pema chadron bit

"There's another story that you may have read that has to do with what we call heaven and hell, life and death, good and bad. It's a story about how those things don't really exist except as a creation of our own minds
.
It goes like this: A big burly samurai comes to the wise man and says, "Tell me the nature of heaven and hell." And the roshi looks him in the face and says: "why should I tell a scruffy disgusting, miserable slob like you?" The samurai starts to get purple in the face,... consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword, and he's just about to cut off the head of the roshi.

Then the roshi says "That's hell." The samurai, who is in fact a sensitive person, instantly gets it, that he just created his own hell; he was deep in hell. It was black and hot, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger and resentment, so much so that he was going to kill this man. Tears fill his eyes and he starts to cry and he puts his palms together and the roshi says "That's heaven."

... Hell is just resistance to life. When you want to say no to the situation you are in, it's fine to say no, but when you build up a big case to point where you're so convinced that you would draw your sword and cut off someone's head, that kind of resistance to life is hell."

From Wisdom of No Escape (Chapter 7- Taking a Bigger Perspective)

anxiety control - breathing

When you are anxious, you tend to breathe shallowly, using your upper chest muscles. ... Controlled breathing is a technique that you can use to counteract this stress response and induce a state of calm within 3 to 5 minutes.

Use the following steps:

• Lie on your back, placing one hand over your heart and the other on your abdomen.
• Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose for a count of 4.
• Watch the hand on your abdomen rise as you fill your lungs with air, expanding your chest. (The hand over your heart should barely move, if at all.)
• Hold your breath for a count of 4.
• Exhale slowly through the mouth or nose for a count of 4.
• Repeat for 10 full breaths. Work up to 2 or 3 sets of 10 breaths each.

Note:

• Stop if you feel faint or dizzy.
• Concentrate while inhaling on filling the lower portion of the lungs.

from Real Age

questions

What would you like your theme to be? living, loving, creativity
What are you longing for? What gets in your way?  connection - fear of my own anxiety and want to control to feel safe.
What do YOU want? What do you REALLY want? connection. LOVE!
What’s one little thing that could make a really BIG difference in your life? penny game for reactions.

hakomi tidbit excerprts

by Adama Hamilton (Ron Kurtz Hakomi Instititute)

Often stress results in a narrowing and activation of old patterns of behavior ... learned as a child or young person and not necessarily helpful to a mature adult friendship or loving relationship.... When we nurture and care for our inner child first or when it is hurting, our interactions with others take on a completely different shape and form....When we do not let go and move forward we can become “stuck” and instead of expanding we contract... it becomes very difficult to live the life that we may have dreamed of having... One of our main focuses is assisting in the letting go of unnecessary suffering, and becoming more connected to higher sources of wisdom and knowing.

30/20

30 years of things I wanna do

Ride horses again	Get 5-10 acres	Solar water	B	Dancing again
Play guitar again	Write poems	Lose wt to feel better	Feel well	Adventures
Travel a little	Love	Be lovable	Peace	Sing
Poems	Rocks	Camp	Work	Volunteer
Be happy w/ what is	Hawaii	Be involved	Barter	art

20 questions

What questions should I be asking myself Why am I in this place?	What is my body telling me?
Is this what I want to be doing it’s not enough?	Drop and add something every day? today – drop resistance add play
Why worry It’s a silly habit	What’s so funny? It’s all funny
Why do I like cupcakes more than I like ___ Being alone is less scary	Where am I wrong? Assumptions aboaut others
What potential long term memories am I bartering and is the profit worth the price?
How do I want the world to be different because I was here? Someone felt valued and free	Greatest shame fear? I am not lovable
How do I want to be different because I lived in this world At pleace	What do I love to practice? Creative stuff
Are __ better people? Nope.	Where could I work less and achieve more? People
Where should I break the rules? relationships	Now what? Tell a more positive and grateful story? I done good. Now go share
Is this what I want to be doing? – changes coming

momming me

I find the funny in the situation, I think of what I’m grateful for, or I think of how best I can mother myself in that moment.

bright spotting - 90 seconds to reset the baseline

You can feel the power of the strengths perspective if you're trying to drop a bad habit like smoking or eating entire pots of fondue cheese. Right now, think of times when you've indulged this habit. Berate yourself for being weak and wrong. Notice: In that mind-set, do you feel less like repeating your bad habit, or more? Now focus on bright spots—times when you did something right. You resisted a craving, ate well, worked out, whatever. List five of these bright spots, no matter how small:

1.___________________
2.___________________
3.___________________
4.___________________
5.___________________

While focusing on your successes, do you feel more or less able to resist your bad habit? If you don't feel more empowered, list five more bright spots. Your negativity bias will fight back .... but if you stubbornly persist until you begin to feel gladness, you'll get stronger.

...
  Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD, a neuroscientist who rebuilt her brain after suffering a stroke describes approaching emotional suffering with the so-called 90-second rule.

Physiologically, Taylor says, it takes only 90 seconds of feeling the emotion caused by a negative event before the body finishes processing its stress hormones and returns to its baseline setting. "Unless you rerun that loop by rethinking the thoughts that restimulate the emotion that restimulates the physiological response," Taylor has explained, "the uncomfortable feelings will go away."

from the 90 second article on line