| Holistic
Living |
| Holistic
Living is an all encompassing philosophy of balance, care, awareness
and connection to self, others, earth and beyond. There is no
destination with holistic living, neither is there the
‘right’ way to live for us all universally. Rather,
there is a right way to live that is uniquely your own. Holistic living
is a process of living your best, step by step, in your time and pace,
trusting your own instinct and inner knowing.
This page addresses Holistic Living aspects
- Body, Mind, Spirit and Heart, providing
you with tips,
information and activities that you can utilise and adopt into your
lifestyle as needed.
When embarking on a new project, always
begin with the simplest tasks first. Likewise, when adopting a
healthier lifestyle, begin with those changes that you can easily fit
into your existing schedule.
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Body
– Seasonal Living - Summer
Tips for living according to the energy of Summer:
Goals
Put your plans into action. Is there anything that has remained
unfinished from the previous year? Can you complete it? If yes, then do
so. If you can't, then decide whether it truly needs to be done. Ask
yourself, 'Why haven't I completed it? Is it necessary? Do I even need
it?" Yes? - Then take a step towards completing it. No? Then make a
conscious decision to let it go.
Pericardium
Summer
is about
the heart. Nurture your relationships. Open yourself to love. Follow
your
heart. Live with passion! The pericardium
is an organ that lines your heart; it keeps it safe. However, if you
have been
hurt or are afraid of love, then there may be excess
‘padding’ around your
pericardium than needs to be released. Too much protection can keep
love away.
It’s time to heal those past hurts, release your fear and embrace
love the way
you always dreamed someone would love you.
Small Intestine
The small
intestine is
also connected to Summer. This organ’s job is to receive our
food,
absorb nutrients and pass the rest along its way. With so many fresh
vegetables and fruits in summer, it’s easy and enjoyable to look
after our
small intestine. Add some water and exercise to assist with movement
and you’ll
have the vitality, glow and energy to make the most of your summer.
Our
small
intestine has another job too. It absorbs, filters and discards what we
see,
hear and feel. Allowing it to complete this cycle keeps us healthy. You can help by opening yourself up to this
process – don’t suppress your emotions and words.
Don’t turn a blind eye or a
deaf ear. See it, hear it, feel it and then let it go.
Most
importantly
summer is related to happiness ☺
So enjoy the
sunshine, spend time with loved ones and celebrate summer’s
element – fire –
with a bbq and friends!
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Mind
– The positive thinking debate
A few months ago, I
was sitting at a cafe reading an article about positive thinking. The
writer
was describing a particular day in which she was determined to think
positively
for the day. And so begins a manic day with children running riot
at
breakfast to a car crash and a house burglary. And throughout one drama
after
another the author kept smiling through gritted teeth determined to be
positive. Did positive thinking work? Was she all joy and smiles by the
end of
the day? Hardly. Not only was she mentally and physically drained but
she was
also disheartened by the failure of positive thinking.
Now if you are a pessimist or realist, you would be shaking your head
right now at the absurdity of the author and her futile efforts. If you
were an idealist, you would perhaps be thinking the author just didn't
try hard enough - or perhaps are nodding in frustration and empathising
with them. And if you are an optimist..... well let's come back
to that in a moment.
The article
highlighted a common misconception about the purpose and process of
positive thinking. So firstly, let’s
clear up some facts. Positive thinking is NOT:
·
Ignoring the situation
·
Pretending or telling
yourself you feel different to what you do
·
Pretending you are happy when
you are not
· Using
positive body language
(eg. smiling) to ignore your emotions
· A way
to change your reality
If you are doing any
of the above, then at best you
are trying to manifest and at worst you are denying reality. The former
is
likely to be unsuccessful as it a relatively primitive form of
manifesting and
is missing many key elements. The latter is likely to lead to
disheartenment and unhappiness as denial
and ignoring one’s emotions often does.
Positive thinking is not about altering
your reality
but your perception of that reality.
Positive thinking is:
·
Accepting the situation
·
Acknowledging your emotions
& expressing them appropriately
· Being
proactive & taking
action
·
Finding the positive within
the experience
· Being
aware of your self talk
and its effect on your perception and behaviour
·
Appreciation and gratitude
Pessimists and
realists
insist they are seeing life as it truly is; but the reality is, they
are seeing
it through a negative perception and self talk. They generally do
not accept
life but rather resist it, lamenting and focusing on the negative;
often
leading to inaction or unhappiness.
Likewise idealists
that use positive thinking through gritted teeth
or rose coloured glasses
are also resisting life. They reject acceptance; preferring
to colour their perception with
what could be rather than what is. Disheartenment closely follows.
In contrast
optimists see life without the influence of negative self talk or
idealism and with
eyes that take in the bigger picture. They recognise that acceptance
enables
them to make peace with their present and appreciate it as they flow
and swim
towards their future.
So going back to the author's trying day; an optimist would allow
themselves to feel the madness of the day but they would not hold on to
those feelings. Instead they would be replaced by acceptance, and the
bigger picture:
The kids are running
riot - An optimist will still feel anger and tiredness
but will think: 'The kids are happy and healthy; and soon I will thankfully be dropping
them off at school! :)
Car crash - An
optimist will feel fear, and perhaps worry and financial stress but
these will be replaced with their final thought: 'At least no one was
hurt'.... or perhaps even 'I get to buy a new car!'
Burglary -
An optimist will feel fear and that they have been violated. But as
these emotions subside, they will focus on being grateful that the
family wasn't home during the burglary.
In a pessimistic environment,
positive thinking cannot break through the negative perception and self
talk that completely steals focus. In an idealistic environment,
positive thinking tends to be misused as a mask to hide more stressful
emotions. In an optimistic environment, emotions and situations are
accepted, felt and released; making room for positive thinking to enter
and flourish.
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Spirit
– Crystal Healing - Rose Quartz
Rose Quartz is traditionally known as the stone of love. Not only does
it energetically resonate to matters of the heart; but its pink colour
also lends itself to this purpose. Below are three simple grids dealing
with three types of love.
Grid 1: Intimate Love (To attract or
strengthen)
Begin by locating the relationship area of your bedroom. To do so,
stand at the doorway facing into your bedroom. The relationship area is
the (furthest) top right hand corner from where you are standing. Place
in this area two small tumbled rose quartz crystals together. If you
are already in a relationship, placing the crystals on top of a photo
of the two of you will enhance the effect. (Ensure there are no other
people in the photo).
Grid 2: Platonic Love (to create harmony between family members,
colleagues or flat mates)
You will need two rose quartz crystals,
each roughly the size of a computer mouse. Place one crystal in the
North of the room and the other in the South, so that they are opposite
each other. Place them in a room that the inhabitants of the building
use together often.
Grid 3: Self Love (to
encourage/build on self love)
Place one rose quartz (any size) over a
photo of yourself. Place the photo and crystal next to a mirror that
you look into daily.
Note: Remember to programme your crystals before using them and cleanse
them as needed.
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Heart
– Letting Go
How we assimilate emotions has a
large impact on our happiness and wellbeing. If we close ourselves off
to emotions (by ignoring or suppressing them), then we also close
ourselves off to love, friendships, opportunities and life itself.
If we hold on to emotions, then they build up inside of us,
weighing us down and leaving no room for love or any other
positive life experiences.
In order to live our potential
in life, we need to find the middle ground between denial and holding
on. This involves accepting and allowing ourselves to feel the emotion
for an appropriate time (relative to the experience) before letting
go.
'But how do I let go?' you might
ask. This is perhaps the most often asked question in holistic
counselling and one that causes much frustration for people trying to
heal. They will often say 'I have felt the emotion; I have understood
the purpose of the experience.... but I still can't let go!'.
Unfortunately, there is no 'one size fits all' answer for this
question. But there are some points of awareness that can assist with
letting go. Below are tips for letting go; using anger as an example.
First let yourself feel the anger. Write it down if need be or talk to
someone in order to express and begin the process of releasing. If
appropriate (and once you have calmed down), talk to the other person,
explaining your disappointment and how this can be avoided in the
future. Once this is done:
1. State your intent to yourself and out loud that you are letting go
of the emotion/incident. Write it down to reinforce it.
2. Examine the intent of the person that brought about the anger. More
often than not, the intent of the other person was not to hurt. And if
it were, then that person is expressing their own hurt. This doesn't
justify their actions but it assists us in changing our perception from
someone that is 'bad' to someone that is too hurt themselves to behave
appropriately.
3. Don't dwell on the situation that caused the anger. This means, no
reruns in your mind; no visualising of scenarios related to the
incident. Every time you think of the incident, you need to redirect
your focus to something else.
4. Accept that people are human and as such make mistakes. Even when we
'know better' we still make mistakes. Nobody does this on purpose and
it is not till we have hindsight that we recognise our error. Life is
not black and white. Sometimes our reasoning seems sound at the time
and other times we just don't think. This is a normal part of being
human and trying to juggle work, school, emotions,
relationships.....etc.
5. Take action to remedy the situation. If something can be fixed, do
so. A large portion of our anger stems from something being broken,
damaged, lost, wasted, stolen, taken away from us etc. Once we begin to
fix this (or see that it can be remedied), then our anger (which is in
part fear) begins to dissipate. If it is something that cannot be fixed
or retrieved (eg. a relationship break up; an argument), then we take
steps to forgive and/or move forward.
6. Acknowledge and understand the purpose of the experience. There is
something to be learned or gained from most if not all experiences.
Sometimes that lesson is related to the incident itself and other times
the learning is in how we choose to react to the incident.
7. Lastly, visualise yourself opening up and letting go; much in the
same way as we open our hands to let go of an object.
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