mindfulness
The Power Of Deep Breathing
It is not generally understood how important deep, healthy, mindful breathing truly is. In fact, shallow breathing is linked to all kinds of health problems, including panic attacks, dry mouth, halitosis, cardiovascular issues, fatigue, respiratory problems, and sleep disorders. When we breathe with our chests, we use the muscles in our chests, shoulders, and necks to expand our lungs, which can result in neck pain, shoulder pain and headaches.
Most importantly, shallow breathing also hinders our immune functioning. The chronic stress and strain it places on the body, results in lower amounts of lymphocyte – a type of white blood cell that helps to defend the body from invading organisms. Shallow breathing actually lowers the amounts of proteins that signal other immune cells. The body thus becomes more likely to acute illnesses.
Deep, diaphragmatic breathing, on the other hand, can lower blood pressure, calm the mind, and improve sleep. It also lowers our heart rate, relaxes muscles, decreases stress, and increases energy levels.
Deep breathing also grounds and centers us. It has been proven to have a profound calming effect on the mind and body. When you are anxious, you take rapid short breaths. When you are content, you take deep, long, full breaths.
The way we breath also affects our mental abilities and thinking. Programming your brain when inhaling can lock thoughts into your memory and can be a powerful tool in our daily spiritual practice. Thinking or saying out loud affirmations like, ‘I am love and light; God and I, me and God are one; I am able to accomplish anything I want; I am powerful;’ will lock those thoughts into your psyche.
Your Thoughts Will Transform Your Life!
I have some fantastic news for you today! You can have a magical year if you choose it! The magic is within you. If you truly believe you are going to have a fantastic year ahead, you indeed will. What we think and choose to believe becomes our reality.
You don’t believe me? Well, think about this for a moment: I am sure you know a few fairly negative people whose lives are always in chaotic upheaval or consumed with toxic drama. You probably also know some amazingly optimistic, positive folks whose lives always seem blessed, happy and full of joy… even when things are not necessarily always going well for them. Their good karma inevitably comes to the rescue to bless them!
We create our destiny, and we do it with our thoughts. Let your thoughts direct your path to happiness, health, abundance, and good, positive people around you! You are more powerful than you may know, and it starts with your thoughts and how you choose to perceive things. Tuning into that higher frequency is where it is at!
If you want things to change for the better in your life you need to switch from being negative to thinking positive. The power is in your thoughts. What you choose to think is what you put out into the universe and what you will in return attract.
I have known many folks indulge in constant self-pity and blame others for where they are in life. No one else is responsible for where we are in life. We are in control of our lives and our own karma We are the ones who can make or break our own day, week, month, and year. It all starts with what we choose to focus on and what we chose to spend our time and energy on.
It’s time to take responsibility for where we are in life and to start making it happen. The time is now. Anything is possible. You just have to believe and take some action.
Being Relaxed Is Good
It is difficult for most of us to enjoy a few moments of deep relaxation and inner peace. The many pressures of modern life seldom affords us the bliss of such a ‘luxury.’
A relaxed mindset if vital for our spiritual well-being and soul growth. When we are in a relaxed state, we are better able to channel our higher self and be aware of what our angels and guides are saying to us. But when we are inundated with the chaos of the world, we cannot connect with that higher frequency and we miss all the good things spirit has to offer.
So, I asked spirit what busy humans can do to be more relaxed more often. I received the answer from a cashier who, after I had paid said goodbye with a smile I will never forget and said, “Being relaxed is good.”
I just nodded and said, “Yes, yes indeed it is.”
In our busy lives we forget how important it is to take some time out for self-care. And when we do, we realize what we have been missing!
I believe the best starting point is healthy sleep. Taking the time to get a good night’s rest empowers us to wake up and find that life doesn’t seem quite as difficult as it seemed the day before. Good, adequate sleep helps us see life through the lens of a more relaxed mindset.
Being well-rested is good.
A few additional lifestyle choices that are not so difficult to achieve can further enhance a relaxed state of mind. These include healthy eating and proper nutrition, exercise, taking warm baths, meditating, reading a good book before bedtime, and so on. Continue reading
Dealing With ‘Unawakened’ Friends And Family
Spiritual awakening is a profound shift in our perception that forever alters the way we experience life. But after we have made the shift it can be difficult to relate to less spiritually aware friends and relatives and leave one feeling lonely and deeply isolated.
The following strategies can be helpful in cultivating more harmony between yourself and ‘unconscious’ people without compromising your own energy vibration.
COMPASSION AND EMPATHY
At one time you were also not awakened. Think back to what that was like. What kind of thoughts dominated your mind? How did you feel about your life? How did you feel in general? The truth is, although you’ve gone through a spiritual awakening, you can still relate to those who have not. You have a point of reference for this.
Someone who is unconscious typically doesn’t have a pleasant inner world, because they aren’t intentionally governing it. Think back to what your life and most importantly – your relationship with yourself and your mind – looked like before your awakening. What did your own resistance look like? At some point your perspective shifted. But prior to that point – how receptive were you to changing your views and ideas? Especially when a family member came to you and said, “Hey, you’re doing it wrong.”
Put yourself in their shoes. Now that you’ve awakened you have the pleasure to start putting it to use in a way that serves the highest and best good of all. Remember that every soul is a spiritual being, and just because you have awakened to this fact, does not make you ‘better than’ anyone else. This is a trap that the ego likes to throw up early, and often along the spiritual path.
The ego is something we must constantly be mindful of. You are not more spiritual because you are vegan, or because you meditate, or because you do Yoga. If you are living in judgment of others through these practices, you are trapped in ego. Be mindful of yourself and come back to a state of compassion and empathy. Allow people to awaken in their own time.
The Spiritual Significance Of Seeing Zero
Throughout time the circle has been a powerful archetype steeped in esoteric symbolism. A zero is also circle. It is an unbroken line. The circle, or zero, represents the eternal nature of the soul and consciousness. It represents the interconnectedness of everything and the universal law of oneness.
It symbolizes the doorway to Source that resides within our own being, or better yet, that we are Source, or expressions of Source. We are as intimately connected with Source, as is all of creation. The entire Universe consists of Source energy. Zero is both everything, and nothing.
While the number 1 reminds us that we are conscious creators of our reality, and calls on us to use this power intentionally and wisely, zero reminds us that anything, absolutely anything is possible. Even that which is currently beyond our awareness or understanding.
While the signs associated with 1111 remind us of our power as conscious creators, seeing signs associated with 0000 reminds us that this creation power is limitless, and that we can literally manifest anything we can imagine.
The number 0 also reminds us that we can move beyond what we may currently be able to ‘see’ or conceptualize, as our consciousness expands. Zero is everything: the circle, the soul and Source; and it is also nothing: the void, the absence and the nothingness within. It is literally all of everything and nothing at the same time.
Zero is also the beginning, the starting point from which all else will spring, as well as the conclusion. This duality may appear confusing or contradictory, but when the number 0 shows up in your life as signs and synchronicities, it usually indicates the beginning of a period of intense spiritual growth. Through this growth you will soon find it is possible to hold various contradictory concepts at the same time, and that they can work together rather than in competition.
Spiritual Awakening And The Segmented Sleep Cycle
One of the most commonly experienced symptoms of spiritual awakening is frequently waking in the early hours from 3am to 5am. It’s important to rule out any medical reasons this could be happening. However, if you are in good health and you have been regularly waking up this early, then you may be experiencing this due to spiritual awakening.
You may have found by now in an online search that you are waking up at 3am because it is ‘the witching hour’. You may also have read that 3am is an auspicious time to wake, or the opposite, that it is a ‘time of dark magic.’ Or that during your spiritual awakening you may be ‘spiritually attacked’ and this is why you are waking in the wee hours. While some of this may be true for some people, I am going to have to say that it probably has nothing to do with your waking up at or around 3am.
Yes, it is a sign of awakening! And a very, very common one too. But the reason you are waking at 3am is not metaphysical; it is biological. It is biology which is influenced by your spiritual progression. But essentially it is a return to your natural state of being – your natural sleep cycle. This is called the circadian rhythm.
Most people just accept that we sleep naturally for about eight hours a night. But there is a great deal of evidence that this is not actually the natural sleep cycle for human beings. In fact, evidence suggests that prior to the industrial revolution, our sleep cycle was very different.
To demonstrate this point, we must return to the concept of awakening and what awakening really is. We call it spiritual ‘awakening’ for a reason – we are waking up. Waking up means being conscious in an otherwise largely unconscious world. During the process of awakening people often find themselves becoming very sensitive to things that never really bothered them before. This is because they are suddenly present and hyper-aware when things are out of alignment with the natural order.
Reversing The Reversals
You’re moving at a breakneck pace and everything is going like gangbusters. Good health, great job, satisfying relationship. You just moved in with the person of your dreams and you’re banking some major coin that gives you many options in life. Travel, designer clothes, flashy car with all the latest bells and whistles. You’re the belle of the ball, the center of attention, feeling like Ms Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind.
Any problems you might have, like those recurring nightmares in which you’re being chased and can’t get away, you simply disregard. You’ll rather think about it tomorrow. Every morning you simply turn a blind eye and start another glorious day. Today is good, forget about last night. No time to see the truth in the rear view mirror.
And then a global pandemic hits. Suddenly the entire world is reversed and upside down. Everywhere people are dropping out and tuning into misery. You’re stuck at home with your new live-in partner who no longer looks so shiny, neither does the new car, even with all those bells and whistles.
You’re feeling shell-shocked, overwhelmed, scared. You feel like a trapped lab rat, waiting for an insidious disease to strike. Meanwhile you are getting a crash course in relationship 101, learning about all your partner’s peccadilloes, those annoying little quirks and habits you used to find so cute. Then the awesome job goes away, and you and lab rat partner are left to fight all the time. One of you needs to leave. But neither of you can go anywhere.
All you can do is go within. Sleep becomes a refuge, until those nasty nightmares become more of a reality to you than your waking life. And now you feel like a zombie; the dead version of your former vibrant self.
This is what’s called a reversal in life. Dramatic? Yes. Depressing? Absolutely. We all encounter it from time to time, the reversals, the spiritual contrasts. Sometimes not quite so dramatic, other times even more so.