Journal, Nutrition, Positive Life
By Amanda J Hales
There are a lot of cleanses out there. It seems like every week there is another one that is endorsed by some celebrity or health guru. Are they right for everyone? No, of course not. Not much is right for everyone, but there can be some that you may want to try to see how you fare. With toxins all around us, in the air and in our food, we do get bogged down from time to time, and what better way to feel better than to detox?
Toxins build up through the years and our bodies are pretty good at getting rid of a lot of them, but we still always have something we can get rid of and that’s where the body cleanse comes in. But instead of doing a crazy juice cleanse or eating just grapefruit for a week, what about tackling it a little differently, like by a lifestyle change. Sure it’ll take longer, but the results will be so much better.
You can start to detox yourself by choosing organic fruits and vegetables and staying away from anything processed or containing GMO. Also adding garlic, lemon, broccoli, beans and raw vegetables to your diet can aid in the body’s natural detoxification process. The better the food you put in, the better the outcome.
Another way to detox is to exercise. When we exercise we sweat and that releases some of the toxins in our body. It’s also great for our heart and mind so it’s a win win. Meditation is also a great thing to try as you are clearing your mind and lowering your stress level. Stress is toxic in itself so avoiding it is a great thing to do– easier said than done for sure!
We all know the benefits of water. The more you drink the better you’ll feel. Water is a detoxing agent because it helps the body flush out toxins. Adding lemon to it or cucumber will give it a kick and a nice taste and also aids in digestion and detoxing. Mix it up and drink that water.
If you want something a bit more fast acting, there is always ionic detox which uses ions charged positively and negatively to draw the toxins out of your body while you soak your feet in nice warm salty water. And of course, massage works wonders for both your mind and body in getting rid of those toxins!
Journal, Meditation
By Kevin Schoeninger
As a meditation teacher, I’ve heard countless students share their excuses for why they didn’t meditate in the past week. They wanted to. They know it would be good for them. They just didn’t do it. At least, not consistently.
Something always seems to get in the way: they need more sleep, the dog needs to be walked, the kids are up, they had to work late or had an early meeting, they felt too anxious, worried, or irritable… Meditation just didn’t seem as important as other things they had to do. Yet, all those things they did didn’t give them the peace of mind they desired.
Of course, meditation is about changing your relationship with all the events, worries, and anxieties in your life. It’s a daily ritual-like eating, sleeping, and brushing your teeth-that creates a more relaxed, healthy, meaningful, and intentional way of living. It’s a powerful practice to realize the deep peace of mind we all desire. So, what’s the secret to moving from excuses to practice?
The answer is: you’ve got to have a strong “Why?”
Where do you find your Why?
The answer may surprise you.
The Secret is Body Awareness
Your body is not just a mechanical vehicle for carrying out all the activities in your life. It is a highly-sensitive bio-feedback system.
Your body can tell you what is good for you to eat and how much, when you need to rest, when you need to relax and have fun, when you need to get up and move, and when you need to be alone, have contact with others, be in nature, and spend time in meditation. It connects you to when, why, and how much to do anything. If you’re paying attention.
In our context, it connects you to WHY you might want to meditate in the first place. At least it has the potential to do this-if you pay attention. Yet, how often do you pause and really pay attention to your body’s signals? How often do you stop to sense what it is telling you?
Why aren’t you doing this?
First off, we have a culture that encourages just the opposite. We are encouraged to focus outwardly rather than inwardly. We are encouraged to do as much as possible. We are encouraged to gather as many products and as much wealth, data, and sensory input from the external environment as we possibly can.
We are encouraged to react quickly and are discouraged from taking time for well-considered and deeply felt responses. We are conditioned to quick reactions and sound bites on news and social media. We are impatient with anything that takes time. We go, go, go, until we are too exhausted to continue.
Do you feel this exhaustion?
Yet, are you worried about what might happen if you stop? Are you worried you’ll fall behind and be left out? At a certain point, you may decide you just don’t want to live this way anymore. When you reach this point-or preferably long before that-take a moment to pay attention inside. Notice what all this thinking, doing, worry, accumulation, and stimulation is doing to you.
Is there another option?
Meditation Creates a New Way of Being
Meditation interrupts nonstop thinking and doing and gives your body a chance to relax deeply-something you may not even get to do in a restless sleep. Consciously relaxing, as you do in meditation, unwinds tension accumulated beneath your awareness in the past 24 hours as well as in the years of your life up to this point. It slowly dissolves the reactive mental-emotional patterns that drive you on the hamster wheel of nonstop activity. It quiets your mental chatter.
Now, when you first start to meditate, you may not notice this relaxing, quieting, and calming effect. You may become even more aware of how busy your mind is, how conflicting your emotions are, and how tense your body is. If you have mistreated your body through over-stress for a long period of time, initial moments of Body Awareness in meditation might not feel so great.
Or, you may feel little to nothing at all. All that thinking, doing, and pushing yourself to do things you feel you “have to” or “should” do may have cut you off from how you feel. You may have lost touch with your vital sensations and feelings. You may just feel bored without external stimulation keeping you distracted.
Yet, discomfort, boredom, or numbness, when you face them honestly, directly, gently, and without judgment, as you do in meditation, can alert you to just how much you need to activate another way of being.
If you heed this signal and take time to sit, breathe, and mindfully notice what’s happening inside-the layers of stress will begin to unwind and your vital senses will reawaken. As you unwind, Body Awareness may tell you just how exhausted you are from the way you are going about your life.
As you pay close attention to what your body has to say, you might find that all those things you’ve been chasing after may not be as important as they seemed. You may discover you don’t want to live on the human hamster wheel of incessant activity, worry, and anxiety any longer. You may be inspired to make new choices that reflect your soul’s deeper desires.
Meditation beckons you to a more relaxed, healthy, meaningful, and intentional way of living-and your body will tell you just how important this is-if you pay attention.
Kevin Schoeninger is a writer and teacher of Mind-Body training, including Mindfulness, Meditation, Qigong, and Reiki. He is the author of the book “Clear Quiet Mind” and numerous guided meditations and programs in the field of personal empowerment and spiritual growth.
Journal, Learning, Positive Life, Self Discovery
Would you agree that everything in the universe is vibrating on any given frequency? If you agree, then can you identify with the understanding that our vibration will attract the circumstances and events that compose our lives?
The signals you emit are made up of your thoughts, beliefs, and the emotions that these create within you. You’re experiences tend to match what you’ve got your focus on.
You do have the power to affect your experiences by paying attention to what you focus on. This is where your power is. If you are focused on the negative aspects of your experience, you will create more of the same, which you then focus on and create more of, and so on in a vicious cycle. Fortunately, this works the other way too! If you choose to focus on the positive aspects of any experience, you will create more positive aspects you can then focus on, and continue bringing more positive experiences into your life. Even if you can only find one positive aspect to focus on in a situation that has many more negative aspects, and you keep choosing to keep your focus on the one positive part, you will soon see improvement in that situation that will give you more, that’s positive to focus on. It’s a gradual, continual process. And it works!
Just because something is how it is, does not mean it has to stay that way! Just because you’ve had a lot of it in the past, does not mean you’re doomed to have more of it in the future! If you don’t like it, know that you do have the power to change it. And if you do like it, know that you can create more of it, if you wish to.
Gradually shifting your perception to include more of what you do like, opens the flow so more like it can come to you.
Over the last few years we’ve found many incredibly helpful resources that have helped us along this journey. We’ve set up this site to share these resources with others along the path to living their greater life.
Journal, Learning, Positive Life, Self Discovery
Nature is one of the greatest sources of happiness. Humans have lived in the lap of nature since our early beginnings, and when compared to the time spent living in modern cities it is comparably very short. The human race is dependent upon nature for its very survival (plants recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen; our food is a product of nature; and we can survive under a very limited range of variables of nature like temperature, etc.)
Nature is all free! It is there for everyone to stand, stare and derive happiness and solace from. It doesn’t differentiate between rich or poor, strong or weak, man or woman. The warmth of the sun’s rays on your skin is free. To sit under the stars at night and stare at the moon, you guessed it, free. A walk on the beach, feeling the sand between your toes and water soothing your feet, all free.
How much would it cost to make an artificial island with rivers, forests, mountains, and surrounding ocean?
Billions just ask the folks of the Arab Emirates.
When we see the moon, we see it in its entirety, no matter how many millions of people are seeing it at the same time. Similarly, the sky, forests, oceans, rain fall, mountains all are there for us to fully enjoy.
If you are sad, feeling anxious, struggling with a problem, spending some time in nature will do you good. Nature has an uncanny ability to sit beside you like your mom, spouse, brother or sister, or good friend and embrace you. Slowly it lifts your spirits, makes you see your worries, and problems in the right perspective of infinite time and space. You smile; you laugh; and you are happy again!
More and more in today’s society, we are conditioned to medicate or find solace in buying things to cope. We get a temporary fix from our medications and purchases. However, it doesn’t end our suffering.
Yet how many of us realize that infinite beauty and happiness is lying around us in the form of nature?
Do you appreciate this fact and draw happiness out of it?
The next time you’re feeling like crap, go walk among the trees in a local park, or if you’re lucky enough the woods or country side. Peace!
