Deeply Peaceful and Relaxed

Deeply Peaceful and Relaxed

Take a moment, and pull in a nice, deep, slow breath. Now let it out, slowly. Go inside and notice where you might be holding a little tension, and let it go. Breathe into it if you can. Soft, relaxed.

Notice your feelings, your emotions. Breathe in peaceful, breathe out worry, breathe in peaceful, breathe out fear, continue breathing in peaceful, breathing out stress until you feel soft and relaxed.

Notice your spirit. Breathe in engaged, breathe out isolated. Breathe in self-curiosity, breathe out self-ignorance. Breathe in infinite, breathe out small.

I love that exercise. Relaxing my body, mind, and spirit. Peaceful at my core, engaged, curious, light.

Why do I choose peaceful? How can I choose relaxed? What makes me serene?

I used to think that being calm meant being slow; dum..dum...dum..... with nothing much going on. How boring would that be.

How wrong was I.

When I feel serene at my core, I am my best me. I am sharp-witted, compassionate, fluid. I can do any task and enjoy it. I feel strong and beautiful and competent. Everything is fun.

I practice this a lot on the little stuff; my frustration when my computer pointer is jumping around; the fuel pump’s inability to read my card; the store being out of what I went there for; the driver in front of me going too slow. I got a lot of practice yesterday. And then I made the flip, and life is good.

Why can I choose peaceful? What makes me relax? How do I feel when I am serene?

I have to admit, I hadn’t considered the idea that I could relax my feelings until recently. I mean, I knew how to calm down, but I hadn’t made the connection about relaxing all the way through all my systems.

If you work on nothing else for the next while, work on this. When I am relaxed all the way through, I am less likely to go to my bad habits for comfort, because I am already comfortable. I will sleep better because my body and mind are relaxed. I will find bliss more easily because my spirit is relaxed.

Now I will let you in on a secret, because I love to tell my secrets. I get a lot of practice in because I use odd moments. I stopped listening to the radio in the car, and now use it to practice feeling peaceful because I have many opportunities to leave peaceful. I practice in the restroom at work, or in the elevator, or running an errand down the hall. Waiting for the bus is another nice place to run my Creative Questions, to soften my tense muscles, to breathe in deep, slow, and to breathe out slowly. In, slowly, deeply. Out, slowly, fully. Soften, relax.

How have I changed from feeling tight and clenched to choosing peaceful all the way through?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 03302014

Are you feeling a bit more relaxed now? Please consider either a  + or a share. It makes a big difference. How do you know you are important?

Declenchifying

Declenchifying

We are so good at so many things. Each of us has our own set of skills, talents, gifts, and blessings. Is relaxation on your list? Is that one of your skills?

There is so much more to relaxing than flopping down on the couch to watch TV.

When we relax our bodies, we let our muscles soften. Sometimes we may find that relaxing our muscles lets our joints self-adjust. Relaxing our bodies allows all of our body-systems to flow freely.

Why do I relax?

When we relax our minds, our thoughts flow past our awareness, like floating down a river. We aren’t thinking, but observing thought. And when we catch ourselves thinking a thought, we bring ourselves back to the river. This is meditation, like a reset for our minds.

Why am I centered?

When we relax our spirit, we stop striving for holiness, or enlightenment, or whatever our preferred spiritual pinnacle, and are able to be fully present. We experience bliss and joy. We see the beauty of the world. We feel compassion, generosity, peace. Gratitude and appreciation flow.

Why am I serene?

When we let our emotions relax, anger relaxes, fear relaxes. Anger takes resentments with it. We may find that we are more tolerant, kinder. Fear takes worry with it. And as we continue to relax, we find that we feel vulnerable, but we also find that we trust we will be okay. We are safe to acknowledge our feelings, we recognize the feelings we have that can make trouble for us, own them, let them go. We recognize the feelings that support us, own them, and nurture them.

Why am I calm?

I used to have the idea that if I was going to nurture my passions, I would have to sacrifice peace. I was used to seeing people I thought were passionate all churned up, temperamental, moody and self-absorbed. That part of following one’s passion was very unappealing to me. Turned out it wasn’t about following their passion, but about their not having chosen to grow up yet.

Why do I choose to choose?

When we decide to let life flow, everything relaxes. When change happens, which it always does, we can reacquire our equilibrium more readily when we choose to let life flow. When we choose to say “yes” to life, to relinquish our imagined control, our grip on the status quo, everything gets easier. I don’t know about you, but I sure like easier. This allows me another crazy freedom, namely, I get to be more fully me, expand my personality, so to speak. I am more flexible, so my world can expand, too. I have more options, I have more resources, and because I am relaxed, I have a lot more energy. I sure like that, too.

How have I changed from being good at clenched to being good at relaxed?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02222014

If you like this post, please share. Thanks. Why do you make a difference?

3-Part Feelings

3-Part Feelings

I was watching someone yelling at someone the other day, and started thinking about feelings, emotions, and validation.

I have learned some really useful things in all my years of training, research and practice. One of those is that emotions are universal, feelings are not.

Emotions are the physiological manifestation of thought, either conscious or unconscious. Everyone, unless there is some kind of damage, has the same set, like when the doc taps your knee and your leg jerks. Emotions are pretty much hardwired.

Emotions are, very simply put; happy, sad, angry, scared, contempt, disgust, and surprise. That’s it.

Feelings, on the other hand, are not hardwired. They are not universal. They are sklooshy, personal, and often really weird and smelly, based on horrible mislearning, and awful beliefs.

I’m not always comfortable with my feelings, or with yours. And I’m not sure I want you to validate all my feelings, because some of them are pretty messed up.

I mean, if I’m telling you that I feel completely disgusted by what a bad person I am, or you are,  because I, or you, forgot a date, bounced a check, didn’t mail a letter, eat meat/gluten/dairy, ran out of gas, can’t sleep, have a blemish, and so on, do we really want that disgust validated?

If I am screaming at you about anything that isn’t a warning of imminent danger, do I want that behavior validated?

If I am wailing or blaming or shaming because something didn’t go my way, do I want that behavior validated?

Notice that feelings are often three-part; one part emotion, one part justification, one part behavior.

Often, when we ask for our feelings to be validated, what we are actually asking is for our outrageous behavior to be given a stamp of approval.

I was shocked when I discovered that I could feel sad without weeping and wailing and sobbing, that I could feel angry without yelling or cursing or carrying on, that I could feel scared without a panic attack. When I experience my emotions inside, noticing them, acknowledging them without the justification and behavior parts, they move through really quickly.

Experiencing our emotions all the way to the end is excellent. It completes our experience, and we end up clean. On the other hand, expressing them through extravagant behavior ends up creating even more trauma for us, because now we have feelings about throwing the whatever, or shrieking insults at our whomever, or any of a host of things.

The bottom line is this: If I want a happy, peaceful life, I have to be willing to give up the drama. My drama, and validating your drama.

How have I changed from indulging in emotional drama to experiencing my emotions?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights removed 10112013

Emotions 101

Emotions 101

Emotions are amazing things. They are the bridge from our virtual world of thoughts to the real world of our physical bodies. This is the beginning of how thoughts become things. We can see it happening now with brain scans, and it’s astonishing.

Every single thought we have produces an emotion. Every single one. Mostly, they are tiny emotions, and we can’t even feel them. Emotions are a simple way of saying that we have a complex set of physiological responses; things dilate or contract, go faster or slower, secrete stuff or stop secreting, to name a few.

Thoughts becoming things.

So when I have a scary thought, my pupils dilate, my heart and respiration rates go up, my adrenals start pumping out adrenaline. Over time, I learn to call that set of responses “fear.”

And when I have a peaceful thought, my body creates a very different set, with different heart rates, hormones and neurochemicals, and I learn to call that set of responses “calm.”

This is useful information when, for example, you are having your blood pressure taken.

Meanwhile, our brains are thinking thoughts at a mile a minute, most of which don’t even show up on our radar, that is, in our conscious mind.

When my brain is thinking scary thoughts a lot of the time, I end up with feelings. and call the set stress or worry. If I don’t change it, modify it by doing stuff to make other feelings happen, I can end up with physical symptoms. For example, lots of scary thoughts can make my adrenal glands work too hard, and I end up with a set of symptoms that  wrecks my sleep, makes me achy, messing with my stomach, and so on.

Emotions just happen, as a result of thought. Feelings are something we cobble together based on how we interpret what is going on around us, our long-term experiences, our beliefs. Is there a current events thing that, just the mention of it, you have giant feelings about? Or thinking of the smiling and happy face that belongs to someone you love, you get a woosh of feeling of another kind.

We have emotions to act as a kind of life-GPS, to let us know how we are doing, where we are at, and what we might want to do.

Our natural life is kind of like a fabulous candy bar, with nutty fun, and a peaceful nougat center. We can have a ball, and still have that centered stillness.

When we don’t feel that centered stillness, regardless of what is happening, our feelings let us know we have strayed. That wiggly feeling in our gut, the tightness in our shoulders or neck, the squinched up toes; these act as markers to let us know that we need to regroup, to calm down, to notice what we are thinking and change it.

Worry devours your well being and sleep, anxiety is a painful habit, anger can be so destructive. When we shift our thoughts, even just a little bit, it can make such a difference.

How have I changed from ignoring my thoughts and feelings to respecting their value to me?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 09282013

I Really Appreciate You

I Really Appreciate You

A dear and brilliant friend started posting daily appreciations last year. What a joy they were to read, and what a triumph to witness, as serious health issues arose for her and her husband, that  she continued to post heartfelt gratitude each day. I feel uplifted and inspired by her words everyday, and by her courage in staying appreciative.

Another dear and brilliant friend has had a group of friends who emailed each other things they were grateful for each day.

Several friends keep gratitude journals.

There are so many ways to establish a habit of expressing our gratitude, but they all have something in common, namely, they serve to raise our vibration.

Now, I know that “vibration” is woowoo talk, and I work at staying away from woowoo talk here. But, if you have ever been around big, low vibration sounds, you may have noticed something.

I got it first in a small discotheque many years ago. I’d gone dancing with friends, paid my cover, and drank water, not liquor or even soda pop. The space was tiny, and the speakers were great, but my spot was right in front of the big booming bass. It took about an hour, and I was out back puking up my water. The next time I went, it  happened again, and then I made a point of staying as far away from those speakers.

We don’t usually say, “Oh, I love heavy metal! It makes me feel so light and happy!”

If I want to feel light and happy, it will help if I move toward light and cheerful and away from dark and low.

So, what is dark and low? Chronic complainers, that is, people who don’t expend energy improving their situation, only rehearsing how awful it is. The News. The News is meant to make us feel bad so we buy stuff. Grim movies or books, dark tales of abuse or torture. Focusing on feelings of anger or grief or fear.

Those feelings come up for all of us. What we do when they do can make a huge difference in our “vibration.”

To keep things flowing, I need to experience my feelings, not necessarily to express them. When I accept how I feel, and let it flow through me, I find that I’m often finished with it in moments. And then, if I pause for a bit and appreciate the feeling, or the simple emotion, I find that I can enjoy those emotions that used to suck up my life,

Accepting, appreciating, and allowing will all help me to feel lighter. When I accept what is going on, I’m not necessarily liking it. That is, I can appreciate where I’m at without wanting to spend my life here.

By noticing what I am grateful for, by appreciating the world around me, by expressing my thanks, several things happen. I need to be in touch with my feelings to recognize the sensations of gratitude. I have to be aware to notice stuff to be grateful for. I need to have some sense of connection to tell you I appreciate you, and what you did for me.

Now if I just add relax relax relax to that, I’m going to have a pretty nice day.

How have I changed from feeling shut down to being aware of my gratitude?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 08242013