My mindfulness journey began at the same time as everyone else's, when i realised 'thoughts' and 'feelings' were not the same thing
it's almost like i realised schizophrenia isnt a condition, as much as it's part of a spectrum that we're all on
Once i realised and acknowledged that i had a very active narrative mind, constant dialogue in my head, and there was a significant difference between 'thought' and 'feeling', i became very interested in improving.
My wife and i had been dating for a couple of weeks when we were driving along, she was telling me a pretty cool story (yes, that's right, it was early days in the relationship, mind) when all of a sudden, she finished, and i realised i had completely gone off on a mental tangent, completely zoning out and coming back at the punchline where there was some sort of obligated reaction. unfortunately i had no idea what that was and i hadn't been listening .
Being that i had recently left my long term career to do something i thought would be more chilled out, and instead entering into a new working arena that i had severely under estimated, where i had to learn a new set of skills, and as usual, doing it on my own with no teacher, my mind was far from relaxed. So i decided that if i was going to be effective for my new operation, i would need to get hold of my very easily distracted mind
Not to do things in halves, the first thing i did was google 'Buddhist temples' and found one near where i lived, which was a push as i lived in the middle of nowhere. It was all very disappointing, i turned up, no one talked, they just gave me a sheet of paper with instructions and i sat there with my eyes shut, thinking... it all felt more 'ineffective' than 'weird', but it was plenty of both of those
i didn't give up, as something kept telling me there was some value to be had here if i got it right.
i started 'counting meditation' realised how far behind i really was, i couldn't count to 4 without having to remind myself what i was doing... this is pretty common, so if you try, be warned, especially with the array of distraction in modern life, like social media, TV, radio, 24 hour rolling news etc
i still use this to sleep, i guess it's the same as counting sheep to put it into perspective.
Thing was nothing was really making me feel awesome like the way meditation and mindfulness was being hyped to, i felt like i was rubbish at it, and to be honest, i've not made huge strives forwards even to this day. But there was one strange event
I went to have mercury fillings removed. 6 in total in 2x 1 hour sessions. I decided i was going to try and count through the process and not have any pain relief. I think i just saw it as a challenge more than i was able to, especially as i couldn't even count to 4 without thinking about 'the next'
well i ended up doing all 6 without any chemical assistance, the dentist said the cavities were pretty deep too, as i used to eat a lot of sugar as a kid. So i knew i had something in the form of mental strength when required at a deeper level, even if i struggled daily.
You see i wanted meditation to be my saviour against all that mental chatter distracting me during the day and effecting my mood and decision making.
My day to day fears were pretty irrational... like i'd get on a plane and it would be a costant battle between my 'thoughts' and 'feeling', 'rational mind' and 'irrational mind', 'chimp/monkey mind' and 'human mind' or whatever you want to call the two to seperate the pair
i'd read headlines of the 'crash' in my head, then i'd remind myself how many planes take off and land every minute, round and round and round between the irrational 'feeling' and the rational 'thought'
One day i was coming back from Ibiza on a 2am flight, thinking of all the different ways the plane might crash or not take off at all.
We started hurling down the runway and all of a sudden the plane started to skid down the runway almost uncontrollably. this was it!!!
Because i'd already lived through this process 20 times in my mind, in some sort of mental addiction to a constant state of crisis, i was so calm, almost serene. I started checking people, telling them to 'calm down', not to panic, it was all gonna be ok etc etc... but whenever it was ok, i was panicking more than those people on the skidding plane were when there was a real problem... was this an example of my mental strength or mental weakness?
This all amounted to me continuing to look for answers. I looked into TM (Transcendental Mediation) but i didn't like the idea of paying $500 for a course that revolves around being 'immaterial', but instead found another course based on TM called NSR (Natural Stress Relief)
This opened my eyes a little. It's basically telling users to concentrate on one thing that relaxes them and lead the monkey mind, rather than be lead by a bored idol monkey mind... This is exactly what my mum used to say to me when i was an infant if i had a bad dream 'go back to bed, and imagine you're in the sweet shop and everything is free!!!"' (no wonder i had such big cavities and addicted to sugar by the time i became an adult, hey!)
So this was about as good as it got for me, but my daily mental tangents still lead me, rather than visa versa... classic 'tail wagging the dog'
I had an influence on my moods, but nothing more than that. I was still very much out of control, and a by stander to my crazy Chimp Brain.
I don't know if you gathered as much, but this series, isnt about me trying to be the expert on all of these subjects, it's more about me saying 'look, i don't understand all of this, but i 'Think' and 'Feel' it all goes together' and is related. You don't need to be an expert either to start implementing and reaping the benefits of the whole EZ route and Quantum Health movement.
However, science has started to become more and more interested in the physical effects of the physiological practice known as mindfulness mediation. As far as i'm aware, the main yard stick used is measuring blood panels, hormones and other Bio feedback results.
This is all great, but it doesn't really get me too excited about quantifying relaxation.
I already feel it has benefits, but why and how does it work and related to everything else i'm doing if everything is tied together with Light?
I prefer the more 'Quantum' theories behind the whole thing. Now i cant prove or disprove any of this, but i think for concept it might help a few people
Remember, i'm not claiming to be an expert in this, in fact, i'm a complete novice, and what i'm about to say is better thought of as my visulisation of Meditation rather than actual science.
I suppose i better highlight what visulisation is first though, or at least what i mean when i refer to it.
Visulisation is basically the idea of thinking about something and it coming true. Imaging you meet the man or woman of your dreams and it happens. imaginging someone will call you and then they call, Hitting a golf ball and it goes where you intend.
Sounds all very 'Hocus Pocus', but there is a script that i will post that we read during Hypno-Birthing lessons that goes something like this:
'You wake up and out of bed, you walking down stairs, you feel the softness of the carpet under your feet and between your toes, you feel the warm of the morning sunlight coming through the window as you come down the stairs. you walk into the kitchen via the hallway and feel the cold of the kitchen floor tiles on the balls of your feet, before opening the fridge and feeling the cold air gush out of the chilled fridge. You see a big juicy, ripe, yellow lemon on the middle shelf of the fridge. you remove the lemon, and take a knife out of the draw. You cut the lemon open with the sharp knife on the chopping board. As the knife slices through the lemon, the lemon juice pours out either side of the fruit. Then you pick up the lemon and take a bite with your front teeth
The bitter lemon juice splashes all around your mouth, and all over your tongue. it makes you pull a face in order to deal with the bitter sweet taste of the ripe lemon
after reading that passage, by now, you should notice your mouth is watering... this is the power of visulisation
(if this didnt work, get someone else to read it to you while you close your eyes, otherwise i'll find the original in our Hypno-Birthing docs and post, there were some other good visulisation passages we re\lly liked, Hypno-Birthing is a great entry into Mindfulness
Wayne Rooney, Christiano Ronaldo, Andy Murray, to name just a few, use these techniques to 'imagine' or visulise themselves winning. Someone once told me that Wayne Rooney speaks to the kit man the night before every game to find out exactly where he'll be sitting in the dressing room, what colour socks, shorts he'll be wearing etc before he walks out on to the pitch.
so that's my version of visulisation, but how is this related to Quantum Health?
Again, purely in my understanding, there are 3 mental states i'm aware of Alpha, Beta, Omega, each representing sleep, conscious and the in between stage, which i believe to be 'lucid'
Lucid dreaming is when you have dreams and you're either aware you're asleep, or when you're in between sleep and awake.
This state of mind is pretty much where people are trying to get with most meditation. a serene almost drunk, careless state. Like nothing really matters (sound familiar?)
The Quantum angle on it, is that big Electro-Magnetic engine in your skull (The Brain) is producing energy all the time of course, reacting to whatever you're environment presents, whether it's lemons or lions. When we walk bare foot in nature, we connect our body, mind and soul to mother earth (never thought i'd describe walking like that)
The earth's frequency (Schumann resonance) is 7.83 hertz, which is also the frequency your brain produces when you're lucid dreaming, or in deep meditation. I think of lucid dreaming as effortless meditation, and there are things you can do to increase your lucid activity, but maybe save that for another post
if you imagine these mental states as different 'gears' that use higher frequncies and your Brain will use them in reaction to different requirements, just like a car.
For tough tasks it might be in the higher, more conscious gear, and electronic frequency that uses Adrenalin and zaps energy. When it's a little easier, your brain might chill in the more relaxed gear and 7.83 frequncy, where it gets to repair. The body, muscles, mind and organs all follow suit of that 'gear' and frequncy.
This is why it's so important to match your activity with your gear and frequency - It's no good laying down, but your mind running at 100 mega hertz because you're worried about terroism, politics or something else representing a 'Lion' that the 24 hour rolling news has delivered to you.
This is why walking in nature chills you out, this is why sleeping is so resourceful, and this is why meditating does all of the same.
Effectively we're all trying to get to 7.83 hertz chilled out 'Gear', and away from radio stations in the 100 mega hertz range, wifi in the Giga hertz range or or anything else teeming with non native Electro-Magnetic fields... this is all polluting our mental state, whether we realise or not, not just the content, but the frequency of the radiation that content is delivered through too... double whammy
Heart Math are a company based in the US that do lots of work on the mind body connection. They have a heart rate variability monitor, that is designed to measure stress based on how much your heart rate fluctuates. A lot of their work is based around 'Ying and Yang' - Classic 'East meets West' - Which is where i see all this headed
Heart Rate variability is an excellent way to illustrate just how on the edge we're living, ready to react at a speed far more realted to running from Lions than opening up letters and Gas bills.
The thing that very few people ever consider is that our body and mind, especially our monkey minds are created the way they are to keep us out of trouble, run from lions and catch prey.
our environment has changed a lot quicker than our genetics are capable of keeping up with, and so we've ended up with a brain that's prepared to run from a lion, when there are no lions
Instead, fear comes in the form of a gas bill, Interest rates going up, or the stock market collapsing... 24 News and Media are all about fear, and this is the best way to remove lions from your life... turn off the news, turn off the noise it's mental poison
This will all make a lot of sense to anyone that's been involved with Hypno-Birthing. The concept in a nutshell (that's right, lots of nutshells here) is because of all the hype surrounding birth, women get to hospital, and straight away, they're presented with something that they see on films/TV: lots of blood, guts and they are the star of the show. Their body reacts by switching off labour until they feel more comfortable - This new enviornment is their 'Lion'
Hypno-Birthing teaches women that birth is completely natural, how to avoid the fear surrounding birth, and how to relax and visualise positive thoughts and affirmations - 'one born every minute' (a British TV program about child birth in the 1960's) is to pregnant women what the news is to the rest of us, creates fear, creates mental fog, decison making, and like the story about the lemon, without realising, makes feelings into physical reactions, like our mouth watering, our heart rate increasing or, but not limited to, secreting excess stress hormones like Adrenalin.
But like the news, so some crazy reason, we're addicted to the fear producing source... why is that?
This is how important meditation, mindfulness, and Hypno-Birthing is to me, and how it relates to the Quantum health realms in terms of electricity, i don't know the numbers, but i'd imagine if 100 hz is optimum for mitochondria to spin at, then any effect on that speed from stress, is going to have a detrimental effect on health, fat burn, EZ water and cellular respiration on a daily basis... is this the link between stress and Cancer we keep hearing about???
As i say, i'm a minnow when it comes to mindfulness, so please let me know if you have any tips, tricks, or want to correct any of my ideas with a few facts
cheers peeps... sweet 'lucid' dreams