Archive for the ‘self-improvement’ Category
Living with pain is stressful, but a surprisingly short investment of time in mental training can help you cope.
A new study examining the perception of pain and the effects of various mental training techniques has found that relatively short and simple mindfulness meditation training can have a significant positive effect on pain management. Though pain research during the past decade has shown that extensive meditation training can have a positive effect in reducing a person’s awareness and sensitivity to pain, the effort, time commitment, and financial obligations required has made the treatment not practical for many patients. Now, a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte shows that a single hour of training spread out over a three day period can produce the same kind of analgesic effect. Read more…Can speaking positive affirmations, out loud or to ones self, on a regular basis really change your life, at least in part, for the better?
From getting a parking spot or a better job, to attracting the ideal companion or nurturing inner peace, there is a lot of corroboration to support the power of affirmations to make positive change. But, before we attempt to alter the conditions of our life through a repetitive “mental focus” on the changes we want, it might be very helpful if we took a personal “reality check” to make sure that we have complete faith that thought, our thought, truly has creative power, so that we’re not simply deluding ourselves.
If we are persuaded that “certain conditions” in our personal life have no mental basis or thought correlation, but instead are totally and irrevocably physical in origin, then how can we expect to positively alter the effects in our individual life through positive affirmations? What good would it do for us to make an effort to “change our thinking” about our self, or a specific condition, if we didn’t believe without a doubt that by doing so we could “change our life”? If we want our positive affirmations to move a mountain in our personal life, we need to have at least a grain of faith in the power of our mental focus and affirmations to affect physical change in our life.
Everyday, each of us unconsciously demonstrates a certain amount of faith. When was the last time you were “surprised” at a sunrise? Have you ever worried that the sun might not come up the next day? It’s highly unlikely that it’s occurred to any of us to question our faith in the earth’s gravitational relationship to the sun. So, there you are, we all have a grain of faith, a “starter kit” of unshakable trust. We can start with that and build a mountain of faith to put behind our affirmations.
Saying affirmations while filled with disbelief, fluctuating between faith and fear, is like putting water into a balloon instead of air. Our desires wiggle here and bulge there, but they never get off the ground. Faith gives our affirmations flight because true faith is mental insistence elevated to a place of realization. This is the “secret” to creative mental power, turning mere words into substance. Affirmations can, indeed, really change our life – when they feel true, and what we say is what we truly believe.
We would probably all agree that the pitch of the world, these days, has reached higher decibels than ever in history. War, bombs, and explosions have escalated around the world. Antagonistic political and religious zealots shout at each other until all that remains is a cacophony of indecipherable noise. Everything is faster, noisier, and more “extreme.” Not only our ears are being disturbed, but our eyes as well. Billboards, once merely unsightly, now electronically light up the night with advertisements. Unwanted advertisements float across our computer monitors like phantoms, and then stop, impeding our ability to read more important words underneath them. Too often, what we see is horrifying. Acts of violence and disastrous events that have caused pain and suffering are shown over and over again, in full color, on the news. Where can peace be found in these times? And, is it possible to get there from here? Peace can be found within each of us, at the still, quiet core of our being. And the way to get there is through meditation.
By closing our eyes and turning away from the world, we find what seemed impossible and elusive, but was there all the time…peace. As we slow the pace of our breathing and allow our body to relax… we find peace. As we slow the excessive activity of our thoughts, until they seem to gently drift, like falling leaves, and then settle into quietness…we find peace.
Every cell, fiber, and tissue of our body is revitalized by this type of meditation Therefore, it can be healing. The jabber of our mind momentarily stops with the type of meditation. In this way, it can be revealing.
The problems of body and mind vanish when we meditate in this way, and many times they do not reappear when we open our eyes and look at the world again. The peace that we have embodied within assumes the form of our actions in the world.
It is, perhaps, more vital than ever for each of us to meditate — to heal ourselves and, therefore, to heal the world.