Expanding Our Views: One Month at a Time vol. 25
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September Awareness

To observe without judgement. To watch without craving or aversion. To recognize what is in front of you without attaching anything at all. This is what it is to be aware.

 
 
 
 

Learning

This time last year I was learning first hand why, in the long run, it's healthier and actually more productive to slow down and do less.

This year I'm living it, and what a difference it's made.

I started by simply not checking my phone as much, added on not working out as often, and rounded it out by eating more vegetables and proper meals at regular times.

It took effort to get out of the habit of reaching for my phone whenever it made a noise, but I stayed aware and got there. 

 
 

 

Instead of feeling guilty for not going to the gym after work, I gave myself permission to be tired and went home to rest instead. (I think the stress of debating & choosing exercise over rest actually KEPT the weight on)

And the 3rd key - instead of working out and getting home late, I used that time to prepare food for the next few days.

All it took was intention and a few steps in the right direction. While I can still fall back into old habits, I am hands down more balanced than I have ever been before.

 
 

Wow. What if we all felt this way:

"From the beginning, I had a sense of destiny, as though my life was assigned to me by fate and had to be fulfilled. This gave me an inner security and though I could never prove it to myself, it proved itself to me. I did not have this certainty, it had me."
Carl Jung

 
 

My Large Nutshell Explanation of Cortisol, and Why It's Not Good For You ALL The Time

Cortisol is a great hormone (aka information sender). It helps regulate & balance some pretty important things in our body like the reproductive system (both men and women), whether our body uses carbs, fat or protein in any given moment, our gastrointestinal tract, immune system, the list goes on.

Additionally, when we are faced with a threat (putting us in our "fight or flight" response), cortisol helps increase our energy and focus by shutting down the processes that aren't directly needed for survival (like our digestion and reproductive system). While it naturally fluctuates throughout our day, the issue we're having is that with such fast paced busy lives and perpetual overthinking (even when we're sleeping) cortisol is pumping into our bodies non-stop. This is where things take an unhealthy turn.

When we move so much all the time, thinking about deadlines and worries, our bodies stay in a constant state of "readiness" or "fight or flight". This causes all those processes that aren't technically required for our survival to work less efficiently. By this logic, if we slowed down and found a way to reduce our stress then we would digest better, our reproductive system (which the effects of are felt throughout our entire body) would be healthier, our body would utilize fat, carbs and protein more efficiently (so basically our weight would balance itself out), we would sleep better, feel better, look better....live better.

Ok, so how do we slow down and reduce stress? Start by paying more attention to your thoughts, bodily sensations, when you can say "no" to taking on more work, and when you can say "YES" to accepting help (I don't think we realize it enough, but people love being needed. Ask someone for assistance. You'll make their day.)

And...read the paragraph below on meditation.

Great info about cortisol c/o this website

 
 
 
 

Meditation: It's A Heck of A Lot Simpler Than Everyone Thinks

“Meditation is not concentration. In concentration we narrow the mind, and a narrow mind is a limited mind. We need that limited, pointed, concentrated mind to probe into any subject, to solve problems, to learn a language, to fly an airplane. We need it. But not in meditation.

In concentration we build a wall of resistance, and in the effort to control the mind, we lose energy. Some people meditate that way for an hour, and when they’re finished, they feel tired, because for that hour they were fighting and fighting, negating everything, saying no to all thoughts and perceptions, trying to focus the mind.

Concentration is all-exclusive, but meditation is all-inclusive. Meditation is open, choiceless awareness. Everything is welcome. Meditation says yes to everything, while concentration says no to everything.

 
 

In meditation there is no effort, [only] freedom. You are just sitting quietly and listening to everything, whether it is the call of a bird, the cry of a child, the rustle of the leaves. Every sound is welcome. Whatever the sound [or thought], allow it to come to you.

In listening to any kind of sound without judgment, without criticism, without liking or disliking, you become the center and all sounds rush toward you, to dissolve into you. Follow the sound. Allow it to pass through you. Don’t resist. Then a magical phenomenon happens. You become empty. You become silent, pure existence.

When a breeze comes to you, allow that breeze to pass through you. No effort, no resistance. Remember, peace is not the opposite of sound. Every sound dissolves into peace. You are that peace, and sound comes to meet with you and dissolve into you.

Look at any object, a tree, a flower, even the wall. There is no choice in the looking, no judgment, just choiceless observation.

 
 

Awareness is the act of listening, the act of looking. No effort is required, no concentration. In awareness, in meditation, concentration happens naturally. It is given to you as a gift. But in concentration, in choosing, you miss meditation.

In expanded, empty consciousness, thinking stops, breathing becomes quiet, and one simply exists as pure awareness. In that state there is great joy, beauty, and love. Individual consciousness merges with Cosmic Consciousness, and one goes beyond time and thought.

In that state, whether the eyes are open or closed does not matter. It comes like a breeze without invitation, because this state is your true nature—love, bliss, beauty, and awareness. There is no fear, no depression, no anxiety, no worry, no stress. One becomes the witness of anxieties, worries, and stress. In that state, healing occurs.”

Excerpt From: Vasant Lad, M.A.Sc. “The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies.” Crown Publishing Group, 2012-02-08. iBooks. 

 
 

“There’s little point viewing life through rose tinted glasses which prevent us dealing with its necessary challenges, just as it is equally meaningless to become so overwhelmed by those challenges we give up the ghost and retreat into our own private world of fantasy or denial.

  ~ Sarah Varcas c/o Mystic Mamma

 
 

Why I Keep Talking About Ayurveda

It just makes sense:

"We experience the truth of this statement all the time: a bad day at work may trigger bodily aches and pains; a toothache could result in depression; the loss of a loved one can lead to a stroke. Yet practitioners of modern medicine insist on addressing body and mind as separate entities; a heart specialist asks you about your cholesterol level, not about your love life.

 
 

As a consequence, you have different doctors for different parts: bone specialists, urologists, cardiologists, therapists. An Ayurvedic physician, however, is trained to treat you as a whole being, complete with your bone, muscle, kidneys, skin type, likes and dislikes, habits, thoughts, and feelings. And, interestingly, whatever your symptom and however chronic your problem, the diagnosis is always the same: imbalance. This imbalance can be in your physiology, your psychology, or your very spirit. But an imbalance it always is."

Shubhra Krishan, "Essential Ayurveda." New World Library 2003

 
 
 
 

To make a transformation, you have to become present to what’s going on right now.