Silence is Golden AND Good for Your Health

Back in February 2016 I went to an ashram for 3 days of silence and it forever changed my life.  Just the concept of being unplugged from my electronics and instead tapped in and centered without distractions was enough for a wonderful recharge from my busy life.  But the silence was key for transformation.  

Healing is with the mind, body and spirit and in these stressful times, the mind can become our worst enemy.  It is bombarded by thousands of sensory impression, continually ruminating on what if and reiterating the mind's habitual patterns.  Medical research tells us that the epidemic of modern disease is largely the result of stress and one of the greatest sources of stress is excessive levels of noise.

(Photos are from Self-realization Fellowship Ashram in Encinitas, CA)

Notice the common sources of noise in your life: automobile traffic, electric appliances, neighbors, airplanes and if that's not enough, we invite more noise into our lives in the for of cell phones, televisions, radios and loudspeakers.  All of these leave our nervous system overworked, weakened, and dispersed.  Is it any wonder that the young are suffering from modern diseases such as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity and are failing in school at unprecedented levels?  Is in any wonder that many people feel thy lack sufficient time and suffer from anxiety and that more than a quarter of American adults have great difficulty falling asleep.  Is it nay wonder that, in America during the past ten years, the consumption of mood altering prescription drugs has exploded and that many people choose alcohol or pot to help them unwind.  

One of the best ways to stop being absorbed in the mind's games and to manage the effects of all this sensory stress is to learn how to observe silence for extended periods.  Silence is our origin and it is our destination: before we were born and at the end of our lives.  We experience it on a daily basis, before we wake up in hte morning as as we fall alseep at night.  It is not  so strange to us.  We all cherish the moment when we put our head on the pillow at night.  Who doesn't appreciate a good night's sleep?
 

Most of us discharge a great deal of energy through unnecessary talking.  By the end of the week we are exhausted.  But instead of recharging by observing a day of silence we spend our weekend with more noise.  Ideally if you could spend 24 hours a week in silence you could experience the benefits of more energy, stronger nerves, greater mental focus, dissipation of anxiety, better sleep and a more purposeful life.  On a physical level you can expect to develop better health and heal faster because silence promotes the conditions necessary for recuperation and stress management.  If 24 hours doesn't fit into your schedule do a half day,  6 waking hours.  Any silence will help.  

The regular practice of silence allows us to develop patience and resist emotional movements such as anger, lust and greed.  With cultivating silence intentionally when we are angry it will be easier to hold our tongue, reflect before we speak and then only say what is helpful, calmly.  With silence we can learn to witness the mind's fantasies, not as our own but with detachment and learn to stop their repetitive cycles.  Silence is not the absence of thought but the ability to be present with your thoughts as they arise.  That power of now is how practicing silence will help you in all ways, mind, body and spirit.  

Life is a Story

We each have a story, actually many stories.  Our lives are full of the stories that we tell ourselves.  We each have a story about family, our work, our home, etc. And I want you to know that if there is a story about your life that you don’t like, you can change it.  You can tell yourself a different story, for we are the author and each of us is writing a book of life.

We can literally tell ourselves a different story.  We can believe in a different story.  What we believe in, what we think and tell ourselves, matters for our thoughts give way to feelings. Feelings give way to actions. Actions give way to character. Character is our identity and what we use to create and write our book of life.  If we think a certain thought long enough it becomes a belief that we then act on. Take an inventory of your beliefs.  Do you believe life is fun or a struggle?  Do you believe in love at first sight or love is something to be earned?  Do you believe money should come easily or do you need to work hard for it? There is a danger in believing in a thought that does not serve you and then it comes out in actions of self-sabatoge.  There is also a danger in believing that what other people think matters. Your thoughts and feelings are fleeting and so are theirs. What do you want to believe in? Choose that. Yes, thoughts are a choice. They are not truth. What is truth? Truth is defined as 'in accordance with fact or reality'. But if our thoughts or feelings are fleeting then is it a fact? Is it truth? No. Truth is not your fleeting feelings or thoughts. But your feelings and thoughts do give rise to a 'truth for now'. Meaning as we grow and learn and have new feelings and thoughts we are creating a new truth for now, we are creating a new story. We are not the same person we were a year ago because we are not thinking or feeling the same things. We may be thinking happier thoughts or we may be thinking more depressed thoughts but they are not the same and the choice is ours.

If you don't like an aspect of your life, then change the way you think about it. Tell yourself a different story.  If you have different thoughts about it then you will feel and act differently and your life will change.  If you tell yourself a better, happier story your life will change for the better.  If something upsetting happens to you, or even traumatic, something that should never happen to anyone, it is okay, you can rewrite your story with courage.  Courage allows you not to get stuck in that sad story.  For if you do get stuck in a sad story your character starts changing and becoming sad.  That is depression. But even with a sad story we can find some silver lining about it, something, even if it’s small, to be grateful for.  And when we find that something to be grateful for that is what we can choose to think about.  We can do a paradigm shift.  We can tell ourselves a different story and think different thoughts and create a different life instead of being stuck in a story that doesn't help serve us. Maybe the story, at some point, did help us. Such as the story of love gone wrong and we aren't going to make that choice again. But do we really want to close ourselves off from all chances of finding love or do we just want to be smarter about it next time. We can learn from our stories and make better, healthier choices. That is the point. Learn and move on. The point is not to get stuck in them and replay them again and again in our minds and feel miserable about our book of life. 

When life blindsides you and you are working through a story that you don't have any control over or you wake up one day and you realize you don't like your story, you can learn to move through it with courage, the best way you know how. Feel your feelings. Get mad, get sad, cry, etc. whatever you feel, feel it. Do not numb yourself with distractions. Do not eat a gallon of ice cream, drink a bottle of wine or numb out on television. 

Feel your feelings because they are telling you something, but don't identify with them. We should not define who we are by our thoughts or our feelings. There is no truth in fleeting feelings. 'I am sad,' is not true. 'I feel sad' is true. Give your feelings space to be the energy that they are and let them come up.  Allow your feelings to communicate what they need to. Listen to them. Act accordingly for the highest good and then let them go. No need to hold onto them. No need to identify with them. In fact, unless they are feelings that make you feel good they need to be felt in order to be let go and nothing more.  If you don’t feel them then you can't let them go.  If you don't let them go they hold you down, emotionally and physically.  Feelings are energy and you keep that energy and store it in your body.  That is what stress headaches are. Stomach knots, shoulder pain, low back pain can all be areas too where you put your stress.  Stress occurs in the body when you are thinking thoughts or tell yourself a story that doesn’t make you happy.  It is at those times your body is telling you to tell a different story. The goal is to try to change your thoughts and change your story before it starts to change your character and affect your body.  You need to change your story when you don’t feel good about it. You know you are telling yourself the right story when you do feel good about it. 

When anger comes up as a feeling we tend to be confused by it.  It is an easy feeling to ignore for we have the stigma that nice people aren't supposed to get angry.  I want you to know that anger is nothing to be scared of.  It is a feeling that comes up to make us pay attention to what is going on for it is an indicator that something is not right.  If this feeling is ignored we act out in different ways.  We become passive aggressive or we take it out on others. Or maybe we are in denial and don't let ourselves feel it until one day it is too much pressure and we explode.  So next time you feel anger, first practice gratitude for it, because it is telling you to pay attention to something.  Then just be aware of your anger and really confront what is going on and use courage to change what needs to be changed in the situation so you feel safe again.  I will tell you most of the time what needs to be changed is not the other person involved in the situation but something within yourself needs to change that you are not seeing and your anger allows you to see it and do something about it.   If there is truly nothing you can change about the situation then acceptance is a choice.  It is a choice that will get you out of anger, vibrating higher and feeling better.

In your book of life if you don’t like your story about work or relationships but you like your story about taking sailing lessons then keep your thoughts on sailing.  Keep whatever thoughts make you happy.  Thoughts are vibration.  Vibration is energy.  Higher vibrating thoughts are happy thoughts.  The higher vibrating thoughts will give you more energy, put you in a higher vibrating place to have the energy to shift and move the lower vibrating thoughts and energy about the stories you don’t like and want to change.  Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” So go to a different level.  Go to a higher level with happier thoughts.

An easy example is when we break up with someone and we are devastated by it.  Our heart is broken, our lives are in pieces and we don’t know how to get out of the sadness and despair.  We slowly pick up the pieces and life does go on without them.  But how it goes on is up to us.  Do we stay in our sad story or do we practice gratitude for what we did learn from the relationship and trust that it’s over for a reason and move on with a story of trust and gratitude.  How we move on is especially important now in order to attract the next person into our lives.  If we are telling ourselves a sad story and vibrating low we are more likely to attract someone also vibrating low with their own sad story, for like attracts like.

Another example, a personal example, is when life blindsided me when my father died. I did the best I could to cope and go through the emotions of losing a loved one. Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression and acceptance and hope.  Nine months after he died I was stuck on anger. I was angry. Every thought justified my anger.  I was so, so, so angry that it was affecting every aspect of my life and I was miserable. So how do you go from anger to hope? You tell yourself a different story. For me, when I finally admitted to myself I was angry, I picked up the Bible, being raised Christian, that's all I knew at the time and I said to myself, 'you better figure out who you are mad at'. It took about six weeks of reading the Bible and other spiritual writings daily before my anger turned soft and started slowly transforming into acceptance. Now, 7 years later, after studying the Bible, Bhagavad Gita, teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh while meditating daily I can say, my dad's death served as the spark I needed to find my beautiful, loving relationship with God. Before his death I thought maybe I believed in something but I wasn't even sure what that something was. My father gave me the best gift he could have ever given me, he lit my path towards enlightenment, but only by his death did this happen and that is the paradigm shift I needed to go from anger to hope. 

So that is my new story. The story of my father and I. It is no longer a story of anger and loss but of love renewed between God and I. A story of all the loving things my father did for me and when I miss him and start thinking about the loss I watch my feelings and then choose thoughts that make me happy.  I choose to think of my father and the memories I hold so dear in my heart that bring a smile to my face.  These thoughts fill me with love and gratitude. Whereas, if I stayed thinking of the loss I would probably still be stuck in anger and filled with bitterness.

In her book “On Death and Dying”, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described the 7 steps one takes to emotionally cope with death. But these steps are really taken to cope with any loss or sad story we are trying to emotionally process. Again, the steps are shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression and finally  acceptance and hope. The steps are not written in stone. You may not go through them in order and you may be able to process in a way where you do not have to go through all the steps. You may also get stuck in a step. You may get stuck in a story. Know that your goal for happiness is to find a story of hope and acceptance. You have to hope to cope! To move through the steps think thoughts that give you hope. Have the discipline to hold onto these thoughts and the feelings that come about due to these thoughts. And with those thoughts and feelings you will build an energetic momentum to get you out of the unhappy step you are in and closer to hope and happiness.  This energetic momentum means it will be easier and easier for you to go to the higher vibrating thoughts.  You won’t have to consciously choose the higher vibrating thought but you will start thinking it automatically and soon have higher vibrating thoughts on different aspects of your life as well.  And it is in this way that you create your life and have the freedom to write a happy book of life.

How to Express the Throat Chakra

If your Throat Chakra is STRONG, you are good at voicing out your thoughts, ideas and emotions to those around you. You're admired for your willpower and strong communication skills, and your conviction to speak the truth, even if it may be uncomfortable to some. Your career and personal life are enriched as a result.
If your Throat Chakra is WEAK or CLOSED, you constantly feel like nobody cares about your opinions, and that you have nothing of value to say. You're likely to be known as the 'quiet one' in your professional and social circles, and you frequently settle with following other people's opinions. You may suffer from a sore throat or thyroid problems.

In general, the throat chakra is blue in color and is about transformation and healing. It gives to change through speech, writing and thoughts. Besides a closed throat chakra affecting the throat and thyroid it can also affect the neck, skin, ears, general inflammation, back pain, and teeth.

Energetically, gemstones that help the throat chakra are aquamarine, azurite, turquoise and lapis lazuli.



If you are interested in purchasing the throat chakra blue glasses just email me and let me know at info@healingartsnyc.com! $30 plus shipping.

Stored anger from solar plexus is released here. Anger itself is not a bad thing. It helps us know when something needs to change. How anger is expressed is when we get ourselves into trouble with others. When we feel anger we either act on it right away, raising our voice or ignore it and bury it deep down. The key is to express what it is that is making you angry in a self controlled way without emotion. So the next time you feel angry:
1) stop and think to figure out the real cause of anger
2) accept it or change it. Most of the time the change needs to come from within, not without
3) take appropriate steps to change. If the change needs to occur within, inner work can include a change in belief, a reframing of a situation by putting yourself in the other person's shoes, meditation, journaling, talk therapy, exercise, etc.
4) if without, agree on a time to sit down with the other person. Pick a neutral time when neither of you are emotional and explain how the situation isn't meeting your needs and what change you would like to happen. Explain what it is you feel you need and if the other person needs anything from you to make that happen. Hopefully the other person is able and willing to listen and make changes. If he/she isn't then it is not a partnership but someone wanting power over you. It would be best to draw boundaries further away from that person if you can.

The throat chakra is healed by sound. So chanting is a good thing to do if you have a weak throat chakra. If you are new to chanting then start with 'Om' for 5 minutes and see how it feels. Gargling with salt water, singing, screaming (pillow therapy), and laughing also help. Laughing actually helps all chakras.

Each chakra responds to a certain musical note. The throat chakra corresponds to the note “G”. Signing bowls are an easy way to create a note and are fun to play with. You can use it is before meditation to set the mood and after meditation to seal in the good energy.

Foods that nourish your throat chakra are liquids in general: water, fruit juices, herbal teas. Tart or tangy fruits: lemons, limes, grapefruit, kiwi. Other tree growing fruits: apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, etc. Spices include: salt, and lemon grass.

Raquel Reis's Lemon Elixir I posted last week would be perfect for the throat chakra!

The following poses help open and balance your throat chakra:
1) Plow Pose, Halasana

This posture provides very strong opening for both throat and heart chakras.

Both the throat and the heart are protected in the front and exposed and opened at the back.

This is different from how we usually open the throat or heart chakra. Most of the time we open the front of the body. We are doing something new here. Changing our pattern of opening.

The posture is called the plow pose, because symbolically, we are "plowing" through the field to implant new patterns of behavior which serve us better in our lives.

You may find that you will need a folded towel underneath your shoulders.

Lie on your back with your arms by your side. Breathe in.
On an out breath, bend your knees and bring your thighs up towards your belly.
Engage your core muscles and lift your bottom off the floor.
Place your heads on your lower back and begin to straighten your legs upwards.
Stabilize in this posture and take a few breaths. Allow your face, scalp, and neck to release. Observe your breath.
When you feel you released tension from your face, neck and shoulders and your breathing is even and steady, slowly drop one leg behind your head.
If your breath remains steady, drop the other leg behind your head.
Hold the posture for few breaths and visualize your throat and heart chakra gently opening to the power and flow of energy.

2) Fish Pose, Matsyasana

With this throat chakra yoga pose, you open the front of your neck. When you are in this pose, visualize blue light coming into your throat chakra. See your chakra spinning and vibrating with energy.

Feel the power of self-expression in your throat. Visualize yourself in a situation where you want to express yourself and your feelings. Feel your own truth.




Sit on the floor with your legs fully extended in front of you.
Place your hands on the floor behind you, with your fingertips just underneath your buttocks.
Slowly move your elbows out of the way and allow the head to go back. Always maintain control, never allow the head to just flop back.
Level yourself on the crown so you feel supported.
Continue moving your arms out of the way.
You can either let your arms rest at your side, or you can bring your palms together over your heart in a prayer position. This will enhance the flow of prana in the upper body.

Cobra Pose and Camel Pose are not only for opening your heart chakra, but also excellent throat chakra yoga poses as well.

Own Your Power With a Balanced Solar Plexus

The 3rd chakra or solar-plexus is located just above the naval and below the rib cage. It is our energy center and it is where our Will Power comes from; our ability to achieve, self-esteem, raw emotions, and self-discipline are all governed by the solar-plexus. It is where we can have a mental understanding of our emotional self.

The solar-plexus not only governs the emotional and mental aspect of your psyche but also your psychic experiences. Often a feeling of intuition or “gut feeling” in a certain situation will benefit you greatly if you listen to it. All aspects of the digestive tract, including the assimilation of nutrients are controlled by the 3rd Chakra.

When this Chakra is in balance you will be in complete control over your emotions and thoughts. Your ego will have no unwanted influence over your actions. You will know without a doubt, and accept your place in the Universe, have self-love and, in turn, have a great appreciation for all the people in your life.

If you are interested in purchasing the solar plexus chakra yellow glasses just Click Here.


Over-active Solar-plexus Chakra

If your chakra is over-active you may be judgmental or critical – and you will easily find fault in others. You may be demanding and have extreme emotional problems, being very rigid or stubborn (it’s either your way or no way). Often anger, or aggressiveness result from an over-active chakra. You may always be planning to do things, but never doing, and your work or interests become a priority over things you have to do (a workaholic). You may also be a perfectionist and can’t settle on something that is already good enough, it always has to be better.


Under-active Solar-plexus Chakra

If this chakra is under active it can cause severe emotional problems. You may have a lot of doubt and mistrust towards the people in your life, and worry too much about what other people might think about you. In this way you are giving away your power to what you think others may be thinking of you.  You need to know that it is none of your business what other people think of you nor do you really have any control over it.  You may also run on “auto pilot” avoiding your feelings of depression or anxiety; you may feel afraid or alone when you start to look at what you have been avoiding. You also may feel that you are not good enough and be seeking a constant approval of others, this can lead to a need, or dependency on the people in your life.

Physical Symptoms of a Solar-plexus imbalance: Poor digestion, weight problems, ulcers, diabetes, hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, arthritis, pacreas, liver or kidney problems, anorexia, bulimia, hepatitis, intestinal tumors, food allergies and colon disease.

Healing the Solar-plexus

There are many ways one can begin to balance their Chakras.

Affirmation for the Solar-plexus: I am confident in all that I do. I am successful and release my creative energy into this world, effortlessly.

Color of the solar-plexus is associated with the color yellow. You can picture a beautiful yellow sunflower where the chakra is located. Yellow candles, clothes or surrounding yourself with pictures of yellow things can begin to bring this chakra into balance.

Organs/Glands governed by the solar-plexus: Large Intestine, Stomach, Digestive System, Adrenal Glands, Pancreas, Liver, Lungs.

Stones that help the solar-plexus: citrine, topaz, yellow calcite

Aromatherapy/Essential Oils for the Solar-plexus: My favorite is Lemon but also rose, sandalwood, chamomile, rosemary, myrrh, frankincense.

Healing the Solar-plexus with Nature: The Solar-plexus’ Element is Fire. Taking a walk out in the sun is extremely beneficial. Sitting in front of a camp fire, or fire place can have an instant healing effect.

Solar plexus Chakra-cise – Movement is great for chakras.  Laughter moves all chakra energy. Specific movements to open up the Solar Plexus - do the twist, belly dance or hola hoop for at least 70 seconds.  Any Abdominal exercises.  Deep breathing with the diaphragm