Insecurity and Neediness in Relationship

“Please, clouds, don’t rain!” It’s not going to work, is it?

And neither will trying to reassure someone who just can’t be reassured. They will go on fretting, no matter how you plead.

Chronic insecurity in your relationship is a major problem. Why? Because relationships really, deeply matter. Your health, your wellbeing, your happiness affected by your relationships more than any other factor. And your most intimate relationships have the biggest effect of all.

It’s not just the insecure person who suffers

Feeling insecure in a relationship is horrible for the one who is feeling the insecurity. The burden – of fear and obsessive thoughts, of feeling powerless, of awful awareness that all this insecurity may actually itself be destroying what you treasure most – can feel pretty unbearable.

But it’s also tough for the person on the receiving end of all that insecurity. The truth is that being involved with a really insecure person can be hell.

This article highlighted what a common problem insecurity is

Mark Tyrrell wrote an article a while back on overcoming insecurity in relationships and was inundated with feedback from all over the world. The scores of comments on the article itself were just the tip of the iceberg. His inbox overflowed with hundreds more private emails from people wracked by feelings of relationship insecurity.

That article, which explores the reasons for insecurity and offers practical tips to help overcome it, eventually became the springboard for the development of the new 10 steps to overcoming insecurity in relationships course.

This article was mainly addressed to those who are themselves feeling insecure in a relationship; but I also got – and still get – hundreds of emails from people who have extremely insecure partners. A common recurring theme of these accounts is how isolating it can feel to find yourself in a relationship with someone who is deeply insecure. And this is one major reason why extreme insecurity can be so damaging.

Why reassuring your insecure partner is almost a lie

Because ‘reassurance’ is what insecure people want most, and anyone can say reassuring things, it’s all too easy for partners (and friends) to offer reassurances that everything is “really okay” in the relationship even when it isn’t.This is a kind of denial. And – ironically – the reasons it might not be okay are often the product of the insecurity itself.

Sometimes the only genuine problem in a relationship is the emotional insecurity of one partner and the effect that has on the relationship as a whole. But it’s easy to fall into a pattern of always pretending everything is fine, even when the insecurity becomes really damaging. Such pretense becomes isolating and can drive partners further apart. This is how insecurity can damage or even destroy the relationship.

Relationships thrive on intimacy, and intimacy stems from feeling you can safely be yourself with your partner. So what does it feel like to be in a relationship with a very insecure partner?

Worrying about relationship breakup creates it

Insecurity stemming from a fear of losing intimacy can actually bring on that loss of intimacy. Jake, a former client, described it like this:

“I actually feel totally disconnected from Sara now. She doubts my every word, doesn’t believe me when I say I’ve been working, and constantly misinterprets what I say. It’s driving me nuts! And the angrier I get, the more insecure she gets. I can’t win! I’ve tried being sympathetic, but now everything has to be on her terms, I have to ask myself all the time – is this going to upset her or not?”

Jake told me how he had started to feel very lonely in his relationship, like he had no one to talk to, because “Talking to Sara is like walking on egg shells – will I say the wrong thing? Will she take it the wrong way?”

He, like many who are close to someone so insecure, found himself getting more and more emotionally distant from Sara. He felt less able to speak to her about how he felt, and less able to relax around her.

Loneliness isn’t about being alone so much as feeling alone with others – because you feel misunderstood by them – and that’s how Jake now felt with Sara. He’d begun to feel trapped, finding it hard to be around her but also hard not to be around her, because he knew how painful it was for her to be wondering where he was or whom he was with.

The painful truth is that insecurity can lead to the death of intimacy in a relationship – the fear of losing something can actually bring about that loss. Trying to force intimacy or love – demanding to know:

• how someone feels
• what they are thinking
• who they’ve been talking to
• what they are doing

can just drive them further from you.

So what should you do if you are in a relationship with a really insecure person?

How to tell if you have a truly insecure partner

It’s vital to figure out whether the person you are with is genuinely excessively insecure. Some jealousy and insecurity is actually normal in most relationships from time to time – especially in the early stages. Insecure people are often insecure about their insecurity, because they instinctively know how damaging it can be.

But … if insecurity is a constant and central feature of the relationship then, yes, it is a problem and a potential cause of breakdown.

Of course … you can reassure your partner, reason with them, and be gentle and loving toward them, but it’s important not to make too many adaptations for them.

This was the mistake Jake made. He had completely stopped spending any time with his friends without Sara. He rang her on the hour, every hour, when he had to work late. He told her he loved her so many times a day that it was more like a chore rather than a genuine expression of how he felt. And after a while the relationship no longer felt real to him.

If the relationship becomes all about reassuring and not upsetting the insecure partner, you and your needs get sidelined to the point that the relationship can start to feel meaningless for you.

Jake and Sara’s relationship only improved once Sara herself addressed her insecurity, and learned to trust and relax more with not “having to know” what Jake was thinking or doing all the time. Her self esteem improved and, in turn, he then felt more valued, and no longer trapped or forced to behave in prescribed ways.

At last he was being listened to and respected again.

If your insecure partner has enough insight to know they need to change, then you really can encourage them to make those changes that could make such a difference for both of you. Ultimately, no one should have to be constantly “on call” to their partner, or emotionally isolated by them.

Good relationships are reciprocal, not one-sided. They flourish when partners trust each other, accept each other, give each other space, forgive each other for failings – and enjoy each other. You and your partner both deserve that. Read more about 10 Steps to Overcome Insecurity in Relationships by Mark Tyrrell

Notes

1. See: Wikipedia entry: Exposure therapy
2. See: Wikipedia entry: Flooding

Healing Crisis

Your body is excellent at maintaining health, given the right conditions.

What are these conditions? Good nutrition, exercise, fresh air and a non-toxic environment including low stress.

Good luck with that, right?

In today’s hyper-stressed, activity-overloaded world of fast food and conveniences such as automobiles, we are putting our bodies through a lot of stress. This includes the effects of physical, mental and emotional stress.

The good news is, no matter how bad our health is now, it is possible to return to a state of optimal or near-optimal health. This can involve some major life changes or some tweaks in lifestyle. Either way, the body will undergo a period of waste elimination and detoxification that is referred to as the “healing crisis.”

As unpleasant as this episode can be, if you approach it with the right attitude – that isn’t junk clearing its way out of the body – you’ll come to appreciate the body’s incredible efficiency at healing itself. Once the body begins to be adequately supported and nourished, it will immediately start dumping toxins. This will result in mild to severe reactions.

For example – if you’ve ever had a massage and felt like you got the flu right afterward, that’s the body releasing the toxins that the massage flushed from your muscles! Drink plenty of water after a massage, take it easy for a day or two and you’ll feel like a million bucks soon!

If your health isn’t great, you can expect this cleansing process to go on for a while. You will feel great, then terrible, then great again… these ups and downs are a normal part of the healing crisis.

What happens in a healing crisis?

Let’s say that you have decided to take charge of your health and you eliminate junk food in favor of a raw food diet. Yes, this is extreme, but here’s what will happen: with the new influx of real nutrients, the body begins to wake up from its stupor (you know you don’t feel good when you eat junk, right?).

You feel energized and ALIVE.

And then, just as suddenly, you feel like you’ve been trampled by a herd of water buffalo. This is the signal that the elimination has begun. The body begins to actively flush toxins from the system as the organs become strengthened and as they regain better functioning. Tissue regeneration takes place and gradually the toxins are released from their storage places such as fat reserves.

Did you know that the body stores toxins that it can’t flush out, in body fat?

This is to protect the organs from being poisoned! This is one reason that the healing crisis can often include significant weight loss.

Initially, the healing crisis may mimic the symptoms of the disease it’s meant to cure. The difference is, this is temporary and it is a powerful release of waste (including mental, emotional and spiritual!) from the body. Even pain can be intense during the healing crisis.

When physical and emotional discomfort and pain are present during the healing crisis, it’s really important to stay positive and honor the body’s attempts to heal itself. There may be emotional upheaval and the whole process can be pretty intense.

What are some physical symptoms of the healing crisis?

Skin rashes, nausea, flu-like symptoms, extreme fatigue or sleeplessness, constipation or diarrhea, sinus and ear infections, runny noses, coughing, profuse sweating and even fevers.

It’s important to drink plenty of fluids* during the healing crisis to help the body flush toxins. And it’s equally important to be kind to yourself during healing and work with your body. Depending on the nature of the problem, healing can take anywhere from a week to months; severe cases may result in several recurring healing crises.

*Healing fluids include non-chlorinated water, herbal teas and diluted fruit juices.

Avoid alcohol, caffeine and sugary soft drinks including those with artificial sweeteners. Give your body the best possible care during your healing crisis!

A bonus of a healing crisis is the elimination of cravings for certain destructive foods like simple carbs, excessive caffeine and most processed junk food. The body loves, loves loves fresh and preferably raw food rich in micro- and macro-nutrients. This naturally results in cravings for the good stuff, instead of cravings for chocolate chip cookies and soft drinks.

Again – a healing crisis may be unpleasant … but you will be rewarded for it later with a body that is eager and able to fully experience and enjoy life!

Types of Meditation

Since the dawn of mankind, meditation has created altered states of consciousness and taught self-mastery. Of course modern-day stresses are drastically different than those that primitive hunter-gatherers endured; but the prehistoric man’s fascination with the flames of a campfire – resulting in non-structured meditation – has remained central to what it is to be human.

Over time, a variety of meditative traditions evolved. With so many styles to choose from, there is most assuredly a style that suits any individual. Quite simply, there is no right or wrong type of meditation – if it feels good, do it. If it just doesn’t resonate with you, move on.

Mindfulness Meditation

One of the most well-known types of meditation is Mindfulness Meditation, or Vipassana. This is part of the Buddhist tradition and involves becoming aware of everything happening around you in the moment, as well as self-awareness of the things you say, do, think and feel. This type of meditation can be practiced anytime and is particularly wonderful while you’re engaged in your daily tasks. Its goal is to awaken you to the miracle of the present moment.

Compassion Meditation involves self-observation in regards to how you view other people and what your emotions are toward them. The goal is to develop loving, altruistic thoughts, emotions and behaviors towards everyone.

Koan (Zen): designed to challenge the dualistic way in which we perceive the world. Once the non-dual reality is understood, the meditator awakens. The koans are riddles that challenge our perception of “what is” and are often used as the basis for contemplation.

Mantra: the repetition of a mantra (a phrase, single word, or sound) tunes you in to the universal energy. It often involves the feeling of resonance produced by making the sound (such as “Om”).

Yoga: The physical movement of yoga is meant to be performed with full awareness, breath control, and very specific poses designed to open up energy channels in the body and release emotional and mental blockages. Even non-flexible beginners benefit from this powerful, ancient practice of moving meditation.

Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Zen Archery, and other martial arts: much more than self-defense, these ancient arts combine impeccable self-mastery with an intimate understanding of Oneness, the life force and the breath.

Rhythm: As old as mankind, rhythmic, repetitive drumming and chanting has been used for many thousands of years to elicit an altered state of consciousness.

Prayer: Central to all religions, prayer may be the original structured meditation.

Song: Beloved as a spiritual, prayerful meditation, devotional songs help dissolve the ego and connect with the Divine. Most major religions include song meditation as part of their practice. Examples include gospel music and Gregorian chants.

Breathing: Zazen brings awareness to the breath. It is at the heart of the Zen tradition.

Thought Power: long accepted in the East, the power of thought has spread to the West. The Law of Attraction, power of intention and positive thinking involve the power of thought energy.

Walking: Called “Kinhin” in the Zen tradition. You enhance your present-awareness by focusing on the physical act of walking, or on the environment around you.

Contemplation: Spiritual philosophies incorporate the study of spiritual texts (or, if in a society without a written language, oral traditions) and introspection to reveal the conditioning and beliefs that cause us to have a false perception of reality.

Silent Meditation: Achieving pure, thought-less silence in the mind is a real treasure. It is blissful, energizing, and results in an amazing clarity of thinking.

Dance, as well as Sex (Tantra and Tantric Sex), are two more types of movement meditation.

Concentration: using an external object such as a candle to focus the mind.

Visualization: kundalini yoga and chakra meditation utilize visualizations of light, energy, etc. to achieve the desired results.

And yes, indeed, there is actually a meditation practice that involves contemplation of one’s navel… (actually it involves total control of the breath).

With all these choices, you’re sure to find a type of meditation that makes your soul sing Om…

Benefits of Meditation

Although meditation began as a spiritual practice where one strives to achieve enlightenment, inner peace and unity, it is also a tremendously powerful form of self-discipline that results in absolute mastery of one’s mental, emotional and physical aspects.

Meditation – Antidote For Stress

Today, it is the perfect antidote to the frantic pace of life and its chronic stress and “busy-ness.” Mental mastery gives you the tools to determine your life experience.

As you master your thoughts and emotions, you can actually choose how to perceive a situation, how it will impact you, and how you will respond. As a result, life becomes easier. It’s stress-free, calm, emotionally stable, happy and deeply peaceful.

But the benefits of meditation go beyond one-ness and self-mastery. Many scientific studies have been performed on the benefits of meditation. The benefits are incredibly varied.

Meditation:

• Decreases stress; and since stress is the number one cause or contributing factor of illness and disease, mental and emotional disorders and generally poor life experiences, this benefit is incredibly important.

• Accesses your intuition and opens you up to receiving inspiration in a non-judgmental way. Many people dismiss their “gut instinct” by rationalizing and using logic to second-guess themselves; when in fact, intuition never steers us wrong.

• Increases focus and concentration – this helps you learn better, and use what you have learned more effectively and efficiently.

• Increases your creativity. Meditation gives you greater access to the uninhibited right brain hemisphere where creativity abounds – without the censorship of the logical, time-and-space bound left brain.

• Increases your problem-solving skills. Meditation helps you perceive the world from different perspectives and so helps you think out of the box; it also helps take emotions out of the equation, since heightened emotional reactions often result in making the wrong choices.

• Increases memory recall by generally “sharpening” your mental faculties, and by creating a still mind so you can locate a memory without distractions.

• Helps with behavior modification such as getting rid of undesirable habits.

• Increases mental capacity and speed

• Increases a sense of unity with others; resulting in greater compassion, understanding and awareness. This, along with a reduction or elimination of stress, results in happier, healthier relationships!

• Improves sleep quality and regulates sleep patterns – which results in deeper, better sleep, and you end up needing less sleep!

• Teaches you the ability to manage pain without medication by taking your focus away from the pain and redirecting it, you effectively “shut the gate” on your pain response and your perception of pain.

• Improves health. The deep relaxation of meditation is a time when the body can heal, repair and regenerate. If your sleep is not restful, this healing time is lost, and the body suffers. During meditation, the brain releases the “antidotes” to the stress hormones that inhibit digestion and put the body on high alert. This lack of proper digestion can have unpleasant and potentially disastrous consequences if the stress is not released, since the organs don’t receive the nutrients they need. This is how stress decreases the immune response.

• Develops self-confidence. The more control you have over yourself, the more confidently you can approach any situation.

• Used to treat depression, anxiety, uncontrolled anger, phobias and other mental/emotional disorders.

• Increases your self-awareness so you can engage in meaningful personal growth – thus increasing your self-esteem.

• Develops patience, a sense of well-being and allows you to remain calm and centered even amid total chaos

Stress is also the number one destroyer of dreams and goals

If you’re chronically stressed, chances are good that your life is unfulfilled and unhappy.

Many people deal with stress with band-aid, temporary escapes such as alcohol, drugs, TV, sex and so forth. These do not take care of the root problem.

Even exercise, long touted as a stress-buster, does not take care of the root problem!

Only meditation teaches you the mental mastery that is absolutely essential to choosing a response other than stress. In meditation, you come to realize that it is your interpretation of a situation that causes stress; and you’ll eventually develop the ability to choose a different interpretation and therefore a different experience.

It’s a scientific fact that people who meditate regularly lead healthier, happier, more fulfilled lives.

Meditation can be seen as the master key, or the catalyst, to personal growth, achievement and success. If your goals are on hold and your dreams are still only wishes, you can change all that with a meditation practice… and achieve your heart’s desires!

History of Meditation

Meditation has been used for thousands of years primarily as:

• a spiritual practice of quieting the mind and turning one’s focus inward
• shutting out the worries of the world, and
• entering a profoundly relaxing, trance-like state of unity with God and/or all that is.

It is highly regarded as a discipline of self-mastery on all levels: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual.

Meditation develops self-mastery by focusing the mind on:

• a mantra or prayer,
• object,
• sound, or
• word, and
• consistently coaxing the mind back to its focus whenever it wanders or returns to its habitual chatter.

Eventually, the mind becomes quiet, with peace, happiness and clarity replacing mind chatter and negativity.

Where did meditation originate?

Meditation originated long before mankind ever became “civilized” – if you’ve ever stared into a campfire and experienced the altered state brought about by the hypnotic dance of the flames, you can understand how early man came to use these altered states as religious practices developed.

Even today, many meditators still chant rhythmic, repetitive mantras in order to enter the slower brain activity states of meditation or alterred states of consciousness – a practice that also originated in prehistoric times.

Archaeological evidence points to yogic practices within the Indus Valley in India dating back 5,000 years.

Written evidence that meditation was firmly established as a spiritual practice dates back to the Indian “Vedas.”By 500 years BC, meditative traditions had taken hold in China and the Zen tradition develped. Both Hindu and Buddhist meditative traditions have since spread to all parts of the world.

Meditation and religion

Meditation is central to all major religions (Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and Christianity). But as a religious practice, it was called by a different name – prayer. Many of these traditions involve breathing techniques – much like the Indian yogic traditions – as well as chants, specific postures, and scriptures.

Western Christian traditions differ from the rest in that they do not require audible repetition of a phrase.

In the 12th century, Benedictine monks developed formal steps to meditation – “read, ponder, pray and contemplate” which, if you look across the boundaries at all meditative traditions, is the same everywhere. One learns, thinks about, asks for guidance, and listens to intuitive guidance by going within. At the same time in Japan, Zazen, or sitting meditation, was becoming the norm among Japanese Buddhist monks.

Meditation and the West

Yoga and meditation hit the big time in the West in the 1960s. Some secularized versions of the ancient traditions appealed to those looking outside of formal religions. Today, both yoga and meditation are used for stress reduction, as a personal growth tool, and for relaxation.

Perhaps the best known meditation icon is the Buddha, whose statues adorn homes and temples throughout the world – almost always seated in his customary lotus position, eyes closed, the picture of tranquility and enlightenment.

Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as more and more people are reaching for something to take away the stress and negativity so prevalent in modern life – so it seems very right and natural to return to a practice rooted in mankind’s earliest beginnings.

Healing Light Colours

Using light and colour as healing therapies is an ancient practice that spans most of the cultures of the world.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Anyone who has suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, knows how important exposure to sunlight is, both physically and psychologically. People who are depressed for any reason often feel better almost instantly when they go outside and receive the healing benefits of the full spectrum of light provided by the sun. For those countries where winter sunlight is scarce, light therapy is used to elevate moods and stop the seasonal depression that plagues many people.

Ancient Civilisations

In ancient Egypt, temples were built around the concept of light and colour healing. Gems were placed into the walls so that as the sunlight shone through the gems, the resulting colour was used to heal specific ailments.

The ancient Greek city of Heliopolis – City of the Sun – was likewise famous for its light healing temples, where colours were used for healing various medical problems.

And for thousands of years, the Chinese, Indians and Tibetans have also used colours to heal. Healing light has only been in use in the West for not much more than a century, but we are finally catching up with the ancient wisdom of light-centered healing.

How are light healing and colour healing different and how are they related?

Light therapy, solar therapy and colour therapy share a common bond in that they are all based on the spectrum of light.

Colour is a product of light – it is actually nothing more than the visible spectrum of light – and so the essential concept is the same: certain frequencies of light (each of the colours represent unique frequencies) have certain healing properties. So whether you use lightbulbs of a certain light quality; or go outside into the sunshine; or use colour in your surroundings – you are, if the right type of light is used, promoting healing of your particular ailment.

Spas use healing light and colour therapy, sometimes in conjunction with therapeutic waters, massage and other body work, and the concept is slowly creeping into modern healthcare facilities.

Healing Light Treatments

Today, full-spectrum lights are used to treat SAD in Northern countries where sunlight is too brief in winter. Blue lights are used to cure neonatal jaundice.

Even acupuncturists are using specifically-colored lasers to stimulate acupuncture points in the body, rather than needles. This practice of “laserpuncture” stimulates cell growth, reduces pain, improves circulation and generally accelerates natural healing. Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are used to help heal scar tissue, stimulate live tissue and speed healing of wounds.

Many skin disorders can be cured with healing light; as can poor circulation, tissue damage, inflammation, headaches and pain. Healing light has even been used to stimulate hair follicles to prevent balding!

Hospital rooms, hotel rooms, therapy rooms and other healing locations can benefit greatly from having the type of light that promotes healing. Harsh fluorescent lights may be economical and provide adequate light for detail work (such as surgery), but they are not at all calming or soothing. Anyone who has ever been hospitalized can attest to a constant desire for the nursing staff to please turn those lights off!

A healthcare practitioner can speed up a patient’s healing by using healing light. And the patient can do his or her own healing by using the power of their mind.

Healing Light Meditation

Anyone can meditate, and visualize sunlight, and ‘feel’ its full-spectrum healing light permeate the body. And visualizing certain colours – the visible spectrum of light – can be used to heal ailments in organs that, to the individual, intuitively resonate with that colour.

If you’re depressed or stressed, go outside and grab some free healing light from the sun. If the sun is not cooperating by hiding behind clouds, you can invest in a few full-spectrum lightbulbs to have around the house, and lift your mood on the darkest of days (both environmentally and emotionally).

Heal broken heart

Healing a broken heart takes more than time, more than keeping busy, and much more than putting on a happy face and getting on with your life. Well-meaning friends and family sometimes make the situation worse by urging you to do things that are supposed to help, even if the timing is all wrong for you, or you just can’t stomach the thought of dating again when all you want to do is curl up in a ball and melt into a puddle of tears.

Ultimately the journey of mending a broken heart is a journey of coming into the light of love, and meditation can be your greatest guide. Meditation can be the gateway to renewed happiness.

Emotional Healing Remedies

There are several powerful emotional healing remedies that you can perform during meditation.

The first is to begin your meditation by sending out the healing energy of love. You may think that you’ve got nothing left to give because your grief is all-encompassing but truly, if you concentrate on radiating pure love and light out to everyone – including (especially) the one who broke your heart – that loving energy will also come back to you, and it will come back to you very quickly.

Nothing is more healing and more comforting than love… and now, you are receiving the love of the entire universe.

As you feel the warmth and light of love radiate through you, visualize your heart. If it appears broken, then visualize it being not “broken” but “open” and you can allow the love and light to enter, and to fill it completely. Every little dark corner can be filled with love and light, until the sadness and anguish disappears.

Heal Your Emotional Wounds

If you do these two simple meditation exercises every day, you will heal your emotional wounds and your heart much quicker than if you close yourself off from love by giving in to the strong pull of sadness, loneliness and anger.

Deep meditation is a state of timelessness and energy. There is no time, only the present.

And right now, in the present moment, you can allow love to enter your opened heart. In deep meditation, you lose the sense of yourself as a physical being that may feel lonely or needy. You become aware of your energetic being-ness that is not separate from anyone or anything – for where does energy end, and where does energy begin?

This will help you feel the loving energy of the entire universe… the energy that created you, and the energy that IS you, both as your physical and nonphysical states.

Dealing With Anger and Resentment

Many times, when our hearts are broken we feel wronged and hurt, and there can be a lot of anger and resentment. Meditation takes you outside yourself and allows you to see the situation from the other person’s perspective.

You really have to get outside your own limited perception of reality to begin to empathize and feel compassion for the other person – so you can understand that even the person who does the leaving is hurting too. This doesn’t make the person come back, but it is healing for you to not get caught up in the extremely powerful negativity of blame, bitterness, guilt, resentment, anger and sadness.

Allow Your Feelings To Pass Through You

Meditation is also the perfect time to allow feelings to pass through you, without hopping aboard the train of tears. This may be one of the most important things for you to master.

You can learn to do this during meditation when there are less distractions, and then apply the technique to any situation that triggers strong negative emotions in you… which probably happens often after a relationship has ended.

Every time your brain generates a certain emotion in response to a thought you have, it takes 90 seconds from the time the chemicals are released, course through your system, and become reabsorbed or flushed out.

Just 90 seconds.

So for those 90 seconds, focus on the emotion itself – say to yourself, “I feel angry” or “I feel sad” and DO NOT attach to the thoughts that generated the emotion. Just feel the emotion, and in a minute and a half, the emotion will have passed!

If you still feel angry, or sad, after those 90 seconds, it’s because you are choosing to attach to the thoughts that preceded the emotional response.

Can you see how powerful this is?

When you master the art of choosing to let emotions pass through you, you can also choose to quickly return to a state of happiness. This takes a bit of practice but it’s well worth it because feeling happy is so much better than feeling sad!

You don’t have to spiral downward by thinking about the situation! It’s important that when you feel your emotions, you DO NOT say, “I am angry” or “I am sad”. An emotion is just like a physical sensation. We say “I am hot” or “I am cold”… but that is not really correct.

What Are We Really?

Are we hot or cold, or are we just feeling the temperature in our environment and our bodies? Are we just feeling the physical sensations, or ARE we the sensations? YOU are not hot, or cold, or angry, or sad, or depressed… you FEEL these things, but they are not you. You are only experiencing these things! You are not these things and they are not you.

So allow these feelings to pass through you and subside… and then radiate outward what you wish to receive – LOVE.

Chakras

Your health is precious and you want to take care of it as best you can. You’ll notice that many people are working towards getting the right balance of chemicals in their bodies to achieve optimum health. One of the other things to consider is that a large proportion of the population find it difficult to relax and get their emotions under control.

Anger Contributes To Poor Health

Unfortunately, anger can be one of the contributing factors to poor health … so this is one of the key emotions that you want to be keeping to a minimum as much as possible. In fact … it is reasonable to say that if you don’t need to be angry then don’t … that way you have more chance of maintaining your spiritual balance. This then helps you live in good health and be able to generate excellent healing quality when required by your body.

Today it seems that many people are not meditating with the purpose of balancing their emotions and their spirit through this practice. When you meditate regularly this can play a vital role in creating huge tangible benefits for your physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s true that when you meditate, you’ll find that you can relax more easily and control your emotions better. Interestingly, you’ll notice that you are not using your energy on being angry and you have more positive, harmonious experiences instead. It’s important to remember that of all the emotions … anger uses the most.

Control Your Emotions With Chakra Meditation

So … if you want to take control of your emotions, relax more, or you just go to that place where you experience complete oneness and unity, you’ll love the experience of doing a chakra meditation.

Chakra meditation is becoming more popular today because it has huge health benefits. Not only do you experience better health, but when you do a chakra meditation regularly – you’ll be much happier, too. This particular chakra meditation should be done every day for a minimum of 30 minutes to manifest spiritual healing and experience balanced, stable emotions.

Everyone can learn how to do this chakra meditation. It’s easy. Find yourself a quiet space where you know you won’t be interrupted for a minimum of 30 minutes … bring your imagination and the journey begins.

To begin with … it’s important for you to consider the concept of your body having seven major chakras. In Eastern cultures it is commonly known that to have good health – these seven chakras need to be kept balanced. These chakras are known as the crown (Shasrara), the brow or third eye (Ajna), the throat (Vishudda), the heart (Anahata), the navel (Manipura), the sacral (Svadisthana), and the root or base (Muladhara). In order for you to know how to facilitate spiritual balance and maintain optimum health you need to know how to open up these seven chakras properly.

Firstly, imagine there is a spinning light that is connect to each chakra. Start from the root or base chakra (Muladhara) and then slowly move your way up through to the crown chakra (Shasrara). Each chakra is represented by a color and you should learn these colors as follows:

Crown – Violet
Brows – or third eye – Indigo
Throat – Blue
Heart – Green (Emerald)
Navel – Yellow
Sacral – Orange
Root or base – Red

When doing this chakra meditation it is important to know that your breath plays a significant role in this meditation. Most yoga instructors will know how to teach you the proper steps to doing the chakra meditation so that you gain the maximum benefit physically, spiritually and emotionally from it. So visit your local yoga teacher for best results.

Have you ever eaten something and pfwah!!!! your stomach just blows up and you feel uncomfortable … or even worse you get colicky pain in your abdomen?

I’ve read the food combining books … and know I should eat certain foods together … but sometimes I forget to be careful.  And that’s what happened this week.

Sardines For Lunch - Good For Your Bones

I’m not as young as I used to be and am looking after my bones … so I like to eat fish a few times a week.  This is mainly tuna in the small tins … but I thought for something different I would try some sardines in tomato sauce.  They weren’t that great – however, I ate them anyway on some multi-grain toast.

Do you ever wander around the house looking for something sweet, especially after you’ve eaten something healthy?  For me its one of the drawbacks of working from home … I just can’t duck out of the office to the shop and get something naughty to eat … and I don’t have a vending machine in my garage.

Someone once said to me … you’re not hungry if an apple won’t do – so have a drink of water.  I was prowling – looking for something sweet and couldn’t find anything … that’s my secret to not putting on weight – no sweet stuff in the house … and so decided on an apple instead.

Bad move after the sardines on toast … what was I thinking !!!!!

Within 20 minutes … and this is no exaggeration … my normally flat stomach had blown out to look the size of a 6 month pregnancy – it was not a fun time!!!  I was full of colic and my heart went out to babies afflicted by this curse.

Thank goodness … I’m a healer … after squirming around for half an hour trying to work, but really too distracted to do anything very effective -  I remembered I do have some strategies that might work.

You’ve got the picture … not a pretty one I know – but the solution was fabulous.

Imagine a blue ball tracking through here

Standing tall – I placed my hands on either side of my painful abdomen – and imagined that I was swallowing a beautiful ball of royal blue light (about the size of a golf ball) and I tracked it down into my stomach … watched it do a couple of 360 loops and then it went down into my duodenum – did a swirl around there – and then down into the small intestine … through to the large intestine and out you know where.

I have a little rule when I use this healing template – if I get distracted by the pain – I go back to the beginning and start again … so I did this a couple of times and amazingly in minutes my poor swollen abdomen had softened and was going down quite quickly.  But the gripey pains were still there a bit.

Think Julie Think!!!

What did you do when Tash had colic as a baby?  Then I remembered … I used to dip her dummy into brandy and that would stop her screaming and kicking her legs in agony.  (This has been handed down by mother to daughter for generations in my family.)

So … next it was off to the cupboard hunting down the bottle of brandy. I knew we had some there for medicinal purposes. (If I could wiggle my eyebrows at you here, I would.)  Aaahhh … I found it – had a big mouthful.  Doesn’t it have a bit of a kick when it hits the stomach straight?

Yummy Chocolate Bliss Balls - Good For You, Too!

This helped a bit more … and then I remembered … camomile tea is soothing for the stomach.  Luckily I had some organic camomile bud tea in the cupboard and made a pot of that.  And let me say – it was the most delicious cup of camomile tea I’ve ever had … and it did its job.

Aaaahhhhh … pain all gone … tummy back to normal.

Moral of the story: don’t eat apples and sardines close together.  And have some  yummy chocolate goodies in the house that are good for you … and what’s even better you can make them yourself and save lots of money, too!

Have you read  “The Celestine Prophecy” series of books by James Redfield?

Even though the first book in the series was a little challenging to get into … I was captivated by the story and had to keep reading once I got into it.

Back in the mid-1990′s when the Celestine Prophecy was first published, I was working full time as a medical intuitive after appearing on the TV show “The Extraordinary” … and there were many people asking me if I had read the book.  My standard response was … “No, I don’t feel the need to read the book.”

One day I had some time on my hands while I was waiting for my children to finish their Saturday sport … and I found myself in a bookstore in a shopping centre that I was unfamiliar with.  I had no intention of buying anything when I went in … I was just killing time – or so I thought.

Almost as if I was in a trance I picked up “The Celestine Prophecy” and was at the cash register handing over my money when I came out of my daze.  I was too embarrassed to say, “I’m sorry I’ve made a mistake, I don’t want this book!”

I walked out the door of the shop shaking my head … wondering what had just happened.

I shrugged my shoulders and thought to myself … obviously I’m meant to read it.  So, I did … I started reading it straight away.

Back in those days, I was so busy doing medical intuitive readings for people I was working 7 days a week … and this day was no exception.  I had a client booked in later that afternoon.  I didn’t get the book finished before my client arrived, but I had read a big chunk of it.

I was stunned to discover that I didn’t buy the book for me … I needed to direct my client to read this book that day.  It was exactly what he needed at that time to move forward.

We had a chuckle about how the energy moved through me to make this happen.

Now …  16 years later, having read the books in between – “The Tenth Insight” and “The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight” … I pre-ordered my copy of “The Twelft Insight” keen to see what happens next.

AND … I wasn’t disappointed.

One of the comments I loved from James Redfield when he was asked, “When is the next book coming out?” … he would respond, “I don’t know it hasn’t happened yet.”

I don’t know about you, but I have just loved the energy shifts that have been happening over the past 20 years in the world – and I firmly believe that James Redfield’s work in “The Celestine Prophecy” series has been a big player in activating this.

And … I wasn’t disappointed with “The Twelfth Insight” … I settled in for a day’s reading – and read it all in one go.  Only getting off the bed for a bathroom stop and to make a new cuppa.

Why did I enjoy this book so much?

Well … I loved the fact that James’ characters talked about integrating the insights.  Rather than just experiencing them randomly and almost accidentally … he now has his characters living the insights more often than not.  And I was particularly interested in the sections that dealt with how to handle negative or confronting energy. The description of what you can do to protect yourself from this downward spiral of energy was well written.

I don’t know about you … but I would talk with my friends and we’d say to each other … “I wonder if James really has experienced these insights … how could he write about them – if he hadn’t experienced them!”  … and yes, meeting James Redfield is on my bucket list.

Anyhow … the vibration of truth that runs through this parable of sorts … really resonates with me.

Have you experienced the insights for real?

I’d love to hear your feedback on your experiences of synchronicity … and the connection of energy with people that makes you feel that we do exist in an ocean of oneness and no action is separate from each of us.

Next post … I’ll be writing about some of my synchronicity experiences.

Ciao for now … Julie