30 APR 2024 · A pause to just exist and recollect ourselves. There’s nothing more under rated than the pause. Giving yourself ample space to exist counters the constrictions we’re so often feeling.Breathwork is one of the most valuable tools for emotional regulation and it’s accessible to everyone, provided you’re alive and breathing.We take breathing for granted. We’ve all experienced a stuffy nose or something else that makes breathing difficult. In those moments, we’re quick to notice our breathing and wish it were easier. We need to also notice the moments when it’s easy so that we can be appreciative that it is.The magick is in the mundane. We don’t pay any attention to those things though, generally. We don’t want to think it can be as easy as simply appreciating the simple things present in front of you. There are no grand secrets hiding up in the mountains with the monks.The “yang” culture we’ve been conditioned to keeps us busy and distracted from the peaceful joy of the yin. We’re all too busy and think we don’t have time for the slowing and resting aspects of life. Learning how to incorporate these slower energies though only takes 30 seconds at a time. Weaving them into our day to day routines with only a thought and intention to do so. This is how we create balance.Shallow chest breathing is a stress response we become accustomed to. If you watch a baby sleeping, their bellies are what’s going up and down, not their chests. That’s because they’re still utilizing their diaphragm to pump the air in and out.Deep belly breathing fills the lungs fully, bottom to top, calming the nervous system in the process. When you first start trying to consciously do this, it may feel as though you’re having a hard time catching your breath. Give it a bit of continuous practice and you’ll begin to notice your muscles relaxing as soon as you switch to deep belly breathing.It’s just that you’ve spent most of your life probably at this point shallow chest breathing and switching that over is a bit of a process. Kind of like learning posture or increasing your strength to be able to hold your planks longer.10:50 –The rhythm of your breathing is a window into how you’re feeling. Our society does everything they can to avoid feelings and emotions. Usually in the form of https://earthandwater.co/learning-how-to-conquer-addictions-of-all-sorts/and distractions. Only when we allow ourselves to feel them, though, do we begin to metabolize them. This processing allows them to be released from the body rather than becoming stuck in the body. If they aren’t processed and released, and do instead become stuck, they may very well cause problems in our health, wellbeing and quality of life. Radiating out from us to touch everything and everyone we interact with.If you want to hold onto an emotion forever, suppressing it is exactly how you do that. If you don’t want the emotion you’re feeling, you have to create space around it to exist for the amount of time this particular feeling needs. It may only need a few minutes, or it may need a few months. It will be uncomfortable but it will get better until it finally dissipates.Sometimes things can feel so powerful that the breath is all you have. For example, we’ve all had some sort of sickness we thought was for sure trying to take us out or an injury that came with blinding pain. Be it the flu, mono, covid or something else like an excruciatingly broken bone. In these intense moments, sometimes all we can do is exist and breathe.“Breathe” is the first and foremost direction that medical professionals give to us in these moments. Laboring mothers are told to focus here. It’s not because they have no other advice for helping with the situation but because this IS how you get through the situation. Focus on your breathing. This is much easier accomplished when you’ve had some practice during times of no urgency and distress but when you find yourself in these moments it does become something your body says yes to. Because in these moments it really is all you have. The rest is just patience attached to the knowing that the moment of intensity will eventually end.16:30 –*GUIDED BREATHWORK MEDITATION*We feel as though we need to label and describe the feelings that arise when we create space like this to listen to them. We don’t have to understand where they’re coming from though, in order to process them. We only need to notice, sit with and create space for them to exist as long as they want to until they slowly let go and move on.If you want to label them you can, but don’t get too hung up on “is this this or is this that.” Simply decide whatever you want to decide it is and allow it to be that. Only you can define your experiences and you may do that however you see fit. Or you can choose not to define them and allow them to just be whatever they are. This latter route is the one I personally take because it feels broader, more encompassing and free with no constrictions or doubt. It’s more expansive where as labeling and defining can be more constrictive.The chakra system helps us to understand what’s going on in our own bodies and where we need to focus on things. It helps give us words and a framework to the formless energy flowing within and around us so that we may communicate with our own minds and others on how to work through what we have. Understanding makes things easier on us even though we don’t have to understand it for it to work. Kinda like a computer printer: you don’t need to understand the functionings to simply push the buttons and have it do what you need it to do, but a little background knowledge on how it works can help you trouble shoot any “why isn’t this working!?” that may arise. - Find the feeling within your body and where it’s located - Sit with your attention on it - Notice how it feels - Allow it to process out The next thing you know, that thing that happened 18 years ago, that has routinely popped in your head again and again ever since, causing cringe, ceases to pop up anymore. That’s what true healing is. When you no longer think about the thing anymore or when you do, it’s rare and has no problematic emotions accompanying it.It’s hard for us to find time and space to sit with ourselves in order to do this practice only because we would rather avoid it. We come up with all sorts of reasons why we can’t or don’t have time but it’s usually just forms of avoidance.“Escapism” is the word I couldn’t find in the episode. Where we won’t give ourselves an hour to sit with this practice but we’ll spend 6 hours on Netflix or Xbox.37:20 –The most sustainable form of activism is that if you allow yourself to shine as your best you, you give others permission to do the same. You’re not going to burn out from being yourself. Grand activism in the traditional sense is great but if it’s unsustainable for you, it isn’t the best way for you to go about things.For the first time in history, we have the knowledge of what is and what could be and the opportunity to choose a path that benefits all involved. This isn’t accomplished by grand gestures but by breaking the patterns that came before us. Day by day, with each small choice we make. Changing the world is often seen as something too big for one average person, but by living our lives as an example of what the world should be rather than “what it is”, we inspire others to do the same. This creates a compounding effect with waves bigger than you could imagine. The biggest effects seen with children.We think we need to go spend a month living in the mountains amongst the months to find out who we are when really we just need to learn how to sit quietly with ourselves. Our culture has a thinking we need to always be doing more but the answers to everything are within the doing less. Instead of trying to find the boxes we fit into in order to understand ourselves, we need only to allow ourselves to be whoever and whatever we are in each moment. It’s fluid like anything else and changes all of the time. Figuring out who we are is an “allowing” rather than a “finding”.If you don’t know where to start: - Sit with yourself in the now - Focus on your breathing - Relax your muscles - Maybe check in with your senses - Just be hyper-present. We spend most of our time in the past or the present but all we actually have is right now.Lots of space created in this episode.

23 APR 2024 · Beginning –Food is a great way to ground yourself. Root vegetables help you get in touch with the element of earth, which carries the energy of stability, solidity and safety. Mushrooms and protein are also https://earthandwater.co/plant-based-foods-for-grounding/You need more grounding in the vata, winter months as they naturally carry more air energy which can leave us less grounded. Root vegetables are more in season at this time of year. The Earth always provides what we need, when we need it. We have to find balance by bringing in more of what we’re lacking. Most of us have an easier time being grounded in the spring and summer months and the garden helps us balance these days out with more leafy greens, watery fruits and edible flowers.There are tons more from the ground food options than what’s available at your local grocery store which can be frustrating. Food desserts are a thing. Some people can have a really hard time finding whole foods where they live.When you go to the grocery store, try and pick a new fruit of vegetable you’ve never had before. Take it home and Google up a recipe to try. You never know what you may discover you like. If you don’t like it cooked the way you decide, don’t give up on it or write it off as not for you. There are tons of ways to cook everything.Add your intentions into your food as you prepare and/or eat it. Doing this is as simple as imagining the desired energy flowing into the food or speaking words over it. Much like blessing the food as seen in many cultures and religions.10:30 –Being out in nature can be very grounding. As cliche as it may sound, lean against a tree, hug it, put your https://earthandwater.co/heart-chakra/ to it, give it all of your anxieties and tune yourself to it’s stable, calm energy.Pulling your focus into the soles of your feet, into your knees, your hips. There’s a lot going on in the top half of our bodies because this is where most of our senses and organs lie. Bringing our attention down into the lower half of our body where there’s less going on can help to calm us.The beauty about using your attention and focus to ground yourself is that you don’t have to carve out time and space to do it. It’s accessible at every moment, no matter what else is going on. All it takes it the thought to do so.Sitting on the ground, touching grass, putting your bare feet onto the ground. This is called ‘earthing’ and has been scientifically shown to reduce not only anxiety but inflammation throughout the entire body.Check in with your senses. Notice what you feel, hear, see, taste, touch. Generally speaking, we tend to be anxious when we’re spending too much time in our heads. This by far isn’t the only form of anxiety. Sometimes, bringing our focus to our physical body can cause more anxiety. You really have to analyze your own unique flavor of anxiety, try various things and find what works best for you.Exercise is a great way to ground yourself. That can mean any form of movement be it walking, dancing, hard core exercise or something else you find joy in. Get the energy in your body moving so anything bothering you can be released.You can absolutely take exercise too far, becoming addicted and using it to avoid other things in your life that need attention as well.17:20 –Every exercise is a whole body exercise. In the fitness community we have “leg day”, “arm day”, “ab day”, etc. Which is another example of us sectioning ourselves off into pieces and parts instead of acknowledging ourselves as a whole.When you’re engaging one area of your body, the rest of your body is reacting to that whether you notice it or not. This is most notable in yoga and https://earthandwater.co/how-martial-arts-transforms-your-everyday-grit-with-jeremy-lesniak/where we’re being directed by our instructor to engage all parts of our body in each stretch. Proper form focuses on posture, alignment, engagement of certain muscles, etc. It’s complex and touches all parts of us, integrating the entirety of our body.Exercise and food can particularly help health related anxiety. Nothing calms health anxiety like working on your health. If you can build your strength through physical training, you prove to yourself that you are strong and healthy. If you can tame your eating habits to support your system, you worry less about what poor eating habits may be doing to you.Think of yourself as a video game character. Feed yourself healthy foods for strength and stamina, put yourself to sleep when you need to recover, make yourself a green smoothie or a glass of orange juice and call it a health potion. Think of everything you do, ingest and interact with as either building your character or damaging it.Food is not like medicine, food is medicine. The cleaner your diet, the clearer and better you’ll feel.Imagine there’s an energy field around you and each piece of fruit or vegetable you eat, it fortifies this protective shield, keeping you from harm.24:15 –Be a little delusional if that’s what you need to be/ believe in to get you by easier. The placebo and nocebo effects are things that prove the power of our minds. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s “real” or not. You can decide to tell your mind that it is and your body will follow suit as though it is.Companies market all sorts of things to us as healthy that aren’t. Greenwashing is a thing to look out for because it’ll look like it’s healthy but when you read the ingredients it’s full of chemicals and things you can’t pronounce.Reality is created in our heads, literally and figuratively. We can visualize things that help and they do. They can be whatever we want them to be and take from it whatever we need.Where we focus is what we get. If we’re constantly focusing on “I don’t wanna get sick, don’t wanna get sick” the universe sees us focusing on getting sick and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The universe and the law of attraction just copies and pastes anything that we’re putting our attention on. That’s why it’s best to not pay any attention to that which you don’t want, not to be confused with avoiding your problems.https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tTP1TcwNbcsTjFg9BLOS03MSVVIyc9LzElRKE_MKU7OAACaNApS&q=neale+donald+walsch&oq=neil+donald+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDAgBEC4YChixAxiABDIGCAAQRRg5MgwIARAuGAoYsQMYgAQyCQgCEAAYChiABDIJCAMQLhgKGIAEMgkIBBAAGAoYgAQyCQgFEAAYChiABDIJCAYQABgKGIAEMgkIBxAAGAoYgAQyCQgIEAAYChiABNIBCDQ3ODhqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#wptab=si:AKbGX_oKrES55x3LBjIMa_0Waid5P3c8zdE9zhdtJgJHhb8Ig64vPx4v7605wPzn_3RRGcqxy5k4gCi2BALuSwvr4ovQjV5Eg9HaJ3fMrTtZ947zxkapduDQ_kHt-RefJAuhgxfKsmJ0K0AIh4Y3ofO9bAuehyFvlQ%3D%3DWords are spells. We’re casting them all day long so be sure you’re being careful, purposeful and intentional. Our language literally, in every way creates our world and many believe that the English language was created to keep us limited and small. So it’s really best to never complain.Stonewall your own negative thoughts, find a neutral position and then flipping it into something you do want. The greyrock method is something aimed at dealing with narcissists generally but you can use it to help you with manifesting as well.Our brains are designed to pick up and focus on things that could cause us problems or harm. That’s why it’s so much easier to notice and find the bad things in life and so difficult to focus on the good and happy.34:15 –Watching our words and thoughts, when we notice we say/think something that is in the opposite of the direction we want to go, we pause and find a neutral position to uphold. This brings us to the meditation direction of “silencing the mind,” Which we all agree is laughable.“Silencing the mind” tell us to do nothing and how can we do nothing? It goes against our nature and causes the opposite. Instead, we actively try and tune ourselves to a neutral position, focusing on the spaces between thoughts and attempting to make them larger and longer.We know what calm, ease and grace feels like. Visualize it. Try and find it right now in the moment. Create it in the now. It’s a muscle just like we move our hand or we don’t move our hand. Our minds are the same way.Be attentive of your words so that you’re not postponing, subconsciously or otherwise, that which you actually want. Sometimes we use our words to unknowingly self sabotage ourselves in order to stay in sameness because there’s safety in the known and familiar. Feel the energy of the wording.You are not your brain. Your brain will pop up all sorts of intrusive thoughts that you didn’t ask for or want. You are the conscious observer that notices these and doesn’t like them. You can then rework them as you see fit.We call this little brain child that is not you, the ego. It’s trying it’s best to keep you safe based on the programming it’s received from the world up until this point. You can give it a name if you like so that you can better differentiate whether or not it’s actually you when it pops up.The past is the past. It’s hard to accept it but accepting it is the only way of moving forward. Accepting it doesn’t mean it was okay. It just means that you’re not going to continue to let it effect things in your present. Now is all we have. Most often we’re living in the past or the future, but now is all there is and in this moment, we get to decide what reality is.What is the purpose of this moment?46:20 –All the different types of anxieties. Anxiety isn’t always a result of over thinking or worry. Anxiety is our body’s alarm system that something is wrong and that could be anything from a physical threat, a thought to a toxin, allergen or even hunger. It’s all the same alarm. There are a tons of different types of anxieties.Learning how to trust and talk to your body can help you with the clarity of knowing when you should probably go to the emergency room and kno

16 APR 2024 · Beginning –We section ourselves off in order to explain and understand who we are and still come out with no answers because we fail to see ourselves as a whole. It’s hard to understand ourselves as a whole which is why we section ourselves off.The boxing is what our culture has taught us in order to be digestible but the nature of humanity is too big on an individual scale. It can’t be boxed. It’s like slicing a horse into sections (did you see that movie “The Cell”? It scarred me a bit) and trying to determine what you’re looking at from just one section.Marketing pitches are extra hard in the energetic field because we’re working with all of the known universe. That seems to grand to be possible but once you understand the fundamentals of the area of study, it’s all quite simple yet expands across all things. How do you put that in an elevator pitch?Society and culture tells us that we need to know what we’re going to do for the rest of our lives by the time we’re in our teens. This construct counters what is normal for human development. We’re still children in our teens with a next to nothing knowledge of the world and what’s available to us. It’s unfair to ask a teen to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives at this early point.There is no such thing as having your life put together. No one has their life completely put together. The people who seem as though they have their life put together are either only putting on a show or only have certain parts ‘put together’. All aspects are never completely put together. That’s a myth. It’s definitely not a thing.We all have various roles that we take on. It’s important that we don’t over identify with these roles and instead allow space for the flexibility of who you are without them to fill in the gaps. You are not your roles. You step into roles as yourself, independent of the role itself and bring your own flare to that https://earthandwater.co/using-archetypes-to-gain-confidence/.Soul contracts. Why would a spirit want anything easy? That’s a waste of their time. Instead, you’re going to choose that which has the most contrast because that’s where most of the learning occurs. As Abraham Hicks says, “When you know what you don’t want, you know what you do want.”The more you step into yourself, the more you give permission to others to do the same. It’s the lighthouse effect. You become a beacon of light.11:30 –So many of us are comfortable in discomfort. It’s easier to continue to doing what we’ve been doing rather than try and form new habits around what we may actually want.Perhaps most people don’t actually feel as though they belong. We’ve all just been conditioned to go along with what everyone else is doing, without a thought about what we want. What we want as individuals was always shoved to the side as not important. So we all just accepted it.When you start pulling at the threads of things, they quickly unravel. People don’t like for you to pull at the threads of society and culture so those who do often get labeled as ‘bad’ or ‘rebellious’. Generally speaking, these people (often children) are only looking to understand.It’s natural to want to conform, fit in and be liked. This urge can be the center of our turmoil, there is no greater reward than the relationships you build. As hard as it may seem, our focus instead should just be to focus on finding our own happiness. This means creating our own happiness, despite the circumstances.Not to be morbid, but we’re all going to die sooner rather than later and so we should probably be getting on this ‘happiness’ thing sooner rather than later. None of us are getting out of this alive.You only want what you think you want because of how you think it will make you feel. If you focus on the feeling alone, without all of the circumstances that you think need to occur before you can get to these emotions, you’ll find things arising that get you to them more often and in ways you never dreamed possible.The less you do, the more everything unfolds. It sounds counter intuitive because it is, but it’s exactly what the 12 laws of manifesting say to do. We’ve been programed to be doers. We’ve been taught that the more we do, the closer to success we will be but the feminine energy needed to create requires space for that creation to come into being.The heart sends more messages than your brain. It’s the forefront that you should focus on and follow. The world doesn’t operate under the logic that we think it does. The https://www.heartmath.org/ is proving all of this for us on a scientific level.We can’t afford to continue to play around with these positive habits that could make a difference in the world. It’s time for us to commit to these lifestyle practices that we know will make a difference to both ourselves and others. In order to do this, you have to understand and know your own values and priorities.Mexican story about how a fisherman meets a business man who tries to convince him to spend more time catching fish so that he can make a bigger profit in order to grow rich and be able to do whatever he likes. The fisherman replies with “I already do whatever I like.” In a nutshell. I definitely paraphrased.27:45 –Shopping, sex, substances and whatever other https://earthandwater.co/learning-how-to-conquer-addictions-of-all-sorts/ are a shot of dopamine and not real happiness.World schooling as an alternative option for schooling your children. I recently did an episode on https://earthandwater.co/the-revolutionary-act-of-unschooling-thats-worth-considering/ which is another option to traditional public school totally worth exploring.Deciding what’s for you is a definite yes or a definite no. If you’re unsure, it’s a no and it’s not personal. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you. Allow the frequency of expansion. This allows for possibilities to unfold. The opposite of expansion is contraction. Allow the space for it. That’s all it takes. If you’re not allowing for this expansion, you’re creating tension in your life and body.You have to tap into the awareness of your body and life and notice where you’re feeling tension and where you’re not so you can address it. In particularly, the nervous system, which will always direct you towards what is working for you and what isn’t. Our https://earthandwater.co/using-your-emotional-guidance-system-to-manifest-your-best-life/ is another way to tap in to your own alignment.Stress, anxiety, tension and all of the lower energy emotions you can feel as muscle contraction in your body. This tension impedes the energy flow not only in terms of chi or ki, but also in physical terms of blood circulation, oxygenation of the cells, digestion, lymph node detoxification and all other bodily function that requires unconstricted movement to work optimally.Our minds are a powerful tool we’re always using whether intentionally or not. We can use it to create stories in our head that cause anxiety or we can use it to daydream about what we want in life. We allow our thinking to get in the way of our own happiness.Imagine someone asked you if you wanted to move to a tropical paradise on the other side of the world. Instead of freaking out with a “that sounds scary, how could I possibly!?” Just allow it to be a “Man yeah that sounds like a good time.” or a “Nah, I don’t think that’s for me.” and then go about your life. If you find yourself googling What are the steps? What do I need? What do I need to learn? Then cool, and you may find yourself becoming swept away in the getting of just that.We stress and worry too much about things when we could really just sit back, relax, have a good time and allow things to unfold however they will. When you allow energy the space for expansion, that’s exactly what it’s going to do because expansion is the nature of energy. If you just let things happen for you, they will unfold in ways you never thought possible.Release attachment to whatever you think is or will be.To do this means being present in the moment. Noticing how you feel right now and adjusting accordingly to what’s happening right now. We don’t want to give any attention what so ever to that which we don’t like or want. Don’t ignore your problems, but you can also be delusional in how they’re all going to work out for the best and decide to trust that.34:15 –We spend most of our time in the past or present.We can’t possibly know how things are going to unfold for us, so we shouldn’t even try to predict it. In order for new things to come into our life, the old things have to fall away to make space for them. You have to make a mess to clean a mess. If you have a closet you’ve spent years shoving things into because you didn’t want to / know how to / have the space to deal with them and now you want to clean and address it, you first have to pull everything out of the closet before you can begin putting things back in an organized manner.This is why things may appear to be falling apart sometimes. Especially when you start the inner work required to heal and put these practices into your daily habits. Like a caterpillar turning to mush in order to reform itself into a butterfly, this process can be super scary and uncomfortable.Our brains are wired to keep us safe so anything different, no matter how innocent or for our own good, will set off alarms of caution within us. Different is unknown so our brains will fight to keep us in sameness, even if it’s detrimental to our wellbeing because there’s a sense of safety in the familiar.You should absolutely curate your social media feeds to support what you want and how you want to feel. In this same way, we should work to curate our lives to only allow access to us that which brings us the energy we desire.Our nervous systems developed in a mostly peaceful era, when we

9 APR 2024 · Culturally, we think that we need to ‘stop’ doing the things that we’re already doing in order to obtain a goal that we have. Human’s brains aren’t wired for that to be easy, though. Stopping something is hard and stressful for most of us.What we should be doing instead is ‘start doing’ the things we would like to replace those undesirable habits with. This inevitably ‘crowds out’ that which isn’t serving us and leaves only that which is in alignment with our true desires. This can be equated to any habits and intentionally and purposefully choosing our habits is exactly how we create new ones that help us reach our desired outcomes.Most everyone try to start with the action of the habit and trying to change it. A better starting place would be with the belief systems around the action. - Why are you continuing to choose this habit? - What do you believe it’s doing for you? - When or where did this stem from? Where’s the root? Even cravings are simply thoughts.Everyone has some sort of trauma. There’s no way to avoid it. There are, of course, varying degrees of severity. Some of us have very nurturing environments, support systems and the mindset to be able to take these events in stride. Most of us don’t, and we turn to all sorts of poor habits to help get us through the emotional turmoil and damage.We can become addicted to all sorts of things, not just substances. Shopping, gambling, working out, food or anything in between can become an addiction. In order to become who we want to be, deserve to be, were born to be, we have to learn how to overcome these addictions that are holding us back.Some addictions, like alcohol, food or maybe even working out, are seen as more or less socially acceptable. We know alcoholism is a problem but it’s also part of the culture to offer someone a glass of wine if they’ve had a hard day or something. Poor or excessive food choices are just as dangerous for us as other types of addictions, but it’s socially acceptable to pass out candy and cookies or serve up highly processed junk.There are a lot of misconceptions about addiction, like everyone who becomes addicted to something has history of trauma but this doesn’t seem to hold up to the research. Also, not everyone who turns to substance abuse becomes addicted.10:00 –Aside from trauma, there are a multitude of reasons that someone may end up addicted to something like alcohol. Culture is the biggest, not only culture from a community stand point but also the culture of the career you go into may have you repeatedly exposed. Genetics, how your parents were and government regulation of the substance can all have an effect on the likelihood of addiction on a certain individual.We tend to like to look down on these people, insisting that they should just do better and that we would never find ourselves making the same decisions as someone detrimentally addicted to something. The truth is though, if we were them, we would be making the same choices because their experiences and encounters have led them to make the decisions that they do/did. Whatever is going on with someone else could have just as easily been us given the right circumstances for it.Availability is a large factor. Addictions like alcohol are more readily available which lends to more people becoming addicted.Many get introduced to these things as teens or children. This makes it incredibly important to have a solid line of communication and trust set up between parents and their children in order to help them navigate these situations when they arise. “You can’t prepare the path for the children but you can prepare the children for the path.”You really have to work at cultivating the relationship with your children when their young so that when they become teens, they’ll consider your advice. They’re going to get advice from somewhere and if they don’t trust and respect you, they may be getting it from their friends who may not have their best interest at hand.“Do as I say, not as I do” doesn’t work. Children are going to copy the behavior they see modeled for the most part so we should be doing our best to model appropriate behavior in all things from substances to emotional regulation. Sheltering children from the struggles of life does them more harm than good. We should be preparing the to the best of our abilities for the struggles they may face and that means being honest with them about how things are when the time is appropriate to do so.Many people with autism and/or ADHD turn to alcohol because it helps their symptoms. Anxiety is also lessened with alcohol, making people attracted to it.30:45 –There are a lot of therapeutic modalities that we can use to help us gain control over our addictions. Yoga, massage, dance and other physical activities help to get us into our bodies and focusing on what we feel there. Often times what we’re trying to do with alcohol is mask the things we’re feeling. If instead we can sit with and work through these feelings, we can come out the other side healed and no longer needing the substance to numb it.We store the pain and trauma in our bodies. They continue to cause us pain and issues until we address them. It’s an ancient concept that’s only just now starting to become mainstream. We’ve equated emotions to being something that’s just in our heads but they’re very much physical and have a very real impact on our physical bodies.Children can often be the triggering point to make people second guess their decisions. Sitting back and looking at your priorities is what we all need to do anyway, regularly. That often means just having the space and opportunity to take the time to do so, which most of us don’t take in our very yang culture. We feel like we have to be filling every moment of our day with something productive but sometimes the most productive thing we can do is stare off into space and think about things.Most problems will go away if we have someone in our corner who is actively listening, validating and simply allowing the space for us to process what we need to process in a supportive tone.If you don’t do the inner work that’s causing the problem in the first place, if you attempt to just quit the habit you’ll often end up just replacing it with another.Our yang culture has us participating in everything excessively. The balance is in incorporating the yin as well. Entrepreneurs are widely known for this.We have to upkeep what we have. Our homes, our bodies, our relationships, etc and all between. If we don’t upkeep what we already have, we can’t hope to get more. This means allowing for the down time, the cleaning and some of the more seemingly mundane things that are a natural part of life, even if they may not be as fun as some of the counter parts.You have to consider the mundane things in life as also part of your job. It’s your job to take care of your body. Our job is to manage our mental health proactively. It’s our job to make sure we’re managing anything in our life that may become a problem. It’s all a mindset.https://www.bhaskaranbrown.com/get-over-uk About Our Guest Duncan Bhaskaran BrownSpeaker. Author. Morris Dancer. http://www.bhaskaranbrown.com/Some people say that Duncan can help you to go beyond alcohol. But that isn’t it. Duncan will help you increase your energy, power up your productivity, improve your relationships and enjoy the heck out of life.After 20 years of overdoing it, he cleaned up his act and trained with the world’s most successful stop smoking service. But that wasn’t enough. He studied at Cornell University, the Chartered Management Institute and in a windowless room in Peterborough. But that wasn’t enough.He wrote a couple of books, most recently ‘Real Men Quit’, the armchair macho guide to beating booze and finding the life you want. But that wasn’t enough. He’s started interviewing the sober superstars and conducting research projects which involved watching TV. But that wasn’t enough.What would be enough? Maybe if alcohol-free was the default, if sober was the new normal and if alcohol stops destroying people. Maybe then Duncan will sit down with a mint tea and sci-fi novel and relax. Maybe. - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soberwarriorcoach/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncanbhaskaranbrown/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BhaskaranBrown - Website: https://www.bhaskaranbrown.com/ - Amazon:  https://amzn.to/4aoXvQf - Listener freebie: https://www.getover.uk/

2 APR 2024 · Beginning –Public school isn’t a great fit for every kid. Some thrive in this setting, others are crushed by it. As more and more parents are turning towards home schooling, unschooling is a branch more and more are considering. It’s not uncommon for parents to have their children in different settings. One child may be homeschooled whereas the other does well in a traditional setting. If you have the means, the best thing for your children is allowing them to be where they specifically thrive, even if that means splitting them up.We don’t believe in homework around here because after your children have spent 7+ hours at school, they come home to only have a few hours with you. These hours are precious and few. We don’t want to spend that time crying and fighting over homework when we could be spending it teaching them how to cook or garden all whilst strengthening the connection we have with them.People’s number one problem with homeschooling or unschooling is concern over socialization. Even though a common phrase amongst traditional school teachers is “You’re here to learn, not socialize.” Homeschooling/unschooling isn’t a call for isolation and if you’re properly allowing your children to go out and experience life, the world and become involved in things, unschooling/homeschooling gives them MORE time to socialize, not less.Traditional schooling is so structured, it really limits the time for free play. Things are changing and more group discussions are encouraged but things such as that are even structured and they’re told how to discuss. Something many people are generally surprised about is that homeschooled/unschooled kids are often better at interacting with a wider variety of people and can be dropped into a multitude of settings and thrive socially. Traditionally schooled kids tend to only know how to interact with other kids their age and don’t do so well with a variety of people.A problem with grouping same age children together in the traditional setting is that it creates a lot of unneeded competition and standards. Every kid learns each and every thing at a different rate. Expecting all children to hit the same milestones at the same time is unreasonable and leaves some feeling like failures if they can’t match up. This can kick up all sorts of anxiety, stress and self esteem problems in children who learn just as well, but in a different way.Whereas traditionally schooled children are grouped together by age (and we admit, how else would you divide them up?) homeschooled/unschooled kids are grouped more universally and do things together with all ages which teaches an invaluable lesson to all involved (parents included) in community and collaboration.12:00 –A new model for public schools could potentially be reformed on a smaller budget than what is currently available. Most of our school budgets go to administration that barely spends, if any, time actually with the children. The new model Kristen presents is more open, free form. With hands on learning options available but not mandatory. This would allow children to co-mingle based on interests and keep them engaged voluntarily because you’re playing off of what they’re naturally drawn to.We spend a lot of time teaching teachers how to manage behavior and train students to sit still and quiet instead of learning how we can work with children’s natural energies. Most teachers come into this field with all of the best intentions, only to be crushed by the system themselves. There’s too much pressure on them from the administration to make sure all of their kids are hitting the allotted milestones when there’s no proven benefits of having children learn a particular thing earlier than those who don’t.Forcing children to learn things before they’re ready can be detrimental to their desire to learn moving forward. We would rather keep the joy of learning alive in our children rather than have them reading early just for the sake of reading early. It doesn’t make sense in the long run. You don’t want your child to collect a trauma response where they relate books to stress.Alternative in between options are beginning to pop up but they’re generally booked full with a waiting list a mile long because so many families are looking for more flexibility in schooling. Online schools are becoming more popular but can sometimes lock you into a curriculum that doesn’t work for you. Unschooling is a great option with all of the flexibility because each day you can present your child with a list of options to explore for that day. Allowing them to choose based on their interests often leads to less micro management of the school work because their own motivations take over.Rarely does anyone who participates in the traditional school model walk away without any school wounds. Of course, no one escapes childhood without some sort of wounds. School wounds can range from bullying, social hierarchy, not meeting set standards, dislike of learning, distrust of authority and anything and everything in between.24:24 –It’s important to find a homeschooling community to connect with so you’re not feeling even more isolated than what society and culture already has us. We’re all craving that sense of village that our ancestors developed in. Public school gives us a bit of the community aspect but most of it is a false sense. Are there pockets of real connection within these settings? Sure. But for the vast majority you’re just showing up to this event or that and there’s no real bonding taking place.Homeschooling/unschooling allows for more flexibility in the family unit, allowing for vacations without ramifications from the attendance office. Being able to travel with your children around the year allows them to experience more, learn more and avoid the crowded spring and fall breaks when the public schools are out and able to do that.Schools want everyone to learn the same thing, at the same time, at the same rate. They don’t prioritize creativity or authenticity which leads to so many of us coming out of this system not having a clue who we really are. We wake up in our 20s, 30s, 40s or later and realize we’ve just been going through the motions that were laid out for us and then panic because we feel like we’re behind in life.We each have our own strengths and weaknesses and we should be figuring out what those are as children so as to make adulthood a little easier on us. What’s the point of learning all of this in depth, complex math if you’re going to go into a field that has nothing to do with math and hire an accountant for all of your needs anyway?https://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unleashing-Instinct-Self-Reliant/dp/0465025994Schools are attempting to teach critical thinking but often do just the opposite. Students spend their lives in the system being told what to think, learn, do, etc. They’re also taught not to listen to their bodies by the scheduling of meals and bathroom breaks.37:32 –Unschooling is not just letting your kids loose and hoping for the best. You have to actively parent more when you’re responsible for their learning. Many kids, if left to their own devices would choose things like eating candy for every meal and playing video games around the clock. You have to make sure they’re getting the diversity they need to come out of childhood well rounded. This method allows for more guidance on the part of the parents which can lead to more well adjusted adults in the long run who are familiar with the regular responsibilities of life such as eating healthy and paying bills.We don’t honor rest enough in our society. Nor do we honor each individuals natural rhythms of flow. Not everyone functions best at 7am in the morning. Some people work best in the evenings. Unschooling gives you the privilege of formulating your own schedule that works best for you and your family.Unschooling has produced some world renowned experts such as Jane Goodall, Michael Faraday, Henry Ford, Mark Twain, Quentin Tarantino and Richard Branson. This method, since it’s interest driven and freeform, has the advantage over experts who came from a traditional schooling background as providing a broader resource catalog.Schools who provide curriculum and degrees are often bias to the resources they provide and material taught. This can produce experts of very rigid thinking and problem solving, leading them to enter the workforce with the belief that there is only one right way to do things.Sometimes it’s hard to prove that you’re an expert in a certain field if you don’t have the accompanying credits from a traditional school. There are a lot of ways people establish credibility in their fields. The best advice we have here is to keep track of all of the books and resources you partake in consuming. Keep up with your resume the best that you can and always be seeking ways to build your credibility.Most people learn best by doing. Books can only teach you so much. You have to get hands on with the subjects you’re studying. Don’t be afraid to learn as you go. The internet gives us an unlimited amount of resources.We’re taught that jumping around from one subject or topic of interest to the next is bad and that we should focus on one. This isn’t how natural interests work though. There’s something about a particular subject that we’re drawn to and once that need is fulfilled from that subject we move on to the next thing because our purpose is to compound these various things into our own unique interpretation of something. About Our GuestKristen Himm is a former public school teacher turned unschool mom and advocate. She has two children and they have been unschooling since 2021. As part of her advocacy work, Kristen runs an unschool-inspired space in Albuquerque, NM where families can come together over the s

26 MAR 2024 · Beginning –Don’t get hung up on words. Try to read between the lines a little as well as the energy behind them. Things can have different names but be the same. Allow both words and yourself to be fluid.Too many people get stuck on trying to figure out their niche or marketing pitch. The marketing world puts a lot of emphasis on it but we are always changing. We’re malleable, like water. You can’t accurately assign just 3 words to it.Many of us who find ourselves in these healing fields landed here through seeking to heal our own problems. You begin looking for answers to your own struggles and stumble upon a bread crumb that drops you into a whole rabbit hole of new understanding the world around us.Not only are we not taught about this way of seeing, understanding and working with the world and energies around us but they’re actively suppressed and demonized because they give you too much personal power. If you can heal yourself and solve your own problems, there’s nothing to exploit from you.Instead of healing, our society is taught to mask our problems with medications, vices and seeking help from those outside of ourselves. Are professionals important to the healing process? Absolutely. But may are overworked, stretched thin and victims themselves of propaganda education directed at perpetuating the system rather than actually helping people to heal. i.e. How so many doctors prescribe medications for simple ailments without even asking how diet and lifestyle are.There is a ton of very simple information out there that could make a world of difference to so many if they knew it but it’s hidden and full of jargon when it is found to keep us dependent on the system. There are a whole host of things that we can try in order to heal but it’s all relative to you and what works for you.Ultimately, healing requires self study which is very individualized and puts the responsibility on you. Many people don’t want that responsibility. It also requires professionals spending larger chunks of time with you that those in the mainstream networks just don’t have.8:55 –We’re survival based animals. We’re designed to always be looking for dangers, analyzing our surroundings and being aware of what could go wrong. Especially if we come from a background that contained those types of things. Because of this, it’s very easy for us to get stuck in negative thought patterns.This makes it really difficult for us to maintain positive and healthy patterns. We have to work really hard to find and maintain them, whereas the unhealthy ones come naturally.Be weary of any one size fits all tactics. Nothing is universal and what works for one person won’t for another. There is no one method to rule them all in any category, each and every thing is relative to the individual in question. Diet fads are the worst about this.When working with the chakra system, it’s important to start at the bottom and work your way up because we have to be grounded and clear in the physical so that we can be clear in the nonphysical. We’re so accustomed to the physical that we’re bored with it and find the nonphysical to be more fun but if you don’t heal the lower chakras first, you’ll get mixed and unclear messages, leaving you even more confused in the end.You can’t jump straight from level 1 to level 6. If you’re not listening to your body very well and giving it what it needs and wants, you’re not going to be able to listen to your intuition very well. Our lower chakras tie us to ourselves but the upper ones tie us to all there is. If you’re not balanced in this, you’ll end up not only unclear but potentially sick or hurt.We have to be able to differentiate between what’s ours and what’s someone else’s so that we can appropriately transmute what doesn’t belong to us. So many of us internalize other’s energies which can overload our systems. We’re swimming in an ocean of energy, just as we’re swimming in an ocean of air, just as fish swim in an ocean of water. This energy flows in, through and around us at all times and when it gets stuck, the stagnation creates problems.18:00 –Survival is fitting in with our families and caregivers. So many of us morph ourselves into versions that we think will be accepted by these people and lose ourselves entirely. We hold the https://earthandwater.co/how-to-heal-generational-trauma-through-ancestral-clearing-with-elizabeth-kipp/ so much of our problems may not even be our own. We can hold the traumas of our parents abuse (or anyone that we come into contact with, not just family) and then we try to work it in our bodies as if it’s our own, but it isn’t.People pleasing is hardwired into us. It’s completely natural and innate as we’ve historically needed the love and support of those around us in order to survive. There’s nothing wrong with you if you’re a people pleaser. Yes, it can be exasperated through trauma and abuse but the tendencies are already there in each and every one of us. Do try to stop doing that, though, as you can only really unpack who you are without it.Stopping the people pleasing habits doesn’t mean being defiant at every turn. It means learning how to have healthy boundaries so that you can take care of your own needs and maintain healthy relationships with those around you.If you’re a healed individual, your very presence is going to irritate the demons that need to be healed in everyone you come into contact with. This can be very taxing and often times confusing and lonely. That’s why it’s important to have these boundaries and a clear intuitive understanding of both yourself and the energies around you. So that when they throw projections (accusations) at you, you’ll be able to recognize that they’re a reflection of themself and have nothing to do with you. Or else we internalize them as being true.It’s important to learn how to take the space you need to unpack and understand what is yours and what is theirs.24:25 –Everyone is confused. No one has everything together. We may have aspects of our life together…until we don’t. Things are what they are until their not.The only constant is change. Everything is always changing. People come and go into our life, loved ones die or get sick, we get sick, babies are born, jobs are gained and lost. We take everything in life concrete serious and this strict rigid attachment to how things are crumbles and destroys us when they change unexpectedly. Even our own selves are always changing as we grow and age, learn new things and hit new milestones. We have to maintain a gentle fluidity so that we may adapt when these things occur, because they are inevitable and will always occur.If we don’t learn to laugh at things, we’ll spend too much of our time crying.We’ve cut ourselves off from some of the scarier things in life, such as birth and death. We want the perceived safety contained in a nice organized box but the nature of life is raw and chaotic. It scares us that there are things outside of our control so we fight to maintain our illusions of it.Alan Watts covers this and how we can be on our death bed and our friends and family will insist we’re fine and gonna go have a picnic with tacos soon but a good preacher will make you feel good about dying because they’ve faced it and normalized it as a natural process of life. Our avoidance of the discomfort makes it harder on both ourselves and others when these times come. None of us know how to handle it.33:20 –Hypnotherapy, just like astrology, is an https://earthandwater.co/tools-for-introspection/. It doesn’t matter if you believe in the concrete constructs we like to place on things validity. They’re both modalities of self exploration and understanding. They give us the ability and direction to explore the subconscious on a deeper level than we would have, especially as a beginner.Even hard factual science that has been accepted as unyieldingly concrete is disproven and thrown out all of the time with new knowledge and developments. What is truth and factual reality? It seems that it may actually be more abstract than concrete. New information is bridging the gap between the available concrete proof and the mysticism “woo-woo” crazy.Ultimately, we shouldn’t be so attached to what we think we know. There is no one way to do anything. Things like astrology and hypnotherapy is a great place to start when you’re unsure how to begin.Everything is completely fabricated from nothingness. Our social, cultural and community systems are all taken very seriously but also just things that were made up from nothing in an effort to control the uncontrollable. Even the most serious of things can be taken a bit less serious, as in the grander scheme of it all they mean nothing.The school system as it is doesn’t work for everyone. People are leaning more and more towards homeschooling and unschooling. Our societal constructs are unraveling to be rebuilt and that can be scary. Don’t be afraid to make up your own rules.We’re living in the safest time in recorded history to be yourself but we do still have to process all of the fear surrounding that. Our ancestors were heavily prosecuted for who they were and that’s left a lot of residual effects.“https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Temple-Witchcraft-Meditation-Development/dp/0738702765By focusing on and healing ourselves, we help heal everyone around us. The Heart-Math Institute has done remarkable research on some of these things. They’ve measured the electromatic field of our hearts extending feet from our bodies and through this, we can influence the people around us with just our presence.The goal is to become more energy that physical matter. When you’re more energy than matter, it’s easier to work through the energetic laws and fields and completely bypass the need to work through the physical to accomp

19 MAR 2024 · The word “diet” has been tainted. Often times it means throwing out everything you’re doing and completely overhauling your kitchen overnight but only for a short amount of time. Diet culture is full of ‘quitting’ and rules portrayed as universal but almost never are. They’re stressful which is counter productive to the goals we’re trying to use them to achieve.Instead of ‘dieting’, conscious mindful eating can teach us what works specifically for our own unique body, despite what the latest expert would have you believe. Everyone’s body is create differently and thrives in a different set of circumstances. Figuring out what works best for you is a matter of getting to know yourself and your body.The internet will overwhelm you real quick with what’s good for you versus what’s bad. If we listen to everything it said, there would be nothing left to eat. When food is already one of the biggest struggles most of us have, we don’t want to make it more complicated, we want to make it as simple as possible.Many people use dieting to gain a sense of control over their lives when they feel like they lack control elsewhere. These control habits tend to become more rigid over time as they compound and build on one another.In another sense, deprivation of certain foods causes us to want them that much more. Like a child at the store told not to touch something, being told we can’t eat something automatically draws us to it.Mindful, intuitive eating creates a sense of intimidation because it puts all of the responsibility on the individual to decide what works for them and what doesn’t. In a world that spends so much time teaching us not to trust our own bodies and intuition, panic and distrust over making our own decisions can set in. By nature, people want both complete freedom and for someone else to take the responsibility and tell us what to do. That way, if something doesn’t work out, we don’t have to shoulder the blame alone.We have to spend time analyzing and learning our body’s different cues. So many of us are so out of touch with our bodies that we’ll eat a whole box of cookies, start to feel really bad and it won’t even cross our minds that it may be the cookies. Variety is important and great. We need a ton of variety in our diets to fulfill all of our needs. There’s a time and place for cookies just like there’s a time and place for salads. You have to check in with your body and honor what it’s telling you it needs more of or less of.Most of us were raised in the “clean plate club” where we were made to finish our plates which required eating past fullness. This can be pretty harmful to learning our hunger and fulness cues. We’re not blaming our caregivers here. Perhaps there was food insecurity so you had to eat what you had when you had it or perhaps that’s just how they were raised and they didn’t know any better (how could they of known better).9:10 –What does hunger feel like if it’s not a grumbling stomach? Most of us are taught that this is the only hunger cue we get but our body gives us a whole host of different hunger cues. Especially if you’ve had a history of ignoring the grumbling tummy. Different hunger cues can include headache, fatigue, nausea, general malaise or something else that doesn’t seem related at all.We’re taught, instead of listening to when we’re hungry or not, that meals follow a certain schedule and that set universal schedule may be a great fit for you or it may not. Those of us who have time blindness and forget to eat may benefit from a set schedule with reminders on our phones. We may also not require feeding at those times. You have the flexibility and freedom to experiment with what works for you and what doesn’t.Neurodivergent people in particular have a hard time differentiating their hunger cues and may exasperate the issue by putting off eating because it’s viewed as a task. Not necessarily a diet culture type thing but just a time consuming, energy and time needed task that we have to get around to doing when we would rather put those efforts somewhere else.Making food for most people is just the task of making food. Neurodivergent people view it as +/- 25 tasks which makes us even more resistant to it. We generally find it hard to focus on this under stimulating task and wonder off, leading things to burn. So instead of even trying to cook, many of us will grab whatever single serve thing is available and end up eating just a piece of cheese or a pack of crackers.Making a point to learn how to food prep can help to counteract our issues with food and variety. Turn on music, a podcast or invite a friend over (body doubling) at a certain time with the purpose of prepping food for the week so that you have a good variety of healthy options to just grab and eat. Label your containers, you will forget how long everything has been in there.Convenience foods are not all bad. Frozen foods have nearly the same nutritional value as fresh. Sure, many convenience foods are wrapped in a lot of single serve plastics but we’re working on stepping stones and baby steps here. Whatever helps you gain control over your ability to feed yourself in a healthy way is what’s important. From there, you can build and transition to healthy for you and the earth but right now, our focus is on you. You can’t be any good to anyone else if you’re not at your best first.25:33 –Feeding yourself and everyone else was never supposed to be a one person job. We use to live in villages where the responsibility of this task was shared by many involved. Now, we expect each and every person to be responsible for it independently and we were never meant for that. It’s a large task and a whole, very large area of life.ADHD fridge organization. Put the condiments and things you’re going to think about and be willing to search for in the drawers and put perishables like fruit, veggies, sandwich meat, etc. front and center so you see them as soon as you open the doors. This helps with the whole ‘if you don’t see it, you forget it exists’ problem.We can easily and quickly drown in all of the information available online. The best way to counteract this is to stop consuming information and instead start implementing something, anything. We don’t want to pressure ourselves to take anything out of our diet in the beginning. Instead, we want to focus on adding more good stuff into what we’re already eating.Adding veggies to a frozen pizza or some mac and cheese is a great place to start. Drench it in ranch if you need to right now. However you can get the fruits and veggies into your system is best. The nutritional value is not diminished because you drenched it in sauce. In some cases, the sauce is essential to the absorption of the vitamins, minerals and overall nutrients.Don’t write off a particular food because you tried it once or twice and didn’t like it. Our pallets change and with it, what we like and dislike. Most of the aversion is in our heads. You haven’t tried broccoli or brussel sprouts in all of the thousands of ways they can be prepared. Try them again and again. If you still don’t like them, fine, at least you tried. You may be surprised though. Always be trying new things.Is it important for our food to taste good? Absolutely. However, food is medicine and making yourself eat a couple of bites of something that you’re not a huge fan of but also doesn’t make you gag, is good for you. Your body will appreciate those few nutritional varieties that you wouldn’t otherwise get.40:08 –There are a ton of different foods that have the same or similar nutrients in them. Make sure you’re getting what you need and not leaving any open voids. Smoothies are versatile and under rated. Yogurts are becoming much more versatile than they use to be.There was such an anti-fat campaign in our food that villainized healthy fats that are crucial to our health and well being. Historically, the word ‘fat’ wasn’t a bad one. It was used often to express many good things. “Fat free” is not better and does not keep you from retaining weight. All it does it deprive you of an essential substance your body needs to regulate.There are several different types of fat and you have to learn which is good and which is bad and how to read labels to decipher what has which. Keeping a food journal is so crucial because the hardest part of implementation is remembering to remember. It’s so easy to get things mixed up, confused and forgotten. Write it down with as much depth and organization as you can.Food is intimate. It’s an attachment and extension between ourselves, the things we’ve experienced, as well as our relationships. You may have an unhealthy attachment to cookies because that was the only time you remember connecting with your mom. It can be a comfort thing, a coping thing and once you heal the underlying emotional cause you may find out that you don’t even actually like cookies (or whatever food is in question here).We are what we eat goes deeper than the basic components of the food making up every cell in our body. Food is a great place to start healing anything you want to heal, be it physical, mental, emotional or whatever have you. The energetic component of each food has just as much impact on us as the vitamins, minerals and nutrients present in the food. Samantha is a registered dietitian who offers weight-inclusive care to individuals struggling with eating disorders, disordered eating habits, and chronic dieting. Samantha's passion for nutrition began during her undergraduate studies in Culinary Nutrition at Johnson & Wales University, where she learned about the essential role of food in overall health and well-being. During graduate school at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Samantha discovered Intuitive Eating, a philosophy that changed the way she approached nutrition and helped her heal her relationship with food, movement, and her body. This transformative experience led her to use th

12 MAR 2024 · https://how-to-calm-the-nervous-system-with-jessica-raaum-foster How your nervous system responds to your eyes.Anxiety isn’t always a result of over thinking and worry. Anxiety is your body’s alarm system and it can be triggered by https://earthandwater.co/causes-of-anxiety/, independent from the mind. Anxiety is just as much physical as it is mental, if not more so.Emotional pain is physical pain. The cerebellum is responsible for coordination and balance not just in physical movement but also in thoughts and communication.Our brains are always scanning for threats with our emotional baggage in tow. Sometimes, (probably most of the time) this leads to old wounds, emotions and traumas being tied to things happening in the now that aren’t even related to the previous situation and/or circumstance. This can make us combative, reactive, have all sorts of negative experiences and make bad decisions because we’re correlating the now with the past instead of seeing it clearly for what it is in this moment.We are wired for survival. This was great back in the day when our stress response wasn’t always on and things were relatively calm and boring on a day to day basis. Now, this same system that was crucial for the rare times we needed it is now active more often than it’s not.It no longer takes a life or death situation and/or circumstance to trigger this fight or flight response. Instead, it’s activated by the smallest of things, be it bad traffic or the kids stuck in the house all day screaming and running around. We haven’t previously needed stress and anxiety coping skills until relatively recently.8:15 –The brain pays more attention to the eyes than it does anything else. It’s the number one input device for how we navigate the world safely. If we have any sort of deficit here (and most of us do), it can cause problems in our nervous system. The results of which can be things such as coordination issues or anxious moments.Visual training can build the skills to lessen these problems. We have a “threat bucket” and when this bucket becomes full and begins over flowing is when we’re met with these issues. Visual training is one of many things that can keep our threat bucket levels low so that our stress and anxiety isn’t over flowing into areas of our life it has no business in.For example, our relationships or work space if there are no threats coming from those areas. If your eyes aren’t functioning properly, your brain will start putting on the breaks in order to keep you safe.Our lifestyle, of course, has a big impact on all of this as well. We spend a lot of time looking at close up screens, looking down and across. A good practice to start implementing in order to counteract this is “look out, look up.” Every so often (on average they say every 20 minutes), look away from your screens, look out a window and try and focus on a far distant point. Preferably one that’s “up.”“Distance looking” activates the parasympathetic tone, calming us. Another easy way to do that is going for a walk and taking in all of your surroundings. We’re meant to live in a three dimensional, physical world, not just the 2 dimensions we’re stuck in on screens.Remaining open instead of closed up. We should always be focusing on expansive energy. We spend so much time scrunched up and this tension leads to stress. This looks like “power poses” as much as it looks like mindset and lifestyle habits.Macular degeneration is a use it or lose it type of situation. It effects everyone differently but essentially, if you stop looking out into the distance, you’ll begin to lose the ability to do so. This works in all directions, not just far away. It’s the same if you stop looking at things close up and everything in between. You have to figure out which direction you struggle with and actively counteract it with purposeful exercises.Vision is a trainable strength and should be exercised just like any other muscle. You don’t have to accept that with age, you’ll automatically decline. We can’t completely eradicate symptoms of aging but we can lessen their hold on us.19:25 –Eye yoga. A lot of modalities or practices are the same thing but have different names because they developed in different parts of the world. Much of the practices that we credit to being life changing are ancient practices that we’re just now bringing into the main stream. These things (meditation, energy work, yoga, etc) weren’t something many people had need or desire to be interested in.We only just now have the communication means to make them more interesting and show people why they’re needed. That’s why it’s called “new age”. It’s a new age where we’re bringing these world changing practices back to the forefront and teaching one another that their are answers to their problems and a way to improve the world for us all.Science is finally catching up with this ancient knowledge and proving their substance. https://earthandwater.co/how-to-reprogram-your-genes-using-meditation-with-dr-dawson-church-phd/ is a prime example of this. Science is helping us bridge the language gap of the mystics. Whereas the only way they could attempt to explain things was through stories, mythology, analogies and allegories, we now have a greater vocabulary of the workings of the universe. Check try recheck methodology allows us to explore what works for a certain individual and what doesn’t. Nothing is a one size fits all. Everything always comes down to a life long dedication of self study. We can talk tools and what works for this person or that all day but ultimately, it’s up to you to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t.Muscle testing can be done to communicate more effectively with the body. One way to do muscle testing is to link your fingers together, ask a question and attempt to pull them apart. If they hold strong and tight, it’s a yes. If they easily break apart, it’s a no. You can also stand in a neutral position and ask a question. If you sway slightly forward (attracted to) it’s a yes. If you sway slightly back, or away (repelled) it’s a no.You can also tap into the communication of your body via your breath. Check in with your breathing and rate it 1-5 on how easy it is to breathe. A 1 probably means something is tense and going on. What is it? Can you analyze it further? A 5 means you’re relaxed and okay. It’s up to you to decipher what’s going on from there based on your https://earthandwater.co/how-to-stop-doubting-your-intuition/ and senses. What do you notice? Where are you being led in thoughts and feelings?Sometimes it can be hard to discern our intuition because of normal societal conditioning. People are always telling us we’re wrong about ourselves, the decisions we make and trying to steer us towards their “right” answer. This can confuse us and make us super doubtful of our intuition or hyper trusting of it and we could be off a bit or right on point. Finding the balance of truth in between takes a bit of practice and muscle testing is a great layer of reassurance if you struggle here.36:25 –Self care is a lot of work. It’s not just a list of 5-10 things we need to be doing in order to care for ourselves, mind body and spirit, but it’s 1000 different things that change everyday. We’ve been taught that we need to go talk to a professional in order to figure out what we need but we really jest need to learn how to check in with ourselves and listen to what we’re told. Some days we may need more productive yang energy and other days we need more calming yin.Meditation is a great way to do this. It has a lot of misconceptions about it but meditation is simply the act of getting to know yourself and training yourself in the direction that you would like for you to be. It doesn’t have to be super time consuming. 1-5 minutes is plenty to scan your body, notice your energy levels, see what you’re picking up from your mind and gauge what’s needed for today.Ultimately, we need to learn how to be in the present moment. All of the work in healing is being aware of what is actually going on within and around you and actively choosing what you want, discarding what you don’t. Consciously choosing your actions, your words, your thoughts, your emotions and when things come up that you don’t want, not suppressing them but instead dissecting them to understand what they need in order to run their course and be released.When situations and circumstances trigger us we have to learn to pause instead of react. Practicing the pause allows you the space you need to analyze the situation and see if you can pull at any tools to help you navigate it in the best way you’d like. Take a breath, do you need to step outside for a moment? Do you need to go lock yourself in the bathroom to recalibrate? There’s all the time you need to move gracefully forward in a way that progresses you, your healing and the situation at hand. Neuroplasticity is our ability to rewire our brain by making new, better choices. Our thoughts, words, decisions, actions, etc create habits. These habits are hardwired into our brain and become automatic and subconscious. It’s easy to stay in your patterns. Changing those neuro pathways takes a bit of effort because it’s going against what’s already physically wired in your brain. This is how we create new habits. With just a little persistence these new, better habits become just as second nature as the previous harmful ones.We don’t teach children how to regulate emotions so they turn into adults who also don’t know how to regulate and process their emotions. These emotions get suppressed, becoming stuck in our bodies and causing physical problems but also become wired in as part of our subconscious progr

5 MAR 2024 · Beginning –Building confidence is often a whole journey. Very rarely is someone just born with it or unaffected by external factors that harm our self image and esteem. Sometimes it’s easier to stay stuck and miserable than doing the work to heal.We self sabotage our progress, often subconsciously, by telling all of these stories both in our heads to ourselves as well as to other people about why we can’t start yet. It’s a form of procrastination due to the awareness that it is a lot of work and we’re comfortable in the familiar discomfort we’re currently in because it’s all we’ve ever known.We become trapped in the same patterns we gathered as children which becomes our default system on what to say, think and do. Going against that programming is how we create a different reality for ourselves but that requires responsibility for what we choose moving forward.We’re trained for external validation which leads many of us to people pleasing. This makes changing our patterns to find ourselves and our confidence even harder because it means making other people uncomfortable. Everyone in our lives has become accustomed to what they expect us to be and if we start acting out of that character they’ve identified us as it shakes up their world and they don’t like that.If we start changing the way we’ve always interacted with certain people, they’re most likely going to perceive it as an attack or a falsity. They don’t realize that the true falsity has always been the show you’ve put on to keep them happy. If you choose to end that charade, their confusion is going to lead them to respond and it may be a positive response or it may not. It’s important to remember to hold onto your boundaries and clarity in why you’re choosing this alternative path.You don’t have to “wait until” anything. There is no such thing as a “perfect time” and the sooner you decide to begin, the sooner you can start to see progress. True healing occurs every moment of every regular day. If you’re serious about healing and stepping into a new reality for yourself, that reality exists on any given regular Tuesday.Make it messy and do it scared. That’s what’s real. Perfect isn’t a real thing anywhere for anything. It’s an abstract, relative thought that morphs between person to person. It cannot be caught or expressed outside of your perception.True healing takes trying and then failing so that you may learn and grow. It’s never going to be any kind of perfect because the very nature of life is messy and nonlinear. 10:13 –You have to question yourself and everything you do, say and think. Instead of looking at life as things happening “to” you, identifying what enables you to progress and what enables you to stay the same.Questions to ask yourself: - “Is this helping or hurting me?” - “Does this get me closer to my goals?” - “Am I picking short term, false comfort over long term happiness?” - “Am I choosing other people’s comfort over my own?” - “Where does this thought/habit originate from?” - “Am I procrastinating my progress?” - “Is the story/belief I’m holding onto true?” We’re all afraid. If you can overcome that fear and do the thing anyway, you’ll find a sense of gratitude and accomplishment on the other side that’s unbelievably rewarding.You can choose to do the thing scared. It’s mind over matter. The hardest part of most things is showing up to do the thing in the first place. Once you show up you generally get swept away in a cascade of events that lands you in the path of least resistance of doing the thing.Often times it’s easier to do the thing we’re afraid of than it is to disappoint someone we love. Peer pressure can be downright dangerous.18:35 –External validation may be the number one thing that impacts those of us with anxiety and confidence issues. Comparing ourselves to others can also be a trap. You never ever want to compare yourself to anyone other than a previous version of yourself. There are too many factors at play that you couldn’t possibly understand and people only show us what they want us to see.We’re not for everyone. Some people are going to love us, some are going to hate us. That’s a fact that we HAVE to learn to accept. When you do, you can effortlessly start to be yourself and things become easier. When you step into your authenticity, there’s always room for you at the table that accepts you. And if there’s no table to be found, you make your own table.If it’s exhausting you, it’s not you. If it’s exhausting you, it’s unsustainable and unhealthy. It takes a lot of experimentation to figure out who “you” really is. It’s a process that takes time. Historically we needed to fit in with the village in order to survive. Not only is being ourselves a new (SAFE) concept but it’s important these days to figure out who we are so that we can https://earthandwater.co/authenticity-builds-genuine-communities-a-guide-to-banishing-loneliness-with-carrie-allen/There are levels to confidence. You have to find the confidence in being yourself with yourself before you can cultivate being confident around other people. Practice with yourself in the mirror, try things out around your safe people. Whatever helps you step stone your way to confidence.https://earthandwater.co/11-sisters-to-the-law-of-attraction-the-12-universal-laws-of-manifesting/ so if you’re around people who don’t make you feel comfortable and safe it’s highly likely that they also don’t feel comfortable and safe in who they are. When you show up as yourself, it’s going to trigger people in either a direction of growth or stagnation. That’s up to them but it is going to create resistance and friction. You have to pay attention to what YOU are feeling. Ignore them. They’re projecting.It’s all subconscious. They don’t realize that’s what’s going on. You have to hold onto compassion for them. Confidence energy can sometimes come off as mean girl energy. Be careful, stay humble. Our society these days is too quick to cut people off. That is exactly how you end up with no one. You have to be intentional and learn discernment between those who mean well and don’t know any better versus those who are toxic and happy to stay that way.33:12 –Not everyone is on the same journey as you or in the same place as you and they may never be. You have to decide if they’re worth finding middle ground with. You may have to be conscious about avoiding certain topics with them. No one’s perfect. You have to find your external validation amongst peers and know who isn’t a safe space for certain topics.Boundaries is about keeping people in your life, not out of your life. Intuitively, we think boundaries means throwing up walls but it really means knowing where your limits are so that you can keep well meaning people in your life that just don’t understand where you are or what you need.You don’t know what you don’t know so you can’t even search for what you need and want if you’ve never been introduced to the concept of it. The internet is brand new and we can’t blame our parents for their lack of understanding and knowing.39:15 –Many struggle with confidence because we have to spend our lives masking in order to be accepted. A trap of alcohol is that it allows the mask to slip away more easily. Alcohol is a common way to numb reality and avoid life.We can very easily get so use to suppressing certain emotions that we forget that we’re even suppressing them. They can then manifest as unsolicited panic attacks in your down time that come out of no where and speak no rhyme or reason for the moment.When you get still with your thoughts, suppressed energies see their opportunity to be processed and released. Some of these can be overwhelmingly large. Coming out of no where, years after the initial event can be a really powerful and terrifying experience. Learning breathing and relaxation techniques can help you to ride them out to the other side to be free of them.WHIRL POOL ANALOGY!!!

28 FEB 2024 · Beginning –There’s tons of different things hypnotherapy can be used to help including but not at all limited to anxiety, trauma, various addictions, self discovery and much much more. Dr Saperstein specializes in helping people with sexual trauma through hypnotherapy.Years ago hypnotherapy was seen as very controversial. People’s misunderstanding led them to distrust in it made worse by those who used it as a tool to manipulate the courts in various cases. For these reasons, many professionals shelved it as a tool, so it’s not always easy to find a practitioner who’s willing to use it with trauma survivors.When trauma is experienced, we innately go into an altered state of consciousness in order to protect ourselves and survive the moment. We don’t have the safety at the time of the trauma to be able to process the emotions of it. Hypnotherapy deliberately recreates this scenario in safe space so that the emotions can be processed and released. This allows for healing to begin.Many professionals are afraid to take on any trauma cases. So much so that they put the fact that they don’t touch trauma cases right up front in their pitches. This can leave so many people displaced, wanting help but struggling to find it.Hypnotherapy is really just a deeper form of meditation. I’ve spoken on it in depth https://earthandwater.co/hypnotherapy-a-tool-for-healing-ourselves-and-the-world/ if you’d like to know more when you’re done over here.6:57 –Fear comes from misunderstanding but also facing your trauma is a terrifying thing. Going deeply within yourself to resolve these things takes an enormous amount of courage. It’s not going to be pleasant.Most therapies focus on resolving symptoms of the trauma. This particular mode using hypnotherapy is used to target that which is generating the symptoms in the first place. Symptoms are pointing you towards what needs to be healed. It’s all energy.All problems in your life, whether it be physical ailments, mental turmoil or even quality of life focused, are all stemming from stuck energy within you. It’s what so many ancient teachings tried to explain to us but science is finally starting to catch up to it and solidify it into our understanding.Most everything is deeply rooted in emotions we’re holding onto. The statistics for sexual and physical abuse as well as neglect are astounding. These things are unfortunately more common that not in our society. Healing them hurts because you have to bring them to the surface whereas most of us suppress and bury these feelings in an effort to not feel them.In suppressing them, we’re holding onto them though. And holding onto them is exactly what’s causing us to experience these negative manifestations in our bodies and life. The only way to heal these is to allow them to run their course, which means feeling them.10:02 –We understandably have concerns of hypnotherapy creating false memories. Sometimes this happens but a fail safe to remember is that the content of the “newly unlocked memories” may be distorted but the feelings you have associated with them are most likely true. This can be related to https://earthandwater.co/how-to-interpret-your-dreams/ and how the content isn’t as important as the symbolism and the emotions tied to them. Remember, energy communicates in feelings and directions rather than concreate words and images.We discuss past life regression. “https://www.amazon.com/Many-Lives-Masters-Prominent-Psychiatrist/dp/0671657860” book. https://earthandwater.co/how-to-heal-generational-trauma-through-ancestral-clearing-with-elizabeth-kipp/ is a very real thing that areas of study are proving in study. Something terrible that happened to our greatest of great great grandparents that then became coded in our DNA and passed down to us to process and release. Sometimes it’s hard to say what’s ours, what’s our ancestor’s and what happened in a past life. https://earthandwater.co/how-to-reprogram-your-genes-using-meditation-with-dr-dawson-church-phd/ is one faction studying this now.All of the various ailments seem like separate things to the general public but when you really start studying it all, you start to see all of the patterns and things become simpler. All problems stem from a root cause of some sort of trauma.Playing with hypnotherapy can be dangerous if you’re not prepared to deal with the things that come up after the door is opened. Some (as seen with entertainment – stage hypnosis) can go into thinking it’s all fun and games and walk away changed due to what comes up and is experienced.Most of the work in healing is sitting with the feelings and surrendering to what happened. It sucks. It shouldn’t have happened. But it did. How can acceptance be found in order to release the pain and move forward?20:13 –Most of the time, in order to accept, release and heal, all we need is a safe place with a safe individual who we respect and is there to validate and support us. Dr. Saperstein points out that this is most likely due to the fact that our trauma is most often caused by someone who was close to us and should have protected us. So to counteract that damage done, we need someone who fulfills the role of what they should have been for us.Trauma is caused by malice but also by ignorance. Too often, children are hurt by people who just didn’t know any better. That’s a hard fact to deal with because ‘how can you not know that your actions were harmful!?” Unfortunately, that’s a common truth.People have a hard time with the word ‘forgiveness’. In many situations, people aren’t intending to harm one another, it’s just something that happened unintentionally. Most people really are trying their best with the limited knowledge, understanding and resources they have available to them. That’s not to say that some people aren’t absolutely terrible. Some are. Most people who inflict trauma were they themselves traumatized and are unconsciously passing on the cycle.27:46 –A big misconception about the rich is that they’re all stuck up and out for themselves. When you understand the laws of the universe, though, you’re able to see that in order to meet certain criteria for abundance, you have to be kind, generous and thoughtful. Sure, you can get to those higher statuses through more malice but doing it that way isn’t how it happens for most people because your actions and choices have to align with your heart.Money follows value. Having all of your basic needs met opens you up to the freedom of being unselfish and generous in all areas that you can find.The vast majority of victims blame themselves at least initially and/or subconsciously for what happened. There’s also a misconception that sexual abuse and other traumas occur from a stranger that walks their way into your life but most is caused by a close friend, relative or caretaker.We learn to lie to ourselves in an effort to understand why things happened to us. When someone abuses us, they leave behind a poison that we mistake as our own. Victim blaming is so common that the victims also begin to blame themselves for the incident.Victim blaming is easier than taking responsibility for the evils you’ve done or accepting that others have done evil to someone. We don’t want to believe that these things are so common so we suppress it the only ways we know how to. Shutting it all down and sweeping it into the shadows in an effort to not have to be uncomfortable with addressing it.Obviously, we should not be doing any of this. Understanding why people take the routes they do is not at all excusing the routes chosen. Instead, understanding makes them easier to identify when they arise so that persistence can be taken. Otherwise, we’re allowing the perpetuation of these harmful practices and more damage to the victim is done. 38:58 – It’s historically been seen as unprofessional for professionals to speak about themselves, their life and their experiences. This has led to most pretending they don’t exist outside of their workspace. Professionals instead being open about what they’ve dealt with gives them their humanity back and allows them to connect with victims who have endured similar challenges. Being honest about what you’ve personally gone through helps those who need you to more easily find you.When you’re seeking a professional for a certain type of help, it’s okay to question them on their personal life a bit to try and gauge if they are capable of helping you. A formal education, certification, degree or license doesn’t automatically mean qualified for your specific needs. Every professional is just a person and any person can only help another on a level of which they themselves have experienced. Especially when dealing with trauma and healing, you’ll generally find professionals who aren’t very helpful more easily than you will find someone who really can help. There’s a lot of problematic hoops here that make finding someone to help you pretty difficult. Please be persistent and don’t give up because you landed on a few unhelpful ones in the beginning. Keep searching and expand your inquires outside of traditional therapy. You deserve the help you need and that help can come in unassuming forms but they are out there. 42:50 –A common trap that people fall into when they want to help someone (speaking nonprofessionally in more of a private setting) is willingness to help in any way that isn’t emotional. The biggest help a