~ Marvelous EmP♥WERment

Increase Your Peace With Elbow Grease!

What is Peace Really?

Peace: peacefulness, the absence of mental stress or anxiety, an absence of aggression, violence or hostility, freedom of the mind from annoyance, distraction, anxiety, an obsession, etc.; tranquility; serenity, freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions, safety, harmony in personal relations, Freedom from quarrels and disagreement, inner contentment; serenity, silence; stillness, peace of mind.

We keep looking for solutions to so many problems “out there”, yet do you realize the impact of understanding that the solution comes from within your own mind? Being spiritual or religious does not have as much meaning if your own mind is not at peace. If your mind is not at peace you are at war with yourself, first and foremost. This is why it is essential that you first look to your own mind, regardless of your belief systems.

Your mind is so powerful. It creates based on your beliefs and most of us allow our minds to run amok where they will, wherever and however they have been taught. In a sense, our minds are like children, where they are doing just as they were told. We have forgotten that our minds, like children, need discipline and guidance. Your mind is an extremely powerful mechanism that is within your control; it just needs different education.

Why Aren’t We All at Peace?

As adults we continue to allow our minds to run rampant and unchecked and out of control. Most minds are rarely guided in a direction that brings peace of mind. We just have never been taught how to do this and for most the idea is obscure. No matter what your age, it is possible to become more at peace.

Some people believe that simply crowding the mind with much information, that just having that information is supposed to bring peace. But all that does is fill up the mind so much that it leaves little room for that actual peace that we all crave and seek. The test for peace is what thoughts are in your mind? Is what you say and do congruent with what you think? How do your thoughts make you feel?

But in reality not all people consciously crave peace. To them, peace is symbolic with boring nothingness. A fear exists that if you are at peace, then you stop feeling and experiencing a full range of emotions. I can guarantee you that those people have never felt true peace of mind!

In a nutshell, being peaceful is being open to all experiences without judgment, staying in the role of the observer. You still feel emotions, but you do not go into emotional reaction. Your happiness just exists within you; it is not dependent on external factors.

There is yet another category of people, who have developed the ability to move into meditative states or access peace through meditation, prayer, contemplation, etc. Yet that is not enough. Unless you can bring that sense of peace into your everyday life and into your interaction with other people, then you are not fully at peace, you have only learned how to escape your mind.

How Do I Find Peace?

Peace of mind is being able to experience peace instead of emotional reaction. It is the ability to choose your thoughts, to choose conscious responses instead of having subconscious or unconscious emotional reactions that you mistakenly believe are “out of your control”.

I may sound like I am being a hard taskmaster, but this is not an impossible or even hard to reach goal. It is a goal that requires dedication, effort, and patience. Peace of mind is available to everyone, but few people choose it. It takes hard work to change what you believe. Are you ready for it?!

If you think: great, that’s all nice to hear you talk about, but how do I actually get peace? That is your first lesson in what you need to change in yourself, that you think you need to get it somewhere, be somebody other than who you are, change your circumstances, etc. That peace of mind that you are curious about or are seeking is already there inside of you.

Peace lies under all the “stuff” that you are currently experiencing. It is underneath all the judgment, all the meanings, and all the assumptions. Then add to that any limiting belief systems, the need to be right, the belief in conflict, etc. Peace lies underneath all those many layers of fear.

As you work on yourself, each one of these layers is lifted away from you. When you are born your spirit is light and buoyant. Over time all these heavy weights of so many thousands of different belief systems are thrust upon you. Over time they become heavier and heavier as they suppress your being. You lose your sense of self, of your spirit. That light heartedness may only come in fleeting moments.

As you raise your self-awareness and lift off those weights, unlearning what you have taken for granted as the truth if you will, you become lighter. Over time you examine every single belief that you have. You examine every single fear that is in your subconscious mind. Sometimes you challenge instead of examine when the belief or fear is strong. You do what you have to do to change. Anything except believing in and validating your fear.

Fear as the Real Barrier to Peace

“I don’t have fear” I have heard so many (too many) people say. Well, let’s look at only a few of the more common forms that fear takes on (borrowed from my blog): phobia, dread, anxiety, panic, angst, worry, insecurity, stress, depression; fear of: change, death, constancy, pain, confinement, illness, loneliness, not having a (good) source of income, etc. 

My goodness I think we have only hit the tip of the iceberg because don’t forget about: anger, annoyance, bitterness, hatred, resentment, irritability, prejudice, judgment, being "right"; fear of: getting hurt, being misunderstood, being wronged, or just of somebody being different than you (our partners being no exception...).

People can also have fears of beneficial aspects of life: love, commitment, success, public speaking, self actualization, the future. Fear can also be subtler and come in the form of: doubt, needing to be liked/admired, how you look, what others think of you, needing to please (at home, work, socially, etc.), getting older, and so on.

Even the most successful and powerful people experience fear. How we define our value is a prime breeding ground for fear. If you define your value externally and feel your value lies in being a good partner, parent, accomplishments, physical abilities, looks, etc., what happens when your circumstances change and you no longer have those qualities with which to judge your value? How many of you have experienced fear or doubt about your value?

How about speaking the truth about how you feel in all situations? This includes relationships, family, at work, friends, social environments, etc. Do you have a fear of conflict? How do you handle an aggressive personality? Are you what you would call a peacemaker for others? What subtle or not so subtle fear is underneath that?

I can imagine the thoughts and comments already...but being a peacemaker is a "good" thing. Well, not the way most people do it and usually done for the wrong reasons if it is out of any form of fear. How self-aware are you and how honest are you with yourself about this? Do you want real peace or don’t you? What do you have invested in staying right where you are?

Making Peace a Personal Goal

When a child questions a parent’s authority, a common response is “because I said so”. Do you realize that most of your beliefs that you take for granted are currently there in your mind only because somebody said so?! If you really knew how many of those thoughts were limiting or invalid you would be horrified. Yet your beliefs are a large part of what stands between you and peace.

Let’s look at some of the reasons why you haven’t made achieving peace a goal to date.

1. I don’t have the time. Did you know that an average person thinks about 12,000 and up to 65,000 thoughts a day for deep thinkers? Most of these thoughts occur unconsciously or subconsciously. Most thoughts are mindlessly repeated over and over. You must have noticed that part! If you can afford to spend even one minute worrying, you can afford to spend one second questioning the value of that worry.

2. Other things are more important. What really is important to you? Have you considered how much your efficiency and energy increases when you are relaxed and happy? If you have children, what are you teaching your children? If you don’t have children, what is the quality of your life? Is this how you want to feel for the rest of your life? Or think of the old cliché, do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

3. I can just read about it. (That will be enough). If you do not do the work on yourself, nothing will change. The snow globe of your life will just get shaken over and over and over. When you have peace you are the table that the snow globe sits on. Adding more to your mind without being able to apply it to yourself, your relationship, and to your experience of life strips the value out of what you have read or heard.

4. What you are saying is nice in theory but is not practical. So what, worrying is practical? Being stressed is somehow making you happy? This is where an abundance of self-honesty needs to appear. What you are choosing is not working. The sooner you come to this conclusion, the sooner you will be on the path to peace. Honesty and willingness are the first steps.

5. I can’t afford to get help. If you are reading this, then you know I have a website. On that website are numerous Ezines that give you many tools to use. Read my Blog. There are a zillion (!) self-help books in the library. My favorite authors are Dr. Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz. Read A Course In Miracles if you really want to challenge your mind. Just keep trying all avenues and never give up looking for new resources. Search the internet for non-judgmental guidance. There is a vast amount of information.

6. I don’t know how. Well you have come to the right place. Again, read every Ezine I have written. Then use the tools I give you. By the time you practice using the tools in each one you be ready to go back to the first one. You will understand it very differently than you did the first time because you will have changed that much! Again, there are almost unlimited resources these days for how to’s. Just keep trying and never, ever give up.

Ultimately the power to change is in your own mind by changing your mind about what you are choosing to think and believe. Once you start the journey you will be surprised at how it self perpetuates. After overcoming the initial inertia to change, it becomes easier and easier to do.

All you need to do is start planting seeds of new thoughts in your mind and then giving them fertile soil to grow in. Check daily for weeds, pulling them out as you see them, making sure the seeds are well watered, and fertilize regularly. The peace will grow as you make even the smallest of efforts. The results are wildly worth it!

Author's bio: Ewa Schwarz has been a counselor, life coach, healer and teacher for over 15 years, having studied a wide range of mind-body healing practices. She owns and runs OnlineCounseling.org, the leading online counseling website with guaranteed results. Sign up for her free monthly personal growth Ezine or read one of the many archived articles or free counseling’s that she provides to help everyone, whether they can afford counseling or not.

A Time to Grieve-A Time to Grow: The Healing Wisdom of Africa

By Dr. Malidoma Some’

Water is a key element in the cosmological wheel, that in the beginning cooled the raging fires and brought stability, reorienting the cosmic energy towards producing continuity and community. Since then, people all over the world have felt the need to return again to water for purification, cleansing reconciling and making peace in the face of the onslaught of life’s challenges.

This means that to the indigenous, challenge or crisis is cosmologically and spiritually symptomatic of a rise in fire. When someone is in crisis regarding the nature of the crisis, that person is said to be returning to the fire. The distress of the person drifting towards or into the fire is a plea for radically reconciling introduction of water. When there is no water around, we are vulnerable to crisis. People, especially people in crisis are naturally attracted to water. Many recognize that when they are agitated about something in their lives, they find peace at the waterfront. Just the sight of a large body of water brings a feeling of peace and calm, a feeling of home. Water resets a system gone dry in which motion is accelerated beyond what we can bear. Africian healing wisdom looks at physical illness as a fire moving person’s energy beyond the limit of what he or she can bear. This suggests that we all need water and need rituals of water to sty balanced, oriented and reconciled.

There are countless aspects of human experience that water rituals affect in a healing way. One of them, perhaps the most important, is the emotional self. Many people in the Western world walk around like time bombs, loaded with contradictory emotions that are often so hard to articulate that the individual is dangerous to himself and surroundings. Perhaps among these emotions is grief. In this culture the challenge of confronting overwhelming grief must be considered the most crucial task in reconciling energy of water.

In indigenous Africa, one cannot conceive of a community that does not grieve. In my village, people cry every day. Until grief is restored in the West as the starting place where modern man and women might find peace, the culture will continue to abuse and ignore the power of water, and in turn will be fascinated with fire. Grief must be approached as a release of the tension created by separation and disconnection from someone or something that matters. The average Western person is grieving about being isolated. Western men in particular are grieving about the dead because they didn’t grieve properly and they were told men don’t cry. In my work, I hear this everywhere. Grief is not only an expression in tears, but in anger rage, frustration and sadness. An angry person is a person on the road to tears, the softer version of grief. Sadness and the felling of heaviness within are symptomatic of a deep well of grief in the psyche underground.

One must ask why tears the softest expression of grief, are not as acceptable in the modern world as anger and rage. I say this because to indigenous Africans emotions are sacred. To villagers it looks as if the West is uncomfortable with tears because one cannot argue verbally, logically against this kind of emotion.  Villagers also believe that the westerners are afraid of emotion because they are afraid to lose control. Emotions have tendencies to spread from person to person and therefore social control in the Western mind is being risked with any display of emotion.

Many Westerners are beginning to see that there is also danger in remaining stuck with rage, anger and sadness; they are the directionless vehicles of a grief that remains hidden.  When these emotions are not allowed a fluid catharsis, one is left in a state of incompleteness. The end of the domination of one’s life by such emotions requires an outpouring of liquid. You cannot truly grieve within and remain composed without. Emotion is an extraverted phenomenon and it cannot find its much needed release if expressed only internally. Denied an outward expression, grief grows stronger and organizes its self like a hurricane that can rise up and sweep us away. I have heard many times people express their fear of grief because they feel that if they begin to release it, they will be overcome, eventually drowning in their own tears. Indeed, this is how it feels, but this is not what actually happens.

In my village, emotion is ritualized because it is seen as a sacred thing. If addressed with a sacred space, emotions of grief can provide powerful relief and healing. Any time the feeling of loss arises, there is an energy that demands ritual in order to allow reconciliation and the return of peace. These are crisis that water ritual can resolve.  Water ritual helps to shed the massive accumulation of negative emotions due to loss, failure and powerlessness. Each one of these problems heightens our awareness of the challenges of life. Loss and powerlessness are particularly humbling because they disrupt continuity and reveal our humanity. One of the things all humans have in common is loss, be it loss of loved ones or loss of dreams, be it loss of a job or a relationship. In all of these situations, water rituals are necessary.

Dr. Malidoma Somé is one of today’s most eloquent champions of indigenous wisdom. His life and teaching form a bridge between the traditional ways of his people, the Dagara of West Africa – among whom he is an initiated elder – and the modern world.. He is the author of several internationally acclaimed books including Ritual: Power, Healing and Community, Of Water and The Spirit, and The Healing Wisdom of Africa. Join Dr. Malidoma Some’ at Blue Deer Center Margaretville, NY (845) 586-3225September 25-27, 2009. For more information about Dr. Malidoma Some’ visit: www.bluedeer.org call 845-586-3225 225

http://www.bluedeer.org/calendar.html#Malidoma

The Wisdom of Our Emotions

by Dr. Jeanine

“Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions.” ~David Borenstein (Polish Artist)

When I take my little dog Grace in to be groomed she always starts trembling like a leaf and clings to me. I try to comfort her with my voice and pet her soothingly when we wait for a technician. The last time we were there the groomer seriously said, “Grace is faking being scared.” Of course I found this humorous because the fact that Grace is a dog and not a human being precludes her from faking her emotions. However, I thought the technician’s statement spoke volumes about how we see emotions in our culture. Her words also reminded me of that fact that many of us are tempted to deny, hide and repress our emotions because we know that in some way they are unacceptable.

I once read about a tribal culture which honored its women’s pre-menstrual and menstrual time each month. During this time, the tribe believed that the women had heightened sensitivity, greater awareness and closer proximity to the wisdom of the Divine. This cultural perspective stands in contrast to the culture in which we live that often completely negates a woman’s feelings and emotions during this time as well as feelings and emotions in general. But it isn’t just others who we find negating our feelings, we often do it to ourselves as well.

When we negate, deny or disown our emotions we might find ourselves blowing up or “going off” on others with little or no provocation. We can only repress our feelings for so long. Eventually, they will demand to be heard.

With my clients who tell me that they are struggling with their own emotional material or feel disconnected from their feelings, I will often suggest that they put their hand on their heart, to access emotional wisdom. Throughout history and across cultures and spiritual perspectives, the heart has been revered as the body’s sacred emotional energy center.

When we pay attention to our emotions and not judge them as irrational and therefore unacceptable, we can begin to receive the gift of insight that our feelings offer. I often ask my clients, “What if we honored the inherent wisdom of our feelings when we experience them rather than wait until they become distorted? What is we choose to feel empowered by our emotions, seeing them as an aspect of Divine wisdom, rather than as a sign of weakness?” I certainly think the world would be a better place, with much less angst and strife.

Honoring the wisdom of our emotions is not about being at the effect of our emotions and acting out feelings as the mood strikes us in a self indulgent or infantilized way. Rather, honoring our emotions is a gentle and perhaps quiet quest of self exploration to access the nugget of wisdom that lies latent beneath the more explosive and mercurial emotional content we experience. Most people would agree that our emotions should not be completely in charge of our behavior. We are multi-dimensional beings and our emotions are just one aspect of our humanity. However, let’s remember to that if we honor our emotions they can point us to deeper truths if we choose to listen.

Jeanine Austin, Ph.D.
Doctor of Life Coaching
~Simply Divine Solutions~
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How Chi Nei Tsang Cured My Terminal Illness

By Vaishali

It all started when I was in my mid-twenties, with a small pain in the abdomen. Little did I know how this little pain would force me to make big changes in my life.  The pain seemed concentrated in three points around the right ovary.  It became most acute when I would bend over.  The mystery pains gradually grew until they were bothering me all the time, regardless of posture or position.  I did what most people would do when seeking to address something health related: I made an appointment with my doctor.  He was a better listener than most doctors and took the time to do a physical examination. While examining the pelvis, he found that merely touching that area was enough to produce pain, so we agree to proceed with non-invasive testing. That started off simple enough: leaving bodily fluid in a cup, taking a blood sample, or an ultra sound test. Everything we tried was inconclusive.

Over the course of a year, the pain spread down the right leg and across the lower back. I pretty much just dragged my right leg around. My abdomen slowly swelled until there was a constant state of discomforting distention. My skin turned a pasty shade of gray with tiny bumps, the greatest concentration being on my back. I looked like a cross between Quasimodo and a heroin addict. Looking back on it now, I can understand that my skin looked this way because it was the only organ still detoxifying my entire body. I lived with a hot water bottle stuffed down my pants.  It was the only thing I could do to help alleviate the non-stop pain that plagued the lower body.  Due to my declining condition, my doctor suggested we try exploratory surgery. The best way to know what was going on would be to look directly into the body.  The way I felt, I agreed.

My doctor and I discussed best and worst possible scenarios so that I would be prepared. The worst case would be that they might have to start removing organs.  We still suspected if there was a problem, (if you could have seen me, that would have been a no-brainer) it would be centered on the reproduction organs.  I was perfectly fine living without some or all of my reproductive organs . . . I didn't need them to live. But I only had one heart or liver, and those I did need.

I clearly remember the moment I regained consciousness in the recovery room.  My doctor would not make eye contact with me, and I was thinking, "This can't be good."  He said, "I have some good news and some bad news. I'll start with the good news.  We did not take anything out; you still have all your organs." "Great!" I was thinking, "What could possibly be the bad news?" "The bad news is that every organ from your stomach to your colon is in crisis." He then took a quarter out of his pocket. "Your liver and small intestine are the worst. I could flip this quarter to determine which organ will shut down first, but most likely you are going to die from either the liver or small intestine shutting down, and I do not know why."

My doctor referred me to a digestive specialist who acted like he was God's gift to the medical profession.  Maybe it was due to his years of working with the lower GI tract, that he treated everyone like they were a piece of sh*t.  He came into the room, looked at the chart, and said, "I am going to run a bunch of invasive tests, and then be prepared for me to tell you that there is nothing wrong with you."  I was shocked!  This man had not even examined me, yet he was dismissing me out of hand.  "You have seen the surgery notes from my other doctor, haven't you? How can you say that?" I asked completely stunned by his insensitivity, arrogance, and confrontational attitude.  "Is your other doctor a digestive specialist?" he spat out in a very aggressive and hostile tone. "No, he isn't," I answered. "I'd be surprised if your other doctor even knows where your liver is!" He snapped with no deference to cordiality or even superficial professional courtesy.  He then proceeded to load up my arms with bags, hoses and bottles of fluid, told me to reschedule, and shoved me out the door.

Looking back on it now, I can see that this specialist, unintentionally, did me the biggest favor of my life. I remember walking over to the nearest trashcan, opening my arms, and dumping all the medical paraphernalia unceremoniously into the garbage. I walked away thinking, "I am going to have to figure this out myself. These people do not know what they are doing." I am not advising other people to abandon their doctors, but for me it was the right choice. And it changed my life forever.

I had for the most part accepted the terminal diagnosis, but as long as I was still alive, I wanted to try and minimize the excruciating pain I was in all the time. The pain of having your organs rotting inside your body is horrible; it would make you want to jump off a building.  (Good thing I lived on the first floor at this time in my life.)  I would sometimes lay in bed in agony, unable to move, and just cry and whimper for hours. I had to train my roommates to be neutral to my suffering, as I could not deal with their reactions and my situation at the same time. Besides I knew their panicking was not going to do anything but increase my already 'through the ceiling' stress level.

I heard about a rare Chinese form of internal organ massage called Chi Nei Tsang, and decided to try it.  Fortunately for me, I stumbled into the office of Gilles Marin, the foremost master in this technique.  He worked on me for about ten minutes and then said, "Okay, I am going to tell you what is wrong with you.  I'm warning you now it is going to be extremely hard for you to hear, because you have been diagnosed as terminal and been through so much pain for so long.  The problem with you is that you are not breathing correctly."  My first thought was, "What an asshole! If it was my breathing, I would have been dead long before now."

Gilles explained that breathing is how we digest our emotions, thoughts and experiences, as well as supply oxygen to the body. "You have absorbed as much fear as a person can, and still be alive, but just barely alive."  It is true my childhood was a succession of one highly traumatizing event after another.  It was also true that after the exploratory surgery, I discovered that my live-in boyfriend was sleeping with the women who were supposed to be my good friends.  The widespread, deep-seated betrayal was emotionally devastating.  I remember thinking that they did not even have the courtesy to wait until I died. How rude can you get! I was also working for my boyfriend's parents, so when we split up, I was advised to find another job.  This meant losing my health insurance and trying to find gainful employment while physically suffering from pain that some days would not even let me get out of bed.  And worse, I now had a "pre-existing condition" which would preclude me from ever getting health insurance and probably another job. I had wanted to jump off a building to get out of the pain, but instead I inadvertently got thrown under the bus.  Ain't life grand! My life was turning into a country western song.

Even withstanding Gilles' accuracy about my history, which he could not possibly have known anything about, the idea that my breathing had anything to do with my present situation was just too foreign for me to accept.  "You're not even working where it hurts," I told Gilles when he started back with the massage, just to show him he lacked the correct insight into my case.  "I know. It hurts here, here and here," he said, touching the three painful spots around the right ovary that had started this whole wild ride.  No doctor had ever been able to make sense of these three spots when they asked me where it hurt. And now, out of nowhere, this guy zeroes in on them without any guidance on my part.

"How did you know that?" I asked completely stunned.  Gilles explained, "The diaphragm in the body is designed to move downwards on the inhale. Yours is moving in exactly the opposite direction. Instead of going down, it is coming up.  It is pulled up so high in the front of your body it is pinching off your liver meridian, cutting off your liver from desperately needed Chi, life force, energy. Your liver is hanging on by a thread now because the flow of energy has been choked off for so long. The result is the liver and the liver meridian are swollen and in crisis.  The liver meridian comes closest to the surface of the skin where the most nerve endings are, and then dives back down here, here and here (those three spots). So that is where you would be experiencing the most pain. When you learn how to breathe correctly and bring the diaphragm back down, the flow of energy will be restored to your liver, and it will come right back, because there is nothing wrong with your liver. Your doctors were right about one thing, however, and that is you will die if you do not change how you breathe.  But you do not have to die; there is still time. You can reverse this."

In ten minutes this guy explained my pain, how I got it, and what I needed to do to recover fully from it.  Modern medicine had my case for over a year without any doctor, including a specialist, offering me any tangible insights or wisdom.  I remember thinking that even if this guy is not right, it couldn't hurt me to learn to breathe more efficiently and harmoniously. I shut my mouth, followed Gilles' instructions, and began to focus on what happened when I breathed.

Chi Nei Tsang is designed to be self-administered, so I spent the next several years studying with Gilles. The first year of the recovery process was extremely intense. In addition to retraining the respiration and the actual physical manipulation of the internal organs, an emotional exorcism occurs. The massage is about purging the body of negative emotions and bringing consciousness back to the core of the body. In the human experience, this is precisely where consciousness is designed to be seated. For more than a year, I would have an emotional release exactly twenty-four hours following an appointment with Gilles. You could set your clocks by it. The day of the appointment I would feel great. I could tell I was improving dramatically. Then the next day, I would be an emotional basket case.  The fear would just start pouring out of me.  I had to make arrangements to stay at home the next day, because I was so scared I literally could not function.  I had to let the fear come up and release it, without repressing it again out of habit.

During that first year I also experienced profound changes in the myofacial tissue that surrounds the internal organs. The tissue, responding to years of fear stimuli, had grown very tight and had a death grip around the organs.  The combination of the breathing exercises and the emotional releases from organ manipulation caused the tissue to rip loose from the inside out, finally permitting the organs to relax. The sensation of the tissue tearing loose inside the body was a bizarre combination of blinding pain followed by the sweet bliss of relief.

I spent so much time studying this internal organ massage and Chinese Medicine, I decided to become a certified practitioner to help other people regain quality of life as well.  I gradually branched out and studied both Eastern Indian Ayurveda and Tibetan Ayurveda. These healing sciences are based on body types. Unlike the Western concept of the body, a mechanistic paradigm that sees all bodies as the same, Eastern systems see every person as unique: a universe unto themselves. And it is imperative that one knows about the various body types, their strengths and weaknesses, in order to understand how to achieve and maintain optimal balance and health. Now that I have this knowledge I find it difficult to see how most people survive our culture without its benefits.  I guess the truth is most people don't survive it well. 

Diagnosing Yourself

The heart of the internal organ massage is the navel. That is the window to the health of the body.  The ideal navel should be round, symmetrical and flat with a well defined rim, walls and a floor.  Any distortions in this ideal round shape are due to stresses and toxins in the internal organs as well as poor or incorrect breathing patterns.  The best way to get a good clear reading on the navel is to lie on the back, knees bent and the pelvis tilted slightly forward. Then, with the head resting flat, use a mirror to see what the navel looks like in this "at rest" position.  If the head is lifted to see what the abdomen looks like, it will pull on the navel and the reading will not be accurate.

Draw a line with your finger directly from wherever the navel is stretched, pulled or puffy out to the outer perimeter of the body. As you trace outward, your finger will lead you to the organ in question that is causing the navel to be misshapen. The most commonly distorted navels I saw looked like a mail box slot, with the navel looking like a horizontal straight line.  This line is pointing to the bottom of the floating ribs and indicates that the floating ribs are not moving in and out on the inhale and exhale.  This lack of range of motion in the floating ribs is also going to affect the ascending and descending colon, as well as limit the movement of the diaphragm. When breathing, the movement of the floating ribs acts like a pump and helps pump undigested material up the ascending colon, across the transverse colon, and down the descending colon. The other most common distressed shape I examined was the navel in a slot-like pattern with the straight line pointing vertically. This shape indicates stresses and pulling in both the diaphragm and the lower pelvis. In both of these cases, there was no longer a well-defined rim, walls or floor of the navel; the navel had taken on a horizontal shape or a vertical shape. The healthy and balanced features had been obliterated by the unresolved tensions held within the body.

The navel is a powerful energy center. It is considered to be the recycling center. When starting the massage, the hands should rest right around the rim of the navel.  Slowly and gently the fingers begin to make a sinking, spiraling motion downwards, with the stroke always ending towards the center of the navel.  It does not matter if you massage in a clock wise or counter clock wise direction, both directions are beneficial. You will instinctually massage in the right direction, without thinking about it. The idea is to move the tension felt by the fingers into the navel, into the recycling center, so that the body can access it and recycle the energy into something more useful. Very gradually, the massaging motion is expanded to an area of about an inch to an inch and a half around the navel. Keep the massaging motion going into the center of the navel.  The massaging action is timed with the breath. On the inhale hold the fingers firmly and breath into them, and then on the exhale, tilt the pelvis up a bit more and press into the abdomen. Think of the center of the navel as a vacuum cleaner that is constantly sucking in whatever you sweep into it.  Always start as close to the rim of the navel as possible and move whatever tension you feel into the recycling center. Then slowly move outward, sweeping towards the center of the navel, into the energetic vacuum cleaner. There are other more advanced techniques that go deeper into the large intestine and liver, help release the floating ribs, and relax the psoas muscles, but this is the primary technique all others are built on.

You cannot hurt yourself massaging your navel and breathing deeply into the pelvic floor.  This action is powerfully detoxifying, so you may feel a bit light-headed at first.  That's the toxins moving out. You may also find that your arms tire easily. If you have to stop and rest a bit before continuing, that's fine.  This action is cumulative so any amount of time you put into relaxing the navel is beneficial. Twenty minutes a day is a good minimum. It does not matter if it is ten minutes at night and ten minutes in the morning, or two minutes ten times throughout the day. No time is better than another; anytime or any length of time is useful to the body.

I like to do a bit of navel massage just prior to an acupuncture treatment, full body massage or chiropractic adjustment. It helps relax the body and opens it up from the center outwards. If I am experiencing any trouble falling asleep, it is a nice thing to do while waiting to fall asleep, since it sends a message of relaxation to the whole body.  In the case of over-eating, navel massage is a great way to support digestion, plus it helps alleviate that over-stuffed and bloated feeling.

We are all designed to breath into our pelvic floor.  Ever watch how babies breathe?  Their little abdomens move dramatically on the inhale and exhale.  Babies breathe the way we are all designed to breathe; they have not yet learned to stuff their emotions.  Babies are very "in the moment". One instant they are scared, the next happy and laughing.  They digest their emotions fully, and then move on to the next moment. Adults do not do that.  We are masters of holding and repressing. Breath also follows consciousness.  When we breathe into the pelvic floor, we are consciously residing in the center of our being. As we grow from babies into toddlers, adolescence, then adulthood, we learn to protect ourselves from our emotions. When we move our awareness from our gut up into our heads to insulate ourselves from feeling life too intensely, that action literally hijacks the breath and diaphragm upwards with the flow of consciousness.

Nature does not like a vacuum when we move out, because the undigested emotions, perceptions and experiences that pushed us out, move in. When we learn to bring the breath and awareness back down into the body, these other energies move out. They have to. Our bodies are designed to house our awareness, not fragments of undigested life.

The best way to see, feel and become aware of how much undigested life you carry around is to do the navel massage.  When lying on your back, with the knees bent and the pelvis tilted slightly forward, place your palms directly over the navel.  Everything under your hands, between the floating ribs and hip bones, is soft tissue. The only bone is the spine in the back.  When massaged, soft tissue should just move gently out of the way. To experience this, gently pinch the excess skin on the back of your upper arm. See how the soft tissue easily moves? The soft tissue in your abdomen is no different. It should move the same way.  If you are rubbing your navel around the rim, or in the inch to inch and a half zone directly around the rim, and you come in contact with something hard, constrictive, or resistant, ask yourself, "What is this?"  It is not the organs. They are soft tissue.  It is nothing you ate either. By the time food gets into the lower digestive system, it is a liquid.  So what is it? It is undigested life.  It is undigested thoughts, feelings, emotions and perceptions.  I guess we really are "full of it"!

When I give demonstrations of this work, I actually get on a massage table and let people come by and push on my navel.  With not much effort, people can immediately feel my spine from the front.  I am committed to digesting the food of life and letting go of the rest for the waste it is. Big or small, physical size does not matter.  I am a small-boned person, but I have worked on Gilles, who is a large-boned man, and I can get to his spine from the navel with ease.  But then I only learn from the best.

My situation was not a quick fix.  It took me years of studying the Eastern systems of self-healing to learn not only how to breathe and digest life effectively, but also what to eat, the proper exercise for my body type, and how to balance the subtle energies that make up the human experience in my everyday life.  All in all it took me somewhere between seven and ten years to make a complete recovery.  I am much healthier now than most people you will ever meet.

Knowledge of how to manage the human experience is invaluable information regardless of your present health situation.  Yes, I did recover from that terminal diagnosis, but ten years later, in my late thirties, I was involved in a car accident. I sustained a life-threatening head injury, and once again the terminal injury diagnosis was bestowed upon me.  To this day my doctor will tell you he is amazed I survived that injury. He was convinced it was a death sentence.  I know the only reason I survived and, after another decade of healing, have good quality of life, is because of the years I studied these alternative healing sciences.  When the car accident happened, I knew how to take responsibility for my own health, well being and ultimate healing.

When I needed that wisdom to save my life, I had it. After the car accident I was not in any position to study anything. I would not have survived if I had to take the time to learn these skills.  When the crisis arose, I already knew how to respond, what to do, and when to do it, in order to live. Additionally, I have been able to help others by sharing this priceless, life saving wisdom. There is no downside to understanding the science of everyday life and how to manage the particular body constitution you have been blessed with. Think of these alternative medical sciences as your instruction manual. No one would think of owning a car without knowing what gas to put in it, what oil to use, when to rotate the tires and take it in for service. Our bodies get us around more than our cars, yet most people ignore this valuable information.  I guess that's why your mileage may vary.  Too bad that extended warranty isn't available for the human body.

My prayer for you would be that you are never faced with overcoming two terminal diagnoses in your lifetime. And if that does find you or a loved one, know you are powerful beyond measure, and there is a vast wealth of life saving wisdom out there for you to discover.  In the meantime, be sure to keep your hands where they belong . . . in your navel.

© Vaishali 2008. Excerpts from this article appear in "Wisdom Rising" By Vaishali (Purple Haze Press 2008) www.purplev.com

Meditation

Meditation has been used for many years as a relaxation method.  Relaxation incorporated with meditation has been shown to have a healing effect on the body by reducing stress, lowering blood pressure and helping to strengthen the immune system.  Meditation is most beneficial when done at the same time everyday and in the same place.  The most common meditation position pose is the lotus position.  Sit on the floor and cross your right foot over your left thigh and opposite with your left foot.  Your knees should touch the floor.  Rest your hands on your knees with palms facing upward.  If this is too hard, just sit crisscross.  No matter how you sit as long as you are fully relaxed to focus within.  Breathe deeply and RELAX.

Yoga Sense

 Yoga is an opportunity for you to enhance your mental as well as physical being.  Each yoga pose also     known as Asanas carry specific physical and mental benefits.  Yoga poses benefit all beings no matter your age, race or physical health.  All yoga poses increase your flow of Prana (universal life force)   creating better health and increased vitality.

The Mountain Pose /Tadasana   (Tah-DAH-sah-nah)

Although the mountain pose looks easy your body must be equally balanced.

The Tadasana pose helps the body to maintain balance and posture which in turn will lead to internal balance.

Step One:  Breathe in allowing your ribs to expand. 

Step Two:  Distribute weight evenly between feet, toes and each leg.

Step Three:  With toes pointed forward and hands hanging at your side, palms facing outward, put  feet together.

Step Four:  Feel your spine as well as your neck stretching.  Pull  Your thigh muscles up and lift the front of your body.  Relax. 

Inhale. Exhale