Breathe For A Little Stress Relief

August 30, 2016 by

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Wow.  Who knew?  I can calm my own self down, for goodness sake, super easily; anywhere, any place, at any time.

I’ve apparently been living under a rock.   I haven’t fully figured out until now that I can take command of my own mind and body, at least in regard to lessening the tension in myself, particularly in my neck and shoulders.  It’s as remarkably easy as breathing.

It was beautiful from the first yoga class.

Follow me:

Blow all of your breath out

Close your mouth, and fill up with air through your nose to a slow count of six

At the top, draw one more breath and hold for a second or two

Slowly blow out your breath through the back of your throat, mouth closed, to the count of six.  Blow it down the back of your throat so that it has a bit of an ocean wave sound affect.

Fill up with air again to the count of six, and repeat it all

That’s it.  It’s called your ujjayi [ooh-jah-ee] breath.

They just taught the thirty-six volleyball referees from five continents, who worked  at the Rio Olympics, a five-step process, in preparation for the games.  It included things such as yoga, meditation, role-playing, breathing and visualization techniques.  The point was to have the referees keep themselves calm during such high pressure conditions.  Says Dan Apol, 44, of Denver, one of the few full-time volleyball referees, “A lot of people are watching, and when things go wrong, it gets noticed.  I know for a fact there’s one camera from NBC that’s pointed at us at all times.”

According to the Wall Street Journal article published on August 17, 2016, volleyball officials said they are happy with how things have played out at the Olympics, stating that “The referees are showing a lot of tranquility.”

When I do a few rounds of breathing, during my breath out, my exhale, I can literally feel tension dissolve kind of down the back of my neck, then where my neck meets my shoulders, and then across the tops of both of my shoulders at the same time.  It almost has a similar effect at that moment as having the area massaged.

I recommend trying it.

And of course, when there is time for indulgence, it is glorious to do some meditative breathing, in a comfortable seated position, with a candle burning in your space, and the following album playing in the background, Spiritual Cleansing, by Asian Zen Spa Music Meditation on Spotify, or the song Purification Mantra of Five Elements by Drukmo Gyal on SoundCloud.

You take charge of so many things in your day, perhaps take charge of at least some of the dissipation of your own stress.

I think you’ll like it.  I do for sure.

 

Photo and quote pictured, from Karen Salmansohn, notsalmon.com

Filed Under: Posipsych, Stress Tagged With: , , , , , ,

What Is He Hungry For?

August 11, 2016 by

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Gregory.  He lives between the Starbucks and the barbeque place near the corner of Mission Beach Boulevard and Mission Bay Drive; catty corner from the roller coaster, in San Diego.  You see him a lot, along the boardwalk.

One of the first things Gregory speaks about when you begin a conversation with him is the time several years ago that a group of rich kids beat him up.  He needed emergency surgery and stayed in the hospital for over a week.  He shows you his scars and tells you the details.  They took his thirteen dollars.

I think it’s just as my ob/gyn told me after my first long and painful natural childbirth experience.  Many weeks later I mentioned that I still couldn’t read, because I couldn’t concentrate.  His response was that he thinks as humans we need to relive significantly upsetting experiences over and over, and talk about them over and over, until we have rehashed them enough to be comfortable with them in our heads.

Gregory and I are a little bit of buds.  I am always happy that he remembers me.  Our last encounter was amusing.  From another man I know, Greg, who has been hanging around my neighborhood in Phoenix for the past five years, I realize that people living on the streets get hungry for homemade food.  But I’m not much of a cook – not my thing.  So when I last saw Gregory I asked him what he was hungry for?  He thought for a minute and decided that a tuna fish sandwich sounded awfully good, and anything other than water to drink.  He was tired of water.  I said okay, I would be back.

I decided instead of buying him a “chick food” tuna sandwich with tarragon, dill, and the like, from a cafe near me, that a plain old homemade tuna sandwich from a deli market about a mile and a half away was probably much more what he was thinking.

At this point I recruited my husband, who was out on a bike, to go get him a sandwich and a bottle of my favorite Apricot nectar (Looza’s), because he might have a shot at getting there more quickly; quickly enough to be able to still find Gregory.

Well, as these things often go, my husband rode around for quite awhile before locating him.  When he finally did, Gregory was sitting on the boardwalk by Hamel’s talking to a woman who was standing over him.  John waited awhile for a break in their conversation, straddling his bike, kind of standing over, but to the side of them, with the plastic to-go bags hanging on the handlebar of his bike.  When the conversation finally paused, John looked at Gregory and asked, “Did you order a tuna sandwich?”

Gregory thought during a long pause, and after a puzzled look which turned into a faint grin, said “Yes”.

John handed him his lunch and pedaled off.

We still wonder what the woman thought, and we still giggle.  It was fun and it was funny.  Gregory is cool.
You might check out this song, Tuna Fish Sandwich, by Tim Hawkins. (I’ll make a Spotify fan out of you yet.)

We think these guys are as much a part of this community as we are.  If you would like to combat a few of the locals, including a woman named Racheal Allen and a man named Mike Spangler, who are trying to run off the homeless folks so that they can have a prettier looking beach, you might check out their Facebook page, cleanuppb.

Here is an article about the issue in the local paper, the Beach and Bay Press.

 

Photo of  Gregory, with his permission, by the author.

Filed Under: Chuckle, Homeless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Listening To These Voices In My Head

July 26, 2016 by

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I read the advice years ago – it would be good to pay attention to the voices in my head.

This is what I read, taken directly from Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now (1999):  “When someone goes to the doctor and says, ‘I hear a voice in my head’,  he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist.  The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time:  the involuntary thought processes that you don’t realize you have the power to stop.  Continuous monologues or dialogues.”

“You have probably come across ‘mad’ people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves.  Well, that’s not much different from what you and all other ‘normal’ people do, except that you don’t do it out loud.  The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on.  The voice isn’t necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations.  Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry.”

“Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or ‘mental movies’.  Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past.  This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited.   So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past, and get a totally distorted view of it.  It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person’s own worst enemy.  Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy.  It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease.”

“The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind.  This is the only true liberation.  You can take the first step right now.  Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can.  Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years.  This is what I mean by ‘watching the thinker’, which is another way of saying:  listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.”

(My commentary again)   I have barely revisited this concept since my initial effort fifteen years ago.  Back then, I figured out that when I am really upset, I say to myself (softly and gently, which is a good thing) “It’s okay.”  Now, when I hear me tell myself “It’s okay”, I know that I am having a significant negative reaction to a situation; that I am more than mildly disturbed about it.

Flash forward to a girlfriend in the support group that I have a long history of hanging with.  She seems to have me on her radar.  She has watched me during the twenty-five years that we have been meeting, and has picked up on how darned hard on myself I am, in my head.  I am critical of me a lot, probably constantly; I am self-doubting, always thinking of what I could have done to handle a situation better, or to have made things come out “right” instead of “wrong”.  She said to me, “You do all of these things, and then you think that you haven’t done enough, and that you aren’t good enough.  I don’t get it.”  She shook her head in some combination of disbelief and wonder.

I am saying these things because I’m clearly not the only one afflicted.  Have you ever paid attention to what you are saying to yourself, to the thoughts playing on your gramophone?  I am spurred on by a recent Twitter post by @tinybuddha which reads, “You will never speak to anyone else more than you speak to yourself in your head.  Be kind to yourself.”

You might enjoy listening to Be Kind To Yourself by Andrew Peterson; either via the video on YouTube, or the song on Spotify.

I am going to, once again, pay attention to these voices in my head, and hear what they are saying; what I am saying to me. I will try to be as kind to me as I am to others.  Will you?

 

A History of the Gramophone

Photo credit, Google images.

 

 

Filed Under: Happiness, Kindness, Power Songs Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

I’m Sexy and I Know It

July 12, 2016 by

As Igor from The Red Elvises, “Your favorite band!”  might say (use a loud voice and a Russian accent), “Your favorite music source!”  Spotify, Spotify, Spotify.  I can’t say it enough.  Spotify, Spotify …download the app  right here, right now,  the free version. Full disclosure – I have no ties to Spotify except that I pay their monthly fee.  I enjoy it daily.  I bet you’ll love it like I do.

Now,  how’s this for a confidence boost? …

I’m Sexy and I Know It

It’s so nice being a midlife woman. There is a calm to it.  It’s easy to identify with the trite statement, “It just is.”

I am finding that every now and then a little irony threads through my life, and I can see it here again.

This irony from awhile ago:  I always chuckled that for some of us mothers, as we perhaps voluntarily sacrificed an income to be more hands-on in raising our children, we had time. Time. In a mother sort of way, which means two minutes here and five minutes there.  But we always had the possibility of a little bit of time, with the freedom to gather the little ones and go do something fun – sometimes just anything to get out of the house – that carrot dangling in front of us.

And then while we were busy sacrificing our income, and finding ourselves with some very real mobile possibilities within our day, we, at the same point, didn’t have the extra money for shopping. We had time, but no money. Sigh.

And now I find myself having confidence in my body.

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I’m finally coming to at least some peace with the fact that we women are judged on our looks.  I can also finally see that I shouldn’t be so critical of myself.  Where did all of my constant self criticism come from?

I find that we women are judged by our looks absolutely constantly, either obviously or subliminally, in our culture.  I also find that men are judged by their income, either obviously or subliminally, in our culture.  I don’t think either one is healthy, and the pressure is on just the same:  24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  I think that we each just get to come to terms with this reality at some point in our lives.  This point seems to be, for me, around now, fifty something.

But wouldn’t it have been better timing to have been confident when there was a little more to be confident about, when it was a twenty something body, or even a forty something body?

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It’s the irony again.  I wonder what the next irony will be.

 

Filed Under: Happiness, Power Songs Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Progressive Journey of Motherhood

June 11, 2016 by

 

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So when my first child was born,  as soon as we left the hospital full of helpful nurses and all-knowing doctors, about twenty-four hours after giving birth, I was overwhelmed with a sensation that many of us mothers likely experience.  This newborn, exciting, hoped for, anxiously awaited, prayed for, delightful little baby person was now fully my responsibility.  Many in my life, including his father, were around to “help”, but the bottom line still overwhelmingly sunk in that this miniature human being was 100% dependent upon me.

He couldn’t move from where he was placed, eat, crawl, walk, play, get out of the house in case of a fire, or ask for what he needed – nothing, absolutely nothing, without me.  Okay, I adapted.  Life moved forward and like the frog who doesn’t hop out of the pot of gradually heating water because he gets used to it, along came another baby, and more responsibility, and work, and so forth.

Before I knew it, they were moving out to pursue higher education ventures, leaving me crying in their wake.  The same house that felt wonderful when we bought it before they were born, now felt vacuous, and unbelievably lonely.  But in between, and I have added it up, my ultra conservative estimate is that I said, “Did you brush your teeth?” approximately 24,090 times.  No joke.  I’ve done the math.  It’s a conservative estimate.

The journey from being 100% responsible for my little creations, to biting my tongue and not stating the obvious because I will insult their intelligence, is something that nobody really prepared me for.  Twenty-eight and twenty-five years later, I try to think before I open my mouth so that I don’t say something that is eye-rolling worthy, even if they are polite enough to do it in their minds instead of on their faces.  The more I dilute my conversation with blah, blah, of course, type of statements, the less they will pay attention to what I am saying all of the time.

But try it.  Try to change so drastically.  It was my job to educate them!  For years!  About EVERYTHING!  “What this?”  “It’s a light switch.  Look over there, it will make that light turn on.”  “What that?”  “It’s a can opener, it will open this can of food so we can eat it.  Watch me turn the handle and see the blade cut through the thick metal.”

Try it when you have taken your role to heart.  How come nobody ever pointed out how much I needed to change?  It blows me away that all of us parents, maybe mothers particularly, travel this journey, and that no one mentions it.

I guess I changed gradually along with them, but probably not gracefully.  I could’ve been more graceful had I been more aware.  Like when they were finally old enough to leave in the car by themselves, but still kids.   I used to get out and lock the doors, turn to them and say, “Don’t let anyone steal you.”  My joke.  I thought it was good tongue-in-cheek, but maybe just a little bit making a point to be aware of their surroundings, and put up a stink in case something bad began to happen.  Until the day they drove, got out of the car, turned to me and said, “Don’t let anybody steal you.”  I thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”  Ridiculous.  It still makes me laugh.

And this week my tongue is bleeding.  But I did it.  I passed another test.  I did not ask my twenty-eight year old if he was in the precarious position of needing to leave his twenty-five thousand dollars of SnapOn tools in his three thousand dollar SnapOn toolbox overnight in the back of his pickup truck as he was finalizing his cross country move.

I’m so glad I didn’t, because he did.  And it’s all good.  All good.  Yay me.

Filed Under: Chuckle, Parenting Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Sweeten Life By Opening to Pleasure

May 21, 2016 by

image  This nectar ~ the most sensuous and satisfying drink I’ve ever had.  At my first chilled taste, I realized why “nectar” is such a revered concept.

 

Here is more input about the chakras, specifically the Second Chakra, which involves our emotions and sexuality, from The Chakra Balancing Workbook by Anodea Judith.  The reference to “finding one’s own place” within this realm of sexuality and emotions, sounds logical, healthy, and freeing.

“The Sanskrit name for this chakra is Svadhisthana, which translates as ‘one’s own place.’  This refers to the personal nature of the second chakra aspects of our emotions and sexuality.  It is important that we stand in  ‘our own place’ within this chakra and define our sexual and emotional issues in a way that is suitable to our individual characters.  If our roots are deep and well-watered, then our fruit will be sweet. – the Sanskrit verb svadha means ‘to sweeten.’  From the center of one’s own place, we sweeten life by opening to pleasure.”

“Pleasure promotes well-being and is a natural healing force.  It teaches us how to open up, how to move, how to reach beyond ourselves.  Pleasure comes to us through any of our senses:  seeing a sunset, tasting a meal, listening to music, savoring a lover’s touch.”

 

image.jpeg The sun setting over the Pacific Ocean in Mission Beach, California, has such a draw that most of us sit still, or stand still, and watch for several minutes as it appears to hit the water and then gradually disappear.  It feels like a communal spiritual experience.

 

“Through the senses we first get ‘in touch.’  To be in touch is to know what we feel, to be awake and aware.  To be in touch is to be connected.”

“The pull of the erotic in this chakra represents the universal urge to connect with others.  Through desire, emotion, pleasure, and sensation, we enter the complex realm of sexuality – a place where we dissolve our boundaries and enter into intimacy with another.”

“While some traditions teach that pleasure is a dangerous distraction on the road to enlightenment, healthy pleasures – such as touch, play, laughter, sexuality, and experiencing beauty – lead to contentment and peace, rather than an insatiable desire for more.”

 

As Smokey Robinson and The Miracles sang in 1967, I second that emotion.

…Oh, but if you feel like lovin’ me, if you got the notion, I second that emotion.  So, if you feel like giving me a lifetime of devotion, I second that emotion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: The Chakras Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Holding My Temper

May 9, 2016 by

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I have read two great things recently about handling my normal human being anger.  They synchronize.

The first was this lengthy, powerful article written by a prominent American, Tibetan Buddhist Nun.  She is a woman named Pema Chodron, who was born in 1936 here in America.  She published an article in 2005, which I recently read on LionsRoar.com, The Answer to Anger and Aggression is Patience.

It’s a long article, but so interesting to me.  She is referring, with the words “anger” and “aggression”, to our normal human response of frustration and all of the emotions that get stirred up when we are upset about a situation.  She says basically, we all hear and have all of this advice, but what do you really do when feeling the anger and aggression?

I quote:  “It’s said that patience is a way to de-escalate aggression. I’m thinking here of aggression as synonymous with pain. When we’re feeling aggressive—and in some sense this would apply to any strong feeling—there’s an enormous pregnant quality that pulls us in the direction of wanting to get some resolution. It hurts so much to feel the aggression that we want it to be resolved.”

“At that point, patience means getting smart:  you stop and wait. You also have to shut up, because if you say anything it’s going to come out aggressive, even if you say, ‘I love you’.”

“So what do we usually do?  We do exactly what is going to escalate the aggression and the suffering. We strike out; we hit back. Something hurts our feelings, and initially there is some softness there—if you’re fast, you can catch it—but usually you don’t even realize there is any softness. You find yourself in the middle of a hot, noisy, pulsating, wanting-to-just-get-even-with-someone state of mind:  it has a very hard quality to it. With your words or your actions, in order to escape the pain of aggression, you create more aggression and pain.”

 

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“Patience has a lot to do with getting smart at that point and just waiting:  not speaking or doing anything. On the other hand, it also means being completely and totally honest with yourself about the fact that you’re furious. You’re not suppressing anything—patience has nothing to do with suppression. In fact, it has everything to do with a gentle, honest relationship with yourself.  … When you practice patience, you’re not repressing anger, you’re just sitting there with it – going cold turkey with the aggression.”

Pema Chodron goes on to say more in the article that I found worth reading, but in the event that the several times that I have read and reread this article fail to make a mark on my behavior, listen to this slang term used in England that I’ve just heard.  It perhaps lands a bit of a lower blow about the times I act on my frustration.  It’s the second best thing, yet maybe the most motivating thing, that I have come across.   If I annoyingly or painfully act out my anger on someone, I may be referred to as having “spit out my dummy”.

“Spit out my dummy.”  I don’t have anything else to add to that.

 

Photo credit:  photopin.com

 

 

Filed Under: American Buddhism Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Speaking of Moral Leaders, Check out Pope Francis

April 14, 2016 by

      

Big Heart Open Wide

      BIG HEART      OPEN WIDE

“Right, yes,” the pope continues.  “I know St. Mary Major, St. Peter’s…but when I had to come to Rome, I always stayed in [the neighborhood of] Via Della Scrofa.  From there I often visited the Church of St. Louis of France, and I went there to contemplate the painting of The Calling of St. Matthew, by Caravaggio.”

I begin to intuit what the pope wants to tell me.

“That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew.  That’s me.  I feel like him.  Like Matthew.”  Here the pope becomes determined, as if he had finally found the image he was looking for.  “It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me:  he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me!  No, this money is mine.’  Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze.  And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.”  Then the pope whispers in Latin, “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.”

from A Big Heart Open to God

A Conversation with Pope Francis

Interview by Antonio Spadaro, S.J.

 

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/36954483@N03/25915525665″>Can’t think of a title… er… Bob</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;, photo of painting The Calling of St. Matthew from Wikipedia.

 

Filed Under: Pope Francis Tagged With: , ,