The tricky part with this is knowing what you really love.
Sometimes our surface desires run the show.
and our deepest heart and soul desires get pushed aside.
Slow down, take some deep breaths
Put your hand on your heart and feel your body
Ask for inner guidance.
It will be given.
May you be guided from your heart and soul, 💕Bindu
Today, I would like to begin a new conversation around health by looking at the difference between health, wellness and wholeness.
When we talk about health, we usually mean the state of functionality of the body. Does it operate at a ‘normal’ level without pain, or at least minimal pain? When we seek to help our body function better, we look to physical treatments. Medications, herbs, massage, diet, exercise. Medical doctors, naturopaths, functional medicine practitioners.
The focus here is usually attempting to diagnose and change the biochemistry of the body. Often this approach to health is an outside in approach meaning we need to control the biochemistry of the body in order to feel healthy. We are doing something to our body to make it function properly.
Along comes the wellness industry which redefines the concept of health. Wellness expands our definition of health to include the mind, emotions, lifestyle factors and searching for happiness in our lives. We engage in positive thinking, lifestyle modification, honoring our emotions. Perhaps finding work that inspires, re-evaluating our relationships. In addition to the physical modalities, we seek out counseling, therapy, life coaching.
The overriding name of my business is Integrative Wholeness. This idea expands the concept of health to include all dimensions and parts of who we are. It focuses on understanding our multi-dimensionality and bringing all parts of our multi-dimensionality into balance and harmony.
Integrative Wholeness embraces our physical body, our emotional body, our mental body, our energy body, and our spiritual body. The intent is to create balance in each dimension. When balance in each dimension is established the dimensions begin to resonate in harmony with each other. The soul, mind, heart and body are in alignment with each other.
Integrative Wholeness is also a process of meeting, greeting, embracing and integrating all parts of who we are. We each have a personality that includes parts of us that we deem acceptable. Yet there are parts of us that are wounded and/or considered unacceptable. These parts need to be accessed, healed and integrated. Some of these exiled parts are the innocent inner children who hold our joy, gifts and talents but were deemed unacceptable by those who raised us and/or our society at large. When we integrate these parts, we begin to feel more whole. We reclaim our joy and our passion for life.
It is this experience of integration that will create health from the inside out. When all dimensions and parts are in balance and harmony, health on all levels is the natural result. Your body will be healthy. Your mind will be clear and focused. Your emotions will be balanced. You will feel a connection with your spirit and God. You will be expressing your gifts and live abundantly.
I began on a search for health many years ago. I discovered that health was more that just the body. I also needed inner peace. I discovered that the path to health involved the process of healing and integrating all parts of myself.
This is my vision and what I am here to teach others. I invite you to listen, learn, evaluate and apply what feels right to you.
After 20 years of suffering, there was a name for what was going on with me. I thought that meant that it could be cured. I was sorely disappointed. I found that just because there was a name for what was wrong with me, didn’t mean that anyone knew how to heal it.
So, I pulled up my bootstraps and began applying what I had learned in my explorations of holistic health and consulted with holistic practitioners. By that time, I had given up on medical doctors as they had nothing to offer me that made any significant difference. In pulling it all together, I came to a place where I could manage my symptoms, but not make any real progress on completely eliminating them. I wanted more. I wanted to be healthy and not live within the limitations of having fibromyalgia. I felt like I was living in a box and had to carefully manage my life to maintain a manageable level of pain and fatigue.
My search continued. I slowly began unraveling the underlying causes of my dis-ease. Piece by piece, I began to resolve physical, mental, emotional, expression and spiritual imbalances that were keeping my stuck, unhappy and sick. Realizing that there was not one thing that would fix or heal what was wrong with me, I coined the term the Fibromyalgia Matrix.
The Fibromyalgia Matrix is the interweaving and interconnected physical, emotional, mental, energetic and spiritual imbalances that underlies the experience of fibromyalgia. Each person’s matrix is unique to them, just like a fingerprint is unique. The Fibromyalgia Matrix creates chaos physically, emotionally, mentally, energetically. No foundation, no stability, impaired function, chaos, nothing to stand or build on. Sound familiar?
Recovery from fibromyalgia is a process of identifying and resolving these imbalances. It is quite like putting a puzzle together. You find the right pieces and put them together in the right sequence. Out of chaos comes order and improved function. As the pieces of the puzzle are found and put together, symptoms go away, health emerges, and peace is restored.
Rather than chase symptoms, we find and resolve the underlying imbalances. That is the path to creating true health on all levels.
By moving through the 8-fold process I spoke about last week, we can unravel the Fibromyalgia Matrix, and progressively rebuild our health, reclaim our life, rediscover our joy and align with our purpose. True health is much more than the elimination of physical symptoms. It is embracing the totality of who we are, body, mind, emotions, energy and spirit with love and compassion and reclaiming our uniqueness and our gifts and living successfully, powerfully and joyfully in the world.
That my friends, is what I am about. Are you ready to join me in this grand adventure? I hope so. That is why I am launching the Introduction to the Integrative Wholeness Experience next month. In this program, we can come together to heal individually and collectively. I’m excited about this. I hope you are too.
Stay tuned, look for more information about the Integrative Wholeness Experience.
May you be whole, 💕Bindu
The word meditation likely brings up many images or ideas about what that word means. The truth is that it means different things to different people. With that in mind, let’s take a look at meditation.
When most of us think of meditation, we think of stopping the mind, a meditation technique (such as watching a flame or repeating a mantra or watching the breath), or of a state of bliss. In truth, these things are part of meditation, but they are not the whole picture.
For me, the goal of meditation is twofold. It increases awareness; awareness of our thoughts, our bodies, our emotions. It also increases our awareness of the life around us . . . or our external experience.
Meditation is also a practice that reconnects us to our Calm Inner Presence. Presence is a valuable resource in our lives and includes the qualities of calmness, clarity, equanimity, compassion, creativity, and connectedness.
Meditation is not connected to or owned by any religious or spiritual group although many religious and spiritual groups include meditation in their practices. Therefore, meditation, in and of itself is non-denominational.
Have you ever tried to stop the mind? It really doesn’t work. The mind is like any other organ in the body. It has a job to do and its job is to think, just as the heart’s job is to pump blood and oxygen through our body 24/7. So, to try to stop the mind is a losing endeavor and we can become caught up in fighting with the mind, which is not helpful when “meditating.”
Yet, by sitting and watching the breath or a candle flame, we can create mini-vacations from the mind. In those mini-vacations, the mind is silent for a few moments or longer. Those gaps grow over time are helpful in allowing the mind, body and nervous system to relax.
Bringing your attention to a positive statement or mantra, helps us to break up the chain of habitual and life negative thoughts. Over time, those positive statements become part of our data base and balances the life negative thoughts.
Initially when we sit to meditate, we will often lose our focus very quickly. At this point, most of us berate ourselves for losing our focus. But not to worry, losing your focus is part of the process. The important thing is that as soon as you notice that you have lost your focus, you simply bring your focus back to the technique. It is as simple as that.
This has a twofold purpose. Becoming aware that you are thinking again and have lost your focus builds awareness. Bringing your focus back to your technique begins to harness the mind.
There are many meditation techniques and you may wonder which the best technique is. We are going to bring our idea of bio-individuality to meditation just as we have with all the other topics we have discussed. The perfect meditation technique for you will be the one that works the best for you. Period.
But, where to start? What meditation technique will work the best for you? Consider how you process life. Are you more visually oriented, mentally oriented or tactile (sensation) oriented? If you are visually oriented, you might want to choose a visual meditation technique such as gazing at a candle flame or imagining a particular image. If you are mentally oriented, you might choose a word, affirmation, or mantra that resonates with you. If you are tactile oriented, you might want to choose a sensation such as feeling the breath moving in the body or other sensations in the body.
Experiment with different techniques and see which one works the best for you. How do you know if it works? You will notice an increased sense of relaxation and calmness. As you continue your practice, you will notice periods of stillness or quietness followed by periods of activity. The periods of stillness or quietness increase, you may notice a detachment from your thoughts and even from the meditation technique.
Meditation brings greater awareness of your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and spiritual essence. As your awareness increases, you have the ability to consciously choose rather than to unconsciously react to happenings within you and in your world.
You become more aware of how your thoughts, feelings, words and actions impact you and the world around you. As awareness increases, you begin to make more and more choices that will bring you back to a place of balance, calmness, relaxation, peace and harmony.
Within in each of us is a calm inner Presence. That Presence is found in the gap between the thoughts.
Presence is our spiritual essence. The spark of God or Consciousness that lives within your heart and in every cell of your body. You can allow this part of you to guide you through your life and assist you in creating more harmony, health, groundedness, and peace in your daily life. It can become a trusted guide as you navigate life’s challenges. It can be your anchor during your ups and downs.
Once you have tasted balance, peace and harmony, you will want more of it. It will become more important to you than things that pull you away from inner peace.
With meditation the body, mind and nervous system can relax. You can move from fight, flight or freeze into, rest relax and repair. This is the foundation for rebuilding your health. Your body knows how to heal itself. But is needs to be in rest, relax and repair mode to be able to heal the body. In the rest cycle, the body makes repairs, removes toxins and allows your whole system to reset.
In truth, meditation is very simple, but not always easy. It is helpful to have a teacher or group to assist you on the journey. Believe me, the mind will draw you away and it is helpful to have someone or a group to pull you back.
Stay tuned. I am working on a group program to help with this process. Not just meditation, but many tools to reconnect to our body, emotions, heart and spirit. and begin the process of healing from the inside out.
May you connect with your calm inner Presence, 💗Bindu
I am still working on the program that I will be launching.
More information coming soon.
Developing EquanimityTwo weeks ago, I shared the story of the Farmer and the Horse which introduced the Power of Equanimity. Last week, I talked about applying this to the experience of fibromyalgia on a day to day basis. This week, in my final installment on the Power of Equanimity, I will offer further insights in to Equanimity and some tools to help build this spiritual muscle in our daily lives.
The Power of EquanimityThe power of equanimity is experienced when you can remain centered in a state of witness conscious no matter what is happening externally. Equanimity power comes from the understanding that everything flows from God, Source, Light, Consciousness. Everything is equal in the eyes of God, Source, Light, Consciousness. Everything we experience is simply the play of consciousness. Also, the conviction that everything that is happening is coming to you to evolve your consciousness and open you to the greatest, grandest experience of your whole amazing self.
The Struggle . . .As I go through my day, I watch myself reacting and responding to my moment to moment experience. As I coach clients, I watch the struggle they are engaged in to heal or fix their problems. I watch friends on a spiritual journey strain to get all their baggage healed so they can be in a place of bliss and joy (all the time) or to focus solely on the Light avoiding or pushing away ‘negative’ emotions, people and experiences. People from many spiritual traditions are waiting for the day of reckoning when evil will be banished and only love will remain.
Is this really the point?Every spiritual master I have studied with describes the experience of “enlightenment” very different from what I see so many striving for. I believe there are many aspects to the experience of “enlightenment” and I believe that one of these is the experience of Witness Consciousness. In a state of witness consciousness, you connect with a calm centered part of you that can be a neutral observer to all that is happening externally and even to all that is arising within. This can seem like a tall order, and maybe it is, but it is also something we can practically practice in our daily lives.
Surrender to LifePerhaps the point is to simply surrender to life as it is. We often think of surrender as giving up. Yet the act of surrender is simply acceptance of what is and empowers you to consciously choose your response or sometimes not needing to act at all as the problem resolves itself. Often an exaggerated reaction stems from trauma held in the subconscious and is an over reaction to the actual circumstances. Part of acceptance is acknowledging the reaction and then inquiring into it to see if it is an over reaction or projection based on past experiences.
The PracticeHow do we practice this in our daily lives? Follow these steps and you will be on your way:
Be CompassionateRemember that this is a process, a practice. You don’t even need to do it right. Maybe most important of all is to love and forgive yourself for having the experience in the first place and simply create the intention to nurture the experience of witness consciousness. Over time, you will reap the results and can observe an amazing transformation within yourself and within your life.
Weekly ContemplationThis week, begin to observe when life triggers you. Once you get that, then practice the steps of opening to and resolving that which is triggered. Share your questions and experiences with me on Facebook or just respond to this email.
May you be at peace, 💗Bindu |
Today, I would like to begin a new conversation around health by looking at the difference between health, wellness and wholeness.
When we talk about health, we usually mean the state of functionality of the body. Does it operate at a ‘normal’ level without pain, or at least minimal pain? When we seek to help our body function better, we look to physical treatments. Medications, herbs, massage, diet, exercise. Medical doctors, naturopaths, functional medicine practitioners.
The focus here is usually attempting to diagnose and change the biochemistry of the body. Often this approach to health is an outside in approach meaning we need to control the biochemistry of the body in order to feel healthy. We are doing something to our body to make it function properly.
Along comes the wellness industry which redefines the concept of health. Wellness expands our definition of health to include the mind, emotions, lifestyle factors and searching for happiness in our lives. We engage in positive thinking, lifestyle modification, honoring our emotions. Perhaps finding work that inspires, re-evaluating our relationships. In addition to the physical modalities, we seek out counseling, therapy, life coaching.
The overriding name of my business is Integrative Wholeness. This idea expands the concept of health to include all dimensions and parts of who we are. It focuses on understanding our multi-dimensionality and bringing all parts of our multi-dimensionality into balance and harmony.
Integrative Wholeness embraces our physical body, our emotional body, our mental body, our energy body, and our spiritual body. The intent is to create balance in each dimension. When balance in each dimension is established the dimensions begin to resonate in harmony with each other. The soul, mind, heart and body are in alignment with each other.
Integrative Wholeness is also a process of meeting, greeting, embracing and integrating all parts of who we are. We each have a personality that includes parts of us that we deem acceptable. Yet there are parts of us that are wounded and/or considered unacceptable. These parts need to be accessed, healed and integrated. Some of these exiled parts are the innocent inner children who hold our joy, gifts and talents but were deemed unacceptable by those who raised us and/or our society at large. When we integrate these parts, we begin to feel more whole. We reclaim our joy and our passion for life.
It is this experience of integration that will create health from the inside out. When all dimensions and parts are in balance and harmony, health on all levels is the natural result. Your body will be healthy. Your mind will be clear and focused. Your emotions will be balanced. You will feel a connection with your spirit and God. You will be expressing your gifts and live abundantly.
I began on a search for health many years ago. I discovered that health was more that just the body. I also needed inner peace. I discovered that the path to health involved the process of healing and integrating all parts of myself.
This is my vision and what I am here to teach others. I invite you to listen, learn, evaluate and apply what feels right to you.
Stay tuned. Read my weekly blog. In 2020, l plan to begin monthly webinars. I hope you will join me so we can support each other on this journey.
