A Method to Manage your Anxiety

Here is a simple anxiety relief hypnotherapy video by You Productions. It is available as an iPhone app "Manage Anxiety," if you are interested.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manag...

I find it particularly helpful as one can listen to the guided meditation or you may decided to turn off the sound and just watch the soothing images. Hope this helps you.

Stay tuned for my own Repatterning Hypnosis recordings in the near future. Yana's hypnotherapy website.

On Fear, Fearlessness and the U.S. Presidential Election: One Buddhist's Perspective by Susan Piver

One could say that many of the world’s ills are rooted in fear. This is a pretty ordinary observation. If you watch a scary movie at night, you hear the noises in your home as ominous. If you don’t, they aren’t. Fear changes the way we perceive the world around us.

On this day just prior to our election in the US, we have an unusually potent opportunity to work with fear because no matter who we support, we are all f*cking terrified. The more afraid we are, the more likely we are to scare each other. The more we scare each other, the greater the distance between us.

The real danger is not in the policies of those we oppose. It is in dividing humanity into us and them. Fear makes us demonize some and cling to others. Someone has to put a stop to this and because you are reading this, that someone is you. (I didn’t tell you that reading this post was equivalent to being tagged “it” in the cosmic game of terror tag. Well, now you know.)

Your job is to assume responsibility for your terror by feeling it because without doing so you offload it into the environment. You turn others into your personal punching bag (by blaming them for what you fear) or your personal snuggy bear (for agreeing with you and assuaging your fear). We become trapped in an endless cycle of reactivity.

In Buddhist thought, the cycle of unexamined thought and emotion could take one of three forms. These are called the “three poisons.”

Mistaken Compassion by Beth Lee-Herbert

True compassion, or empathic concern, is one of the most sublime of all human impulses. We reach toward a greater universal purpose by joyfully extending from our hearts out of our small measly sense of self. Not only does this benefit others; through selflessly extending a hand to those less fortunate, we ourselves feel nourished and uplifted. Even just the compassionate impulse welling forth creates great peace and joy within.

However, even with the best of intentions to generate compassion, there are ways we go astray by deluding ourselves. This becomes apparent when, instead of feeling nurtured by offering compassion in thought or deed, we are left with the bitter taste of negative emotion.

One way we do this is by acting compassionately for others’ approval. If we are acting in a seemingly compassionate way so that others think highly of us, our motivation is still fundamentally self-centered. Even though our actions from the outside seem flawlessly selfless, our motivation is actually to get something for ourselves. Sometimes this is praise or a reward from another person. Other times, even subtler, the reward comes from ourselves: wanting to prove to ourselves that we are worthy by being a good person. We feel compelled to give to others to cover up our own shame. Because we are still fundamentally self-seeking, we end up angry or burned out when we don’t get what we want from the situation. We feel unappreciated or hollow from giving. We push ourselves past our natural limits in the hopes of receiving love, from others and from ourselves.

Are you ready for spiritual adventures in the Himalayas?

Namaste Everyone, Currently, I am offering three tours for 2017 (Healing Wisdom Tour, Nepal Mandala Tour and Skydancer Pilgrimage). They are particularly suited for those who desire a personal pilgrimage for themselves or prefer to travel with a small group. 

For more information, please visit my website.

How Can I Help? by Ruth Terracini

"Is there anything I can do?" can be an exhausting question. Here's a list you can put on your computer, modify to your circumstances, and send out to whoever asks!
Compiled by an Australian woman who died of cancer. 


Practical things:

• Mow our lawn
 • Make me dinner
 • Come over & quietly clean something in my house 
• Invite me to something fun you are doing 
• Take me to a movie
 • Meet me for coffee 
• Send me a card of encouragement 
• Leave some organic fruit in a basket on my doorstep.
 • Share something from your veggie garden. 
• Plant something in my veggie garden
 • Send me a text when you are grocery shopping and ask me if I need anything 
• Find out when I have to go to the hospital for treatment and drive me or visit me there
 • Visit my elderly parent(s) when I am too sick to see them 
• Take my dog for a walk 
• Hire a housecleaner for me.


Kindnesses that take little effort but that can be powerfully uplifting:

• Tell me that you have said a prayer, or sent positive vibes into the universe for me 
• Write me a note telling me why I matter 
• Send me an email or text every now and then just to say you are thinking of me…and don't expect a response
 • Share a memory of me that is special to you
 • Talk to me like a normal person, not a diagnosis. Let me enjoy time with you when cancer is not the main topic of conversation
 • Let me know you care – I don't want my disease or treatment to be the first thing that you ask about, but acknowledge the reality of what I am going through.
 • Do something challenging and tell me that you were thinking of me while you did it (the Relay for Life, a long distance event, a hike up a mountain) 
• Do something for my husband, who supports me. 
• Give me a hug and tell me that you love me
.

The effects of emotional support for someone who is unwell, and their carer(s) cannot be understated. Feeling understood, acknowledged and loved goes a long way to creating a healing environment. You may even find that doing a good turn for someone has positive effects for you too.


Ruth Terracini, March 2015

Tsoknyi Rinpoche Interview on Lung

“In the 21st century, the subject of healing the subtle body is crucial. I sometimes say that for western Dharma practitioners, “body enlightenment” is more important than the enlightenment of the mind.”  ~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche

*Q: In your new book “Open Heart, Open Mind” you discuss the subtle body and its influence on our lives. How can we understand the subtle body?
Rinpoche: In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the subtle body (Tib. “lu trawa”) connects the body and mind and is the home of the emotions that influences both.
 Q: So it is a point of great importance that is largely unknown in western psychology. Can you please explain the system of the subtle body in more precise detail?
Rinpoche: The subtle body is composed of three interrelated aspects. The first consists of what in Tibetan is called “tsa”, (“nadi” in Sanskrit), usually translated as channels. They are closely related, but not the same as a network of nerves that extend throughout the body. These channels are the pathways that allow sparks of life(“thigle” in Tibetan, “bindus” in Sanskrit) to circulate and can be compared to neurotransmitters–chemical messengers that influence our physical, mental and emotional states.The “thigle” circulate within the channels due to the subtle energy or inner wind, known in Tibetan as “lung.” (“prana” in Sanskrit).

On Self-compassion

Resiliency Building Skills to Practice for Trauma Recovery

Much of trauma healing is helping the nervous system become more “resilient.” Rather than spend a few hours or even days drowning in a state of terror, tension and nervousness after getting triggered, doing one or more of these exercises can help the nervous system shift into a different state sooner.

Each time you do an activity or exercise like the ones below, this teaches the nervous system to be more flexible and rebound from activation sooner.

Take Your Nervous System to the Gym

After some type of physical injury that leaves some of your muscles weak or atrophied, you may need to go to physical therapy and exercise the muscles to strengthen them again. After trauma, the nervous system is completely out of whack and the resiliency muscles, so to speak, are very weak. Practicing resiliency exercises on a regular basis is like going to a “Nervous System Gym” and exercising the healthy functions of your nervous system until they become strong once again.

In fact, going to a Trauma Resiliency Model or Somatic Experiencing therapist is kind of like seeing a Nervous System Physical Therapist or Nervous System Personal Trainer. When you see a regular Physical Therapist or Personal Trainer, they will give you homework to do in the gym or at home before the next week’s session. In the same way, if you go to therapy for trauma once a week, it’s good to also practice these things on your own between sessions to get those muscles worked out enough to improve your functionality over time.

Link to this article

The Incredible Mind Altering Meditation of Sky Gazing and How To Do It by Chad Foreman

Sky Gazing

There is a meditation practice within Tibetan Buddhism called Sky Gazing it comes from the Meditation tradition of Dzogchen – which strongly emphasises resting in a natural state free from conceptual elaborations. This natural state is wide open, clear and lucid; it neither rejects anything or clings to anything and is sometimes referred to as spontaneous awareness. It is spontaneous because nothing has manufactured or created it, like having to meditate or having to be calm.  It always has been there and therefore is also called primordial awareness.

The clear blue sky is the closest external example of what this natural state is like. The clear sky is also a metaphor for the natural states indestructibility. Just like the sky is not affected by the passing weather neither is our natural state stained by thoughts or emotions no matter how strong they may be. This is a liberating view in the field of meditation. No longer do you have the idea that you have to purify and remove all the negative states of mind, now there is a teaching that directly points to an aspect of yourself which is your essential nature.

Click here for a link to this article. 

An Introduction to Working with Unseen Worlds by Robert Owings

All spiritual practices maintain some form of connection to unseen worlds, be that Buddha fields or the heaven promised so prominently in Christianity and Islam. In some regard shamanism is not that different; however, where those religions offer the unseen world in an afterlife, shamanism opens those realms in this life as well. Plus, it’s a vastly more expansive, animated, and interactive version to the concept.
Shamanic practice has been described as crossing the veil, walking in other worlds, and a direct spiritual engagement with spirits, deities, and other realms. Naturally, such processes bring one into contact with unseen worlds, and the beings that populate these domains. It’s been going on since day one, since that first proto shaman took on the work.

A more contemporary interpretation of these beings is to refer to them as energies. These energies often come with different purposes and causality, meaning their own agendas. The description and nomenclature for these energies can be gods, goddesses, demi-gods, exalted teachers, bodhisattva, astral beings, guides, wise ancestors, guardian angels—to less anthropocentric beings such as plant spirits, power animals, the spirit of a forest or river, planetary archetypes, tricksters, demons, hungry ghosts, aliens and hyper-dimensional beings, and so on and so on. One might be advised to be prudent in selecting which energies to align with and such.