ones and optimally healthy ones, at that!
For more information on essential oils, go to my site:
https://www.mydoterra.com/SaveYourBreath. I’m very excited to incorporate this ‘essential’ part of myself into the services I provide for parents. Along with the mentoring, financial services and emotional regulation work, my deep interest in health would no longer be ignored!!!
Now that’s what I call offering a well-rounded opportunity for wellness!!!
You’re at the mall, strolling along, minding your own business, excited to be meeting your offspring for lunch on his lunchbreak from work. Just as you round the corner in the hallway to the food court, an old nemesis jumps out of the shadows in front of you and starts verbally beating you for eating meat and therefore causing global warming!
HappyNewYear!!! Is this the year you and your family will live more healthfully? Are you planning on optimal health and well-being for yourself and your family? Of course you are. No parent worth their salt will plan for less. Is natural and organic (vs. artificial and processed) your plan, your approach to life? You know, the offspring are watching…
All of the money in the world is useless if we don’t have our health or if our child cannot be cured of a disease. Prevention is key. I know most of us are busy and, possibly, flat broke busted financially to boot! Have you noticed we’re constantly bombarded with buy buy buy fast food, junk food and all manner of unavoidable exotic food temptation? It’s exhausting! (but OH how I love it.)
Prevention (healthy living), though, is cheaper than doctor visits and hospital stays. Poor eating habits and too much reliance on Big Pharma are proven to cost us WAY more than the healthy alternatives! The best things in life really ARE free. Wouldn’t you like to start the new year with the basic best that life has to offer?
“It’s no secret that fried food is bad for you. But you may not know that it causes mitochondrial dysfunction and artery damage for up to 24 hours after eating it. Your brain cells, which have 15 thousand mitochondria (compared to hundreds to a few thousand in other cells) have less energy when they do not function optimally. When they are sluggish, you feel sluggish, and get the dreaded brain fog.
This is what mitochondria look like.”
~ http://www.factslides.com/s-Health
Parents, in particular, need heed because our offspring are watching what we ‘do’ more than what we ‘say’. We parents need to explore more the various ways we can rescue ourselves from bad eating habits. The ‘exploring’ can be fun!
Nearly every chronic and devastating disease known to mankind has it’s root in what we’ve eaten or ingested in some way. What are you putting on your skin? That’s another way of ‘ingesting’!
Is there a cure-all? There is. Let me gradually ease into the solution…
The mind, body, spirit connection rules our lives. The sooner we ‘get with’ that connection, the happier and healthier we’ll be! To what degree do you engage this connection and teach it to your offspring?
There are countless stories of people coming out of many different kinds of hardships in the health, relationships and financially once they got serious about what really matters (their and their child’s health) and made wiser choices in their nutrition and medicinal care. I recall quite distinctly the experience of one of my clients, a family. (I work with parents… which benefits the whole family.)
The parents were ‘matter of fact’ people, not the religious sort. They are professionals, looked to be in generally good shape physically, at the time… until you looked into their eyes, their faces…
Their skin had a greyish pallor to it. Their eyes were tired. Their energy was weak. (No, they are not smokers.)
It wasn’t only that they were tired, exhausted and at the end of their wits with the whole ‘parenting’ deal, as the Mom described it, but they (and their children, ages 3 and 7) also had chronic illnesses that contributed quite a lot to the family discord and chaos.
The kids were cranky and sick. The parents were stressed and exhausted. The family was on the brink of collapse from the consumption of too much of the bad stuff (junk food 3 or more nights a week because of the parents’ busy schedules, sodas (which they all loved) and very little exercise (only enough in the park to amuse the kids).
The parents regarded the ‘mind, body, spirit connection’ as something that was woowoo and not to be taken seriously. The Mom said, “we don’t have time for that crap.” The Dad said, “if you can even regard it as crap.”
The root of the problem was this disconnect in understanding what really constitutes basic human happiness and well-being.
“Wellness is not a ‘medical fix’ but a way of living – a lifestyle sensitive and responsive to all the dimensions of body, mind, and spirit, an approach to life we each design to achieve our highest potential for well-being now and forever.” ~ Greg Anderson
Health, the thing itself, is the result of respect for and the engagement in the activities and processes that lead to and maintain our optimal physical performance and happiness. To poopoo the ‘mind, body, spirit connection’ is to invite sickness and disease and leave a hole for the ego mind to do its mischief! It’s to wonder why things aren’t working.
What is this ‘mind, body, spirit connection’? (Going forward in this writing I’ll refer to it as the MBSC.) Well, we readily identify with our bodies, so I think that part seems clear. We seem to readily identify with our minds. Our Spirit, though, that’s a bit of a mystery to many and connecting to or with it seems like a remote possibility, IF it is real at all!!!
A healthy body and healthy mind help promote our recognition of the connection to our spirit. After all, we are earthbound (at the moment). The spirit, in turn, supports/promotes a healthy mind and body through communion with our divine essence, our Creator! It’s sort of a symbiotic relationship (not sure of the word for ‘three’ being in a mutually advantageous relationship. Do you know it?).
Let me ask you this: do you believe in miracles? If your answer is “no” (as was the answer from my parent clients discussed here), how do you suppose we all got here? If we are an accident, as many insist is the case, then how do you explain the intricate workings of our bodies and minds, let alone the earth and universe?
Our spirit hold our cells together; collectively, they hold the earth together; they hold the cosmos together. What would happen if you were to directly address your spirit, the thing that holds everything together? What a prospect!
What would happen if you were to deliberately attempt to ‘connect’ to it? That sounds a little redundant… attempting to connect with that which literally connects every cell in your body? Where do you suppose the ‘disconnect’ is?
The ‘disconnect’ is our minds distracting us from this magnificent Spirit part of ourselves. When we quiet our mind in meditation and listen to this silent part of ourselves we begin to heal in places that we didn’t even know was sick! Our health begins to turn around, improve. Insurmountable financial problems begin to be dwarfed by our recognition of ‘true wealth’ and eventually disappear in shame. (This is the cure-all.)
If you do believe in miracles, do you place a limitation on them? Many of us do. Until we can get ‘unlimited’ with them, embracing and engaging the MBSC in ever deepening consistency will help move the agenda we want along.
My clients are much happier now. The color has returned to their cheeks. They understand and engage what is truly important. They view their children as amusing to them now rather than endless frustration and worry. The whole family’s in on the MBSC. They are teaching the children well.
If you (or your family) are having health challenges, choose to engage the MBSC. Look carefully into your nutritional, physical and medicinal habits. Increase the speed of your recovery by doing daily meditation.
Mysterious illnesses are not mysterious. Many times they are simply an answer to neglect. Is it challenging for you to even consider all of the healthy options and changes that are necessary for your family to adopt? Relax. Take baby steps. Adopt a new healthy habit every month or few months. Start with daily meditation.
You were born to be a HERO to your child. There’s a saying, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” I believe this is true. Not all people are called to be parents AND many parents don’t pick up the mantle of being responsible parents, HEROES for their children, and our world suffers because of it.
THIS IS A CALL TO ARMS!!! I call now for parents who treasure all that is holy and sacred to take up arms against parenting by default, living in fear and anxiety and just generally feeling crappy. Of the ones called, an HEROIC task is laid before them… Bring up the next generation of HEROES.
BE the light that shines for your offspring on the path to Infinite Joy. Give it to yourself first. Have your True Will. This doesn’t stop just because your child is now an adult.
Is hanging out with the family during the holidays tiring?
“Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people once a year.” – Victor Borge
Family holidays (holy days) are happening right now (and every day). Many of us go out of our way to try and create a festive, joyous feeling for ourselves and our families during this special time. Others of us are buried in depression, debt and dread. I call it the DDD. It can all be too much on either side of this equation.
Remind yourself frequently that your body is your personal machine. Pay attention to what it’s saying to you. Nourish it, exercise it and protect it from harm, without exception. Teach the children.
Your mind is the boss of the nourishing the body process and command central of your emotions, good and bad, easy or stressful. Pay attention to the messages it sends to your body that create the ease or stress. Teach the children.
Here lies the true root all problems and stress: your thoughts direct your emotions which then communicate to the body and your life experience. Monitor your thoughts closely and cease them at every opportunity (unless you’re calling on them to fix a problem, do work, create something wonderful, etc.). Nip them. Teach the children.
A 2015 survey conducted by Healthline, a consumer health information site based in San Francisco, Calif. Sixty-two percent of respondents described their stress level as “very or somewhat” elevated during the holidays, while only 10 percent reported no stress during the season. Among the holiday stressors listed by respondents were the financial demands of the season, negotiating the interpersonal dynamics of family, and maintaining personal health habits such as an exercise regimen.
Here in the middle of the holiday season, I remind you again of the WONDERFUL remedy and creative, healing mantra Dr. Joe Vitale shared with us at the FROM PARENTING PAIN TO PARENTING PEACE World Summit called Ho’oponopono. He describes it in this clip from the interview.
Do you give thanks for your trials and tribulations? Do you give thanks for your difficult child(ren) and/or offspring? How about giving thanks for all the challenges you face, whether its family, job, health or significant other?
Think of these challenges as a wake-up call to ‘change’, a call for ‘You’ to change. I’ll get into this a bit further in a moment. Let me just brake in with this prelude to my recommendation. We haven’t talked in a while:
“I hope this season of Thanksgiving and Love envelopes you with all of the loving intensity it embodies. Here we are, post ‘World Summit’. Even if you have no offspring, sincerely deep information, methods, systems and processes were given at the FROM PARENTING PAIN TO PARENTING PEACE World Summit to help make your life more peaceful now and ultimately most peaceful always! How much more peace and happiness can you tolerate in your life?
It’s most appropriate during this Season to highlight Dr. Joe Vitale’s interview from the summit as he shares the Ho’oponopono mantra, “I Love You, I’m Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank You”. Here, have a look at a 3 minute clip from the interview and see how he describes it:
How are the holidays influencing your feelings and sense of peace?Take the time this season to refresh and renew yourself and your family. Make it a daily priority. Engage the Ho’oponopono practice to produce magic and miracles in your life, if you don’t already have a practice that does that for you…”
Now back to ‘giving thanks for difficulty’.
“For within your flesh, deep within the center of your being, is the undaunted, waiting, longing, all-knowing. Is the ready, able, perfect. Within you, waiting its turn to emerge, piece by piece, with the dawn of every former test of trial and blackness, is the next unfolding, the great unfurling of wings, the re-forged backbone of a true Child of Light.”― Jennifer DeLucy
Difficulties are a call for you to change. They are a blessing in disguise, an opportunity for your significant growth! This time of year is particularly potent for the hibernation or incubation of the seeds that expand your greatness. Our challenges and difficulties often heighten this time of year because the people we love gather energetically and physically around us and press those seeds into activation. As they germinate in the Winter months, we can choose to recognize the challenge/difficulty and choose to transcend our usual feelings of pain. THAT is the gift of the difficulty. Otherwise, our growth is stunted.
“A full structural equation model revealed that the effect of stress on well-being was mediated positively through a problem-focused coping process combined with a growth component. Stress was negatively mediated through an avoidant-focused coping process and a distress component. … The hypothesis that stress can produce both increased and decreased subjective well-being was confirmed.” ~ Karlsen E1, Dybdahl R, Vittersø J., NCBI, NIH
In other words,
settle, once and for all, your differences (that cause you pain) by intervening on your behalf (and on behalf of your loved ones) with “problem-focused coping processes” (like Ho’oponopono, Meditation, etc.) in answer to and the elimination of the problem, a “growth component”, you would not otherwise recognize if not for the ‘difficult person’ or situation!
Solving whatever that problem is frees you up emotionally and improves your overall living experience in addition to improving your health! When you do it for yourself, you’re simultaneously doing it for your kids. Gotta give thanks to that problem!!!
Stress continues when we attempt to ignore the problem, avoid it or actively engage in combat, “avoidant-focused coping processes and distress components”. Isn’t great to be at ‘choice’ about it? Deliberately recognize your choice in the matter. Own it! Do you feel a lot less like a victim now?
For example,
I have a client who was triggered by his wife’s parents when they got together at Thanksgiving and Christmas. These gatherings were impossible for him to avoid because of the family traditions they are instilling in their 3 kids. For him, the trigger happens as soon as he or they walk through the door. The parents would have preferred their daughter marry within their Jewish faith (he’s Catholic). Her parents are good people, they’re just steeped a lot deeper in their own traditions than is comfortable for him.
As a result, it feels to him that they come over to his home grudgingly and with a lot of self-righteous judgement. They bring up religious issues and argue over facts in The Bible. They won’t let it go if he tries to dismiss or change the subject. All of this was upsetting to his wife and children. The children were becoming difficult because they could feel the tension between their parents and grandparents. Because of some financial influence the grandparent have over the household, this anguish continued year in and year out. Seemed to me they were all being bullied by the grands.
When I met my clients 2 years ago, I’ll call them ‘The Gibsons’, the husband (Josh) had begun to have panic attacks, anger issues and problems at work, stemming from dealing with his kids on a daily basis and just the anticipation of these little family get-togethers! This had gone on now for about 5 years and his resistance was running very low. Family problems were starting to affect his health.
This was the very epitome of ‘recognizing the value of giving thanks for difficult children’ (and relatives)! When I met Josh he was riveted by this question, “Do you recognize the value of having difficult children?” (At the time, I thought the children were the main problem.) He said, “No”.
I explained how difficult children (or others, situations) are a signal to us to look within ourselves to question our triggers. OUR internal TRIGGERS are the source of our pain and discomfort, not the external person or situation that we ‘think’ caused it! Further, once this is recognized, healing begins. Now, isn’t THAT difficulty worthy of our thanks, our gratitude?
Here is one of the processes that I had him engage to help remedy problems in the ‘moment’ when the bad feelings come up:
Stop in the moment that you feel the first twinge of discomfort. Breathe. (That’s right. You need to start paying closer attention to yourself. We spend way too much time ‘external’ and reacting to the ‘external’).
Relax in the moment. Detach and deescalate as you breathe. Observe what’s happening with the other person as you breathe.
Assess and get to your most appropriate reaction from this calmer state.
Later, when the triggering moment has passed, take time for quiet reflection and investigation into what’s going on with YOU. Pinpoint THAT thing and begin to extricate it through Meditation, Ho’oponopono or whatever your method for clearing and cleansing your fears and negative emotions. If it runs deep and recurring, if you or someone you know has a fear, anxiety or phobia that is plaguing, sabotaging and holding you/them down, I am offering ‘emotion emancipation’. GET OUT OF FEARS, ANXIETIES and PHOBIAS in a matter of minutes rather than let them plague you for even one more month or years! Here’s the link to the service: www.emotionemancipation.com .
Today, Josh is very much at peace with what’s happening in his current situation. He says, “Rowena, I wish I had met you years ago. My life today is much more at peace. Very few things bother me and NOTHING triggers me. My in-laws seem to have chilled out. I guess my lack of reaction to their igging took the fun out of it for them (and my kids). Thank you for holding my hand as I worked through this process. Dalia (his wife) is very pleased with the ‘new me’.”
If you find yourself cursing difficult people or situations in your life, it’s a good idea to 1) Stop in the moment, 2) Relax, detach & observe what’s happening and 3) Assess what your next best steps that you can take are! This is the beauty of difficulty. This is how it serves you. Give Thanks for it as well as for all the beauty that is easily recognized in your life. The difficulty is the catalyst for your growth if you allow it to be so. If you don’t, you get more of the same as you’ve always gotten and possibly worse!
I urge you to take some quiet time now with a pen and paper and make a list of the things that ‘eat’ you. You already know what most of them are. Do the process above and begin to remedy these difficult situations with kids, family, friends, co-workers, etc. Melt through them one by one. Imagine a near future when the problem(s) have disappeared and are a distant memory.
Teach the children. We, parents, are shaping the future of our world, our children’s world. They are watching and learning from EVERYTHING WE DO!!! They’re learning how to handle difficult people and situations from us! If your kids are difficult to you, what feeling are they picking up about themselves that further exacerbates the ‘difficulty’? They’re learning from us how love and gratitude looks and feels. When are you ‘finished’ giving thanks?
FREE YOURSELF from the constant negative feelings for your and your offspring’s sake. …
I know. Easier said than done. Do you know that negative feelings dominate our physical existence to a very large degree?
My client and I (I’ll call her Jessie) have very similar observations and experiences around this subject (as does most of the world population). Jessie was a wild one (she’s 41 now). She was the spitting image of her mother in every way; looks, attitude and charm along with wild parties and alcohol.
She had a negative streak though. It would rear its ugly head often and become very verbal when some sort of unexpected change occurred in her life. It was a constant noise in her head, negative self-talk that she felt was “eating away at her brain cells”.
For example, when she and her husband (parents of two beautiful children age 8 and 9) divorced she couldn’t help but feel her wild partying ways got in the way, causing her to neglect her children and lose her husband. She and her husband (Ted) had bouts of depression and complained that their own parents were nearly the same in their life track; partying, charm and endless negative self-talk and negative feelings when things didn’t work out the way they planned. They said there was always a “pervading feeling of dread”. The partying was an attempt to coverup this feeling or at least ignore it temporarily.
Their children are showing signs of stress, as children do when that is what surrounds them. This points up very well how important it is that we parents engage self-care to the best of our ability. We are literally teaching our offspring how to ‘be’ in life. They learn by watching/feeling us!!!
These negative feelings ran in the background and drove negative and destructive behavior. The saddest part of this is they considered it ‘normal’, just something to ‘deal with’, a ‘part of life’. Is this the way YOU see the negative feelings running in the background of your life?
Today, her parents are chronically ill with heart disease (they’re in their 60s and 70s) and she has had her own bout with cancer (her last, I hope). Ted’s parents are now deceased from various chronic diseases. Ted is still depressed and considering letting me help him.
Many of us are just walking around feeling bad and accepting it. We’ve come to think of it as ‘normal’! At varying times of our lives these negative feelings (fear, anxiety and phobias) are so strong we can hardly concentrate.
According to the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America survey, a growing proportion of adults report that stress impacts their physical and mental health. One-third, or 33 percent, of adults report changes in sleeping habits, 32 percent report headaches and 27 percent report an inability to concentrate due to stress. Not only that, 47 percent of adults report losing patience with or yelling at their partner, and 46 percent report similar behavior with their children because of stress.
No matter the strength or intensity, these feelings are bad news. Even the very subtle ones have a devastating impact on our long-term health because they can compound over time and snowball into chronic disease. It isn’t entirely the fault of aging and various other so called ‘obvious’ causes, such as genetics and injury, that brings on health problems.
How we feel is central to what we attract in all aspects of our lives; our relationships, health, wealth. We inherently know that stress is not good for us and not ‘normal’. We know inside it’s not normal, not consciously. Many don’t have a clear conscious understanding that it’s not normal to carry stress around the way we conveniently carry so many layers of fat around our bellies.
Many of us parents are a slave to our emotions and negative feelings from our own childhood. We received them from our parents and they from their parents and so on. Would you be surprised to find your offspring have the same complaints about you that you have with your parents or about the way you handled the ‘opposite’ things you did to avoid doing what your parents did?
These feelings get to flower in the ever present, constant, family confusion that serves to compound the chaos and stress! It’s killing us, softly and not so softly. Just because you can ingest slow poison, doesn’t mean you should.
Do you find you lash out automatically on your family, co-workers or strangers? Do you feel sad, low, dejected most of the time? Are you easily angered, irritated or vexed?
“Many of us feel stress and get overwhelmed not because we’re taking on too much, but because we’re taking on too little of what really strengthens us.” ~ Marcus Buckingham
Here are a few remedies that I know will make a real difference for you should you choose to do them:
I beseech you to engage meditation in a serious manner. It will connect you to your core peaceful self and link to your innate power within that heals what ails ya’. There are over 20 types of meditation. Freely explore the different types to find the ones that suit you best. I, personally, prefer to get right to the ‘silent, quiet mind’ as quickly as I can. No music or guided meditation. No ‘foreplay’, as I like to call it. Here are the steps I take:
Find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably in a chair with your feet flat on the floor and your back supported. Sometimes I lie down. Sitting is best though.Have your spine in alignment so that your nourishing energy can flow easily from one chakra to the next.Close your eyes and, if you can, plug your ears.Immediately go to silence, quiet mind. This may take 5 minutes or it may take 20 minutes depending on how noisy your mind is. When thoughts come, bat them away or tell your mind “thanks for sharing” and bat them away. Sometimes, especially if you’re new at it, you must reason with the mind with “what is the very worst outcome/thing that could happen?” The answer is usually “death”. Thank your mind for sharing. That usually shuts it up. Since there is no ‘death’ we’re concerned with in this moment because death isn’t ‘real’ and not to be feared.I usually like to hang out in silence for at least as long as it took me to get there. Five minutes is a minimum I shoot for otherwise.When the meditation session is over, I do a short prayer of thanks to God for being with me (if you don’t believe in God, substitute the name for what YOU call Divinity), for ill ones I want helped, for favors I’d like to receive, etc. I then gently open my eyes, feel my hands, feet, back and slowly get up and stretch.
Keep that silence of mind throughout the day. If you can, meditate in the morning, reinforce it before lunch (do a 20 minute meditation) and again before you go to sleep. To what extent do you engage meditation?
Stop in the moment (do random moments throughout the day).
Stop in the moment, especially to monitor your thoughts or if you feel you’re about to be angry, this could be angry at a person, situation or some other trigger. Assess what you’re feeling and
Implement the appropriate, healthy action… whether you’re dealing with a difficult adult or child: stop in the moment, assess, take appropriate action. Do you need a meditation break? Yoga? Walk in the park? Capture that ‘silence of mind’ and have it extend throughout your day(s). THAT is where the miracles are.
Make it a point to see the beauty in every thing. Most of life is beautiful. We just need to change our perspective and see it. Meditation will help us change our perspective. This is an active moment to moment exercise.
Would you like to get a jump-start on things and eliminate fears and anxieties in minutes rather than taking months and years?!!! I can help you with that. Part of the service I do for parents is offered separately because one doesn’t need to be a parent to want to be rid of core fears, anxieties and phobias! I offer it here: www.emotionemancipation.com.
If you have fears and/or anxieties that stand in the way of you making the money you know you’re capable of or stand in the way of your dealing with parenthood in a thoroughly loving and effective way, if you find you are often anxious over disciplinary issues or over what the future holds, contact me for the Complimentary Parenting Breakthrough Session initiated at www.saveyourbreath101.com/parenting-assessment. It’s a $250 value for free for a limited time only.
We are placed here on earth to have fun. Somewhere through the generations, we lost sight of that or completely forgot it!!! Bring that BACK to the front of your mind. Dance with that idea. Revisit your 20s if you think that will help. Our lives are ours. We must protect it!
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