Choose To Play.

Rise and shine with each day knowing that life and your life is joyous playground. Each and everyday in this life, you have an opportunity to play. Choose calm, choose to focus on the vision of what you want for each outcome of anything you do and pursue. Focus in on each day with love, calm, joy and gratitude. Pay attention to how you’re feeling and embrace it no matter what. Don’t judge it. Just listen, breathe through it and make the choice to see each day as a beautiful playground to embrace with open arms and a hop skip and a jump in your heart. 

Battlefield or Playground?

The Hypothalamus is a master gland in the brain. It is a peptide-producing machine. Peptides are little protein chains and are essentially information carriers. 

The hypothalamus produces a different neuro-peptide for every different possible emotional experience. When you perceive a change in life you have an emotional response. In this emotional response the hypothalamus releases the corresponding neuro-peptides into the blood stream. This is one of the primary examples of the inseparable Mind-Body relationship. 

The neuro-peptides travel throughout the body via the blood stream and are able to connect to receptor sites in the cell membranes of cells in the tissues of the body including organs, muscles, skin and so on. This protein-receptor interlocking influences the activity and function of the cell. No prizes for guessing the differing influence of “angry” neuro-peptides compared with “joyful” neuro-peptides.

In this way the emotional body lives within the physical body and is constantly influencing it. Your emotional responses are a major determinant of your health. And your emotional responses are governed by your perception. 

Do you perceive your life as a battlefield or a playground? In the battle field you may be hurt, traumatised, victimised, lost, fighting, striving to control things, angry when you can’t or afraid of what is coming next: Probably not ideal for creating a healthy internal environment.

In the playground, life is for exploring, it is seen as a play or a dance, one to enjoy, there is fun and adventure, learning and creativity: Wonderful for a healthy internal environment.

If the battlefield is about survival, the playground is about exploring and learning.

Your perception determines it all. When you learn that you can be in control of the way you perceive and therefore respond to what is arising in life you will be happier and healthier.

Carry these questions with you: Playground or battlefield? If battlefield, why? Does it need to be so? How can I perceive it differently? What am I fighting for, fighting to control, fighting to protect? Am I fighting a losing battle? Can I let go and see it all differently?

Adam Cootes, Integrated Health Practitioner, Arising Self

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A Reminder of Why We're Here.

This morning I’ve been reminded that light and love emanates outside around and through you at all times in all ways - only if you choose to connect with and recognise it. If you want to connect with feelings of peace, stillness, empathy, compassion, happiness and energy in your day-to-day life (I know I certainly do), find time to commit to listening to your body, mind and your heart. Your intuition is your greatest guide. However, if you’re not still enough and make yourself too busy rushing around and choose not to listen, you’ll miss a greater path of clarity, focus and precision within your daily existence, and miss the whole point to the experience of life - living, breathing, inner peace and the reason why we’re all here - love. To love and allow ourselves to be loved. To embrace the experience of love at all times in all ways. 

Changing "Should".

Much pain results from tension. Much tension in the body is constructed in the mind. The body is constantly responding to instruction from the mind. If the perception in the mind is “this shouldn’t happen, life shouldn’t be this way or I should be better or different”, then it is likely that the emotion of frustration will be generated. This emotion in turn generates tension in the body.

So, pain is a consequence of perception. One of the perceptions that drives the most frustration, tension and pain is that of ‘Should’. ‘Should’ is a language of conflict: A fight between what is and what ‘should’ be. “I should be, should do, should have done…” “The world should be more like…” “This shouldn’t happen…” and the list goes on.

‘Should’ isn’t, it can’t be and won’t be. ‘Should’ is an alternate reality that does not exist.

Write your ‘Should Story’. Expose the ‘shoulds’. See how pervasive this language is and recognise the emotions and tensions that follow it like frustration, anger, shame and guilt. Get rid of ‘should’ and you’ll be happier and healthier.

So, what to do with ‘should’? Call it into question: “Who says I should or it should be: God, my parents, the media, society?” Where has this story come from? Can you let it go or give it back? What will you replace it with?

If it’s a story about the world or other can you accept the reality that is, even grieve what you think ‘should’ be but isn’t and then choose how you will respond to what actually is? If it’s a story about what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ have done in the past can you forgive yourself and move on?

If it is a story about now and one that you want to keep, change the language to: “I want or I choose…” If it is something you want to be doing, thinking or saying, then you need to ask yourself why you do not already? Here you will find a barrier to achieving your want. This barrier is tied to fear in some way. It is this fear that you must see and meet in order to execute your want.

Change ‘should’ for your health’s sake.

Written by Adam Cootes of “Arising Self”

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Image by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/krishhtine/4279362060/

Food Of The Gods.

This morning I made a coconut milk, cocoa powder (un-sweetened), magnesium powder, chia seed, flaxseed and blueberry smoothie. I’m madly in love with cocoa and drink cocoa smoothies daily. But here’s why it’s okay... Theobroma cocoa, the scientific name of the plant from which raw cocoa is made and the main ingredient in chocolate, literally means “food of the gods.”  It is a famous plant with a lengthy and rich history; a symbol of love that cuts across cultures; a power food packed with antioxidants, phytochemicals, minerals and the building blocks of neurotransmitters and other “feel good” hormones; and a medicine backed by modern research with far-reaching implications for treating cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases. Some experts are even saying the health-giving properties of cocoa will potentially benefit public health equal to or more than antibiotics and anesthesia.  The beautiful thing is that raw organic cocoa is readily available in most health food stores.

By Keoni Teta ND, LAc.  & Jillian Sarno Teta ND, http://www.metaboliceffect.com/cocoa/

Image: http://annmariekostyk.com

Infinite Possibility.

Today I woke with infinite possibility in my heart. Some days and many days, I wake foggy headed and unable to connect intently with my being. Usually because I’ve consumed food that doesn’t sit well within my emotional nervous system. But today I woke clear, with the understanding that we are all bundles of sensational energy with limitless and infinite possibility. I was reminded this morning that the only person and thing that holds us back is ourselves. Go forth into the world today knowing, believing and trusting that the universe is yours - creativity is where you were founded and there is nothing in your way except your own mind. Shift old paradigms and make way for the new. The universe is waiting for you to continue to work your magic! 

Laying New Foundations.

Take every single experience and memory of your past (the good, bad and ugly) and visualise all these stories as bricks. One by one, lay down the bricks of foundation for the grand future you desire. Build a new life, new stories and leave the past behind as you re-shape the world you want, and create new and more positive stories for your future. In your minds eye, build your dream home, brick by brick and instead of being attached to the stories of your past, understand they will always be a part of you, but are no longer you or your life today. Get excited about the depth, colour, diversity and complexities of your past (each brick) as they help you build an even more wondrous and strong abode to house future experiences of love, peace, joy and self awareness.