This is an automatic process to relax your autonomic nervous system automatically.
Pull the air in through your nose deep into your belly as if trying to fill a balloon..
Do this for a count of four.
hold for a count of seven
allow the air too release through your mouth for a count of eight.
repeat this at least four times and you will be amazed!
This tells your brain it is time to relax and your brain will believe it.
This is a great exercise for focusing your attention and separating yourself and your emotions in a high stress situation.
Do a cycle of deep abdominal breathing exercises for relaxation and dive into the zone.
Locate your left ear.
Locate a specific sound you hear with your left ear. Maybe a bird chirping.
Locate your thoughts about the sound you chose.
Notice you can switch between all.
Try this with your right ear.
Try to feel the location where the sound hits your ear.
Is it different when you realize you are hearing the sound the bird made a few milliseconds ago. You don’t hear anything until your brain processes the sound.
Is the sound outside coming from a different location than your thoughts?
Can you hear sounds on your left side with your right ear?
Can you hear sounds on your right side with your left ear?
Can you balance both ears.
How does the mind change when you start this exercise?
Quieter? Calmer?
Who directs the attention?
Are your thoughts slower or faster than when you began this meditation exercise?
Can you slow your thoughts?
Can you predict the next thought?
can
you
let
out
one
thought
at
a
time
?
Can you hang out in the space between thoughts?
Thank You for Being You
Contrary to the prophetic poem by Gil-Scott Heron, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The revolution will be live streamed to your personal handheld device.
The dystopian future is now, children!
(links open in new tabs)
The revolution will be embedded in your head and informed by your confirmed informed consent!
Informed by millions, billions; trillions of clicks of your very own,
likes, dislikes, omg yes I love! with a heart emoji
endless midnight swipes to the left and right and oh no!
i will pay dearly to subscribe for the right to retract !
google give me a re-do
there has to be a morning after remedy for this moment of bliss
back to the same old same old
blame the victim
surely you are complicit
read the fine print
it is in the contract
we reserve the right to rewrite the rules at any time
click here if you agree
This is a wonderful way to rest and replenish your core after expending energy.
Breathe deep into your abdomen and explore. How much do air can you fit in there?
Is that it? Are you sure there is no more room in your core for more air?
Pull more through your nose and push air down your legs to your toes.
See how it goes.
Try again with your arms and hands and fingers.
You may be surprised how much air you can fit in there.
Do this a few times and each time you exhale pull your abdominal wall in and expel all air.
Be gentle, no need to force yourself. Just explore what you can do.
The point of the exercise is to directly experience the breath in your body and explore how you feel or experience your inhales and exhales.
Stretching your abdominal walls signals to the brain the stomach is full and it’s time to relax.
The act of focusing your attention on the breath expanding your abdomen creates a little seek, find and reward loop in your brain to get the pleasure chemicals dopamine and serotonin flowing naturally.
This is a double bonus because stretching your abdominal walls directly stimulates the Vagus nerve to release acetylcholine. (Vagus Stuff)
Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter which acts a catalyst for other neurotransmitters.
It plays a large role in your body’s relaxation response. Cigarette smokers are looking for this each time they light up. Nicotine in tobacco products mimics acetylcholine and binds to the same receptors in the brain.
This can be useful to know when trying to quit. Your brain will need the real thing.
Have you heard the song, “Keep on Smiling Through The Pain?Concentrating on your smile muscles is the quickest way to release some dopamine into your system.
It helps to begin with a deep abdominal breathing exercise to relax the body and mind.
Go ahead, try it, I guarantee in two minutes you will be giggling yo’ m’fing ass off!
If you are in too much pain to smile, try growling at the pain instead. Primates, including us have this ability to bare our teeth to communicate happiness or anger and the reward to the brain is the same. Pleasure…
The amygdala in your brain acts as part of your threat monitoring and defensive system to help protect us. It is located between yuour ears above the base of the tongue.
The amygdala is also active in detecting and reacting to your emotions and can express both positive or negative vocalizations.
As humans we have evolved language and developed many words assosiated with strong emotions. Think of cursing as a highly sophisticated dogs bark.
The reason cats purr is it relaxes the amygdala. Try it, purring will relax you too.
Yawning also triggers the release of your favorite natural pharmaceuticals, endorphins, dopamine and serotonin.
No Wonder it’s contagious!
This network of small but strong muscles tissues is hard wired to the brain.
Stretching your jaw muscle releases pressure on the points where your nerves in your body communicate to your brain.
The Vagus nerve also wanders through the jaw.
You can also get the precious cerebrospinal fluid in motion you may be holding back unconsciously.
Try it, you might like it.
Stanford University Science is still up in the air on the one.
links open in new tabs
Confuscious says: “If you spend your time looking for snakes in the grass, you are sure to find… Snakes in the grass.“
Click here to hear more about Confuscious
We often focus on the negative aspects of life and that which we do not like.
It is important while conjuring or manifesting your future to focus upon the positive changes you do wish to create in your life.
Your mind will be so focused on the negative, you will not notice the next opportunity if it hits you in the face.
Duck!
Do you remember when you first became you? My daughter described to me precisely the time when her inner narrator or consciousness appeared within their awareness.
I argue we were people with personalities long before we learned language to describe events. Often our thoughts can appear as pictures on the cavern walls of our minds.
In such a way, my cat could consciously deliberate his actions and wait until I left the room to gorge on the chicken bones I left in the trash.
Check out this excellent article on exploring your consciousness by William Roberts
Now I am approaching my sixth decade and I laugh at myself for still thinking I am the same person.
I see older people on the tour busses in Europe and think, look at all those geezers riding the bus!
I stop laughing when I see my reflection rolling past and looking at me on the same bus!
I still feel like that twelve year old kid i was when my inner narrator appeared on the scene.
Most of my cells have changed, I have learned a lot from reading the thoughts of others in libraries around the world..
I still remember family telling me I was exactly like my uncle. My uncle suicided the year I was born. I am not sure how he could pass so much along. I never met him.
Personality does persist throughout the ages.
My daughter started out stead, strong, almost stoic. From the moment she could walk and talk, We all wondered.
Where did she get that from? 😉
links open in new tabs
A real life example in this related article: Double Mint Twins in Sportuno, Italy
Adversity is a part of everyday life. Even if you are relaxing on the beaches of Northern Italy. Life always throws surprising challenges at you when you do not expect.
Remind yourself of other times you handled difficult situations and how far you have come since.
How did you cool yourself down in the past when your mind tried to tell you, “This is the worst day ever?” Or, ” I can’t handle this? ”
But you handled it and now looking back, maybe it was not the worst day ever. Maybe it’s not even in the top ten worst days ever?
Maybe this is the beginning of a new chapter in your life you could not even imagine with your previous limitations.
We have found the best choice when the mind and body want to panic is some times to chillax and decide if a meltdown is the best idea?
If you are comfortable focusing on your breath or the sounds you hear around you. This is a great time to try this exercise.
Focus on the part of your breath where you feel it the most. Either the inside of your nose or solar plexus. Notice how the “effort of moving your attention” can pull the panicked brain aside and you can talk some sense to yourself.
Sometimes the mind will want to out think the problem or challenge facing you. This is great because you have a beautiful mind but often it will claim the thoughts are more important than breathing.
This is when you train the mind to watch the breath.
It is important here to notice how You can place your attention upon the breath without trying to change the breath.
Breathing in …
Breathing out…
Trust your body.
The body knows what to do.
Breathing in…
Breathing out…
Trust the body.
The body knows what to do.
Often a few minutes of noticing your breath will bring the mind some peace.
The breath will take care of itself, the mind will take care of itself.
You will live through, “The Worst Day Ever.”
Chillax, Right?
Remember
The journey is the destination and sitting still and sitting in Stillness are two separate entities.
Each step brings us closer to the goal of becoming, transforming, evolving, metamorphasis!
Knowing each end never ends. Only another footstep on a journey we make our own each day.
Pilgrims on the path to understanding what is important cannot be carried in your pockets.
Many walk much further and faster but never take the first step.
Be sure you are in a safe space before you practice this mind melter. You will remain conscious but intensely focused enough to not notice other objects or people around you.
We like to begin our meditations with a deep breathing or progressive relaxation technique to get us into the zone,
After enough practice and training yourself you will be aware of when and if you are in a good meditation space and the onset of the zone, so to speak, comes quickly as you have created and changed neural pathways in your brain..
(links open in new tabs)
This is our favorite method for releasing your relaxation and feel good neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and GABA.
Another you may be familiar with is DMT or the Bliss chemical or God particle .The ever increased popularity of ayuhasca is again in the headlines.
The debate continues over the reality of it’s existence but we are living proof!
Place the tongue against the roof of the mouth behind the teeth and pull in a slow breath you can feel behind and between the eyes to bath the prefrontal cortex in oxygen and love. This is your Third Eye.
Sense the air moving slowly over , under and around your prefontal cortex or Third Eye.
Armchair scientists love to claim the brain feels no pain or anything at all for that matter.
We Sense our thoughts and sometimes they are painful. With practice you will be able to feel around inside your brain and sense the parts of the brain responsible for receiving sights, sounds, smells etc.
Notice how you can steer the breath around the inside of your brain.
Behind the prefrontal cortex, directly between your ears is the beginning of the limbic system. This is where meditation starts to become fun.
You communicate with your limbic system through the breath and here you can bath the hypothalamus and pituitary gland with oxygen and they will reward you with relaxation!
Going further behind the pituitary sits the amygdala and spend a few minutes massaging it with the softness of the breath.
By this time you know your way around the inside of the brain and we will not leave you hanging here.
Finding the pineal gland for the first time is an intensely gratifying and rewardingly rich experience.
You will exclaim, where has this been my whole life? Then you will keep going back for another hit of the super natural , supernatural , DMT trip you created with your own brain! Isn’t that ecstatic?!?
Again, Make sure you are in a safe space before attempting This Experience. You will be focused in a state of relaxed concentration and will not wish to be disturbed.
If you are disturbed you will be able to switch your awareness and focus to anything needed your attention.
Thank you for being you!