KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

by Heather Tick, M.D.

Meditation is [a powerful] antidote to the harmful effects of stress. It changes your body chemistry and brings your body rhythms into sync with one another. It can lower your levels of stress hormones, decrease excessive muscle tension, normalize blood pressure, reduce anxiety, and increase pain tolerance. The particular practice called mindfulness-based stress reduction is based on Buddhist meditation techniques and has been studied and made popular by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Research has shown it to be a powerful technique with benefits for patients with chronic pain and anxiety.

There are many different types of meditation. Some use concentration: you focus your attention on only one thing, such as a sound or mantra. Some employ mindfulness: you quiet your mind by excluding outside thoughts and plans, and you focus on the awareness of everything you are experiencing in that moment and from moment to moment. People think of meditation as something they have to sit still for. That appeals to some, but others just don't have the time or get bored. Some forms of meditation involve stillness and some involve movement. The real meditation, says Kabat-Zinn, is how you live your life.

You can practice using a variety of things: your breath, eating a meal, going for a walk, or a series of movements (as in yoga, qi gong, and tai chi). Any moment in your life can become mindful if you clear your mind of the daily clutter and attend to it: the look on a child's face, the fragrance of a flower, the taste of a meal...

Mindfulness Meditation

Sit in a comfortable position, either cross-legged on the floor (use pillows to prop up your knees if you need to) or in a chair. Rest your hands comfortably on your knees and take a few deep, cleansing breaths. Close your eyes to limit distraction. Focus on your breathing: breathe in...breathe out.

You may notice that your mind is wandering and thinking about the office or the next chore you must do. Just acknowledge the thought and bring yourself back to focusing on your breathing. Each time your mind wanders, bring it back to your breathing, without judgment.

Mindfulness is about being rather than about doing. Do this for ten minutes each day.

Walking Meditation

This is one of my favorites because it combines two things I love to do. You don't have to walk very far. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes.

As you step, pay attention to the feeling in your feet as you place your heels on the ground and then roll toward your toes. Your weight shifts, and you are about to put your other foot to the ground and take the next step. Just observe the sensations in your feet, ankles, legs, and hips, and up through your body.

Are you swinging your arms? What do they feel like? How does the air feel on your face? Is there a breeze? What can you see? People, flowers, the horizon? Are there noises? Loud ones, like cars and voices? Soft ones, like the air as you brush past? The sound of your footsteps? Your breath?

When thoughts of your to-do list come to mind, just acknowledge them and then bring your attention back to your walk.

Eating Meditation

Food tastes better when you don't eat quickly — when you give your taste buds a chance to really experience the food. When my three children were young, I used to inhale my meals. Mealtime was so rushed that I didn't think I would get to eat if I ate slowly. If I could change that part of history, I would. It was not good for my health, my weight, or my children. I set a bad example for them, and now when I nag them to eat more slowly, they point and say I am a hypocrite. I am trying to eat as many meals as I can mindfully, and I have slowed down my overall pace of eating. I find I enjoy the food more and am satisfied with smaller portions.

Try to choose one meal each day during which you eat mindfully. Take your plate of food and sit down comfortably. Take a moment to look at the colors of the food on your plate. Then smell the aromas of the food. Try to distinguish as many different aromas or just enjoy the blend of them. Take a forkful of food and, before you put it into your mouth, hold it close to your mouth and see if you can already taste it. Then slowly put it in your mouth and feel the texture.

Begin to chew slowly. You will feel digestive enzymes being released along with saliva to help you digest your food. Chew for twice as long as you ordinarily would. Then swallow and wait a moment before you decide which morsel of food you will pick up next.

Choose a different part of the meal, if there is more than one type of food on your plate. Notice the different aromas, textures, and tastes, and continue eating this way until you are full. Then ask yourself, How did it feel to eat this way? Did it change your attitude to the food?

I recently heard of a woman who used to gobble a fast-food burger and fries each lunchtime. After learning about mindful eating, she ate one of those lunches mindfully. After that, she stopped eating fast food because she no longer liked the aroma, texture, and taste, which all seemed acceptable when she used to gobble it down.

Gratitude Meditation

Focusing on gratitude allows you to open your mind to those things in your life that are good. We all have something to be grateful for: waking up to a new day, a beautiful sunset (or cloud formation if you live in Seattle), having relatives or friends who have touched us, perceiving the beauty of a flower, experiencing the companionship of a pet. In a psychology study, each week for ten weeks, people wrote down five things they were grateful for. They were compared to two other groups, one whose members wrote down five burdens from the week, and another whose members simply listed five events. The gratitude group became 25 percent happier than either of the other groups. Perhaps gratitude moves us outside of our ego or makes us feel connected. Whatever the reason, it is a good practice.

Gratitude meditation is easy. As you fall asleep each night, review five things you are grateful for. You can combine this with a relaxing breathing exercise or one of the other meditations. Be prepared to be happier over time. Meditation practices are one way people feel connected to something larger than themselves and appreciate the spiritual aspects of their lives. Many people find that the experience of, and connection to, the mysterious, the sacred, that which is beyond their everyday experience, helps keep their day-to-day stresses in perspective.

Dr. Heather Tick is the author of Holistic Pain Relief and has been an integrative medical practitioner for over 20 years. A sought-after speaker, she lives in Seattle and works at the University of Washington, where she is the first Gunn-Loke Endowed Professor for Integrative Pain Medicine. Visit her online at heathertickmd.com.
Adapted from the book Holistic Pain Relief ©2013 by Dr. Heather Tick. Published with permission of New World Library.

I have been having some strange things happen to me lately. I had some psychic ability as a child that seemed to go away. I sometimes see flashes of white like a figure, but it's not clear. I sense this is a man. Once in awhile, I hear a quick voice; again, this is not clear but it is usually a woman's voice. Then I had a beautiful plant just fall off the windowsill onto the floor. I watched as it happened. Then I put a rose in the same spot, and yesterday the rose was moved onto the kitchen table when no one was here. For the past week or so, I have been finding little piles of pennies throughout the house. To be honest it is getting a little annoying as they are all over by the end of the day. Could you please tell me what could be going on? Thank you so much.

Lisa

Susyn:

Many of us have psychic experiences as children, but when they are discounted by our parents, we learn to ignore them. Whether we believe in them or not, we all possess psychic abilities, and they seem to get stronger when we encounter events such as those you describe.

Though your sun sign is officially Sagittarius, you were born in November, which means you are prone to being psychically sensitive whether you have developed your intuitive gifts or not. Because you experienced psychic events in childhood, it may be that your psychic senses have been lying dormant for many years, just waiting for a chance to resurface.

Because you have experience with psychic phenomena, you may also find yourself noticing subtle phenomena or sensing unusual energies when you enter a room. This awareness will make it easier to pinpoint the source of all this activity.

It sounds like you have a poltergeist or spirit in your home. Moving objects, things that fly off of shelves, and faint voices are often indicative of the sort of paranormal activity for which poltergeists are known.

Though this does not appear to be a dangerous spirit, its activities could become annoying or unsettling. Normally, poltergeists are found in homes where adolescents are struggling with hormonal changes. They are also often found in areas that have an unusually high amount of limestone. Since it sounds like you live alone, this spirit may have been present long before you moved in.

There are some things you can do to try to clear the entity on your own. Performing a clearing ritual with a sage smudge stick, feather, and blessed oil may take care of the problem.

To perform a cleansing ritual, obtain a sage smudge stick, a large feather, and a bottle of blessed oil from your local metaphysical shop. If they don't carry the oil, you can use virgin olive oil as a substitute.

Light the smudge stick. As it smolders, walk from room to room, asking aloud that all uninvited and negative entities leave the premises at once. In each room, place a drop or two of the oil onto the feather and anoint your window sills and doorways with it.

The atmosphere should feel lighter after you have completed this ritual. It won't take long for you to see if this has been effective, for the activity will either cease or continue.

If this doesn't work, you may need some outside help with removing this entity from your home. Do some research to find out if there is someone in your area like a psychic or paranormal team that performs exorcisms or spiritual house clearings.

*****

Mata:

These events are classic signs that a spirit or metaphysical entity is trying to get your attention. No doubt this is the figure in white that you visually catch flashes of.

While some spiritual professionals may advise you to bless your home and protect yourself spiritually, I think it's best to avoid jumping to conclusions that this must be a harmful or malevolent presence.

Just as there are both good and bad people in the world, there are good and bad entities in other dimensions. It just makes sense that if bad entities can interact with us, good entities can interact with us as well.

The unmistakable hallmark of negative entities is the feelings of terror or creepiness that wash over us in their presence. This is a primal feeling designed to warn us of danger.

Similarly, when we encounter a loving Spirit, we tend to feel calm, accepting, and unafraid throughout the experience, and it is only in retrospect that we may begin to question if this is normal and perhaps talk ourselves into being afraid.

We have devoted many columns to helping people who believe they are being spiritually attacked in some way; I think it's wise to ponder the other side of this equation. Just as negative entities may try to influence us to our detriment, positive entities can and do try to help us. Sometimes they simply reach out to show us that there is more to the Universe than meets the eye.

Positive spirits and angels tend to appear as white figures, where negative entities are more likely to appear as black figures or dark shadows. Further, leaving piles of pennies is a classic way departed loved ones may send us signs of their presence.

That flowers have repeatedly been involved also suggests that this is a positive being who is trying to come up with innocuous ways to get your attention. If this were a negative entity, it would be doing ugly things to try to scare you, not leaving signs involving things like flowers and pennies.

My feeling is that this being knows you have latent psychic ability, for when you glimpse it in those flashes of vision, it is aware that you are perceiving it. Your conscious mind then immediately shuts down this awareness because it is contradicts your belief system about what is possible, after which this being tries harder to show you that what you saw was really real.

I recommend you consult a professional psychic medium for more information on who is reaching out to you, and work on awakening your own abilities so that you can dialogue with this being and determine what it's trying so hard to tell you.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.