Saturday, December 19, 2015

The Ultimate Approach to Pain

pain I was listening to body expert and Access Consciousness facilitator, Donnielle Carter, today on her internet radio show, "The Right Body for You", and had a couple of a-ha's.

There is a very common and almost guaranteed trap with pain, and that is to make it significant and part of who you are. This can be very sneaky, but let me tell you some ways to break the syndrome.

Donnielle reminded me that pain is my body yelling at me. Why does it yell? Not so much because there is something that wrong with it, which is the first conclusion most of us come to. It is more deeply the body attempting to get into communication with its occupant. It needs the healing power of attention to repair and rejuvenate in the areas of pain.

Let me repeat that. The body's way of telling you that it needs your attention is the experience of pain. It already knows what it needs to heal and transform, and a major part of that is the attention of the owner.

Now, what the body doesn't need is for you to focus on the pain itself, because we all know what happens when we focus on something: it gets bigger. This is like objecting to the fact you are being yelled at, instead of listening to what is actually being said. What the body is needing you to do is simply and only acknowledge the communication that is in the form of pain.

Here's a process to run: When there is a particular pain, respond to it by saying "Thank you." The body now knows that you got the message and it can stop yelling. The "thank you" phrase has the dual use of being a declaration of gratitude. So you are effectively telling the body, "I hear you and am grateful for your gift of communication to me." The combination of acknowledgement and gratitude is just the healing mojo the body is looking for from its owner.

What usually happens--and this has been my downfall--is we focus on the pain as if that is what we must "get rid of." That's like yelling back at the body, "Shut up! I don't want to hear anything more from you!" This does nothing to create a healing two-way communication line with the body, and will only make things worse for both you and your body.

pain relief How do you NOT focus on the pain? By acknowledging it. It is the practice of allowance. You are not resisting or avoiding it, you are simply allowing its presence--simply allowing it to be a communication from your body. This creates space between you and the pain, because it has succeeded in getting your attention, which is the purpose of it.

Now, your next job is to thank it (gratitude) and then cast your attention where there is ease and joy in the body. No matter how bad pain gets, there is always a place somewhere that doesn't hurt, or even feels really good. Yes, your knees ache, but your back feels great. That's the kind of grateful attention the body is craving, because, again, what you put your attention on gets bigger.

By allowing and thanking a painful area on the body, you can then start asking questions, such as: What is it about this I'm not getting? What is it going to take to have ease and joy in all of my body forever? What does the body need that I can provide that I'm not aware of?

Imagine that a painful area of your body is a voice talking to you. What is it saying? How does it feel? What is it asking for? Continue asking these questions and the overall questions above. Soon, you'll begin to receive awarenesses about things to do or ways to be to assist in creating joy and ease in that painful area. Maybe you'll get a sudden urge to stretch, take a walk, breathe, massage, have some sex, drink some water; or you may get a mental picture of sunshine, or standing barefoot in some grass; or maybe even eat some ice cream or go to a movie, or listen to music. These are all responses to the questions you have been asking, and these are the things for your to-do list as a considerate and responsible body owner.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Embrace Pronoia!

pronoia I'm sure you've noticed this in your life: You buy a car and suddenly you start seeing that car everywhere. I used to think because I made this particular brand of car my own, my mind started making associations with similar car brands that I was not aware of before, even though they were there the whole time. I'm now coming to believe something deeper about this interesting phenomenon. What if when I bought that Jeep, I became part of the "Jeep Matrix", and other Jeeps started showing up for me because I'm in that matrix, not because I just wasn't aware of them before.

This type of manifestation has been called "Pronoia"--the awareness that the universe is conspiring in your favor--a term coined by consciousness pioneer John Perry Barlow of the Grateful Dead. Simply put, you ask for something with the conviction that the Universe has got your back, and it (sometimes miraculously) shows up.

It's also interesting to apply this awareness to what is snarkily referred to as the "Placebo Effect". You believe that a substance you ingest will heal or regress some malady or condition, and sure enough, after a little time, it does, even though that substance was a simple sugar pill. The opposite can also be true: You believe a medical treatment will harm you, and it does, but not because the treatment is actually harmful. It's because of your belief. This has been coined the "Nocebo Effect".

In fact, the Placebo Effect is so well-documented, scientists try to short-circuit it by conducting "double-blind" trials for new drugs in an attempt to isolate the actual effects of the drug from a person's beliefs about what it is doing to their body. I would ask, which is more powerful? The person's beliefs, or the drug? Isn't this just another form of pronoia? The universe is re-arranging to your beliefs causing the body to be harmed or healed.

When applied to the universe of nutritional supplements and herbology, it's easy to see a huge complication here. If your beliefs are just as strong or stronger than any supplement you can take: 1. Why take a supplement (or medicine), and, 2. What do you actually believe? Are you a believer at first, but then lose that belief so the supplements start to do nothing? Or, are you convinced nothing will work and you take the supplements (or medicine) to prove yourself right?

confusion supplements So much confusion and frustration is caused by this, and it is in no small part helped by marketing and the physical sciences. For example, a certain supplement is known to contain a certain property, say, ginsenosides. ginsenosides are shown by science to positively affect overall vitality and immunity. Because you believe in the science and you also observe a lack of vitality in your body, you use the supplements with ginsenosides in them to heal or resolve the lack of vitality.

As long as it's as simple as that, your chances of improvement are probably pretty good. But, what if one morning you wake up and you feel worse. You start to believe that perhaps these ginsenosides don't actually work, and soon, because of no result, you stop taking the supplement. You then start searching out other alternatives, and find something else that science says relieves your lack of vitality. This time, you feel better. Ah, now THIS is the answer! And from now on, when you have a lack of vitality, you medicate with this substance.

What if healing and health have really nothing to do with what supplements you take or even what diet you consume? What if the MOST IMPORTANT thing is what you BELIEVE about your health and healing?

I've been experimenting with this lately. I was taking a lot of different Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs, and various vitamins and minerals to address some joint and muscle pain I was having. The herbs seemed to help, as well as the vitamins, yet there was no real resolution (after a year)--some relief at times, but no resolution. In fact, I was bouncing so much between relief and exacerbation, I just got thoroughly confused and discouraged.

simplicity I then woke up one morning and had the strong awareness to just STOP taking everything, and fast for a day. Then, re-introduce herbs and supplements ONLY after carefully asking my body and using kinesiology (muscle-testing for strong or weak signals) to determine what I actually consumed. I committed to muscle test everything, including different foods and forms of water. I discovered that my body was struggling with long-term dehydration, and was expending more energy responding to all the herbs and supplements I was shoving down its throat than doing any actual healing.

After about three days, I was feeling much better, and as days went by, I felt better and better. This was confusing to me until I realized that my core belief was that the body heals itself naturally, given proper hydration, oxygenation and my personal conviction in its healing abilities.

So rather than making a judgment call about what I "needed to take" to bring health to the body, I started asking the body what it really needed: how much water, what foods when, what exercise when, how much sleep when, and any vitamins, minerals, enzymes, or herbs. It showed me it just mainly needed the basics: plentiful water, clean food, fresh air, some daily exercise, some minerals, given in gratitude and with my core belief in its healing super-powers. Start asking the universe with sincere curiosity, "What will it take to get rid of _____?", and "What needs to happen in my life to have vibrant health in my body?" This will stimulate pronoia, and awarenesses and answers will start flooding in.

Start asking for your core beliefs about your body. What are your convictions about your body and health? By discovering and validating these (or changing them) you can escape from the placebo/nocebo rabbit hole, and allow the universe to simply work in your body's favor. Embrace pronoia!