FROM COMPASSION FATIGUE TO COMPASSION SATISFACTION
This is my favorite passage in “Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work” by SaraKay Smullens.
— From Compassion Fatigue to Compassion Satisfaction Establishing Proper Boundaries.
One of the main themes of this book is that burnout, as represented here by the draining negativity of compassion fatigue, is first and foremost a matter of establishing successful boundaries between ourselves and our clients. Undoubtedly, social workers are guided by compassion for others and a desire to improve individual and societal conditions (Radey & Figley, 2007). It is meaningful, fulfilling, and uplifting to see our clients grow and change.
However, one of our challenges is to make sure that our primary motivation must be this growth and change, not an escape for difficulties we have known ourselves or witnessed our loved ones endure and perhaps be destroyed by — and not a desire to have control or power over others to make up for what has been denied us or those we love.
Without realizing it, many come into social work and related fields wanting to help others, needing to help others, but not primarily because of the client. As we have seen, many may be attracted to social work and related professions to escape from and compensate for their own pain or the pain of those they loved and needed, those who have let them down and disappointed them in myriad ways, sometimes callously and brutally.
*** A Self-Care Tip: Try the relaxing “BeKind Good Vibes Candles!”
Simply put, many may be attracted to social work or related professions to soothe their own agonizing or traumatic life events and in this way find peace in their own lives. Though not aware of it, people's choice of a profession devoted to mental health may be attractive due to an urgent desire to ease distress regarding events in their own lives that have not been dealt with and understood. This initial motivation is true for some of our most passionate and effective social workers, as well as those in related professions.
In facing this hard truth, one is able to make the necessary shift in professional direction by realizing that we can never heal through our clients. Once we can clearly distinguish between our needs and the needs of our clients, we can more fully appreciate how essential appropriate boundaries are in our lives and work and to the vital connection to compassion satisfaction.
We call on the strengths and power of our professional relationships, which are the keys to our effectiveness in building mutual respect and trust. Sometimes we are the very first people our clients will learn to trust. The success of our work is most evident when a professional relationship can conclude—when a client, couple, or family (and for some in our profession, an organization or board) recognizes it is time to move forward independently with the confidence to define direction and face inevitable stress and frustration.
With this achievement, we let go, ending our relationship—understanding and appreciating the success attained: A client’s journey forward is his, her, or their own; we no longer are necessary for survival, sustenance, or direction. Without appropriate boundaries this process will be seriously impaired, and exhaustion, negativity, and fatigue will make professional satisfaction impossible to achieve.
Respectful boundaries are understood and valued through our own hard-won self-awareness and the professional confidence and autonomy it makes possible. Through an appreciation of the relationship between appropriate boundaries and what I think of as an effective “letting go/ending process,” we understand that the term "helping professions" is perhaps a misleading one.
We use our knowledge and skill to work with our clients for one reason: so that they are able to help and care for themselves and, through this ability, find personal direction and fulfillment in love, friendship, and work.
An understanding of the words "pity' "sympathy,” and "empathy"— and their relationship to compassion satisfaction—is an effective way to conceptualize the difference between social workers who are motivated to escape their own feelings of pain and disappointments through their work and those who have learned to appreciate necessary boundaries for their work to be effective, for both their clients and themselves. (Please note: In the following discussion of pity, sympathy and empathy, I draw largely on the research and work of Karen Gerdes [2011]. The integration of empathy and compassion that is discussed and its relationship to the Self are based on my own experience.) …
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE PRESENT
This is my favorite passage in “Consciousness Is All” by Peter Francis Dziuban.
Why is Consciousness the Present?
If there were no Consciousness, it would be impossible to know there even is a Present. Take away Consciousness and it could not be said there is any Present, any existing at all. Equally, if there were no Present, nothing would be present, not even Consciousness.
Consciousness and the Present are not two separate entities functioning simultaneously. They are but two different words for the One Unchanging Conscious Presence which is All There Is.
It cannot be overemphasized that the Present being spoken of is not just “the” Present or “a” Present. It is the conscious Present.
The Present is this alive conscious Presence here and now alive to being all the Presence existent. This Conscious Presence never is something You can be conscious of, as if It were something separate, because You are Consciousness Itself. In the same way, You never can be conscious of the Present. You are the Present. To read as if this refers merely to “a” Present, as something apart from this Presently Alive Consciousness, will make this book seem like just so many dry, boring words. Be alive as the Present. It’s the only place Your Life is.
The Present is not something separate that You experience.
The Present is You—All-Present Consciousness.
All that is present, is You.
When was the last time you noticed the Present was not present? Of course, it sounds ridiculous because it simply doesn’t occur.
Where the Present is present (and It is absolutely all the Presence there is), there simply cannot be an absence of the Present.
Time pretends to be that period when the Present is not present. But that never happens.
The Present always is present.
To have time in any way, the Present would have to be made to go away, or be uprooted from being everywhere present, all Presence. In other words, the Omnipresent Present would have to be shoved aside, so time, what-never-is-present, could be present. That is just plain impossible.
Only the Present is present, and endlessly so. That means complete, total “coverage” as All. This never changes.
Look at it another way. There simply is no point at which the Present comes to an end, and where what-isn’t-present, or time, could begin. What isn’t present can’t begin anywhere, because it isn’t present!
The Present Awareness I Am can’t exist in time. The Present I Am is not surrounded by, or between, past and future. As the Present is absolutely all that can be present, It leaves only Itself, and no past or future anywhere to be between!
Present Awareness stands alone.
The answer to the question, “What is the Present to Its own Presence?” also is the answer to, What is All? Who am I?
Only the Present is real, for only the Present really is.
Then only the Present can be Reality, for the Present is all that is present to be Reality.
Simply nothing else is present to be Reality.
One thus can see why this book does not constantly quote other sources, use references, and is not written in a “scholarly” style. It is not due to being intellectually irresponsible—but because all such material would be information gathered-in-time; such writing is intended only for human thinking which functions wholly in never-present time, and is not the Pure Conscious Present I Am. All would-be activity of human thinking or the intellect never really is, thus never is real, or Reality.
An intellect is not the proper “equipment” for discerning Reality, the un-intellectual pure Conscious Presence I Am.
HEART DETOX: HIGHER VIBRATIONAL EMOTIONS AND THE INFINITY-FIRE
This is my favorite passage in “Awakened by Heart-Fire: Wildland Fire Stories and The Secrets to The Universe” by Thomas M. Wurm.
My experience with heart detoxification took time and practice, but the fastest way you can achieve it is through a technique called Mental Emotional Release (MER), also known as Timeline Therapy. The basic idea of the technique is that you travel back through your timeline to a root event that is causing emotional pain. You see the event from a distant view, harness the lessons you needed to learn, and release the emotions behind the event. Letting go of the emotions behind a traumatic event almost instantly changes your vibration.
The universe is based on vibrations, and to change my vibration I had to delve deep into release-work to break down the upper-limiting subconscious walls that I built for myself. I discovered that I didn’t have just one wall that was separating me from my highest potential, but rather, I had many that worked together to form a maze that required me to confront my inner child and work with my anger. My anger constantly erected roadblocks and lowered my vibration to the point that I couldn’t hear my Heart-Fire. Detoxifying my heart required acupuncture, meditation, Ho’oponopono, hypnosis, MER, and honesty, fully supported by the Heart-Fire embrace of my life.
Every day proved to be an act of courageous folly. I stumbled my way through my heart detoxification so that you could read this book and detox with grace. The most valuable lesson I can share from the detoxification of my heart is that the fabric of the universe is comprised of unconditional love and all the actions that move through this medium are compassionate exertion. Unconditional love and compassion are vibrations, and the detoxification of your heart is ultimately achieved when your heart is returned to this specific vibration.
Preparing for detoxification requires purifying the mind, body, and spirit, as discussed in the previous chapter. Detoxifying your heart is the way in which you clear all of the emotional blockages that hold you back from your highest potential. The heart is a tuning fork and detoxifying it requires clearing away the sludge that enrobes it while allowing the universal vibration of unconditional love and compassion to ring inside you. Surrendering your emotional sludge to the Infinity-Fire is the basic tool for detoxifying your heart. Fully ceasing your resistance to the Infinity-Fire while co-creating a new self-image takes courage because you have to face yourself.
Surrendering your lower vibrational feelings to the Infinity-Fire will return the heart to its original frequency and its original instructions. As just mentioned, the heart is a tuning fork and it resonates with vibrations—it’s all a vibration. Lower vibrations are emotions that bring you down like anger, sadness, fear, guilt, shame, and hurt. Higher vibrational emotions are unconditional love and compassion, and when you hold these feelings, your heart is strong and ready for activation. When your heart is clear and open, your heart center will brightly burn, and you will feel released from lower vibrational forces.
Think of your heart as a glass filled with murky water. If you want your glass to contain clear water, you need to pour out the murky water and obtain clean water from the faucet. Your faucet is the Infinity-Fire!
Once your heart is detoxified, only your limiting beliefs will hold you back from
being able to hear your Heart-Fire for the first time. A limiting belief is when you make a decision to believe something that isn’t true during a traumatic event in the past. In most cases, the limiting belief is so literal that you don’t even realize you are carrying a lie inside your heart.
PRACTICING MINDFULNESS WITH MINDFUL EATING
This is my favorite passage in “Meditations on the Natural World: A Guided Journal To Help You Find the Technique That's Right for You” by Molly Larkin.
— “We meditate to silence the chatter in our minds so as to make space for inspiration." — Molly Larkin
People tend to use the terms meditation and mindfulness interchangeably, but there is a difference. Meditation is when you intentionally set aside time to meditate sitting in one place and practicing your chosen technique.
Mindfulness is giving your undivided attention to what you're doing, as opposed to daydreaming or multi-tasking while doing it. So, mindfulness can entail eating an apple and just eating the apple and nothing else. Jr entails consciously selecting the apple, washing it, looking closely at it, biting into it and noticing the texture, the flavor, the sound it makes as you chew it, and enjoying it with no distractions. That's mindfulness.
In today's hurry-up world, we are often multi-tasking and eating on the run. How often do we eat slowly, consciously, and silently, really paying attention to the food? That would be practicing mindfulness. Both meditation and mindfulness entail focus—an attempt to stop or at least slowdown, the 50,000 random thoughts that may wander through our minds.
— “Don't let a wandering mind control your life. Learn to control your mind through meditation." — Molly Larkin
Mindfulness is moment-to-moment awareness, focusing on what you're doing, and trying to keep your mind from wandering. It's purposefully paying attention to things we normally never give a moment's thought to—things we often do while multitasking.
The fact is, multitasking is not as productive as we think. Our brains aren’t equipped for multitasking those tasks that require brainpower. Our short-term memories can only store between five and nine things at once. When you're trying to accomplish two dissimilar tasks, each one requiring some level of consideration and attention, multitasking is counterproductive. When you multitask, you actually don't work faster, your stress level soars, and you're limiting your short-term memory and creativity. It’s fine for simple tasks—I can dust and talk on the phone with the best of them. But multitasking isn't effective for serious work.
Now back to mindfulness:
How often do we daydream or let our minds wander while doing an everyday task such as washing the dishes? What if we didn't let our minds wander, but rather focused on the task at hand, clearing the mind of all other thoughts. That would, indeed, be profoundly restful and relaxing. Earlier, I mentioned practicing mindfulness while eating an apple. In addition to eating, one can mindfully wash the dishes, sweep the floor, make the bed, prepare a meal, listen to music, or eat a meal, and much more.
To mindfully eat an apple, do only the following, without multi-tasking; stay aware of your breathing, your inhales and exhales throughout.
1. Select an apple.
2. Wash it.
3. Dry it.
4. Look at it and give it your undivided attention.
5. What kind of apple is it?
6. Where did it grow?
7. What color is it?
8. What is its shape and size?
9. How does it feel in your hand?
10. What does it smell like?
11. Take a bite and chew slowly.
I. What sound does it make as you chew?
II. What does it feel like in your mouth?
III. Chew slowly and savor the taste.
As you become fully aware of eating the apple, you become fully aware of the present moment. You become more alive.
This is practicing mindfulness.
In The Wind Is My Mother; The Life and Teachings of a Native American Shaman, Bear Heart teaches about the Native American practice of eating in silence, without television or conversation:
"You need to pay attention to your stomach, what you're putting into it and how you're doing it because your stomach is your biggest help. It's where the energy that sustains your life enters your body. You think you save a lot of time by working while you eat, but then you don't understand why you feel tired and have such bad indigestion. No wonder so many, executives have ulcers."
Just focus on the blessing of the food and nourishment you’re receiving. Visualize it going through your body and creating health and well-being. That's mindful eating.
CREATIVITY AS THE ANTIDOTE TO SCARCITY
This is my favorite passage in “Resilience: A Workbook: Powering Through Adversity to Find Happiness” by Kathryn Den Houter.
Where does creativity fit into the personality of resilient individuals?
While listening to a presentation on overcoming scarcity with creativity, I acknowledged the absolute significance of being creative when confronted with life’s upheavals. It was at this time that I had an epiphany.
Ah, yes, I thought, this quality was clearly present in my most resilient clients. The clients who were successful in spite of difficult lives have been creative. Their thought processes were resourceful, and not reactive. Instead, they became proactive and forward-thinking as they tackled life’s most difficult challenges.
Family stories of the Depression Era came to mind, a time in our country when everything was scarce. Women made woolen quilts with scraps from old worn-out men’s suits. They made braided rugs from clothes that were thrown in the ragbag such as old coats and Sunday suits.
People saved every scrap and piece of old clothing to use. My grandma used old silk stockings to stuff pillows. Gardening was more than a hobby since vegetable gardens were essential for survival. Holes in the soles of shoes were remedied by inserting pieces of cardboard inside the shoe. Lovely dresses were made from feed sacks. If you couldn’t afford a belt to keep your pants up, a piece of clothesline rope would do. People survived because they were inventive and creative in spite of their shortfalls. This attribute is indispensable today since survival strategies in our world are in short supply.
Thinking creatively to solve complex problems today is in even more of a demand. Two of my clients with this quality come to mind. Both were mothers who were raising sons by themselves. For sure, there were many differences between Dee and Cheryl, but the spiritual aspects of their journeys were quite similar. Both of them endured divorce due to marital tragedies.
One lost her husband due to his infidelity, and the other to mental illness. With a broken home and broken dreams, these women had to be creative in the face of huge losses. The plight of the single mother encompasses scarcity and suffering.
First of all, there isn’t much money when the main breadwinner abandons the family. Also, there is the heartbreak of broken dreams and family dysfunction caused by pre and post-divorce struggles. Having two sons is a mighty challenge for intact families, but even harder for single mothers, since these families have few or no male role models. However, like so many challenges in life, when done successfully, the rewards are great.
Dee and Cheryl were always trying to determine how to help their sons. They wanted them to respect women without being dependent on them. They wanted their sons to be assertive, but NOT overly aggressive or angry. Most important, they didn’t want their boys to be singled out or to be picked on by other boys or men.
Their fathers simply were not around to provide support and instruction when they needed them. Boys want to learn how to be brave and strong in a man’s world and it is in the day-to-day hustle and bustle that sons need their fathers. With absent fathers, the mothers had to learn to run their own households. Often these moms would second-guess themselves because they had never lived as men. They had to stretch themselves to understand what it meant to grow up male in our society. Dee and Cheryl had to put themselves in their sons’ shoes to determine what they needed emotionally, spiritually, and physically. They did double duty by being both mom and dad. This forced them to become creative in the face of this scarcity.
THE SECRET OF THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE
This is my favorite passage in “Achieving Self-Compassion: Giving Yourself the Gifts of Happiness and Inner Peace” by Nate Terrell LCSW.
Most of us know that a major portal to happiness is to appreciate the good things in our lives. Whether we are marveling at the unconditional love our dogs give us, the comfort of pulling the blankets up to our neck on a cold winter’s night or the joy of reconnecting to an old friend, our ability to bask in life’s pleasures significantly improves the quality of our precious time on this Earth. However, many people still live with an acute sense of what they lack rather than being grateful for all of the good things in their lives. They labor under the belief that they will be more fulfilled when they gain coveted possessions, achieve more professional success, and so on. Consequently, they live with a sense of scarcity rather than abundance.
Even when people get what they want, the satisfaction it brings them usually dims over time as the newness wears off and they set their sights on the next thing they believe will “make them” happy. Imagine that a lonely man finally finds a woman who provides him with companionship and love.
Although initially ecstatic, he eventually begins to take what he has for granted and decides he can’t be happy unless she gets a better job so they can buy a pool. I am sure you get the point - his assumption that he needs something else to be happy is the very thing that is preventing him from experiencing it. It is much more self-compassionate to value what we already have in our lives even as we strive for further heights. For instance, we all can be thankful for the simple fact that we are alive. Although this may not sound like much, it sure beats the alternative as far as I am concerned. The privilege of life enables us to enjoy a good laugh, spend quality time with our loved ones and watch Monday Night Football. It also provides us with the opportunity to gain more wisdom and grow into the people we want to be. I am always puzzled when people comment that life is short and wonder what they are comparing it to.
Yes, some people’s lives are tragically cut short. However, if we live a typical life span, we have around 16 hours a day, 365 days a year for 79 years (28,835 days) to appreciate everything good about our lives rather than what is lacking. Consequently, every day is like a feast and our sense of fulfillment enables us to feel like we are getting our just desserts.
Whenever I encounter people who appear to be very happy, I ask them what their secret is. They generally observe that they woke up that morning and/or have a lot to be thankful for. Their gratitude is a generous gift they give themselves and everyone they encounter because it enables them to experience “good cheer,” which my best friend Carl believes is the secret to a happy life.
One of the happiest people I have ever known is my Aunt Jean. When I told her I was writing a book about how to achieve happiness through self-compassion, she began sending me lists of everything she loves about life such as spending time with her grandchildren and painting pictures of landscapes. I often read over her lists when I need to refill my own store of appreciation. Although she has certainly experienced many significant challenges in her life, none of them has even made a small dent in her ability to relish all that life has to offer.
TREAT CANCER NATURALLY
This is my favorite passage in “Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure” by Sylvie Beljanski.
— As journalist Michele Cagan wrote in a newsletter for the Health Sciences Institute Members Alert:
“Dr. Mirko Beljanski took a view of cancer that no one had ever seen before. When he looked at carcinogens (substances that stimulate cancer cells but not healthy cells), he realized that there must be some substances that act in the opposite way—substances that would destabilize cancer cells, but leave healthy cells alone [...] With this brilliant new concept, Beljanski tried to change the way we treat cancer patients. That was more than twenty years ago, and the mainstream still hasn’t caught on.”
And until the mainstream catches on, this wealth of knowledge will not be secured, despite the best efforts of The Beljanski Foundation.
How can we make certain that this body of work is not again at risk of disappearing?
One way is by each of us making it our duty to reach out to as many people as possible and share this life-saving information. We will take back our power over health, and exercise our sovereignty by promoting the funding and sharing of scientific information that has the potential to disrupt a societal order that continues to kill us.
Every time you see a conventional doctor, ask questions on prevention, nutrition, and lifestyle. Tell your doctor that you expect him or her to take the time to get to know you and discuss your health goals. A quote attributed to Hippocrates says, “It is more important to know what kind of person has a disease than to know what kind of disease a person has.”
We have a right to self-determination. You may ask your doctor what the alternatives are to conventional treatment. Your doctor should assist you with reviewing all the options that science offers. Ask your doctor for a synergy of action between natural and conventional treatment to reduce the toxicity associated with chemotherapy. If your doctor says that such a thing does not exist, give him or her a copy of this book.
Ask how normal cells will be protected from the side effects of your treatment. Ask explicitly how the removing or killing of cancer cells will affect normal cells. If the doctor measures success by the size of the tumor with CT scans or PET scans and offers a chemotherapy treatment, ask for studies showing an overall improvement of length and quality of life. According to the final results of a large, randomized clinical trial presented at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), patients who received the chemotherapy drug Gemcitabine after surgery for pancreatic cancer lived two months longer than patients who had surgery alone.
Ask about cancer stem cells, those 1 percent to 5 percent of cancer cells that will resist conventional treatment and can metastasize. If cancer stem cells resist chemotherapy and radiation, what will destroy them? Ask about the foreseeable consequences of killing “regular” cancer cells, while leaving out cancer stem cells. Doing so merely kills their competition and allows them to flourish.
Ask your doctor how to protect your healthy tissues during radiotherapy, and how to maintain your platelets during chemotherapy. If you are advised not to take supplements during chemo or radiation treatments, be specific and ask your doctor for scientific evidence of any negative effects of those supplements when taken with these therapies.
GRATITUDE AND SIMPLE PLEASURES
These are some of my favorite passages in “Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles” by Rivvy Neshama.
— So there I was practicing gratefulness, and on good days, no problem. “Oh thank you for this lovely sky. And my dear family. And thank you for my loving husband, John.”
Then, when the dark days came, I would struggle to feel gratitude but find it forced and phony. I’d be praying, “Thank you, God, I’m really grateful for this lesson . . . or challenge . . . or, um, chance to grow . . .”—but I wasn’t. What I wanted to say was “Help! Make things better! This is so not okay!”
Then I found a little book by Richard Carlson: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff . . . and It’s All Small Stuff. He wrote that the happiest people he knew were hardly happy all the time. That’s encouraging. In fact, they could really get down. All right! The key seemed to be their awareness that bad times and bad moods will come. So rather than fight them, they just accept them and wait for them to pass—yeah, but bad times can get worse and drag on and—and they pass a lot quicker, Carlson added, if you accept them with grace.
Ah, now I got it. It was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle. Good day, be grateful. Bad day, be graceful. Be grateful, be graceful, and on it goes.
*******
— It wasn’t until I moved to Boulder that I discovered the joys of a clothesline. When John first asked me to leave Manhattan and join him out West, I pictured him fetching me in a covered wagon. Leaving the city that never sleeps for what was then a sleepy town made me feel like a pioneer woman (“Rivvy of the Prairies”), and so did using a clothesline. I guess I was finally learning the simple tasks of daily life. And after years of urban living, I relished each old-fashioned chore.
I loved standing barefoot in the grass, using wooden pegs to hang our sheets. I delighted in watching them blow in the wind as the sun and air naturally dried them. And later, when I made our bed, I savored their fresh, sweet scent and remembered how, as a child, I would walk between and smell the sheets my mother hung to dry.
Now, I admit it: The clothesline broke and I reunited with our electric dryer. No worries, I told John. We can still save energy. I’ll just wash less often . . . and vacuum less too!
But now and then, I still hang something out to dry, and that always feels right. And when we’d phone John’s ninetyseven-year-old mother in England, she’d often tell us she was just outside, hanging the wash to dry. She never did anything but. So this one’s a recipe from Dorothy Wilcockson (“Dorothy of Mole Valley”), who knew the joy of simple pleasures.
WORDS OF AWARENESS AND TRANSFORMATION
These are some of my favorite passages in “In the Awakening Season” by Matthew Mumber.
DESTINY
Breathe with me,
this ordinary day,
leaf-lined dirt path, downhill,
right next to home.
Take one step
then another, without direction,
who knows if we will ever
find our way back.
Just imagine if
each second had a reason
every created thing played its part
nothing was ever wasted.
Even those missteps
that twist our limbs,
roots of forgiveness.
Imagine each and every step
a great allowing.
THIS PRECIOUS LIFE
Some say
no one really lives his own life,
true face covered by a mask,
stuck tight and fashioned by a series
of random voices,
interactions,
childhood dreams of flying, long lost,
adult desires for comfort superficially gained,
mismatched pieces welded sequentially over time,
firmly, to the fragile, baby skin
of who we really are.
Some say
all paths lead
to these false lives discarded,
rain-soaked clothes
hanging against
a damp, shadowed stone wall.
Standing here, midlife,
children grown and mostly gone,
I let the cold, winter air in.
CONNECTED
—Day two of a five-day, silent retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh
Mid-morning, after dawn meditation,
They tells us,
Go for a mindful walk,
enjoy nature.
Most others walk
then sit near him—
our revered teacher.
I settle into a corner of an open field,
grass sleeping, mid-fall.
The mottled sunlight
highlights
a single autumn leaf
quaking and turning and
rising and falling with
an imperceptible wind,
somehow suspended, eye level,
mid-air, just to the side of me,
a maple tree branch above, leaf-strewn earth below.
My closer inspection reveals
an invisible spider thread
thinly attached to the stem.
Mesmerized,
I sit until the distant bell calls me back.
The next day
after morning meditation,
the whole group files out,
mindfully walking along
a different dirt path in the woods;
just above their heads
I see
a single leaf suspended.
YOUR JOURNEY TO A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE
This is one of my favorite passages in “It’s Just Personal: A Personal Chef’s Essential Guide to Shopping, Cooking and Eating Smarter” by Ellen Postolowski.
The first thing I tell them is that they need the proper frame of mind. You have to want to change those former bad habits. Second, I cannot control how much food you put in your mouth. Portions are indicated in all the recipes, but it is up to you to know how much is enough.
Here are some thoughts to get you motivated:
— It is very easy to overeat, but think about how much harder it is to take the extra weight off?
— Know your limits, and allow your brain to catch up with your eyes and stomach.
— Willpower is a powerful tool you need to control at once. We all have our moments of weakness, but those moments need to be few and far between at this point. Choose those moments wisely, and you will soon dominate the weaknesses. My job is to aid in the process.
— Choose the road that will eventually lead to your personal success.
— You have started your journey to a healthier lifestyle by purchasing this book and giving me the opportunity to assist you in your lifestyle changes. Thank you. If quick, simple, and nutritious recipes are what you are looking for, flip ahead to the recipe section. If you need a little more help with sticking to and implementing changes in your lifestyle, read on. Wanting to change is what prompted you to buy this book; however, sticking to a new routine may require a bit more dedication. I assure you that when you start to look and feel better, you'll be passing up that second helping, making smarter choices, and loving the fact that you are more aware when it comes to your overall health.
This book offers a combination of smart shopping ideas, an introduction to energizing foods, and tips on cooking to save you time and calories without sacrificing taste. With a little revision of your own meals here and there, these strategies on when and what to eat for health success will soon be at your fingertips. You can visit these recipes often without guilt or fear of making the wrong choice.
I am a personal chef because I wanted to help a family put better food choices into practice while helping them to have a greater awareness of and a positive outlook on natural food options. Joumana feared that her family, always on the run, would get caught up in the fast-food downward spiral of bad eating habits.
My job was to turn those attitudes around and convince her three children that vegetables were not the enemy. Joumana and her family arc lucky. Most of us cannot afford a personal chef to come to our house every day. When I tell people what I do for a living, they are most eager to listen and often seek my advice. My job seems to be quite admired, but it is a lot of hard work. I happen to love what I do and am grateful for the opportunities presented to me in recent years.
For these reasons, I have decided to share my expertise and knowledge for those willing to listen. So, if your family is on the run and is sliding towards bad eating habits, you can use my advice to turn it around and head toward a healthier lifestyle.
— ALSO, ON CHEFELLEN.COM
MAKING PEACE WITH FOOD: THE CURE TO EMOTIONAL EATING
This is one of my favorite passages in “The Binge Cure: 7 Steps To Outsmart Emotional Eating” by Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin.
— Whether you’re trying to think away your anger or deal with other feelings such as sadness, helplessness, anxiety, fear, guilt, worry, or shame, those emotions need your attention, not your condemnation. When you think less and feel more, you’re less likely to turn to food when you’re upset. When you get out of your head, you’ll stay out of the fridge.
You know that feeling when you rationally know something to be true, yet the feeling doesn’t match up with what you logically know and believe? That’s because it’s not logical—it’s psychological. We try to resolve that internal tug-of-war in various ways, including by distracting ourselves from discomfort by focusing on our diets, counting calories or fat grams, and being preoccupied with our weight. What you weigh becomes less of a problem when you focus on what’s weighing on you. That’s why we’re going to explore the various ways we deny, deflect, repress, or otherwise push away uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and conflicts. These are often called defense mechanisms, but I like to think of them as ways of protecting us from pain that also ultimately hurt us.
They include mind reading, turning on the self, intellectualizing, minimizing, bargaining, slave-driving, and overdoing. Do you ever assume that someone else is thinking that you are fat or judging you for what you are eating? Or do you apologize profusely when you are late but never express anger when someone else is? Do you minimize your problems the moment you begin to express some serious emotions? I will help you to understand what’s really happening below the surface. Once you begin to recognize these behaviors, you can more easily let go of them and address the underlying emotions that are causing you to turn to food for comfort.
When you walk into a room filled with strangers, what are your initial thoughts? Do you imagine the best possible scenario? Do you think, These people are interested in me and can’t wait to meet me? Or do you think the worst? These people think I’m fat . . . boring . . . stupid . . . and they don’t want to have anything to do with me. They can see that there’s something about me that’s different or somehow unlikable. I’m going to take a wild guess and presume you do not work for a psychic network. Therefore, you do not actually know what’s in another person’s mind. Many of us feel as if the world is scrutinizing us and finding us wanting. Believing that other people are thinking the worst can also be subtle. Consider the following examples:
Arturo sat on the couch in my office, telling me about his weekend. He’d seen a movie and spent time with his girlfriend, and he also played golf all day on Sunday. I listened without interruption or comment. I didn’t speak. I didn’t say a single word. He looked at me and nodded. “You’re right, I should have done some work this weekend. I can’t believe how lazy I am.” On another occasion, Corinne wept in frustration as she described a recent problem at work. She blew her nose and grabbed tissues from the box, taking the last of them. She shook her head apologetically. “You probably think I’m such a crybaby.”
More recently my friend Kellie and I had dinner, and at the end of the meal, she ordered dessert. After giving the server an order for apple pie a la mode, Kellie gave me a sheepish look. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “I have no business eating apple pie.” I didn’t think Arturo was lazy. I didn’t think Corinne was a crybaby. I didn’t think that Kellie had no business ordering dessert.
Arturo, Corinne, and Kellie were projecting the critical thoughts they had about themselves onto me and then believing that I was thinking the same thoughts. So where did those critical perceptions come from? They came from the usual place: the past. Arturo’s father always accused him of being a slacker, and he had internalized that view of himself. He thought I was viewing him through his father’s eyes. Corinne grew up in a family that didn’t tolerate emotions or tears, which were viewed as signs of weakness. She imagined that I was viewing her tears contemptuously, as her family members did whenever someone expressed emotion. Kellie’s mother constantly monitored her weight, and Kellie thought I was doing so too. She transferred the shaming experience with her mother onto me. If you think other people are critical, indifferent, exasperated, or angry, you’re a lot more likely to use food as a substitute for love and comfort. Conversely, when you trust that others like you and think the best of you, you feel good. When you feel good, there’s no need to distract yourself with food.
RECOGNIZING AND HEALING THE INNER CRITIC THROUGH JOURNALING
This is one of my favorite passages in “Journaling Power: How to Create the Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” by Mari L. McCarthy.
Through my daily journaling, I learned to recognize my negative automatic thoughts – those well-worn and limiting “tapes” that play in your head, over and over, as they inhibit progress. We all have these negative thoughts from time to time. Journaling has helped me eliminate them.
My Inner Critic also shouted loudly when I decided to follow my dreams to become a singer: again I had to talk to him very firmly. My journal revealed how he had been empowered through the treatment I received as a child. The message I got from my parents and teachers was to keep quiet and be invisible; this did not help me to become a creative writer or singer. At school, I was once sent away from the chorus for allegedly being tone-deaf (though the problem was actually my shyness).
These rejections affected me deeply. As I grew up, I began to think of myself as “staccato,” a musical term that meant “with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others.” I didn’t feel that I expressed myself in a way that flowed naturally, so I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t speak out, let alone sing out. As I progressed through elementary school, high school, and college, I excelled at solitary tasks that did not require me to speak out loud. My Inner Critic told me to keep quiet and I obeyed his commands.
Journaling enabled me to break this pattern and cast aside the negative self-image I’d developed. Remarkably, I became a singer despite the many discouragements I’d suffered as a child. As you’ll see in Chapter 5, the daily practice of journaling led me to take the first step in this once-scary direction – and then the next step and the next. With the help of my journal, I committed to the daily practice that learning to sing well entailed.
Of course, that meant listening to my voice (oh, yuck!). I taped all of my voice lessons and forced myself to pay attention to. In time, I learned how to treat myself kindly and gently and discovered how relaxing, breathing and drinking water not only made me a better singer, but a far less wrinkled one!
Now if I’m honest, it’s taken years to tame my Inner Critic. It wasn’t an overnight victory. But it’s all happened through journaling. Through writing every day, I’ve learned to live in the present moment. I’ve cleared out the old messages that seemed to be stuck deep in the cells of my body. Managing my Inner Critic was a huge part of my journaling practice for many years and I continue to grapple with him on a regular basis.
As you start your journaling practice, don’t let your Inner Critic get the better of you. In the next section, I’ll explain how the Inner Critic develops and how you can keep him under control.
It’s good to be aware of the Inner Critic right from the beginning of your journaling journey. Some people have more trouble than others with this interfering entity, but pretty much everyone will experience his voice some of the time.
Right now you could be thinking: “The whole journaling idea is probably a waste of time because I’m not really a writer,” or “I doubt journaling will change my life: it seems a bit of a hippie thing to do.” These thoughts create resistance to the whole process, and that’s typical of the Inner Critic. As soon as you try something a little bit different, he goes off on a tirade.
So let’s unmask him and put him in his place!
Psychotherapist and writer Dennis Palumbo defines the Inner Critic as “the persistent, sometimes harsh and almost always shaming ‘voice’ that belittles or invalidates your work.”
It is, of course, part of you, a component of your psyche that manifests almost as a sub-personality of who you are. It’s linked to your ability to make judgments, discern your likes and dislikes, and form opinions so that you can make decisions.
The Inner Critic developed as soon as you had language skills and could understand your parents’ comments, particularly when they used the word “no” and rebuked you. You internalized these comments and began to hear their “no” even when they were not physically present. If your parents were often critical, then your Inner Critic became a powerful negative voice in your head, forbidding certain thoughts and behaviors. If your parents were very positive and encouraging then you may have experienced it far less. But the Inner Critic isn’t just a product of your family upbringing – teachers and other authority figures, and the wider society you grew up in, were all influential in its development.
HEALING MEDITATION FOR YOUR SOUL
This is one of my favorite passages in “Know Your Soul: Bring Joy To Your Life” by Diana Muenz Chen.
People have expressed a range of experiences when contacting their Soul. They commonly report that their Soul feels expansive and is full of light. You might feel larger than usual. With this expansion, you can also feel spacy—your brain is temporarily not functioning in a logical manner.
You may have a clairvoyant inner experience where you see strong gold or white light on your mind screen. After a Soul meditation, sometimes people think a lamp was turned on during the meditation. It was actually their Soul’s light that they clairvoyantly saw. If you’ve already had conscious contact with your Soul, it is good to strive for clarity in the connection so that you can receive clearer guidance.
In a focused meditation, imagine your mind in the background simply watching what your Soul is doing, without your mind interfering. Have your ego be an observer. Allow the flow of wisdom from your Soul and try not to interfere with that flow. This will open you to clear communication from your Soul. To deepen your spiritual growth, ask your Soul important questions to stimulate the response of Soul wisdom.
You can develop a conscious relationship with your Soul, which usually takes practice. Focused meditation helps to expand your energy and contact your Soul and consists of focal points that keep your mind and energy on task. For example, a focused meditation can enable you to open each chakra, expand your PEF and hold the intention of contacting your Soul. A meditation that is not focused can be one where you might space out without any direction or intention. It is imperative to have a strong, clear intention to connect with your Soul.
Your intention will direct your energy to contact the Soul level. A daily focused meditation to connect to your Soul builds your spiritual strength and clarity of purpose. In addition, it calms your mind, relaxes your body, and steadies your emotions. This state prepares you to interact more clearly with your Soul. When you are calm, it is easier to sense the connection with your Soul and to enable meaningful interactions.
Consider your actual physical space first. Find a quiet, uncluttered area in your home, the woods or a sanctuary where you can sit comfortably. You could set aside a room in your home reserved for meditation or create a special section in a room. If you reserve an area specifically for your meditation practice, you accrue beautiful energy there, which strengthens each time you practice.
— Let’s begin the focused meditation. Bring your awareness to the midpoint in your body and imagine a central passageway that goes straight through the center of your physical form—your Line of Purpose (LOP). This passageway allows light and energy to move through it, easily and effortlessly. Take slow, deep breaths and notice that inner passageway inside of you. This is your LOP—how your soul interacts with you.
Now Archangel Michael is going to come directly to you. Here are his directions:
As I work with this passageway, you will experience a deepening connection to your Soul’s energy. Again, stay relaxed and peaceful, and receive what I am about to give you as you notice. Stay relaxed and calm.
I will speak with you as I do this energy work. Your Soul is the activating factor in this lifetime for you. It has chosen this incarnation; it has chosen what issues you will work through; it has chosen people that you will meet and respond to in your life. It has given you the breath of life, bringing spirit into physical form, and has helped you to manifest yourself on the earth now. Your reasons for incarnating can be accessed through this passageway deep inside of you.
Take time to sense your Soul’s energy. Notice if there is anything you receive as guidance from your Soul…
BUILDING TRUST FOR A HAPPY BRAIN!
This is one of my favorite passages in “Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels” by Loretta Graziano Breuning.
— Direct human trust always comes with the risk of disappointed expectations and feelings of betrayal. Those bad feelings built circuits that fire when you think about trusting again. Your neurochemical alarm bells ring and your brain presumes there’s a good reason. But if you give up on direct interpersonal trust, your brain feels that something is missing. And it is: Oxytocin is missing.
Start with small steps that don’t trip your alarm. Every time you feel good about an animal, a crowd, or a digital relationship, tell yourself “I am creating this good feeling.” It may sound silly or self-centered, but knowing that you are creating it gives it a chance to grow. There will always be reasons for distrust to grow, so a source of balance is precious.
Notice your trusting feelings from any source for forty-five days, and you will build a foundation that can ignite more.
Maybe there’s someone you want to trust, but you can’t bridge the divide. It’s good to know you can build trust with a long series of very small interactions. Individuals or groups with an unfortunate history cannot always wipe the slate clean all at once. Intermediate steps build trust gradually. The stepping stones can be placed so close together that neither party risks a big betrayal. Each step need only create positive expectations about the next step rather than resolve the whole problem. Each small experience of trust stimulates the good feeling of oxytocin, which connects neurons that help trigger more.
Divorce lawyers use this strategy to help a couple reach agreement. You might try it with that person who is “ruining your life.” Initiate a very small interaction, and if that proceeds without disaster, do it again. The goal is not to trust blindly and get disappointed. The goal is to build positive expectations.
Coexisting without trust is bad, but getting burned again is worse. So instead of taking a leap of faith with that crazy neighbor or the coworker who stabbed you in the back, you can find steps that are comfortable. For forty-five days, craft reciprocal exchanges that build stepping stones toward trust with difficult people. You can’t predict the results since you can’t control others. But you will expand your sense of control over the trust bonds in your life. This is hard work, and it may not feel good in the short run. But in the long run, it builds confidence that you can do something about those thorns in your side.
You might start by just making eye contact with that person who’s making your life difficult. The next day, you could comment on the weather, and add a smile the day after that. It could take a week to build up to a shared chuckle about traffic, and even that may stir up bad feelings that are curiously strong. But you will continue making neutral contact—neither venting anger nor rushing to please. In forty-five days, you will have built a new shared foundation. You may always need to limit your trust in this person, but you will be able to relax in his presence the way gazelles relax in a world full of lions.
Oxytocin works both ways. When other people trust you, it feels good whether or not you trust them. You can enjoy more oxytocin by creating opportunities for people to trust you.
— Natural selection rewarded those who fanned out from familiar turf. In the animal world, young males are often ousted from their natal groups, or they leave on their own initiative because they’re excluded from mating opportunities. They experience huge cortisol stress when they leave their trust networks for parts unknown, according to excretory samples taken in the wild. This stress intensifies when a new troop rejects them. But the seekers don’t give up. They keep trying to build trust bonds, because it feels great when they succeed.
GUIDED BY LOVE
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Transformations of The Sun” by BethAnne Kapansky Wright.
Soul callings can be messy, let me be clear. Answering a calling of the soul is likely to pluck you out of one life to place you in another. It is likely you will be forced to make a break from who you once were in order to become who you need to be. Not everybody is going to go with you on this journey—in fact, there will be many you leave behind, and that will be painful. But many only see things through a one-dimensional lens, and so they don’t understand your deeper journey or your deeper path; in fact, they may reject the journey and mock the path.
Soul callings will leave you wandering in the wilderness. Going through many dark nights of the soul. Things will not be neat or square and certainly not linear. Mistakes will be made, failures will happen, messes frequent; illumination and resolution and direction can be a long time coming. But despite all of this, despite all the doubts and confusions and “where is this going” and questions of your own sanity—you will feel compelled by something inside of you.
You will feel drawn to the light and drawn to the mysteries. Drawn into a deeper relationship with the universe itself. Drawn into a deeper relationship with Love. You will seek more and crave more and find you are not satisfied with one-dimensional reality; that in fact you are seeking a multidimensional life of creativity, connection, and relationship. Seeking deeper truth and knowledge and wisdom that can only be gained through living it. Seeking to serve and heal and shine and be a transcendent light. And that is why you have to pass through so much darkness. Those who shine the brightest didn’t get that way from living life “right” and being “good,” or being perfect and having everything add up on paper.
Those that shine the brightest have usually walked through fires so strong they burned away all that wasn’t real. They have descended into internal hells so dark, they didn’t believe they’d find their way out. They have fallen into abysses and grand canyons of soul pain so deep they scarce knew how to traverse and ascend the terrain. They have made hard choices. They have made leaps of faith. They have been asked to trust when they couldn’t see the way. They have been asked to
bring love and healing into spaces that didn’t look very lovable or healable. They have been purified. Sanctified. Set aside. They have been stretched, broken, grown, shifted, transmuted, transformed, and transfigured throughout the course of their experiences. And they are the ones—from all backgrounds, all creeds, all colors, all beliefs—who have been called to be the healers and light-workers and game-changers and compassion-makers and consciousness-awakeners and way-showers of this world.
They are the ones who have been called to the cause of LOVE. And so as difficult as it may be—they know they can trust their path, and they know they have to trust their path. Because what has been touched by LOVE and blessed by LOVE and claimed by LOVE and guided by LOVE—can never be lost and never be ripped asunder.
BEING OF SERVICE TO HUMANITY
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Ancient Wisdom for Reality Creators” by Tony Samara.
The miracle of life and enjoying all its abundance leads humanity to a creative reflection that deepens our experience of this wondrous miracle. This miracle is so often forgotten because of the thoughts and feelings that well up and color the simplicity of each moment and its unique gifts. To savor these gifts it is essential to remember that our desires for more, or something different, or something special, is often camouflaging the very essence of what feeds our heart, what enriches our experience, what deepens our feelings and what centers our thinking back to a sense of gratitude and love. Live simply and appreciate this simplicity by appreciating what is, what you have and who you are, thus allowing this moment to be savored in its completeness. Let's live life rather than chase the idea of life!
How to touch and expand the joy that is our essence but that is often veiled by the mundane and its demands on our time?
Joy is not static, or a place, or even a goal but rather, like art and music, multi-faceted, uncontainable and expansive. The way to experience joy is unique to each individual, yet the core of joy is a shared experience that makes us human and part of an alive participating adventure. Simply put, joy is only understood through the expansion of consciousness. This is when we glimpse what it means to be expansive. Most of us, due to a thousand and one reasons, focus on the lacks, limitations and problems.
These lacks, limitations and problems are so real that they demand all of our attention and from this space we struggle to find the real joy of each moment. Many feel that by resolving what seems to be a block or hindrance for their expansion then expansion will happen miraculously. I see it differently.
What we want is what we need to be!
An oak tree starts as an acorn but it has no doubt that it will fulfil its destiny as a tree. Most of us don't even believe that possibilities and potential are real as our experience sabotages our expansion and holds us in the mud of daily living. The sky, the light, the beautiful stars seem to come from a different world and seem totally out of reach. This leads to depression as we no longer believe in our destiny or even see the light. One of the most important steps to reawaken who we really are is to be of service to humanity.
By being of service to humanity rather than to our perceived needs, we remember in our actions the true meaning of love. Love is expansive. As we expand with this service so does our focus expand, freeing our attachment to the mud, so that we are harmoniously in touch with the Universe. It is not a difficult journey if put into action, but it does seem impossible when one uses the present contracting situation as a limitation to what is possible, and hence why many of us are not able to expand.
I ask you strongly during these intense times not to focus on yourselves or your needs, or the problems, or the lack of joy, or what could be better. No matter how present they seem, please focus on what it means to serve others and as you begin to see the light in every being there is no doubt in my mind that the light within will help the acorn that is in each of us to reach up and open to this new and beautiful expansive experience and hence open up to the joy of life. This is what is asked of us during this special time. It is up to each of you to put this into practice rather than to just meditate upon the beauty of my words. The world needs more trees.
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WHAT IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF OVERWHELM?
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Fully Whelmed: Shifting from Overwhelm to Overflow” by Lisa Dettinger.
What is the root cause of overwhelm? We like to blame our circumstances. We feel overwhelmed by too much coming at us. The deluge keeps pouring over us and filling us up with more than what we can hold, more than what we can control. For example:
• I am too busy.
• This person is too overbearing.
• I am in too much physical pain.
• This is too difficult for me.
• There is too much injustice here.
• I am too confused.
• I have too many bills/my expenses are too high.
• There is too much clutter in my house.
• I weigh too much.
• I have too many problems.
• I have too many responsibilities.
• My (boss) expects too much of me.
• I am too tired.
• My kids are too unruly/disrespectful/messy.
• My (friend’s) emotions are too strong for me to handle.
• This temptation is too great.
• There is too much sadness in my world/ the world.
• This process is going too slowly/too quickly.
• I have too many decisions to make.
• My sorrow is too deep.
• I feel too lonely.
• I am too weak.
There is a dramatic irony with overwhelm. Overwhelm makes us feel as though there is too much of something. In reality, we are experiencing a scarcity mindset. Check out the scarcity that is reflected in the following statements. (Note: all the statements reflect a possible negative thought pattern. That doesn’t mean they are true!)
• Too busy = not enough relaxation time
• Someone is too overbearing = not assertive enough
• Too much pain = not enough comfort
• Too difficult = not easy enough
• Too much injustice = not enough fairness
• Too much confusion = not enough understanding
• Too many bills = not enough money
• Too much clutter = not enough organization
• Weigh too much = not healthy enough
• Too many problems = not enough solutions
• Too many responsibilities = not enough capacity
• Someone expects too much of me = not able to do enough for them
• Too tired = not enough sleep/rest
• Kids too disrespectful = not enough respect
• Emotions too strong for me = not enough stability
• Temptation too great = not enough self-discipline
• Too much sadness in world = not enough happiness in the world
• Process too slow/too fast = not enough patience/not enough acceptance
• Too many decisions = not enough wisdom
• Sorrow too deep = not enough joy
• Too lonely = not enough companionship
• Too weak = not strong enough
— We all have different levels of overwhelm. Some of us know our canoe can hold a great deal of water before it becomes overwhelmed. Others of us begin anticipating overwhelm with just a few splashes of water. Or before we’ve even gotten into the canoe.
Regardless of our capacity, we see the water rising and feel as though there’s nothing we can do about it. Our canoe is being overwhelmed. This is where we get to choose to be defeated or surrendered in our overwhelm.
If we start to feel the canoe sinking from the onslaught of rushing water (we feel the stress, strain, sorrow, or anxiety becoming more than we think we can handle), we can hopelessly sink with it (allow it to bring us down completely) or we can intentionally get into the water, find the intimately whispering peace that God offers, and whelm (experience a surge rising up from us).
Staying in defeated overwhelm is just as hopeless and helpless as believing we’re sinners at our core. We are not hopeless and helpless sinners. We’re saints with the power of the Living God at our core. We have the Life Jacket within us!
Rather than white-knuckling our experiences looking for an escape or a rescue while the water rushes in, we can actually get into the water with our Life Jacket, set our feet upon the Solid Ground beneath us, and whelm from what (Who) is inside us rather than be defeated by what’s outside us.
BREATH HYGIENE: KEEPING THE MIND AND BODY HEALTHY
Over the past few weeks I’ve seen numerous social media posts counseling people to stay calm and stay clean. In my experience, employing good breath hygiene is the most effective way to both remain grounded and support immune and respiratory health. The breath is our greatest inner resource and with a little breath education, you too can develop the capacity to settle yourself, even when fear is gnawing at your gut! Initially, breath hygiene may feel unfamiliar or awkward (much like learning to wipe down everything you touch with disinfectant) but the more you work with it, the easier it gets. Here are five valuable tips for how you can use the breath as a powerful BFF to enhance emotional regulation, while simultaneously giving your immune system a boost:
1) Breathe Through Your Nose: I’m going to actually write that again in all caps to implore you: PLEASE, BREATHE THROUGH YOUR NOSE. The nasal cavity is the miraculous starting point for your immune system. Your nose is designed to protect your lungs from foreign particles, including germs. Within the nasal cavity are tiny turbinates that work hard to filter out substances that are not intended to be ingested. Inside the sinus cavities you have pockets of Nitric Oxide, a potent anti-microbial gas that has been shown to have anti-viral capacities as well. With each nasal inhalation you ensure that the air you are taking into your body has passed through your natural TSA check-point, weeding out potential biological terrorists.
I suggest employing nose-breathing 24/7. For me this means taping my mouth each night before bed. Nose breathing at night supports deeper, more restful sleep. Sleep is an incredibly important factor in sustaining your health. Mouth-breathing is linked to snoring, sleep apnea, insomnia, dental decay, and poor gum-health. Mouth and chest breathing also foster anxiety and panic by stimulating the sympathetic nervous system. To employ mouth-tape at night, use hypo-allergenic paper tape, like 3M Micropore or Nexcare Paper Tape.
2) Breathe light : Although common lore says that when you feel nervous or upset that you should take a deep (implying BIG ) breath, I’m going to suggest the opposite. Here’s why:
Big breathing stimulates your sympathetic nervous system. You tend to take big sighs or gulps of air when you are stressed or physically working-out. When you are relaxed your breath is slow and soft. I routinely ask anxious clients, “How would Buddha Breathe?” Can you imagine Buddha huffing and puffing his way through meditation? If you invoke your inner-Buddha and settle the breath, you will find that the mind follows and settles in-kind. This is the key to the power behind yoga pranayama practices. When you quiet your breathing, the nervous system resets into relaxation mode. If your internal alarm system isn’t being fired off by hefty rounds of big breathing, your mind will likely cease and desist from agitating stories of impending doom.
3) Breathe slow: It’s not always easy, but the companion to a light breath is a slow, rhythmic breath.
Fast breathing correlates with a higher heart rate and the fight or flight response. It tends to give rise to shallow, chest-generated breathing. When you override the urge to breathe rapidly, you exhibit personal agency over your reactivity in the present moment. This is empowering! Regardless of the circumstances happening outside of yourself, you can choose to maintain a slow, light cadence: Inhale 4 seconds, exhale 6 seconds, pause for 2. This keeps your mind from being hi-jacked by fear while reinforcing resilience.
4) Breathe like a Jelly Fish: Imagine your diaphragm, which sits right in the center of your body expanding and contracting like a beautiful jelly-fish floating through the ocean. When you breathe in, your diaphragm flattens, expanding your rib-cage laterally. When you exhale, your diaphragm draws inward narrowing the dome into the concave space between the ribs. This action formulates the basics of functional breathing bio-mechanics.
The abdominal muscles also attach to the lower rib-cage and work synergistically with the diaphragm. You can actively engage your abdominals to amplify healthy diaphragmatic movement. To do this, span your hands around the lower side-ribs and upper belly. With each exhalation, draw the belly inward as if you were hugging your viscera and giving it a good squeeze. On inhalation, relax the belly and allow it to passively expand. Visualize the undulating movement of a jelly-fish and train your belly and diaphragm to dance with the breath, much as a jelly-fish propels itself through water. Jelly-fish breathing enhances your parasympathetic nervous system by gently pumping the vagus nerve and replacing the chest-breathing habit. It massages your heart and supports lymphatic drainage. When you jelly-fish breathe, the lower lobes of the lungs are better activated which improves ventilation and profusion with far less effort.
5) Short Breath Hold Practice - Your ER Breath Remedy: It may sound counter-intuitive, but the absolute most effective way to short-circuit the panic button is to voluntarily stop breathing.
Employing Short Breath Holds (SBH) in a repetitive fashion rebalances your oxygen and carbon-dioxide levels. This in turns, increases oxygenation to the tissues, reducing tension. The arteries dilate, airways reopen, and nervous impulses quiet down. All of these systemic responses support you feeling more in control and less likely to be emotionally de-railed.
Here’s how to employ a SBH practice:
a) Always work with the pause after exhale.
b) Take a gentle nasal breath in and out (light, slow, and low).
c) Seal your nostrils with your fingers and count gently up to 5.
d) Release your fingers and take another gentle breath in and out through the nose.
e) Take a second or third ‘recovery’ breath between breath-hold cycles as needed.
f) Repeat the short breath-hold process.
g) Gradually increase the hold to 6, 7, or 8 seconds.
h) Build gradually over several breath cycles until you feel a return to calm.
NOTE: Short breath holds are never to be done after the inhale. Only sustain the suspension of the breath to a level that feels slightly challenging, not to the point that you’re gasping for the next in-breath. Be sure that the inhalation that follows your breath-hold is nasal - through the nose. Also, feel free to adapt. If a 5 second initial hold feels too long, drop it down to 1, 2 or 3 seconds and build from there. If you feel comfortable extending the breath hold to 12 or 15 seconds, work at that level. Honor where you are with this process. As your respiratory system calms down, you’ll find it easier to volitionally suspend the breath for longer periods of time.
Why it Works: The intention of the SBH practice is to allow your CO2 levels to raise back up re-establishing homeostasis. CO2 has a sedative effect on your nervous system. It acts as a vasodilator and relaxes the smooth muscle in the body which is embedded in the airways, arteries, and organs including the brain. When you stress-breathe for a period of time, you can temporarily hyper-ventilate. This means you’re breathing too much and lowering CO2 levels below normal. The lower levels of CO2 can make you feel like you’re having a heart attack or possibly dying. SBH practice offers a safer and less-cumbersome alternative to paper-bag breathing. The paper-bag method (dramatized in movies as a response to panic attacks) is intended to restore CO2 levels, offering immediate relief.
SBH practice can also be used to stave off coughs, wheezing, or chronic congestion. I encourage my clients to sway, dance, or jog in place while practicing their breath-holds. This offers a useful and playful distraction, enabling more comfort while learning this technique. Others find accompanying SBH practice with the repetition of a silent mantra like, “Om Shanti”, or “Light, Love, Joy and Peace” to be very soothing.
To summarize, remember these salient points:
Breathe through your nose;
Breathe Light
Breathe Slow
Breathe Low (Jelly-fish breathing)
When feeling anxious, worried, or restless - reach for your innate rescue remedy: Short Breath Holds!
The brilliant thing about good breath hygiene is you can practice all day long and no wipes are required! Learning to breathe this way offers potent sustenance to embody a calm, relaxed, and responsive state of mind. May we all find our way through these turbulent times and model our commitment to health and sanity through proactive self-care like good breath hygiene.
Written by Robin Rothenberg
