Very few things cause as much pain in human life as the emotional traumas from our past. Take Shannon, for example (not her real name). An incident from her youth is preventing her from opening up sexually to her husband, from giving him the intimacy he or anyone would seek in their marriage. Then there's Tim, the guy who's controlling personality makes his colleagues miserable and, again, it's a kind of defense mechanism from his past, one he refuses to deal with.
As an Orthodox Christian priest, I can tell you we get people like this coming to us all the time. Sometimes they sense the healing they can find through the tradition. More often, unfortunately, they're just as willing to settle for something to dull the pain or, even better, to explain it in noble terms as a "cross to bear" or a "sacrifice".
The truth, though, is that until these folks face reality and make a commitment to their own inner healing, they'll never be able to nurture fulfilling relationships, to understand what love is really about or to have any kind of spiritual life that's not pure delusion.
And, let's be candid, you and I are not much different from Shannon and Tim. True, our neuroses may not be as serious or obvious as theirs, but unless we face them and allow the healing process to take place within our mind-body organism, we'll still face some pretty undesirable consequences in our lives.
So the big question is.... how do we heal our past emotional traumas???
Welcome to Energy Psychology!
Energy Psychology is an emerging field of study that’s turning conventional psychology on its head. I don’t know how many psychology PhDs I’ve met that told me something like, “No, I didn’t believe these energy methods would work, but then my clients started using them and got better results in 15 minutes than I could get for them in 15 months using conventional methods.”
The 2 methods that I've recommended in the past and found startling results with were the now well-known Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and the newer and less well-known Be Set Free Fast (BSFF). These are two very different approaches, yet each has been clinically proven very effective and the beauty of them is that once you know either method, you can treat yourself anywhere, anytime in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
What kind of results do they get? At the very least, they loosen the grip of the “killer thought” that’s afflicting you to such an extent that you can finally function freely outside its grasp for a considerable time. It may return, but then you just “zap it” again. However, if you use either of these methods to their full extent over time, you can actually eliminate your negative conditioning permanently!
My Number One Choice:
Naturally, clients often ask me which method they should learn and how to do that. My first choice is Dr. Carol Look’s latest EFT approach, called “A Vibrational Approach to Healing Pain and Illness.”
Carol is one of the top instructors in EFT worldwide and this product encapsulates her latest and most effective approach to healing the emotional traumas of your past. You may not relate to the “killer thoughts” holding you back as “traumas”, but as far as your body is concerned that’s exactly what they are. They are powerful emotional responses “frozen” into particular parts of your body’s tissues and its energy system, in exactly the same way this happens with the physical trauma of a car accident, for instance.
Now the question is, after using numerous variations of EFT, BSFF and other approaches, why would I tell my clients to start with this particular product? It’s like this: with all the other approaches I personally did experience results and relief. However, Carol’s newest EFT approach embodied in this particular product is the only one that gave me resolution. Let me explain.
As an internationally known personal development coach, I’ve used ancient methods from Tai Chi and Qi Gong to create deep states of relaxation and do away with some traumatic stress and anxiety I was conditioned with in my childhood. However, there was one particular fear of phobia that I just could not dislodge no matter how hard I tried. Other energy psychology approaches lessened the discomfort for a few hours at a time, but the wretched feeling would always come back.
Then came Dr. Carol Look’s approach. After using it to treat this particular phobia for an hour or so, it was gone, disappeared. Imagine my shock – something unpleasant I had just had to live with for decades was suddenly not there. Freedom!
And I didn’t see hide nor hair of it for several months. Then the first time I felt it coming back, albeit in a much weakened form, I just laughed, saying, “I’m glad you’re back. Ever since I ran your ass out of town a few months back I’ve been looking forward to this rematch!”
You see, I was used to running and hiding from this phobia and I’d feel a kind of terror when I felt it coming on – kind of like being afraid of fear. Not fun. After using Carol’s method, though, I felt the opposite. I now had for the first time a total confidence in the face of my enemy, a feeling that can only be described with the words, “Bring it on!”
So if you want to live life to the full, to find real inner freedom and the world of possibilities that's closed to you unless you have that, it’s time to zap all the traumas, fears and self-limiting beliefs that are holding you back. And, in my personal experience, Dr. Carol Look’s “A Vibrational Approach to Healing Pain and Illness” is the absolute tops.
And you can find it here: http://bit.ly/a9ExcT
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Summer: the Key to Building Your Personal Resilience (Part 2)
(There's a special breathing exercise for you at the end, but read the whole thing first!)
Last time I talked a bit about how and why to use the summer months to work on certain aspects of your fitness, aspects that are far easier to work on with the higher ambient temperatures.
(Speaking of higher ambient temperature, the reason I'm inside writing this and not out enjoying the bright sunny day is that the humidex in Ottawa today is 44C / 111F. "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.")
Anyway, I digress. There are also lots of other ways you can build your personal RESILIENCE most easily at this time of year, so let's take a look at them:
Nutrition:
Switching your diet around to include more freshly grown fruits and vegetables can significantly boost your intake of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, trace elements and more. In addition, the energetic or "qi" content of these foods is far superior, giving your immune system a much needed boost.
And including more "cooling" foods in your diet - including most fruits and veggies, as well as cooling herbs like fresh mint (my garden's overrun with the stuff) - will help your metabolism to function most effectively in the hot weather. Also, these foods require far less energy for your body to digest than do heavier foods like red meat, so you benefit from that as well.
One easy way to include more cooling foods is to make smoothies. Here's an excellent site for smoothie recipes:
http://www.smoothieweb.com
Cleansing:
Since your body doesn't need to devote a lot of resources to keeping your core temperature warm in the summer, this season is ideal for doing a cleanse. If you've ever done a cleanse in the winter, on the other hand, and especially one that cut down your food intake, you know firsthand how cold you get without the food you're used to.
Your body also detoxifies naturally during the summer. Since your skin is a major organ of elimination and you're exposing more of it to the air, and since you're sweating more, toxin removal is much more efficient. Some of the best cleanses we know of (and that I've used myself) can be found here:
http://www.blessedherbs.com/
http://www.galaxynutrients.com/
Sunshine, Energy and Immunity:
In Chinese medicine, summer corresponds to the high point of Yang energy in the Yin-Yang cycle. Yang stands for a strong, positive, hot and expanding type of energy, and as the world around you becomes more Yang, so does your body.
In other words, your body's energy tends to become expansive and radiate outward, whereas in winter the opposite was true, since your body was automatically conserving its energy. This is actually good news, since it means that in the summer your body automatically recharges your "wei qi", which is the type of qi that forms a barrier around you against harmful pathogens and other intruders. What can you do to help this process along?
One way is to make sure you get enough sun exposure. Yes, there's a ton on information out there about how bad the sun is for you, how it will give you skin cancer, wrinkle your skin and probably fog your i-pod. Personally, I really don't buy it. Yes, you should be cautious about sun exposure, but cautious is not paranoid. Baring your skin to the sun helps replenish your body's vitamin D reserves and you may need those reserves in winter, when sunlight is harder to come by and when you're so bundled up the sun can't get to you anyway. Here's one expert's take on the whole "sun causes skin cancer" spiel that might interest you:
http://bit.ly/cSwDh9
Emotional Cleansing:
Lots more sunlight has a very positive effect on the human psyche, as we all know from experience. You can magnify the effect by making a decision to work on positive emotions over the summer: simply decide now to stay in a "headspace" of positive expectation, of gratitude, of generosity and kindness, and you'll see results pretty quickly.
You can also decide to learn an emotional healing technique over the summer, such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or Be Set Free Fast (BSFF). You may even get bold enough with these tools to take on some of your inner demons and turf them out ;-)
A Breathing Exercise for You:
(Always get your physician's approval for undertaking physical exercises such as this. Contraindications include some chronic conditions, cardio-vascular disease, high blood pressure, as well as pregnancy.)
If you'd like to use the summer to detoxify naturally, accumulate more qi, calm your emotions and improve your life in nealy every way, try this:
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Last time I talked a bit about how and why to use the summer months to work on certain aspects of your fitness, aspects that are far easier to work on with the higher ambient temperatures.
(Speaking of higher ambient temperature, the reason I'm inside writing this and not out enjoying the bright sunny day is that the humidex in Ottawa today is 44C / 111F. "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.")
Anyway, I digress. There are also lots of other ways you can build your personal RESILIENCE most easily at this time of year, so let's take a look at them:
Nutrition:
Switching your diet around to include more freshly grown fruits and vegetables can significantly boost your intake of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, trace elements and more. In addition, the energetic or "qi" content of these foods is far superior, giving your immune system a much needed boost.
And including more "cooling" foods in your diet - including most fruits and veggies, as well as cooling herbs like fresh mint (my garden's overrun with the stuff) - will help your metabolism to function most effectively in the hot weather. Also, these foods require far less energy for your body to digest than do heavier foods like red meat, so you benefit from that as well.
One easy way to include more cooling foods is to make smoothies. Here's an excellent site for smoothie recipes:
http://www.smoothieweb.com
Cleansing:
Since your body doesn't need to devote a lot of resources to keeping your core temperature warm in the summer, this season is ideal for doing a cleanse. If you've ever done a cleanse in the winter, on the other hand, and especially one that cut down your food intake, you know firsthand how cold you get without the food you're used to.
Your body also detoxifies naturally during the summer. Since your skin is a major organ of elimination and you're exposing more of it to the air, and since you're sweating more, toxin removal is much more efficient. Some of the best cleanses we know of (and that I've used myself) can be found here:
http://www.blessedherbs.com/
http://www.galaxynutrients.com/
Sunshine, Energy and Immunity:
In Chinese medicine, summer corresponds to the high point of Yang energy in the Yin-Yang cycle. Yang stands for a strong, positive, hot and expanding type of energy, and as the world around you becomes more Yang, so does your body.
In other words, your body's energy tends to become expansive and radiate outward, whereas in winter the opposite was true, since your body was automatically conserving its energy. This is actually good news, since it means that in the summer your body automatically recharges your "wei qi", which is the type of qi that forms a barrier around you against harmful pathogens and other intruders. What can you do to help this process along?
One way is to make sure you get enough sun exposure. Yes, there's a ton on information out there about how bad the sun is for you, how it will give you skin cancer, wrinkle your skin and probably fog your i-pod. Personally, I really don't buy it. Yes, you should be cautious about sun exposure, but cautious is not paranoid. Baring your skin to the sun helps replenish your body's vitamin D reserves and you may need those reserves in winter, when sunlight is harder to come by and when you're so bundled up the sun can't get to you anyway. Here's one expert's take on the whole "sun causes skin cancer" spiel that might interest you:
http://bit.ly/cSwDh9
Emotional Cleansing:
Lots more sunlight has a very positive effect on the human psyche, as we all know from experience. You can magnify the effect by making a decision to work on positive emotions over the summer: simply decide now to stay in a "headspace" of positive expectation, of gratitude, of generosity and kindness, and you'll see results pretty quickly.
You can also decide to learn an emotional healing technique over the summer, such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or Be Set Free Fast (BSFF). You may even get bold enough with these tools to take on some of your inner demons and turf them out ;-)
A Breathing Exercise for You:
(Always get your physician's approval for undertaking physical exercises such as this. Contraindications include some chronic conditions, cardio-vascular disease, high blood pressure, as well as pregnancy.)
If you'd like to use the summer to detoxify naturally, accumulate more qi, calm your emotions and improve your life in nealy every way, try this:
- Go for a walk
- As you walk, pay attention to your breath... watch it come in and go out naturally as you breathe through your nose
- As you inhale, feel the breath descend to your lower abdomen, a few centimeters / inches below your navel.
- As you exhale, just watch the breath exit through your nose
- After you've done this for a while and gotten used to it, pay attention to the sensations on various areas of your body as you inhale. Feel energy entering your body at various points and gathering at your lower abdomen
- As you exhale, feel the energy you've taken in expand from your lower abdomen outward only as far as the surface of your skin
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Summer: the Key to Building Your Personal Resilience (Part 1)
Well, I don't know what your weather is like today, but here in Ottawa, Canada (officially the planet's second coldest national capital), it's 28 C / 82 F and with the humidity if feels like 39 C or 102 degrees F.
So summer is definitely here! And despite the heat and humidity, summer is very important to building your personal resilience. The key is knowing how and why.
Flexibility:
On the most elementary level, summer is great for fitness. You're likely to spend more time outdoors, even if that's just walking, gardening or soaking up rays at the beach. One area where it's easy to make huge fitness gains in the summer is the flexibility of your connective tissue (muscles, tendons, ligaments, fasciae) and your joints. You see, the higher ambient temperatures make your body more pliable, so it's easier to stretch and there's less likelihood of injury when you do. So if you've ever thought about improving the range of motion of any part of your body, summer is the time!
One person I know plans to increase his flexibility enough over the summer to be able to sit comfortably in the full lotus posture by September. I've known others, especially martial artists and other athletes, who wanted to work up to the splits (or at least closer to it ;-). All this brings up the key question - why should you care about improving your flexibility?
For starters, flexibility training will help protect your soft tissues and especially your joints from injury - in other words, minor mishaps that would previously have injured your knee, twisted your ankle or thrown your back out are no longer such a threat. Flexibility training will also improve your blood circulation, as well as your energy (qi) circulation, giving you better health and more vitality. And finally, stretching is a natural detox, something we'll talk about more in a later post.
Here's a great resource for you on flexibility:
http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/flexibilitytraining.html
Needless to say, it's also a great time to start a Hatha Yoga program, since the yogic stretching and postures (asanas) will be easier. The same applies to certain types of Qi Gong. Whatever kind of stretching you use, though, just be sure to warm up first and build slowly. Increased flexibility can make a big difference in how you feel phyically and emotionally, so you'll be glad you did.
Fitness in General over the Summer:
Summer is also a great time for strength training, simply because there's less chance of injury to the joints and soft tissues, given the higher temparatures. Is it a better time for cardio than other seasons, though? Well, the jury is out on that. Some point out how much easier and safer it is to go running in the summer than with snow and ice under foot. Granted, but on the other hand, high heat and humitiy can be a serious hazard for runners in the summer.
One great thing to do in the summer is to change your fitness routine to make it season-specific, to take advantage of what's more easily available in the summer, such as cycling, swimming and more.
So I'd encourage you to use the summer to build up your resilience in ways the season itself can help you with. Next time, we'll go on to look at some other resilience-building activities best done in the summer.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
So summer is definitely here! And despite the heat and humidity, summer is very important to building your personal resilience. The key is knowing how and why.
Flexibility:
On the most elementary level, summer is great for fitness. You're likely to spend more time outdoors, even if that's just walking, gardening or soaking up rays at the beach. One area where it's easy to make huge fitness gains in the summer is the flexibility of your connective tissue (muscles, tendons, ligaments, fasciae) and your joints. You see, the higher ambient temperatures make your body more pliable, so it's easier to stretch and there's less likelihood of injury when you do. So if you've ever thought about improving the range of motion of any part of your body, summer is the time!
One person I know plans to increase his flexibility enough over the summer to be able to sit comfortably in the full lotus posture by September. I've known others, especially martial artists and other athletes, who wanted to work up to the splits (or at least closer to it ;-). All this brings up the key question - why should you care about improving your flexibility?
For starters, flexibility training will help protect your soft tissues and especially your joints from injury - in other words, minor mishaps that would previously have injured your knee, twisted your ankle or thrown your back out are no longer such a threat. Flexibility training will also improve your blood circulation, as well as your energy (qi) circulation, giving you better health and more vitality. And finally, stretching is a natural detox, something we'll talk about more in a later post.
Here's a great resource for you on flexibility:
http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/flexibilitytraining.html
Needless to say, it's also a great time to start a Hatha Yoga program, since the yogic stretching and postures (asanas) will be easier. The same applies to certain types of Qi Gong. Whatever kind of stretching you use, though, just be sure to warm up first and build slowly. Increased flexibility can make a big difference in how you feel phyically and emotionally, so you'll be glad you did.
Fitness in General over the Summer:
Summer is also a great time for strength training, simply because there's less chance of injury to the joints and soft tissues, given the higher temparatures. Is it a better time for cardio than other seasons, though? Well, the jury is out on that. Some point out how much easier and safer it is to go running in the summer than with snow and ice under foot. Granted, but on the other hand, high heat and humitiy can be a serious hazard for runners in the summer.
One great thing to do in the summer is to change your fitness routine to make it season-specific, to take advantage of what's more easily available in the summer, such as cycling, swimming and more.
So I'd encourage you to use the summer to build up your resilience in ways the season itself can help you with. Next time, we'll go on to look at some other resilience-building activities best done in the summer.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
The Path to Emotional Intelligence
"In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness (EQ) and abilities to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships." --John Gottman, Ph.D.
After some twenty years of doing pastoral counseling, I'm more convinced than ever that the biggest hurdle people face in their lives is "emotional incompetence". Why the biggest?
Well, unless you know how to relate to and manage the incredibly powerful emotional currents within you, those currents will destroy your relationships, wreck your health and make spiritual life impossible, reducing you to a state of abject misery.
Bottom line? To achieve physical, mental and spiritual RESILIENCE, we all need to master our emotional lives.
Of course, it's easy for "spiritual" people to delude themselves completely here, because when they suffer from their own emotional incompetence, they have a tendency to construe it as some sort of redemptive suffering (which is only true if you're working towards healing) or to see themselves as suffering unjustly at the hands of "evildoers" (the Jihadist response). Both alternatives just perpetuate their own emotional incompetence.
Last time, when we talked about a "spiritual path that really works", we mentioned that you have to be willing to make friends with your emotional content. You stop repressing it and you stop acting it out - which are just two different ways of not dealing with it - and you start to relate to it directly.
This takes a lot of guts, by the way. It can scare the crap out of you at first. However, you learn pretty quickly that your powerful and scary emotions aren't nearly so frightening once you invite them in for tea. They're very often just a cover-up, a fear-based response. So the real question behind all of your ego-centric neurosis and mine is... "what exactly are we afraid of and why?"
When you get to the bottom of your fear, you realize it's not so scary as you thought, that FDR was right about "the only thing to fear is fear itself".
Do you have the courage to take all your anger, your attachment and your indifference - those three poisons of the soul - and "make friends" with them? Are you willing to have a chat with them and see what makes them tick, to uncover your own fears? One barrier to doing this, by the way, is your social and religious programming telling you certain emotions are "bad" and you "shouldn't" have them. The more you listen to those voices, the more you repress, until finally the pressure becomes too strong and you act out instead. And that pretty much describes the useless cycle many people are trapped in.
However, if you're willing to be present to your emotions, if you're willing to feel the fear and do it anyway, to use the cliche, you'll be well on your way to emotional healing and true resilience.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
After some twenty years of doing pastoral counseling, I'm more convinced than ever that the biggest hurdle people face in their lives is "emotional incompetence". Why the biggest?
Well, unless you know how to relate to and manage the incredibly powerful emotional currents within you, those currents will destroy your relationships, wreck your health and make spiritual life impossible, reducing you to a state of abject misery.
Bottom line? To achieve physical, mental and spiritual RESILIENCE, we all need to master our emotional lives.
Of course, it's easy for "spiritual" people to delude themselves completely here, because when they suffer from their own emotional incompetence, they have a tendency to construe it as some sort of redemptive suffering (which is only true if you're working towards healing) or to see themselves as suffering unjustly at the hands of "evildoers" (the Jihadist response). Both alternatives just perpetuate their own emotional incompetence.
Last time, when we talked about a "spiritual path that really works", we mentioned that you have to be willing to make friends with your emotional content. You stop repressing it and you stop acting it out - which are just two different ways of not dealing with it - and you start to relate to it directly.
This takes a lot of guts, by the way. It can scare the crap out of you at first. However, you learn pretty quickly that your powerful and scary emotions aren't nearly so frightening once you invite them in for tea. They're very often just a cover-up, a fear-based response. So the real question behind all of your ego-centric neurosis and mine is... "what exactly are we afraid of and why?"
When you get to the bottom of your fear, you realize it's not so scary as you thought, that FDR was right about "the only thing to fear is fear itself".
Do you have the courage to take all your anger, your attachment and your indifference - those three poisons of the soul - and "make friends" with them? Are you willing to have a chat with them and see what makes them tick, to uncover your own fears? One barrier to doing this, by the way, is your social and religious programming telling you certain emotions are "bad" and you "shouldn't" have them. The more you listen to those voices, the more you repress, until finally the pressure becomes too strong and you act out instead. And that pretty much describes the useless cycle many people are trapped in.
However, if you're willing to be present to your emotions, if you're willing to feel the fear and do it anyway, to use the cliche, you'll be well on your way to emotional healing and true resilience.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
OMG - a Spiritual Practice that Actually Works!
Early this month I spent a week or so in the Toronto area to attend a conference, as well as to see some friends and relatives.
So it meant train rides, rental cars, hotel room, racing to get to the conference sessions on time, meeting a ton of new people and trying desperately not to be late getting to my friends 'n relations. Lots of fun, to be sure, but also really hectic and full of unforeseen challenges.
And when you have that combination of a hectic schedule, constant changes of plan, events you don't control, new people, great people, and difficult people, it can take you on quite an emotional roller coaster ride. And, indeed, I was aboard that one, and not always to my liking!
At one point I just felt like yelling, "STOP the world and let me off!"
A Common Delusion...
We often think that if this would just stop, if my boss were different, if my spouse weren't so self-absorbed, if this person just liked me, if...if...if... then my life would be peaceful and joyful.
Fortunately, ancient traditions know better. In both Tibetan Buddhism and Orthodox Christianity, they tell us that our real problem is never "out there". Rather, it's our tendency to view reality from the ego's perspective. And the ego always divides reality into 3 categories - I love it, I hate it, or I just don't care. These can be thought of as attachment, aversion and indifference.
Think of anyone you know and your thoughts will tell you immediately which bucket they're in today!
Buddhism refers to these 3 attitudes as "poisons", and it's easy to see why - they cause you constant suffering and keep you chained to your tiny egocentric self. We instinctively know this and that's why we tend to react to the strong emotions the 3 poisons bring in one of two ways:
- we repress the emotion, or
- we act out the emotion
...and neither works at all. They just continue our slavery. The poison just gets worse. And we think, "if only the poison didn't exist, all would be well." So we resist, we try to control our world, we repress some thoughts and accept others, all without understanding what's really happening, and so we suffer more.
But what if.... what if there was a way to transform this very poison into healing medicine?
A Spiritual Path that Actually Works!
Once we realize the poisons are within us, we can take ownership and even relax a bit!
Now, when we feel strong attachment emotions for someone or something we see as desirable or strong aversion emotions, or complete indifference, we can simply say to ourselves, "Oh, here comes that heavy emotional stuff again... ho hum." We can relax and watch the movie without feeling the need to repress the thoughts and feelings or to let them take over.
Suddenly we feel this huge spaciousness all around us. Everything's calm, even though the situation hasn't changed. The boss can still be a jerk and my neighbor can still be drop-dead gorgeous, and the emotional reactions associated with these still come over me, but there's a huge difference.
For the first time, I've truly surrendered. I'm willing to just be with the emotional energy. I'm willing to accept what seems unpleasant, as well as what feels pleasant, and watch it all. So, for the first time in my life, I've gone beyond my old default setting of running toward what I thought was pleasure and running away from what I thought was pain.
Now, at last, I'm breaking free. I can simply BE.
And what used to strike me as uncomfortable, as messy, as pleasant or painful, I now relate to as the richness of life, as the raw material for my emotional growth and spiritual development. In a metaphorical sense, I've learned you really can transform lead into gold.
And from now on I know that there's nothing I can't handle, because I no longer need to "handle" or control anything.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger :-)
So it meant train rides, rental cars, hotel room, racing to get to the conference sessions on time, meeting a ton of new people and trying desperately not to be late getting to my friends 'n relations. Lots of fun, to be sure, but also really hectic and full of unforeseen challenges.
And when you have that combination of a hectic schedule, constant changes of plan, events you don't control, new people, great people, and difficult people, it can take you on quite an emotional roller coaster ride. And, indeed, I was aboard that one, and not always to my liking!
At one point I just felt like yelling, "STOP the world and let me off!"
A Common Delusion...
We often think that if this would just stop, if my boss were different, if my spouse weren't so self-absorbed, if this person just liked me, if...if...if... then my life would be peaceful and joyful.
Fortunately, ancient traditions know better. In both Tibetan Buddhism and Orthodox Christianity, they tell us that our real problem is never "out there". Rather, it's our tendency to view reality from the ego's perspective. And the ego always divides reality into 3 categories - I love it, I hate it, or I just don't care. These can be thought of as attachment, aversion and indifference.
Think of anyone you know and your thoughts will tell you immediately which bucket they're in today!
Buddhism refers to these 3 attitudes as "poisons", and it's easy to see why - they cause you constant suffering and keep you chained to your tiny egocentric self. We instinctively know this and that's why we tend to react to the strong emotions the 3 poisons bring in one of two ways:
- we repress the emotion, or
- we act out the emotion
...and neither works at all. They just continue our slavery. The poison just gets worse. And we think, "if only the poison didn't exist, all would be well." So we resist, we try to control our world, we repress some thoughts and accept others, all without understanding what's really happening, and so we suffer more.
But what if.... what if there was a way to transform this very poison into healing medicine?
A Spiritual Path that Actually Works!
Once we realize the poisons are within us, we can take ownership and even relax a bit!
Now, when we feel strong attachment emotions for someone or something we see as desirable or strong aversion emotions, or complete indifference, we can simply say to ourselves, "Oh, here comes that heavy emotional stuff again... ho hum." We can relax and watch the movie without feeling the need to repress the thoughts and feelings or to let them take over.
Suddenly we feel this huge spaciousness all around us. Everything's calm, even though the situation hasn't changed. The boss can still be a jerk and my neighbor can still be drop-dead gorgeous, and the emotional reactions associated with these still come over me, but there's a huge difference.
For the first time, I've truly surrendered. I'm willing to just be with the emotional energy. I'm willing to accept what seems unpleasant, as well as what feels pleasant, and watch it all. So, for the first time in my life, I've gone beyond my old default setting of running toward what I thought was pleasure and running away from what I thought was pain.
Now, at last, I'm breaking free. I can simply BE.
And what used to strike me as uncomfortable, as messy, as pleasant or painful, I now relate to as the richness of life, as the raw material for my emotional growth and spiritual development. In a metaphorical sense, I've learned you really can transform lead into gold.
And from now on I know that there's nothing I can't handle, because I no longer need to "handle" or control anything.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger :-)
Friday, 18 June 2010
Meditation - It's More Than You Think (Part-2)
So last time we talked about my friend and his search for health through 8 minutes of meditation a day. You might as well try to dig the Panama canal with a teaspoon!
A couple of things on that score before we actually get into today’s topic. If your time is limited, you can still do meditation, but sessions of less than 20 minutes will, in the end, not likely generate the results you want. Keep in mind that the actual sitting practice is not the be-all and end-all. In fact, their real purpose is to enable you to transform all of life, every waking moment, into meditation, meaning you learn how to remain in such a state effortlessly, no matter what’s going on around you.
In the words of the great Chinese physician, Sun Simiao (d. 682 AD):
A couple of things on that score before we actually get into today’s topic. If your time is limited, you can still do meditation, but sessions of less than 20 minutes will, in the end, not likely generate the results you want. Keep in mind that the actual sitting practice is not the be-all and end-all. In fact, their real purpose is to enable you to transform all of life, every waking moment, into meditation, meaning you learn how to remain in such a state effortlessly, no matter what’s going on around you.
In the words of the great Chinese physician, Sun Simiao (d. 682 AD):
"The mind is totally oriented towards purity and tranquility. Whether you're involved in affairs or free from them, there is no agitation either way. With a powerfully focused mind, you put an end to all mental scattering and enter into deep concentration."
Phase-2: "Downloading" Superior Content for Your Mind
Today we’re actually hear to talk about Phase 2 of the meditative process – where you “download” superior content to your mental continuum in order to replace the old, inaccurate and often neurotic content you’ve been working at “deleting” during Phase 1.
In Tibetan Buddhism, this phase is called “placement meditation", because you focus on a particular idea, image and action that has the power to transform your life in some way and "place" your mind firmly within that idea / image. In the Tibetan Lamrim sytems, these “objects” of meditation include cultivating compassion, controlling delusional mental and emotional states and increasing your ability to focus on one thing for long periods of time without distraction.
Strangely enough, the two phase process of meditation is not entirely linear and sequential. In other words, you don’t have to be anywhere near perfect at Phase 1 in order to start Phase 2. In fact, Phase 2 actually helps you complete Phase 1 because “downloading” this new emotional / spiritual content helps you to erase your pre-existing programming.
The Tibetan Lamrim system includes specific instructions for meditating on the preciousness of your human life, impermanence, developing equanimity, remembering the kindness of others, equalizing self and others, the disadvantages of self-cherishing, the advantages of cherishing others, cultivating compassion, wishing love, tranquil abiding (concentration) and much more.*
In Tibetan Buddhism, this phase is called “placement meditation", because you focus on a particular idea, image and action that has the power to transform your life in some way and "place" your mind firmly within that idea / image. In the Tibetan Lamrim sytems, these “objects” of meditation include cultivating compassion, controlling delusional mental and emotional states and increasing your ability to focus on one thing for long periods of time without distraction.
Strangely enough, the two phase process of meditation is not entirely linear and sequential. In other words, you don’t have to be anywhere near perfect at Phase 1 in order to start Phase 2. In fact, Phase 2 actually helps you complete Phase 1 because “downloading” this new emotional / spiritual content helps you to erase your pre-existing programming.
The Tibetan Lamrim system includes specific instructions for meditating on the preciousness of your human life, impermanence, developing equanimity, remembering the kindness of others, equalizing self and others, the disadvantages of self-cherishing, the advantages of cherishing others, cultivating compassion, wishing love, tranquil abiding (concentration) and much more.*
For those of you who have a copy of The 5 Pillars of Life, you'll notice that Appendix A is a series of 21 placement meditations!
Meditation and its close cousin, noetic prayer, have more transformational power than any other spiritual practice. And it’s not just your “spiritual” aspect they transform – your physical, mental and emotional aspects get a complete makeover in the process too. Now that's a resilience practice that's hard to refuse!
So next time you think about meditation, remember... it's about more than just your physical health.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
* To learn more about the Lamrim meditations, I highly recommend Lama Kelsang Gyatso's "The Meditation Handbook", by Tharpa Publications in the UK
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Meditation - It's More Than You Think (Part 1)
Recently a friend of mine engaged me in a conversation about meditation. He’s pretty new to the whole thing and decided he really needed to start meditating to improve his health and, because of that decision, he was going to start meditating for a full 8 minutes a day!
Misconceptions:
Well, I’ll get back to him in a moment, but for now it just shows you all the misconceptions that are out there! The fact is, if you’re basic understanding of the meditative process is wrong from the start, these misconceptions will limit your progress accordingly.
Yes, meditation can have profound effects on your physical health, however, that’s not the purpose of meditation. Beware of mixing up benefits and purpose!
Meditation is really a two phase process. Phase-1 teaches you how to stabilize your mental continuum and "delete" negative and unhelpful emotional / spiritual content, whereas Phase-2 teaches you how “download” new and superior emotional / spiritual content.
Phase 1: Stabilizing Your Mental Continuum and Deleting Negative Content
This negative content consists of all of your cultural conditioning (which controls and predetermines most of your reactions day to day to everything and everyone you encounter), your personal negative emotional content (from early life traumas and many other factors) and, in general, anything that’s holding you back.
Pursuing this training will eventually return you to the truly natural human state – where your mental continuum is free from extraneous thoughts and emotions. Basically, you think when you decide to think. Other than that, you mind remains crystal clear and without thought. When this condition is stabilized throughout the day, virtually all of your emotional and physical symptoms will disappear.
The most effective way to train this method is something I’ve described in a really basic form in The 5 Pillars of Life book, and in much greater detail – pictures and all – in Rock Solid Tranquility (http://www.harapower.com/ ). To simplify things, it involves a meditational sitting practice where you use your mental attention to follow your breathing. Yeah okay, that glosses over some crucial details, but it’s an accurate description nevertheless.
When you start to practice this marvellous procedure, you’ll get lots of other benefits, of course. Health is certainly one of them, as is a certain level of detoxification. Others include a direct understanding of “harmony” – of the rhythm of the universe surrounding you. Then you’ll slowly learn how to surrender, to let go of your own expectations, your hopes, your fears, and dwell trustingly in the moment. In other words, you develop true faith. (Please don't tell me how religious or "spiritual" you are unless you actually trust the Absolute Reality to care for you).
You’ll develop intuition – you’ll learn how to listen to your gut, trust you gut, and listen with a much wiser faculty than your ears or your thinking brain.
All these things will come into your reach through the practice of sitting meditation, unless…. you shoot for such hopelessly inadequate practice levels as 8 minutes a day! Ain’t nothin’ happenin’ there… At the beginning it may well take you twice that long just to calm your mind and eliminate your distractions. From the beginning of your practice, you should probably aim to sit for 20 minutes at a time.
Next time, I’ll attempt a brief description of Phase 2 of the meditative process, which is even more fascinating. Just remember that you need to make some serious headway in Phase 1 first!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Misconceptions:
Well, I’ll get back to him in a moment, but for now it just shows you all the misconceptions that are out there! The fact is, if you’re basic understanding of the meditative process is wrong from the start, these misconceptions will limit your progress accordingly.
Yes, meditation can have profound effects on your physical health, however, that’s not the purpose of meditation. Beware of mixing up benefits and purpose!
Meditation is really a two phase process. Phase-1 teaches you how to stabilize your mental continuum and "delete" negative and unhelpful emotional / spiritual content, whereas Phase-2 teaches you how “download” new and superior emotional / spiritual content.
Phase 1: Stabilizing Your Mental Continuum and Deleting Negative Content
This negative content consists of all of your cultural conditioning (which controls and predetermines most of your reactions day to day to everything and everyone you encounter), your personal negative emotional content (from early life traumas and many other factors) and, in general, anything that’s holding you back.
Pursuing this training will eventually return you to the truly natural human state – where your mental continuum is free from extraneous thoughts and emotions. Basically, you think when you decide to think. Other than that, you mind remains crystal clear and without thought. When this condition is stabilized throughout the day, virtually all of your emotional and physical symptoms will disappear.
The most effective way to train this method is something I’ve described in a really basic form in The 5 Pillars of Life book, and in much greater detail – pictures and all – in Rock Solid Tranquility (http://www.harapower.com/ ). To simplify things, it involves a meditational sitting practice where you use your mental attention to follow your breathing. Yeah okay, that glosses over some crucial details, but it’s an accurate description nevertheless.
When you start to practice this marvellous procedure, you’ll get lots of other benefits, of course. Health is certainly one of them, as is a certain level of detoxification. Others include a direct understanding of “harmony” – of the rhythm of the universe surrounding you. Then you’ll slowly learn how to surrender, to let go of your own expectations, your hopes, your fears, and dwell trustingly in the moment. In other words, you develop true faith. (Please don't tell me how religious or "spiritual" you are unless you actually trust the Absolute Reality to care for you).
You’ll develop intuition – you’ll learn how to listen to your gut, trust you gut, and listen with a much wiser faculty than your ears or your thinking brain.
All these things will come into your reach through the practice of sitting meditation, unless…. you shoot for such hopelessly inadequate practice levels as 8 minutes a day! Ain’t nothin’ happenin’ there… At the beginning it may well take you twice that long just to calm your mind and eliminate your distractions. From the beginning of your practice, you should probably aim to sit for 20 minutes at a time.
Next time, I’ll attempt a brief description of Phase 2 of the meditative process, which is even more fascinating. Just remember that you need to make some serious headway in Phase 1 first!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
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