Acting From Our Deepest Motivations

Carl Jung, the Swiss psycho-analyst broke with Freud in 1912 to develop this own theories such as the ‘principle of synchronicity’.  According to Jung, our inner urges are not just to avoid pain and maximize hedonistic pleasure, thoughts that Freud promoted.  If you ever wondered what motivates an amoeba?  This is it.

Our greatest urge, Jung asserted, is toward psychological wholeness and self-actualization of our inner potential.

How does this line up with healing through an energy perspective?

The Scoop on Chakras

Imagine two triangles, one atop of the other.  The lower triangle is resting on its wide base.  The upper triangle is inverted so that its point is perched on top of the point of the lower triangle.

Each of these triangles is divided into 3 horizontal sections.

The Lower Three Chakras

As earthly creatures, we are very focused on survival issues.  The base or root chakra is very much the ‘tribe’ consciousness.  We survive if we have the tribe’s approval and protection.  Being shunned takes on a more significant meaning.  The prominent gland for this chakra is the adrenals.  The maturing challenge here is to move beyond the tribe’s beliefs and still feel safe.

The next chakra up is the sacral or reproductive chakra.  This is another aspect of survival.  It also has to do with nurturing and all aspects of personal relationships.  The physical center that corresponds with this chakra is the reproductive glands.  When we are young we are completely dependant on others.  The first stage of maturing is to become independent. We are socially mature when we are strong enough in ourselves to hold a healthy ‘interdependent’ poise in relationship with others. 

The next chakra up is the Solar Plexus.  This is where the individual asks “Who am I”.  This is the young person’s challenge.  This is one’s relationship with self.  The associate glands are the liver and spleen.

The Upper Three Chakras

On the top of the upper tier is the crown chakra.  This is our connection with the divine.  The corresponding gland is the pituitary gland.

The next tier down is the brow or third eye chakra.  This is the center of intuition and the landscape behind our eyes.  This is our ‘inner self.  The dominant gland is the pineal.

On the lower point of the upper triangle is the throat chakra.  This governs our personal and creative expression.  This is our vocal center; where we write and sing and speak.  It is also the why our life’s work is also called ‘vocation’.  Whereas the brow chakra is focused on inner knowing, the throat chakra is focused on outer knowledge.  The physical gland is the thyroid.

The Heart as a Meeting Point

Where the two triangles meet is the Heart Chakra.  Heart is the go-between.  David Tansley, (a pioneer in the field of energy medicine) referred to it as the center of ‘Harmony through Conflict’.  It is through the heart that we find the balance between the body physical and the body spiritual. The corresponding physicality is the heart and lungs.

Many people are still caught in the lower chakras, focused on survival issues.  They have not yet moved to the upper.  Moving towards pleasure and away from pain is the total experience. 

Many people are not anchored well in the lower chakras.  They may be wonderful visionaries, but their personal lives don’t work and their ideas don’t manifest in the real world.

If well grounded people move into the upper chakras, we begin to entertain thoughts that are what Jung called ‘self-actualization’.  Another way of putting it is we ‘come into our full being-ness.  All our circuits are firing.

This state of being –ness is where we love and respect ourselves enough to care for ourselves; physically, mentally, socially, financially, emotionally and spiritually.  We realize that we must not starve ourselves on any level without experiencing dire consequences.

What’s the deal about suffering being spiritual?

I’d like to mention a twist in the works that I consider to be a spiritual misconception.  This is the whole issue of suffering = spiritual brownie points.

I believe I am closest to the heart of God, when I am joyful, playful and full of gratitude.  Communion with God is the Bliss Zone.  So what’s the suffering bit?  When I find myself at a moral cross-road, I know the easy way; the popular way.  I also feel within myself the right way or rather the ‘righteous way’.  I may suffer as a result of this choice.  That is where I suffer for God’s sake.

A person who functions in a balanced and whole way through the upper and lower chakras may choose to avoid pleasure.  They may actually choose to endure or embrace pain.

So Sigmund, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Keep well_

Nelda

Mental Convoy Stalls

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A friend said something to me this morning that brought the convoy in my brain to a complete and utter halt. She said,

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“Serenity is a natural state of mind.”

Often we think that if we work our way through all our problems, we will finally find ourselves serene. This doesn’t work because there is always a litany of problems lining up. We will never be problem free on this earth.

Granted, the world is a curious and strange place. But what if worry was a learned perception? What if anxieties were subtlety rewarded over time by our families and teachers. Wouldn’t we think worry was normal? Mightn’t we feel kind of empty without it?

Our society seems to be a worry machine. Our worth is measured by the sweat on our brow; we are esteemed by our struggles. We have conversations that go like this; “oh yeah, well my worry is bigger than your worry”.

Worry, fear and anxiety are big business. On the news I am given at least 10 new things to fret about every day. We are out to prove that mental gymnastics will keep the chaos at bay and our world in some kind of order. Advertising probes the place of our insecurities. It’s clear how we don’t measure up and what we don’t have. For example, ‘If I just had the car, I’d have it made’ (read stress-free).

If our default mental outlook is set on anxiety, what then? It would be natural to assume that our mental axe would go on looking for something/anything to grind itself on. When I reflect back over my past five decades, what I notice is that most problems resolved themselves over time. Maybe its divine timing or maybe because people just figured something out, or somebody turned up out of the blue. I will guarantee that the world is not running smoother today because of my heavy emotional investment.

The point is, the world never sits up and flies right just because my mental monkeys hashed it over for a week. My mind may create strategies when it behaves itself, but it life never works just because of the worry I’ve invested into it. To be honest, most times when I finally gave up and said “uncle” the situation remarkably improved.

If we set working toward peace-of-mind as our highest goal, and we were to diligently align our thoughts to that focus, then perhaps life’s challenges would assume a manageable proportion.

Maybe we would find that serenity is a natural state of mind.

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Speaking Fluent Flake

Have you seen the movie ‘What the ‘Bleep’ Do We Know’? This movie had a 5 million dollar budget, complete with Hollywood state of the art special effects. It blew my hair back! Its subject?: quantum physics, how our thoughts and emotions change water, how our cells become addicted to dynamic emotions, how this dynamic mutates cells, how moving into choice changes our past and our future simultaneously, and how to reprogram our neurology through conscious intention.

According to Dr Oz, the next breakthrough in health is in the way of ‘energy medicine’. On a personal note, I am encouraged about this. I have been viewed as being part of the lunatic fringe for over 20 years. Hey! If I live long enough I might even be perceived as being main-stream.

Now, I want to make it clear that this information about energy bodies is not something that just arrived in my head. In Eastern medicine, there is recognition of the interface between the body physical and the body energetic. There have been a thousand years of study and observation in regard to chakras (energy wheels), meridians and energy and the meticulous use of acupuncture to open the flow of energy in a person’s body.

My interest in all things above the green has come about as a result of a natural curiosity, mixed with a driving need (see In a Tizzy). I ponder many things, such as; there is more space in our bodies than stuff. Question: is this just empty space? According to the new breed of scientists and researchers, this space isn’t empty, it’s full of energy. In fact, we are mostly energy. According to Bob Proctor, in the movie The Secret, there is enough energy in our body to light up a city for days.

Part of my educational background has been learning energy balancing techniques as well as the study of flower and gem essences and how they balance and relax the whole person energetically. So, here are my thoughts and ruminations.

Very early in our lives, when we find ourselves stressed beyond our ability to cope, we energetically fracture. I call these fault-lines. From that point forward, these stress-lines, even though they may be repaired superficially, are still there ready to shunt if the internal pressures become too great. The body energetic is still showing issues in the present from a past time. This is why we seem to have patterns that show themselves over and over (see Finding the Pattern).

The physical body and the mental body communicate. There is matter and thoughts that create matter. I believe that our thoughts attract the manifestation of matter that is in alignment with these thoughts. When our thoughts flow and are stress free, things manifest even faster. I also believe we can block the flow of the good coming to us, by indulging in negative thinking.

The emotional body and the spiritual bodies communicate. This is where we respond to poetry, music, and colour. Whereas homeopathics and gem essences work to shift consciousness of the physical/mental axis, flower essences work to shift consciousness of the emotional/spiritual axis.

Flower Essences help to charge up the spiritual-electrical blueprint. In its simplest form, the Vertical Axis, our South Pole, is connected to our source in nature. This is the root chakra, represented in the physical by our adrenals.

Our North Pole is connected to our source in spirit. It’s counterpart in the physical is the hypothalamus and pituitary glands. This energy flow follows the same pattern as our physical spine, and the whole endocrine system as well. Flower essences activate, charge up and make fluid the flow between our lower chakas (survival/animal nature) and our upper chakras (creative/human/spiritual nature).

Research, is a quest to observe and study through complete objectivity. It appeals to the linear left brain thinking. This thinking wants everything to be inside the box. Applying this research standard to flower essences would be like asking a chemist to quantify poetry, or the effect of a sonata. To use a quantum terminology, we would be ignoring the whole in our attempts to measure the part.

Often, those who like boxes and thinking inside them will say that’ if there is benefit, that it must be auto-suggestion, placebo, or psycho-somatic’. What I have noticed in the past is that that flower essences, have really helped to calm my anxious border collie and markedly perked up my daughter’s fish (see ‘What About Bob?’).

My Mom, who was one of the most practical souls on earth, had a favorite saying. “The Proof is in the Pudding.” In other words, if it works it works.

Tomorrow I promise I will be back to my non-flakey usual self.

Bio-Chemical Individuality

A friend phoned me the other day. She was all 'fired up' because she had heard that the powers that be had made an executive decision about not treating children with ear infections until 72 hours after onset. She vented at some length about what it would be like to listen to a child scream for days and feel totally abandoned, helpless and resource-less. She suggested that it was time that I got on the ‘cyber- soapbox' to tell the world about the natural alternatives. She said "people are ready for some serious information about natural remedies".

I do empathize with parents who are feeling frustrated while manageing their children’s health. Parenting is by far, our most demanding and time consuming role. The responsibily we carry on our shoulders is daunting. The irony is that this is the one role in our lives that we have little or no training in.

I know that this is the information age, and we are bombarded with it. But, dear readers, it is a harsh fact that 'fear sells' and this negative spin distorts most of everything we hear. Our challenge is that without a solid and practical knowledge base, we cannot discern if the information we are hearing is trustworthy. Further, how can we know if the information has specific value for us or our family.

Wellness from a holistic perspective embraces a totally different paradigm. There are a few challenges about giving specific instructions to a general audience. A Holistic Health viewpoint is not based upon the treatment, but upon the person. We are all different and every person’s overall state of being is subjectivly different. To encompass this 'whole person' view, we need to consider bio-chemical individuality.

What is Bio-chemical individuality? Natural therapists call this ‘terrain’. What this means is that we have different ancestors, with different genetic strengths and weaknesses. We have had unique birth and formative year experiences. Our nutrition and food styles are different. Our resistance to bacteria and viruses are uniquely our own. The emotional stressors we experienced and our resilience to these emotional stressors are different.

Trauma can be stored in our tissues. Many people have scars that interrupt the body’s electrical flow. It is interesting to note that no child under the age of two years old is allowed to be vaccinated in Japan. Many people have had vital organs and glands removed or tampered with.

Dental surgery has profoundly affected many people, bio-chemically and physically. Decades ago, the country of Sweden implemented a mercury-free policy for its children. Some individuals are more sensitive to mercury, heavy metals, radiation, or agricultural chemicals. Many people are using medications on an ongoing basis. It is unusual to find anyone over the age of 30 who is not on some form of prescription or over the counter drug.

When past health issues have been handled in a suppressive manner, some individuals may find that they do not respond as well to natural products as they had hoped. People’s expectations and attitudes are unique. We have different pain thresholds. Some people try natural products, expecting a drug type of response. Most people know more about the inner workings of their car, than their own bodies.

Part of my role as a Holistic Health Educator, is to help people to understand the basic functions of their bodies from a relational and holistic perspective. The more that we can understand about how our body functions, the more we can effectively support our body’s efforts. Education is an essential foundation. From there, specific resources will naturally fit into place.

The selection of natural remedies out in the world is vast, but what I have noticed over the last two decades is that families share an affinity. Some children will be more like Mom. Another child will be more like Dad, or perhaps a child will show a strong similarity to a grandparent. The acorn and the tree will respond well to similar remedies. For most families, their home-aid kits will consist of a small handful of homeopathic single remedies, a homeopathic plex or two, as well as few tried and true herbal products.

It may require a learning curve to become knowledgeable and may take time to become comfortable in your role as the health care provider for your family. It may stretch your mind and your faith a little. I can assure you from experience that there is a peace of mind beyond price that comes from understanding the basics that have proven their worth over time. Knowledge and wisdom are by far the most valuable resources.