anamnesis

I have a theory that anyone could lower their baseline stress by practicing deep relaxation for 30 minutes a day. Relaxing, but not falling asleep -that time wouldn't count. Because when we sleep our bodies can still be tense , however, when we allow muscles and organs to just let go, consciously unbinding, opening, releasing them into gravity , we can achieve deeper relaxation than even our deepest stages of sleep. How we do this is idiosyncratic to the individual, but it is easy to calibrate , to know when what we are doing is working. Someone who can consciously relax deeply and well, will soon discover that, besides health benefits, it is extremely pleasurable. It's where drugs like morphine take people and there is no bottom limit to how deeply one can sink into this ecstasy. And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you – it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any

I have been working over a week now on a statement that started as "where I wanted to be 5 years hence." I have done these before, but this time something clicked. I’d probably been doing them wrong from the onset, but when I dropped all the big plans and obvious goals and started letting this vision reflect and articulate my deepest intentions, oldest dreams and buried passions, it became something completely different. More like a quest, than a statement. I’ve revised it several times. I review and think about it daily. It’s becoming more finely tuned, more accurate of my true desires. By writing it out, expressing it, even just to myself, it is a clarification almost every part of my mind seems to champion. It’s becoming something concrete, something I can back with all of my being and engage in with my total essence. A powerful spell, and I find the words and phrasings matter immensely. “When you are 50 years old, you should know your destiny” -Confucius

It's all well and good getting charged up about how we want to change, why it's important to us and how we see ourselves afterwards. All very motivational. And it may last for a week or two. When our energy is high or our disgust is visceral. But what determines if we stick to it? Instead of dropping it once again and picking it up later for the 1000th time? I think it boils down to this: have we clearly assessed, based on our past experience and present conditions, what kind of obstacles we are going to put in our own way? And do we have a strategy for how we are going to deal with each and every one of the obstacles we will throw up for ourselves? So this time, when that initial burst of motivated energy runs out, and we are far from the starting line and fanfare and inauguration of the great event, the great life change, what we need is a strategy to sidestep those predictable, inevitable potholes that will send us limping back. He who conquers himself is the m

Before you turn on the tv, before you check your mail or facebook, before you surf the web and passively consume even more trivial cud for the mind... create something. Write in your journal while your mind is not yet filtering all the triggers from the external world, when you can explore the moment a little deeper and with less reactivity. Draw a picture, work on a project, do something. Express something. Move some energy out into the world and make some space. You've been a good little sponge up to now, it's time to start squeezing something out.You'll feel much better. Lighter. Creatively engaged. Trust me.

... to have something different than what we've always had, we have to trade, like our native ancestors knew. There is always an exchange. We can't get something for nothing, we have to give up something we own, to get something we don't. We have to give up something we are to be something else. If there is something we wish to receive, we should think of what we must offer in return. Even our breath, tells us so. As we give, so shall we receive, this is not a moral code, it's the mechanism of the universe. And to draw some new cards, better to our liking, we may need to discard a few...

Reality. What a blast. Got these funny vehicles we call bodies, funny things called brains that like to try to solve problems with thinking and seek pleasure like good organisms should. We're riding the waves of existence with infinite possibilities, so what do we do. What do we do...