Showing posts with label intuition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intuition. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Sunday, August 24, 2008
What does being Independent mean to you?
For me, Independent means 'independent from authorities'.
This is all about self-sovereignty, it's about becoming a master over one's own life, it's about learning to make decisions and live one's live according to one's truth. This is not to say when one is independent that one doesn't consult other people and get other people's feedback in regards to decisions that one makes. It is about becoming one with oneself and integrating all the skills one has of observation and questioning. It is like being spiritual and a scientist at the same time, one integrates the two parts of reality - what one can observe - the past or the happening and what one can intuit about it by questioning what one has observed and waiting or listening to receive an answer.
So for example, something 'new' and 'unknown' happens in your life, which requires that you make a decision on how to proceed. Because you've never encountered exactly these circumstances before, it is an unknown for you. To be able to proceed and make a good decision, which is in-line with your life and journey, then you make use of what is available to make your decision or conclusion. You observe the happening, you get information about it by doing research, questioning others, consulting experts, etc. Part of this is observing yourself, your reactions & your current life. Then after you've questioned all that you can about the happening, then you will need to make a decision on how to proceed. To do this next step, then you ask yourself, what rings true here, what is it in my heart that I really want to do here, what is the best possible scenario. Because you've never encountered this scenario before, then you can only make 'your best guess', the best decision possible; even it might turn out to be a mistake. But that is how we learn, and the more we rely on our what’s in our heart to make the final decision, then the more we will grow in self-sovereignty and self-reliance, knowing truly that we are in control of our own destiny, that nobody is forcing us to make our decision the way others might dictate.
To contrast this, it might help to know what being dependent means. It means that instead of making your own decision in regards to what to do, you just do what others tell you, or you do what is normal - what the majority is doing. People take this route, because they don't want to accept responsibility in case the decision they make ends in disaster or is a mistake. The benefit of this is that if a mistake happens, you can then give the fault to another person and feel like a victim: you told me to do this, or the doctor misdiagnosed my disease, or the lawyer made a mistake, etc. Then you can take it a step further and sue the people who 'did you wrong'. That's pretty much the society we have today, a bunch of sheep, not taking self-responsibility, going with the crowd, and then when bad things happen they find someone else to blame it on. What a game this is, and all because people are afraid to take ownership of their life and wield their abilities to observe, question and make decisions.
Betsy
This is all about self-sovereignty, it's about becoming a master over one's own life, it's about learning to make decisions and live one's live according to one's truth. This is not to say when one is independent that one doesn't consult other people and get other people's feedback in regards to decisions that one makes. It is about becoming one with oneself and integrating all the skills one has of observation and questioning. It is like being spiritual and a scientist at the same time, one integrates the two parts of reality - what one can observe - the past or the happening and what one can intuit about it by questioning what one has observed and waiting or listening to receive an answer.
So for example, something 'new' and 'unknown' happens in your life, which requires that you make a decision on how to proceed. Because you've never encountered exactly these circumstances before, it is an unknown for you. To be able to proceed and make a good decision, which is in-line with your life and journey, then you make use of what is available to make your decision or conclusion. You observe the happening, you get information about it by doing research, questioning others, consulting experts, etc. Part of this is observing yourself, your reactions & your current life. Then after you've questioned all that you can about the happening, then you will need to make a decision on how to proceed. To do this next step, then you ask yourself, what rings true here, what is it in my heart that I really want to do here, what is the best possible scenario. Because you've never encountered this scenario before, then you can only make 'your best guess', the best decision possible; even it might turn out to be a mistake. But that is how we learn, and the more we rely on our what’s in our heart to make the final decision, then the more we will grow in self-sovereignty and self-reliance, knowing truly that we are in control of our own destiny, that nobody is forcing us to make our decision the way others might dictate.
To contrast this, it might help to know what being dependent means. It means that instead of making your own decision in regards to what to do, you just do what others tell you, or you do what is normal - what the majority is doing. People take this route, because they don't want to accept responsibility in case the decision they make ends in disaster or is a mistake. The benefit of this is that if a mistake happens, you can then give the fault to another person and feel like a victim: you told me to do this, or the doctor misdiagnosed my disease, or the lawyer made a mistake, etc. Then you can take it a step further and sue the people who 'did you wrong'. That's pretty much the society we have today, a bunch of sheep, not taking self-responsibility, going with the crowd, and then when bad things happen they find someone else to blame it on. What a game this is, and all because people are afraid to take ownership of their life and wield their abilities to observe, question and make decisions.
Betsy
Thursday, August 21, 2008
What is Meditation & What are the Benefits?
Meditation is Great for Releasing Stress
I have a friend who has been meditating for 50 years, and he now calls meditation -> "Stress Release Exercise". So you see, the practice of meditation reduces and relieves stress, rather than builds it up. Meditation is basically the practice of resting your thinking, You can try it for free, and make your own decision if it helps or not. The best is you do it each day, twice a day, for around 30 minutes each time and do it for at least 3 weeks straight to be able to see a result. Then if you decide you get a benefit, then you can make it part of your daily life, just like you brush your teeth every day. It's much like that, a preventative mental, physical and emotional health routine which you do every day.
How to Do Meditation
To do it, find a quiet place free of distractions, then get comfortable and close your eyes, the most important is your body is relaxed, not so much that you try to keep a certain body posture like many recommend. Then just put your attention on FEELING your breath move in and out of your body, which can be anywhere along the path of the breath. Re, you can notice the feeling of air coming in and out of your nose or into your lungs, or into your diaphragm. The important thing is you just are feeling the breathing happen, you don't have to breath in any certain way. Breathing happens all by itself, you don't have to 'do breathing' or think about breathing, you have nothing to do here except FEEL your breath move in and out. As you practice this, you will notice that you lose contact with the attention you had on feeling your breathing, what has happened is the thinking has started up. Don't worry about the thoughts or what the content of them are, just make a mental note - I was thinking - then refocus on feeling the breathing. If you try to examine your thoughts, then it will trigger more thinking and before you know it you will be only thinking. So for meditation time, it's good to have a reminder: this is not the time that I need to think. I can think later if I need too... This interruption of thinking happening and losing contact with simple feeling of breath will repeat over and over, this is totally normal. As you proceed in meditation practice it will become easier to feel the breath, and become more aware of when thinking has become predominant.
Why does Meditation reduce Stress?
The reason this practice reduces stress is because stress is caused by thinking. It's like you think all these things - re: all you have to do, and you don't have time to do it, then there's a conflict, the muscles hold tension and you have stress. Thinking goes a lot faster then what you can physically do, so the more you think things should be different than what they are, which is most of the time with thoughts, then the more stress you build up. As you learn to become more aware of thinking and breathing from continued daily practice of meditation, as you get better at tuning into what happening inside you, you will start to learn more about your basic make-up, personality, awareness and body and how all of you works. This is known as 'self-knowledge', which will allow you to take steps in your awareness levels. Eventually you get better at accepting what is happening 'right now' and learning to respond to it as needed, versus spending so much time thinking you can do more than is truly possible. So you see, if you continue you will stop building up stress in the first place, you will be able to catch that over active thinking pattern when it happens and be able to 'set it aside' and simply breath - even during the day - thus you become more in control of everything that you experience.
It's a very important life skill to learn how to control the reactions of thinking and emotions and physical actions. All that a human can do, the first thing that always happens is thought, this precedes all else, so becoming aware of thinking is paramount to have true will power and focus and control of yourself. When one's thinking is overactive, usually certain thoughts are repeating or a certain nature, which create an emotional energy in the body according to the underlying nature or tone of the thoughts. Thinking is part of the nervous system and is what allows us to act, so just prior to a movement in body, energy is built up in the appropriate muscles as an electric charge to allow us that movement. So think, emotion, then act. When one is thinking, one is building emotional energy in the muscles, if one doesn't act upon that which is set up, then this is 'stress'. Basically charges are in the muscles, but it is not released through action. By learning to only think when needed - when one needs to take an action, then one becomes more energy efficient, not building up unnecessary energy in the body when it's not needed.
Betsy
I have a friend who has been meditating for 50 years, and he now calls meditation -> "Stress Release Exercise". So you see, the practice of meditation reduces and relieves stress, rather than builds it up. Meditation is basically the practice of resting your thinking, You can try it for free, and make your own decision if it helps or not. The best is you do it each day, twice a day, for around 30 minutes each time and do it for at least 3 weeks straight to be able to see a result. Then if you decide you get a benefit, then you can make it part of your daily life, just like you brush your teeth every day. It's much like that, a preventative mental, physical and emotional health routine which you do every day.
How to Do Meditation
To do it, find a quiet place free of distractions, then get comfortable and close your eyes, the most important is your body is relaxed, not so much that you try to keep a certain body posture like many recommend. Then just put your attention on FEELING your breath move in and out of your body, which can be anywhere along the path of the breath. Re, you can notice the feeling of air coming in and out of your nose or into your lungs, or into your diaphragm. The important thing is you just are feeling the breathing happen, you don't have to breath in any certain way. Breathing happens all by itself, you don't have to 'do breathing' or think about breathing, you have nothing to do here except FEEL your breath move in and out. As you practice this, you will notice that you lose contact with the attention you had on feeling your breathing, what has happened is the thinking has started up. Don't worry about the thoughts or what the content of them are, just make a mental note - I was thinking - then refocus on feeling the breathing. If you try to examine your thoughts, then it will trigger more thinking and before you know it you will be only thinking. So for meditation time, it's good to have a reminder: this is not the time that I need to think. I can think later if I need too... This interruption of thinking happening and losing contact with simple feeling of breath will repeat over and over, this is totally normal. As you proceed in meditation practice it will become easier to feel the breath, and become more aware of when thinking has become predominant.
Why does Meditation reduce Stress?
The reason this practice reduces stress is because stress is caused by thinking. It's like you think all these things - re: all you have to do, and you don't have time to do it, then there's a conflict, the muscles hold tension and you have stress. Thinking goes a lot faster then what you can physically do, so the more you think things should be different than what they are, which is most of the time with thoughts, then the more stress you build up. As you learn to become more aware of thinking and breathing from continued daily practice of meditation, as you get better at tuning into what happening inside you, you will start to learn more about your basic make-up, personality, awareness and body and how all of you works. This is known as 'self-knowledge', which will allow you to take steps in your awareness levels. Eventually you get better at accepting what is happening 'right now' and learning to respond to it as needed, versus spending so much time thinking you can do more than is truly possible. So you see, if you continue you will stop building up stress in the first place, you will be able to catch that over active thinking pattern when it happens and be able to 'set it aside' and simply breath - even during the day - thus you become more in control of everything that you experience.
It's a very important life skill to learn how to control the reactions of thinking and emotions and physical actions. All that a human can do, the first thing that always happens is thought, this precedes all else, so becoming aware of thinking is paramount to have true will power and focus and control of yourself. When one's thinking is overactive, usually certain thoughts are repeating or a certain nature, which create an emotional energy in the body according to the underlying nature or tone of the thoughts. Thinking is part of the nervous system and is what allows us to act, so just prior to a movement in body, energy is built up in the appropriate muscles as an electric charge to allow us that movement. So think, emotion, then act. When one is thinking, one is building emotional energy in the muscles, if one doesn't act upon that which is set up, then this is 'stress'. Basically charges are in the muscles, but it is not released through action. By learning to only think when needed - when one needs to take an action, then one becomes more energy efficient, not building up unnecessary energy in the body when it's not needed.
Betsy
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