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Link between inflammation and mental sluggishness: People with chronic disease report severe mental fatigue or ‘brain fog’ which can be debilitating. A new double-blinded placebo-controlled study show that inflammation may have negative impact on brain’s readiness to reach and maintain alert state.
Link between inflammation and mental sluggishness: People with chronic disease report severe mental fatigue or ‘brain fog’ which can be debilitating. A new double-blinded placebo-controlled study show that inflammation may have negative impact on brain’s readiness to reach and maintain alert state.
https://ift.tt/2prZqlv November 18, 2019 at 07:13AM https://ift.tt/1R552o9
How to Stay Focused On the Search for Inner Freedom
The terms “being present” and “living in the now” have become clichés on the spiritual path and in the nondual tradition that has become increasingly popular in recent years. We speak of the power of now, the timeless moment, and that “there is only now.”
In the positive thinking movement, we released sin as a stumbling block, then replaced it with the charge of negative thinking. Now our greatest put-down is the accusation of being distracted and therefore not present to what is.
I am being slightly facetious, but the essential point remains: The key to awakening is in the awareness of what is. This is true in all traditions.
An Idea That Crosses All Traditions
The Sufis say one clear moment is all it takes. The Zen tradition asks the challenging question, “What in this moment is missing?” Jesus continually spoke of the kingdom of wholeness and perfection as an ever-present reality.
Modern Hindu teachers like Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Papaji invite us to simply be quiet and rest naturally in the I AM consciousness. “Sailor” Bob Adamson, an Australian student of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, asks us, “What’s wrong with right now—unless you think about it?”
Ah, yes. Thinking can get in the way. Thinking involves memories from the past and projected ideas about the future. As we learned from babyhood on, discursive reasoning formulates and then reinforces a linear view of reality based on an idea that a “self” is moving through time. This sense of self, often called ego, only conditionally exists—it is not our reality.
Yet so often we try to use it to find that reality. There is the sense that, if I can work hard enough, or let go long enough, I will find the timeless moment and be free. We can’t. It is as impossible to think ourselves into enlightenment as it is to find enough time to be present.
The Good News and the Bad News
If there is one bit of crucial understanding that we can take into our hearts, it is that intellectual knowledge, however subtle or profound, is incapable of awakening us to what is. There is no substitute for direct experience.
The good news is that the present is right here, right now. We are immersed in the ocean of infinite, timeless consciousness as fish are in water. The bad news is that the habit of linear thinking is hard to release. The long years that monks spend meditating in a Zen monastery searching for satori attest to that, as do the seekers testing the patience of the guru with the same old questions arising from a yearning to satisfy the discursive mind and its neediness.
Every day in every way it’s getting better and better, says the positive-thinking, spiritualized ego. How could that be, if every moment is perfect? replies the inner guru.
How to Not Give up on the Search for Inner Freedom
At this point, many of us fall away from the path. After initial enthusiasm, we complain that this stuff doesn’t work and become disenchanted. Hold on: Do we want radical freedom, or a more comfortable and self-satisfied imprisonment?
Assuming we want freedom, how can it be achieved? I offer five approaches that I invite you to look at:
1. You are already here. You are already free.
Contemplate the idea that gaining enlightenment in the future when we have perfected ourselves is simply an avoidance of the natural awakened presence always available in every moment.
2. Consider letting go of the story, whatever the story is.
Stories inform and engage us from childhood onward. However, we can become imprisoned in our story, our view of who we are and what has happened to us. Imagine what it would be like if you chose to release that story today. How would that feel?
3. Laugh, with compassion.
Being overly serious can be the enemy of joy. The more stressed we are the more serious and rigid we become. Laughter relaxes and softens us. Remember, though, we are not choosing to laugh at others’ expense but in response to a shared humanity.
4. Investigate buoyancy.
Buoys rest in the water but also flow with the waves. They stay buoyant so that their light may shine or their marker be visible. Can we do the same, making our presences felt in skillful and lighthearted ways?
5. Be quiet.
It is amazing what happens when we can simply be quiet. We see, hear, and experience more keenly, and a sense of peace fills our minds and calms our bodies.
Each of these approaches is like a mantra with an action component. We chant, we contemplate, then act. It is the practical application that prevents us from getting lost in thought.
Once we have experienced a moment of being present in this way, the affirmation that began this article is no longer just a nice, positive statement. Now it becomes a living reality.
I live in the now—there is no other place to live. When I do, divine understanding is active in me because I release the extraneous for the essential. Being present sets me free.
This post courtesy of Spirituality & Health.
Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash.
3 Key Ingredients for Mature Love
We enter a partnership with good intentions and high hopes. But despite our best efforts, relationships often fail to fulfill their tender promise. What does it take to put the proper foundation under our fondest dreams?
Couples often enter my office eager to point out their partner’s flaws. They may use the session as a forum to convince each other how they should change. They’ve spent hours analyzing their partner’s flaws, convinced that if they would see the light, the relationship would improve.
It’s understandable that we want to know what’s going on. It’s difficult to live with ambiguity and uncertainly. Unfortunately, what we often cling to is the conviction that there’s something wrong with our partner rather than turn the mirror around to explore how we might be contributing to the mess.
Here are three key factors necessary for creating a fulfilling partnership and friendships.
Bringing Awareness to Our Felt Experience
Clinging to our ideas about what’s wrong with our partner rarely produces any positive momentum in a relationship. Swimming in our internal dialogue usually keeps us stuck in a quagmire of pre-conceived ideas, opinions, and interpretations. Relationships don’t thrive when we stay in our heads. We need to access another part of our being.
What needs to happen to move from our head to our heart? Love and intimacy can only thrive when two people cultivate the skill of dropping down into their felt experience, rather than holding onto ideas about their partner. Befriending our feelings is the first step toward creating a climate where two people can peer into each other’s inner world — and move tenderly toward each other.
In the short run, it might feel gratifying to analyze our partner rather than to open to inner feelings that might be uncomfortable. It takes a willingness to be vulnerable to go inside and ask, “What am I feeling right now?” Or “What feelings are brewing inside me when my partner says or does….?”
Through such inquiries, we take responsibility for our own experience rather than perpetuating the endless cycle of blaming and judging — and the predictable defensiveness that this triggers.
In contrast to imposing our beliefs or sharing our perceptions of the other person, no one can argue with our felt experience. If we’re feeling sad, afraid, anger, hurt, or shame, then that’s how we’re feeling. We don’t need to justify our feelings; they are what they are. Noticing and expressing our feelings becomes the starting point for a potentially productive dialogue. Our partner or friend is then more likely to hear us without getting defensive, which will likely happen if they’re fielding our critical and often self-serving beliefs and perceptions about them.
Of course it is much easier to pinpoint another’s flaws than to recognize our own. Bringing awareness and mindfulness to our own feelings and our own inner process requires that we draw upon another quality our being: courage.
The Courage to Attend Inside
It’s may comfort us to believe that conflicts and difficulties are another person’s fault. It’s easier to consider what’s wrong with them than to turn the mirror toward ourselves and wonder, “How am I contributing to our difficultly?” It takes courage and inner strength to uncover feelings that might feel vulnerable or unpleasant—or that we might judge as revealing an imagined weakness.
It takes a hearty amount of courage, which derives from the word “heart,” to press the pause button when we feel agitated by another’s hurtful comment or behavior. We’re wired with a fight, flight, freeze response that designed to protect us when there’s a real or imagined danger to our safety and well-being. That’s what we’re up against! This is why tensions can quickly escalate, especially when one of both individuals grew up in an environment where they didn’t have healthy attachment with caregivers, which is necessary for developing a secure internal base.
It takes awareness and courage to recognize what’s happening inside us without immediately succumbing to our survival-oriented limbic brain and it’s predictable responses and aftermath. Approaches such as Focusing, Hakomi, and Somatic Experiencing help bring mindfulness to what’s happening within our body and being. Getting a handle on what we’re actually experiencing can bring soothing to our emotions and calm down our reactions, which prepares us to reveal what we’re experiencing.
Communicating Our Felt Experience
We might think we’re a good communicator, but what we need to ask ourselves is: What is the nature of my communication? Am I communicating my thoughts and perceptions about the other person or conveying the texture of my inner feeling life? Am I courageously communicating from a vulnerable place inside my heart or taking the seemingly safer route of expressing what I think is wrong with my partner?
Am I saying “You only think about yourself! You never listen to me, you’re so self-centered!” Or do we take time to go inside to ascertain our more deeply felt experience, bring gentleness and caring to our feelings, and finding the courage to convey it without blaming: “I’ve been feeling lonely and sad. I want to feel more connected with you. I love when we spend time together and I need more of that with you.”
One helpful approach to communication is Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication (NVC). As we learn to attend to our inner life of feelings and needs, we’re better positioned to communicate our inwardly felt experience, which is more likely to touch the heart of our partner or friend.
Summoning the courage to notice what we feel and want — and patiently practicing communicating our felt experience — can go a long way toward cultivating the deeper, lasting connections we’re longing for.
First study to explore impact of psychedelic drug ayahuasca on suicide, a randomized placebo-controlled trial in which individuals with treatment-resistant depression were administered one dose of ayahuasca or placebo, suggests that ayahuasca may show potential as an intervention for suicidality.
Samoa declares state of emergency over deadly measles epidemic
Samoa declares state of emergency over deadly measles epidemic
https://ift.tt/33WUFPF November 17, 2019 at 04:01PM https://ift.tt/1R552o9
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