To Confront Effects of Trauma, Start with Self Care

Resilience practices and culturally rooted health traditions show promise for overcoming trauma in real-life settings.

In today’s stressful world, mindfulness – a type of popular spirituality that strives to focus on the present moment – promises to soothe away the anxiety and stress of modern life.

Whenever you have the opportunity, lie down on the earth -- in a meadow, in the forest, on the bank of the river... Just lie down on the earth and feel one with it. That will give you much energy, fresh energy.

You do not come into earth to meditate. You come into earth to think, feel, act, and do. Thus, the primary impulse from your soul is not to meditate, but to love, to create harmony and goodness, and to heal. Now, the forces of God will love you no matter what you do, whether you meditate or not, whether you...

Loving-kindness and compassion are of utmost importance at this time for humanity. Love and compassion for one an­other, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, and gender, need to take precedence over ideology and our superficial differ­ences. We must come together and cooperate with one an­other in order to survive the global challenges facing us.

The film The Portal follows six individuals who undergo a personal transformation from trauma and struggle to calmness, self-acceptance, and compassion towards others.

When I was little, my mother used to ask me if I would jump out the window just because my friends were doing it. The question made me mad, but she was trying to teach me an important lesson about life. Learn to think for yourself and listen to your heart, or you're likely to get into trouble.

Meditation is not another “thing” to do, it’s an expression of who you are. Like all authentic spiritual practices it makes life easier by removing the barriers that keep you from being the person you came here to be.

Exhaustive research has shown that meditation is an excellent antidote against stress, hyperactivity, and fear related themes. It has been found to increase your energy, as well as lower blood pressure and heart rate. Meditation can also be used as a successful tool to accompany many medical, psychological and alternative healing therapies...

When most of us are introduced to the practice of meditation and mindfulness, usually our opinion is that thinking is bad. After all, we reason, our thinking and ideas have become a layer between the present moment and ourselves. Our mind has convinced us that we are isolated. At least, that is how we often perceive the situation.

Certainly there are injustices to be named in this world, and hate-filled situations to be changed, and inequities to be remedied. There is appropriate treatment to be demanded, without prejudice or fear. But can we do these things without destroying ourselves through anger?

Practiced daily, this basic activation exercise enables you to gradually shift the center of your being to your heart. The ideal is to start your day with it, but you can do it at any other time, including just before going to sleep.

The purpose of meditation is to slow down so that we can see clearly into the nature of the mind, making it possible for us to become fully present in each moment, to gain understanding of the way things truly are. It can give rise to the deep sense of calm that comes from really knowing something for yourself.

We all start out as a closet case. We have a secret life with secret pain that we keep under wraps in this closet. We bolt the door and hide the key, keeping our dark side hidden away, and we work very hard to function over the top of that pain, fear and anguish and go on somehow with our lives, perhaps thinking we are the only ones with secret pain.

Buddhists believe that all our actions are dependent on our state of mind. A mind that is not well controlled is liable to cause a great deal of harm to itself and others, while a peaceful mind creates a comfortable atmosphere for itself and everyone around.

For many of us, the idea of sitting quietly is painful. Many of us like being busy. In our American culture, we are applauded for checking as many items as we can off our to-do lists. It makes us feel we have accom­plished much, that we’re going places fast. But many of us are running on empty. We are just whirling, twirling.

If I had to mention one single thing which I believe the most important by very very far, for not only the survival but the harmonious evolution of mankind, it is simply LOVE. And the best place to find it might be in ourselves!

We are born into this life to give it shape and to be powerful. Whether you’re simply fixing lunch or dreaming of leading a self-sufficient life in the country, these are all ideas waiting to be put into practice in the best possible way.

Although we may feel like we have no real say about how we spend our time, a careful and honest examination reveals this cannot literally be true. We make choices each day that explicitly reflect our personal values and individual priorities. When...

A Benedictine monk had used almost exactly the same words as a Hindu ascetic – Swami Ambikananda had also mentioned that we could meditate for 22 hours a day but that during those two remaining hours all kinds of un-enlightened selfish actions were possible. (It also brought to mind a prisoner I’d met who told me that he had been a Buddhist for years and meditated daily – but was nevertheless in prison for recently committing a violent armed robbery.)

How you breathe reflects your self-esteem. How you breathe directly correlates to your enjoyment and satisfaction in life. If you breathe deeply, you imbibe of life and what it has to offer. If you are a shallow breather, perhaps you are not confident and feeling safe.

Although there are many different approaches to meditation, all meditation methods share some basic characteristics and work in similar ways. The fundamental requirement in meditation is that we find some way to manage the monkey mind so that we can start training it.

This 17 minute guided meditation welcomes balance and clarity to your mental and emotional self. Practice regularly to connect brain to body for mental health and optimal physical wellbeing. This practice

Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors — people who have a certain hunger to know what is true — feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad...

Sitting quietly, doing nothing. But what’s the point, you ask? Why should I do this? Why should I waste my precious time sitting quietly doing nothing when there is so much to do, so much to accomplish and achieve?

If hate arises for someone or against someone, or love arises for someone, what do we do? We project it on the person. You project your love or hate or whatsoever. You forget completely the inner center of your being; the other becomes the center.

For the secularized mind, meditation fills a spiritual vacuum; it brings the hope of a better, happier individual and the ideal of a peaceful world. That meditation was primarily designed not to make us happier but to destroy our sense of individual self – who we feel and think we are most of the time – is often overlooked in the science and media stories.

From TV sets and radios to sirens, jet aircraft, horns, and the constant yammer of too many people with too much to say, our world is filled with noise. When we are not engaged in listening to something or someone, we are usually yapping away ourselves, either externally or at least in our own heads.

Before you start any action toward your Dream—a call, meeting, class, exam, presentation, creative session, difficult situ­ation—use this visualization technique: Send Love Ahead. I learned this most precious method from a study group in A Course in Miracles. Here’s how it works...

I began meditating at the young age of 20, when meditation was not com­mon in the United States, and I took very much to heart my guru’s instruc­tions to develop a regular and committed meditation practice. Over the years I found an intuitive faculty developing, a way of knowing that surpasses the rational, logical mind.

I allow myself to feel good right now. I feel my soul all around me, sending me its joy. I open to receive my soul's joy. Joy is flowing into me. Joy is streaming into my cells and atoms. As joy flows into me I expand. I feel free.

Meditation, as I understand and practice it, has become an indispensable aid in my life. I recharge my inner batteries and solve my problems, make decisions, get advice and comfort, refine my character traits, mobilize my immune forces, develop visions for the future -- and seek my connection with the Divine. We can use meditation for everything.

When your body, mind, and spirit become one, you'll feel more authentic, more grounded in your personality, and at the same time you'll move in harmony. If you can learn to be equally physical, mental, and spiritual, you will glide into a new kind of unified perception.

Over the years I have practiced a number of Buddhist meditation techniques, including Mindfulness of Breathing, Loving Kindness, and Anapanasati on a daily basis. Whilst learning about Eckhart Tolle’s teachings, I developed a meditation technique to directly cultivate Presence.

Here is a powerful healing meditation to help you lose your fears about love and to cleanse your heart chakra. You may want to tape-record this meditation with soft background music, so you can easily listen to it once or twice a day.

Focusing keeps your eyes on the road, but awareness lets you enjoy the scenery. Almost all the satisfaction of a sitting comes not from watching the road but from those sideways glances at the scenery. Awareness is complicated because...

The animals and the natural world are relaying messages to guide and support humanity during this time of great change on the planet. The four-leggeds, winged ones, creepy crawlers, and more are coming to assist in this evolution of consciousness. As we release the self-imposed barriers between us and them, we are able to transcend the illusionary veil between us and hear their language. We are given the gift of their wisdom when we connect in love and respect and cross through the barriers that separate us.

We are linked with plants through our breath. When we focus on this breath and consciously connect to the plant by giving and receiving the breath, we find ourselves intimately connected to the plant and it can be a very moving experience.

Tonglin practice is rooted in the breath. If you can breathe in and out, you can practice tonglin. The essence of the practice is to breathe in the suffering of another person and to breathe out loving-kindness, compassion, and healing. As we breathe that healing out, we are making the greatest gift we...

Meditation for Busy People: Whenever you have time, just sit silently with closed eyes. It will help. It will help you to be more at ease with yourself.

The word mantra means ‘mind protection’ in Sanskrit. A mantra carries a vibration and frequency that extends beyond the simple meaning of its words. In the highest sense, mantras carry thought waves that can energize the prana through constant repetition and they can reach deep into the subconscious mind to access the collective consciousness. More simply, using mantra can help overcome mental chatter, and prepare the way for an expansion of consciousness.

Meditation by Orin and DaBen: I allow myself to relax and go within. I release thoughts of my outer world for now. I breathe in relaxation. I adjust my body until it feels comfortable. I let my thoughts...

Scientists have known for a while that both of these activities alone can help with depression," says Tracey Shors. "But this study suggests that when done together, there is a striking improvement in depressive symptoms along with increases in synchronized brain activity.

Most of us do not remember our past lives, however it is possible to access some information through a guided past life session. People have different experiences in a past life session. A friend of mine found themselves speaking in a foreign language! Others may have flashbacks or wonder how they knew about something.

Practising mindfulness meditation for ten minutes a day improves concentration and the ability to keep information active in one’s mind, a function known as “working memory”. The brain achieves this by becoming more efficient, literally requiring fewer brain resources to do these tasks.

Meditation needs great work. It is arduous, it is an uphill task. To remain non-meditative is easy in a way. You have not to do anything about it, you are already non-meditative, everybody is born non-meditative. But to become meditative really needs great courage, great determination, great patience, because to go beyond the mind is the most complicated phenomenon.

You are made of energy that is constantly vibrating. This energy is changeable and transformative. It is amazing how our body, mind and soul has the ability to heal and change. Watching people change, heal and transform has been one of the most humbling and exciting experiences of my life.

The heart chakra is where matter and spirit meet. It marks the halfway point, with three chakras below and three above. This is a very important chakra indeed, as it’s our center of love and connection. Here you move into a greater awareness and love flows from you. You are peaceful, joyful, and compassionate. Your actions are no longer self-serving but are motivated by helping others overcome suffering.

In Australia, about one in six adults practise meditation, while one in ten practise yoga. People often turn to yoga or meditation as a way to to take time out and manage the stress of their day-to-day lives. Stress is common, and ongoing stress can contribute to the onset of a range of psychological issues, such as depression and anxiety. Meditation and yoga have been shown to reduce people’s self-reported levels of stress. This is likely due, at least in part, to the effects that meditation and yoga have on the brain’s stress response system.

The old lower reptilian brain is designed to keep you from being eaten by a tiger. The higher brain does the opposite, it turns on your body’s ability to rejuvenate and feel a sense of inner calm and meaning. That feeling of well-being is meant to be your natural state. 

Despite the seeming explosion of meditation in modern culture, there seems to be a lot of confusion about what it is, being used interchangeably for thinking, daydreaming or contemplating on a particular issue. With lack of a cohesive understanding about what meditation is, it can naturally lead to confusion about how to practice it and what it is really supposed to do.

A peaceful and relaxed mind is a prerequisite to meaningful meditation. Breathing techniques as they are taught in Tibetan tradition are millennia-old methods with great contemporary appeal because they harmonize body and soul quickly and effectively. Breathing brings about life!

To experience timelessness, you need to focus intently on the moment at hand. You cannot allow your mind to wander over events of the past or wallow in deep concern over the future.

Preliminary findings from a study conducted with business students at Simon Fraser University show that even 10 minutes of classroom meditation can gradually increase students’ levels of physical, mental and emotional awareness.

The word spirit, from the Latin spiritus, means “breath” and is also associated with “light.” Anything that interrupts the breath weakens the life force, diminishing our light. When we hold our breath, we obstruct our ability to see, be, and respond to life. Our spirit, our breath, and our light are inseparable.

When you do a meditation on compassion, reflect upon the manner in which sentient beings undergo the experience of suffering. First, in order to have a very strong force of compassion, visualize a being undergoing active sufferings. For example, you could vividly and clearly visualize...

To empower your life, you have to seize responsibility for it. You cannot wait and hope that God or yet another 'miracle pill' will somehow solve the problems of pain, dissatisfaction, and depression. You will not change your state by doing nothing about it or by blaming other people for your pain.

We usually think that meditation is done sitting, but it can also be beneficial to practice walking meditation. In this case, walking with the eyes open, one is more mindful of the outside world. The purpose of a walking meditation is to cultivate awareness, and to use the very act of walking as a focus of your concentration thereby allowing you to have a wakeful presence.

Meditation has been hailed as a way to boost mental health, help chronic pain, reduce stress and build a new appreciation for the world around us.

Stress is part of life, especially when you have a career, family, and other responsibilities. But we can’t let it control our lives. We have to preserve ourselves if we want to accomplish everything and maintain balance.

Visualizing, that is, creating pictures or images in your mind, works effectively on three aspects of our being: our physical bodies, our emotions, and our spiritual or soul level. Your body will believe the images that your mind focuses on, and here’s why...

Deep within you is a place of infinite calm, an oasis of peace, love, wisdom, power, healing. All you need lies within you, surrounds you and enfolds you. Fulfillment far beyond your human desire is there, awaiting your recognition and acceptance. There within your reach — moments away — lay freedom and paradise...

When we first go to the gym to develop physical fitness, we start with light weights and gradually increase these weights over time as our muscles develop. It is the same with meditation...

“It is necessary to be awake all day long, in order to sleep well,” Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spake Zarathustra. In the context of Yoga Nidra, this affirmation takes on a new meaning and is a teaching of great importance. And we can also add that it is up to us to sleep well at night, in order to be truly awake.

If you want to feel less pain, meditate more often. According to this new research, it can genuinely erase the emotional reaction to pain.

Dance as liturgy or ritual has always been a way to honor the sacred, the mystery, turning into the spiral of life and the universal, the ever-present flow of the Divine force. It has profound implications for healing, psychotherapy, spiritual growth, and the full unfolding of human potential.

Many people have misconceptions about meditation and these can sabotage your ability to enjoy the benefits of it. The biggest misconception is that you “should” be able to clear your mind. You are not expected to clear your mind. What you will do is find you’re getting better at ignoring the thoughts...

Events are going to happen to us on account of actions committed in the past. But the good news is that through our present responses, we mold our future — constantly, moment to moment to moment. The choice is...

I strongly advocate cultivating an inner receptivity, an inner listening and attunement to the signals of the Essential Self. These intuitions are the way the deeper self informs us and guides us. If you ask your Essential Self to come into your con­sciousness, it will...

When you see a trauma scene, or when you hear emergency vehicles, say, “I wish you well” or “God bless you, every one.” Be aware of these people in need, people who started an ordinary day...

For the ten problems of life — family troubles, work problems and money worries, finding your way in the world — I have no solution. But you have an eleventh problem. For that one I have help...

Over mild wine with a friend, I steered the conversation to one of my favorite topics, spirituality. After my second eloquent sentence, she burst out, “Oh, I don’t have time to be spiritual!” I started to clarify but she changed the subject to her impossible office job.

Life is to be lived, experienced, enjoyed. Fun, happiness, and new experiences should be consistent throughout your life, and it is up to you to make sure they are!

Meditation is the only way the mind can rest. All day long we think, emote, and react. All night long we dream. This most beautiful and valuable of all tools, our own mind, never gets a moment’s rest. The only way it can get a rest is when we sit down and concentrate on a meditation subject.

What is meditation? Here is a good definition: Meditation is listening. It is listening not only with the ear, but with the soul—not only to sound, but to the silent language of inspiration. "Listening" itself, as I use the word here, entails much more than listening with the ears. It means, among other things...

Your ancestry and your family tree extend beyond your biological family; every human has a spiritual, multidimensional soul lineage as well. You may have a strong connection to the Egyptian lineage. You may go as far as to say that you are...

Emotions are the entryway into the infinite. They are your route back to your self, and they provide an easy access to the peace that is already there, calling you into your very essence. You might like to start by finding a quiet space where you can sit without interruption...

Meditation is marketed as a treatment for pain, depression, stress, and addiction, but it can leave some people more distressed than at peace.

This type of meditation is different from most meditation. Our approach to meditation is patterned after that of the Western shamanic spirit walkers or dream walkers and Hindu samadhi mystics. Samadhi mystics go into deep meditative states to leave the body...

For many of us, family competes for our meditation time. This is perhaps one of our greatest struggles: how can we find time for ourselves without taking it from them?

Notice your emotions. What color or colors are they? What shapes do they make? Notice your thoughts. Again, what colors are they? What shapes do they have? Notice your emotions....

Stopping the world to enter a meditation state of blissful peace and out-of-body timelessness is not easy for many of us. Many people find it difficult to tune out external distractions. To do this, you must control your physical senses. We can tell ourselves not to be distracted by...

In the process of becoming all you can become, it is sometimes expeditious to have special help in cutting old bonds. Here is an excellent exercise in Creative Visualization.

Mind mastery is the ability to stop thinking whenever you want. You use your mind as the amazing tool that it is, and then ‘put it down’ when you’re done. As a result, a master of the mind enjoys freedom from problems because they no longer take their mind so seriously.

Dedicated to the precise and dynamic performance of often challenging asanas, the hatha yoga developed by B. K. S. Iyengar seemed particularly ill-suited for being made into a spiritual practice, let alone into the eightfold path of liberation...

If we could choose one word that would define the lives of modern humans, it would have to be hectic. When, in recorded history, have we been so predisposed to incessant activity? We truly are driving ourselves insane. Our body/minds haven’t been prepared for...

All kinds of discomforts disappear when we’re asleep, and changing our attitudes and thinking—our consciousness—can completely change our experience of living. That may be easier said than done; but there is a sure-fire way to make it happen.

The following visualization/meditation has been created to assist you in walking this glorious path of sacred sensuality. In order to embark on this ancient path, it is necessary to become personally acquainted with the rich and revitalizing flow of your Kundalini energy and the playful...

Attention means a silent alertness with no thoughts interfering. Develop it. You can develop it only by doing it; there is no other way. Do it more and you will develop it. Doing anything, being anywhere, try to develop it.

Although meditation is independent of any particular lifestyle or diet, I would be remiss if I did not point out that what you put into your body will make a difference in the quality of your meditation and how quickly you advance in your inner experience.

For the last several decades, Westerners have been looking East for new approaches to health care. What was once the exclusive domain of hippies and New Agers has become mainstream.

I choose joy. I choose the path of joy.  I am now willing to release struggle, and embrace the path of joy. I relax my body.

Meditating sounds easy. Sitting. Breathing. Focusing in a relaxed kind of way. So why isn't everyone doing it? Why do so many who start meditating, or open a book on the subject, fail to carry through and make meditation a part of their daily lives? 

Opening Meditation: Find a comfortable position. A nice comfortable chair will work, or you can lean against the wall or sit cross-legged on the floor. Whatever will be most comfortable for you.

Many things we do are imposed on us by necessity, or by the absurd. Why wear a tie? The fact is, many of the rules we obey nowadays have no real foundation. Nevertheless, if we wish to act differently, we are considered “crazy” or “immature”.

Emotions are the lenses through which we experience daily life and inhabit the world—how we love, learn, work, make meaning, and devise solutions to problems we face. 

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) teaches us that what makes the stresses in our life particularly damaging is how we mismanage them. The tendency to resist or willfully ignore our situation, misperceive and have fixed ideas about who we are and the reality we inhabit, is slowly replaced with mindfulness...

Part of letting go into the flow of life lies in realizing that you have never really been in control of your life, at least not from the perspective of the conscious mind. You simply have been mak­ing choices based on a very limited scope of awareness dictated by...

Fold your hands together in your lap, with the right hand underneath the left hand -- the position is important because the right hand is joined with the left brain, and fear always comes from the left brain. The left hand is joined with the right brain, and courage comes from the right side.

Every meditation technique has its unique charac­teristics, and invites you to experience meditation in a different way. They all invite you to direct your attention at one focal point, but these focal points may be essentially different...