Looking up in Phnom Penh.

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Was looking up today as I walked around Phnom Penh. It wasn’t strictly wise, as pavements here are monstrous obstacle courses, tiled, slippery with rain, displaced by tree roots, used as cars and bike parking areas, they are often the final resting place of old wooden yellow house shrines and covered in dusty building detritus. No one walks on the pavements. The streets heave with activity, tuk tuks, motor bikes, big f… you sport utility vehicles (SUV’s, I’m personally not a fan of acronyms). Big black or silver SUV’s, tuks and millions of motor bikes driven by drivers who take the road rules and traffic lights as suggestions rather than rules of law. That attitude applies to building safety regulations. It horrifies me to see men welding with no eye or foot protection.

Anyway I was walking in mild heat under mostly grey sky. I knew it would rain soon, the air pressure was gathering gravitas. The juxtaposition of temple facades and modern edifices has a jarring quality in Phnom Penh given that planning permission is given willy nilly to the highest bidder and many of the modern building have a generic design quality to them. Yet many of the older buildings seemed festive today, verandahs sporting colourful bunting and brilliant scraps of blue sky carved into by elegant old roofs. The security guards lolling outside apartment gates, by mid morning have taken off their shoes and sleep propped against a wall, the heat and pressure increasing.

I guess my trust in my ability to navigate this treacherous terrain has improved. I walk with the rest of the population along the side of the roads, swivelling my head as I navigate to check for silent bikes, push carts of snacks and drinks, and motors of all descriptions. Navigating the air waves too with a dismissive wave of my right hand answering the incessant inquiry, “Tuk madam?” and the bewildering call, “Mobi?” Which translates as, “Does Madam want to take a motor bike to wherever she is going?” Rendered into the strange vernacular of the Khmer language, why use two or more syllables when one will do the trick?

It did rain, a gentle drumming on a blue roof, as I watched from a verandah the temple across the road darken from yellow to mustard and felt the air steam up into a sauna of heat. Thank the gods for iced water and shelter.


The Sounds of Health

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In the last few months in Phnom Penh I have saturated my self in subtle forms of energy healing. I have studied many forms of sound geometry and form, as it applies to human movement and consciousness. Every year that I have practiced yoga, learnt a new skill, such as swimming or Reiki, or healed an injury, I realise that this miracle, we experience as life, is unfathomably complex. So I seek immersion in the experience of life rather than in attempting to understand. I have reached a point where I can look chaos in the face and even if I can’t see it I know there is order and all I can bring to the party is good grace and love.

Over that last few months I have returned to my roots in yoga, Nāda yoga. My first experience of a state out of time and space occurred when I listened to the world’s sounds as abstract impressions and a synesthetic awareness of reality has informed my awareness ever after. Nāda yoga (नादयोग) is an ancient Indian metaphysical system. It is equally a philosophical system, a medicine and a form of yoga. Nāda yoga means “union through sound.” It is the ancient spiritual art and science of inner transformation through sound and tone. Meditation on sound is one universal path to Self Realization, accessible to anyone and appropriate for people of any religion or spiritual aspiration.

So this Tuesday coming, I am offering a relaxation and Nada yoga class or Sound Bath, I will play the crystal bowls tuned to 528Hz, you get to rest and experience. This frequency has an incredible quieting effect on your body and mind. The 528Hz frequency was used by Lennon to record the peace protest classic Imagine, among the most popular recordings of all time. I am privilege to be able to play a full set of crystal bowls in this so called love or miracle frequency. All hype aside the sounds are transcendent and uniquely available at Enso Healing Space.

Healing Phnom Penh


Foundation Yoga Phnom Penh, Move Freely

FOUNDATION YOGA

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Back Foundations Yoga Improves your posture and enables you move from pain to performance

Foundation Yoga as applied to managing back pain uniquely incorporates the therapeutic practices of the Foundation Technique and traditional Hatha Yoga to create postural integrity and correct imbalances in your body. The practices are self limiting and each stage is mastered before the next is attempted, creating a strong and integrated body that is protected from injury with balanced strength and flexibility.

The first training is to strengthen and balance your spine and legs and to create lyric and graceful upper body and arm movements, the second stage is to create graceful leg movement while strengthening your arms. Traditional yogic breath techniques, yogic sequences and innovative corrective movements are introduced slowly with ample repetition to learn and integrate an enhanced level of physical, emotional and spiritual expression.

Back Foundation Yoga is designed to give your body every chance of enjoying strong, coordinated movement for the rest of your life. Simple short daily routines are gradually taught giving amazing results in improving your posture

Cure Back Pain with Back Foundation Yoga Training

The movements of Foundation Training strengthen the postural chain and synergist muscles of movement. You will learn to decompress out of pain and elongate your spine. With integrated movement every step you take makes you stronger and pain free.

Improve your Athletic Performance with Back Foundation Yoga Training

The principles of Back Foundation Yoga can be applied to many sports and fitness activities. Increasingly major athletes are achieving breakthroughs in their sports in terms of ease of movement.

“My golf game has improved out of sight with Foundation Training.” Peter M., Randwick, Australia.

“I can dance all night, Foundation Training made a huge improvement to my leg and hip pain.” Shirley P., Lilyfield, Australia.

“I don’t care how strong an athlete you are, if you take the time to master this technique and include it with your existing training program your athletic ability, strength and poise will improve dramatically.” Maggi Nimmo, Foundation Training and Foundation Yoga Instructor. maggi@magginimmo.co

 

 


Swimming Upstream

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The equinox has just passed, the sun sitting directly over the equator drives the shadows into light and it’s freaking hot. I venture out in the morning and late afternoons, even then scuttling from shade to shadow. Phnom Penh is ticking over, buzzing, grinding with new buildings. Scaffolding wrapped in huge sheets of green plastic. From the roof top where I teach yoga I’ve counted 14 new buildings swathed in green. Many of the designs are generic across Asia, perhaps a consortium of Chinese business men are reusing a design again and again. Hotels, apartment blocks and high end shopping mauls all the same in Sri Lanka, India, Singapore and Cambodia.

Local residents are displaced to build these colossuses, and the safety standards are appalling, people weld with no eye protection and wield electrical equipment wearing flip flops. Whole families live in the building sites, children snake amongst the wood and metal. From my house I can hear the teevees, arguments, crying babies, general hilarity and music. I live next door to a large half built apartment block. The incessant buzz of machinery in the tall structure annoying as it is, ceases in the evening where more normal sounds of neighbours emerge. I can smell the meat and onions being cooked and despite the noise I appreciate the deep shade afforded by the monolith over our little house.

I am teaching yoga in Phnom Penh, and like any new enterprise the way to proceed is difficult, the market is diverse, expats, volunteers at NGO’s, well to do locals, travellers and poor families. Yoga is a luxury item, freedom from stress is a luxury item, yet it is the only way to live that know of. I can’t imagine living without a period of contemplation every day. Most people can’t afford or want the luxury of self awareness.

I am working with a swim coach and heaving my way through laps of butterfly, it feels like I am on every level swimming against the tide but my stronger legs, arm and torso tell me to keep sweeping my arms through the water and hope it takes me somewhere.


Earth in Crisis, listen to yourself…

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As the Kylie’s battle it out in cyber space for naming rights, as the Dumphs and Burnies lock horns in the US of A, as the huddled lifejacket masses of Africa and the Middle East flee war and poverty across the Mediterranean the world turns. New cars are purchased and old ones go into land fill. Sea creatures eat plastic and bloat with hormones. Almost as many migrants and refugees crossed the Mediterranean into Europe in January and February of 2016 as in the first six months of last year.

We look, inert, at a picture of a child crouched on the ground, a vulture hopping from leg to leg nearby. Porn site abound, the unending and unthinking gluttony of the masses consume meats and sugars and fats that cause directly city blocks of primitive virgin forest to be felled, so more sugar can be grown, cows grazed or economically viable, land destroying crops, grown. Quick fixes make millions and give no satisfaction.

Do I sound negative? Well yes I am negative I am disgusted by the carelessness and lack of care with which we all go about out lives. I am no exception, the AC blares from time to time and the electric lights flash even as I write this. I feel helpless against the tide of destruction I see everywhere. A small gentle gesture of love, a smile, a curtesy, that’s all I can give. What is that against the tide of consumerism, the unconscious populations struggling for survival. What can I give to assuage the tsunami of rubbish rising with the melting polar ice, soon to cover Pacific Islands. Is the loss of unique species worth the survival of one, humanity. Is humanity greater in consciousness than the bio diversity, afforded by the multi-forms of life on this planet? Is the sacrifice of diversity an evolutionary step or have the inhabitants of this planet created an end game.

The earth, the soil is connected by fungus strands that signal data, communicate from plant to plant, from forest to forest. Great tracks of that communication system are destroyed, the implications of that, the land divided up into isolated patches struggling for survival. Plants in a pot one is loved and spoken to kindly, the other is yelled at, the third is ignored. Of the three plants the one that did the worst is the one that was ignored. Children are isolated from their parents, friends, the earth, themselves by devices. I don’t think anyone who is caring for a child and at the same time looking at social media on their phone realises just how much damage being isolated and ignored can be to another human.

I have no idea where to begin to assuage my own sense of isolation from the world, I attempt to Mind My Own Business and you know I have lost my smile from having to zip my lip. “None of my Business.” I intone, ”Yes that’s right what you are judging is really something you have not owned in yourself yet.” Well that coping method is getting old along with me.

I am overwhelmed with the distress I am feeling from the earth and the pain and living deaths I see behind peoples eyes. I have moments of great inner happiness and derive a great deal of strength from the meditation practices I pursue. That’s what I do I watch my friends make the same choices over and over, and then complain or mourn the consequences flaying about in the quick sand of their own creations. I am no different, my visceral attachment to life drives me to eat and my psychological need for communication drives me to listen. I find it difficult to say what is in my heart because my heart is breaking for the planet. The sadness I feel is because on some level we all have a blueprint or a fantasy about how life should be and it consists to a large extent of material accruements and is mostly unachievable, so we blunder about confused trying this and that and wondering why we are still fat, unhappy, poor, alone.

The refugees in the middle of the Mediterranean clutching their children, fearing for their very lives are reaching out asking for help and we close borders. These times are a test of our humanity and to survive this crisis we need to find the best in ourselves and share that, become that. Connect and find out what who we are in the faces of those who need our full humanity to manifest itself now.


Happy House Cleaning? Awareness. Appreciation. Action.

Happy Cleaning

Cleaning with Awareness, Appreciation and Action

I’m doing a bit of house cleaning, not the washing floors and dusting kind, but the kind where I scan memories, tease out any recollections and attempt to validate them. Memory is an odd thing, really inaccurate, different parts of me remember differently, the ego sees slights and disadvantages in the action of others from my past, or my child self remembers things that may have been movies or pictures or family tales as if they were real. There is no one to validate these memories and so all I have is an attempt to use self aware honesty to examine these fleeting impressions that somehow amongst all the trillions of things I have witnessed or experienced have embedded themselves near enough to the surface of my consciousness so I can access them. The rest is a wave length in my consciously unremembered past that flowed through my being leaving no discernible impression.

Some things are real, I did have a tin jewellery box as a 6 year old and I kept in it coloured, sea smoothed, glass collected from a pebbly Indian Beach, I did see tropical Islands slide past as I sailed across the Indian Ocean and I think I was adverse to being daubed with strawberry ice-cream by King Neptune as that same ship crossed the Equator. The sun was shining, adults were having a raucous time, having greasy pole fights and suddenly this alarming figure appeared. Dressed in blue and green tatters, with a full Santa beard, three pointed spear a red ruddy nose below beady black eyes. Children were being singled out to receive the royal daub so they could be issued with a certificate saying they had crossed the equator. I have no idea where the certificate is now, but I kept it for a few years, the seaweed, trident and fish decorations around the edges of the parchment rectangle were green and blue contrasting with the beige of the thick paper. It was rolled and tied with a dark blue ribbon. That’s what I remember but I also remember that my younger brother was terrified by King Neptune and I watched him being man handled into the dauber’s range, and somehow I wonder if the memory of my dislike was a memory of his distress or really mine.

So I avoid housekeeping, it brings up stupid questions that I have no answer for and interferes with my sense of now; the being that is sitting on a bed propped up on pillows writing about memory and experiencing the thrill of finding just the right word. I have no idea what or why certain memories are kept and others are beyond recall. Do neurones only have a limited capacity for storage and have to discard irrelevant memories to make room for possible new imprints?

I am a space in time and yet I am really a space in memory, there is no time without the memory of time passing, so I remember enough to feel sure time is passing but even that poses a question about the nature of time as memory, imprinting the continuum unified field that I can’t sense because my senses filters out the reality of space without time.

I’m sitting on my bed a little dehydrated from a bout of diarrhoea (house cleaning). Something I ate on Saturday night at a concert for the super stars Dengue Fever. The band playing at a local club. Phnom Penh authorities gave the band, the only one to achieve international fame, the run around, making them change venues in the middle of a tour, refusing various licences. Fairly standard stuff for the corrupt and arbitrary local officials. The music was a rich psychedelic rock, the lead singer a Khmer girl with a great singing voice. I had a good view from a balcony but my numb backside eventually slid me off my posse and I moved into a greater space of dancing with my friends and watching the big screen view.

So the days roll on and I was asked if I am happy and in the same hour received an invitation to the Happiness & its Causes conference scheduled for 2016 in Sydney. I couldn’t answer the question and even though I know that happiness is desirable, I don’t desire its balm. Yes I have had great moments of happiness, they come and if I remember rightly they go. It is not how I feel that is important it is what I do with what I feel that is important. I have spent years in the pursuit of equilibrium and in balancing my position and posture so that I can retain equanimity in the face of both happiness and her twin sadness. I am now taking bathwater, baby, old memories, old concerns and maybe I am throwing them all on the same pile of manure and detritus as the valuable stuff but remembering is not making sense and that doesn’t make me happy.


Exploiting the Monkey

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A family of monkeys, the male on the right was fiercely protective of his little family, Hariharapurnam, India

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Hanuman, the Monkey god

I’m a bit worried by the implications of the fire monkey year. A trickster has entered the consciousness of Asia, an agile fellow who can piss on us all from a great height and laughing, swing away on his strong arms. As a result of his strength and intelligence, the monkey is exploited as a mythic source of healing. Black-faced spider monkeys and brown or tufted capuchins are each used to treat many ailments. For example, in Bolivia, spider monkey body parts are used to cure snake bites, spider bites, fevers, coughs, colds, shoulder pain, sleeping problems and leishmaniasis (a parasite infestation caused by mayfly bites).

In India many people believe that eating the blood of macaques (Macaca assamensis and Macaca mulatta) treats asthma. Assamese macaques are eaten to cure rheumatism. Other monkeys or lorises have their bones or skulls ground up into powder administered with tea, or have their gall bladders ingested or blood or fat used as ointments. Not really so clever, these Asian beliefs and practices, as wild animals organs and parts are often vectors for disease.

The Great Western Medicine is above this sort of nonsense, I hope you can tell I am being sarcastic. In 1960 a scientist named Bernice Eddy discovered that rhesus monkey kidney cells used to make the Salk polio vaccine and the then experimental oral polio vaccines, could cause cancer when injected into lab animals. Later that year the cancer-causing virus in the rhesus monkey kidney cells was identified as SV40 or simian virus 40, the 40th monkey virus to be discovered.

At a conference in 1997, on SV-40 and human cancers held by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), there was no disagreement among both government and non-government scientists about these two facts. The only disagreement was whether SV40 was actually being identified in the cancerous tumors of children and adults alive today and, if it was, whether the monkey virus was in fact responsible for their cancer. Non-government scientists working in independent labs around the world said, “Yes.” But the scientists connected with the U.S. government said “No.”

The ancestors are acknowledged at the Chinese New Year, the first dark moon in the year is new year’s eve and the new moon’s crescent appearance, the next day, marks the beginning of the next year. A feast is prepared and paper symbols of wealth, gold, money, rich clothes, certificates, even watches are burnt in a fire outside for the ancestors in hell and where ever else they go, so that they have the spiritual means to live well. As we burnt the symbols of wealth the ancestors get to eat our laid out feast, then we all eat their ghostly leftovers.

It’s a family event, full of good humour, family ill will, suppressed feelings, easy conversation, strange withdrawals. I think I am describing a ritual like Christmas, and it is a bit like Christmas but all the dosh and goodies are sent via flame to the dead olds so they can get on with the afterlife and stop haunting us. A happy ghost means a happy home. Money is spent on food, symbols and paper, rather than plastic land fill for kiddies who will discard the toxic non biodegradable toys in a short time.

The first day of the year of the fire Monkey means a quiet day in Phnom Penh. Many schools have schedule a day off and many shops are closed, but the big retail centres are in full swing their eyes quickly turned from the retail opportunity of the Chinese New Year to Saint Valentines Day. The red hearts, cute cuddly bears, cards are all newly displayed amongst the red decorations of the New Year. It looks quite festive. I must admit I felt like barfing but I was curious as to how the changes in retail strategy, to sell, were turned around so quickly in a country so slow, in other ways, to change. It just goes to show you that the human mind is a profit exploiting machine. I’m not very optimistic about changing that, but I will be teaching a class on love on February 14th at 2:30pm, for pairs of people (bring a friend, relative or partner for free) at Nataraj, #52 Street 302 Phnom Penh. Come along if you’re in town we can meditate at the end of the class on the Buddhist concept of Metta, Loving Kindness and develop the skill of Ahimsa, the practice of compassion.

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Sugar in Asia

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Walking in the Kingdom of Cambodia is not an easy endeavour. The heat is intense and I scuttle between shade patches to my destinations. A sweaty and huffy little show of my commitment to a healthy lifestyle. As I walk I fend off the almost constant questions addressed to me, “Tuk madam?” “Motor, madam?” I have a little hip wave with my palm facing out that seems to do the trick and accompany that, with a grin, means I can concentrate on navigating the pavement obstacles without missing a step or falling onto and because of some concrete pavement protuberance.

The city of Phnom Penh is a sprawling Asian metropolis. The air often thick with humidity and dust. In Asia, in general the gardening practice is to keep the earth free of coverings, so you can see the snakes, I was told. This means that as soon as the winds come the dust lifts into the air and mixes with the general petrol based pollution to form a smog layer over the city. It was very evident when I flew in a couple of weeks ago. The monsoon rains didn’t really eventuate last year and the weather which should be relatively cool is steaming hot and will get hotter. My little walks to my favourite haunts may be lessened as the heat envelops Cambodia. It’s like a personality in and of itself, a smothering mother of an experience.

There’s quite a large ex-pat community in Cambodia mainly associated with NGO’s (non government organisations) working on worthy causes, such as Malaria research and prevention, human trafficking issues, cultural enhancement in a society denuded of its cultural and human heritage and education. It is early days for me here I have some yoga students and a few people I see as a therapist but really I am attempting to work out how to be healthy in a climate that has at its core rampant humidity, heat, infectious organisms and parasites that can easily become serious health issues. As soon as you get off the airplane in Asia and out of the air conditioning the sweating begins and with that mineral depletion. So my first tip for healthy living in hot humid countries is take a good mineral supplement. The water we all drink in Asia is mostly distilled and clean, as all get out, that means it is not replenishing tissue mineral supplies. Most of the fluid replacement supplements are full of sugar as is the whole diet of SE Asia. The fish and meats are cooked with sugar and salt, the vegetables are too. Any sauces or dressings are sugar laced, I don’t suppose you have ever thought about how much sugar is in Balsamic vinegar, it does contain sugar and you should watch your portion size if you are pre-diabetic, diabetic, over weight or attempting to avoid sugar and its health draining effects.

As some of you may be aware I have eliminated added sugar from my diet, more or less, more rather than less. Of course it is impossible to eliminate sugar completely, sugar in fruit, sugar in starches. Sugar is our basic fuel but the trick is to eat sugar that, in its food form, takes a long time to turn into simple sugars. In Asia diabetes is increasing alarmingly. Dietary practices including massive amounts of white rice and added sugar have increase the prevalence of diabetes by over 50% in the last decade. It’s probably more but many cases are unreported in the poorer communities and the lack of hygiene and access to medical supervision means that many people suffer horrendous side effects of this disease, amongst others with little or no effective help.

At least in Westernised countries although the problem of diabetes is rampant there is more access to medical help. Add to that the huge number of people who smoke in Asia and you may begin to get some idea of how easy it is to fall prey to illnesses and their consequences.

My own journey towards being sugar free has caused me to radically alter the way I eat and the consequences are a vast improvement in my skin, a reduction in visible cellulite, some weight loss, albeit slow, a stabilising of my moods, an increase in joint mobility and less joint pain, an increased awareness of sugar additives, a rethink of the daily choices I make. My values have changed, my top priority is to be stable and non reactive rather than living my life on the wings of impulse and opportunistic behaviours. Now I am more careful in general and really happy that I have gone this route.

It is not possible to completely eliminate sugar, the gin and tonic I had a few nights ago and the incredible mango lassie (no added syrup or sugar) I had yesterday are happy additions to an other wise sugarless diet that includes fish, some red meat, vegetables, salads, occasional cooling fruits, a few low GI grains and the occasional treat, like my lassie. I look around me and see the mouths of people around me munching into surgery things and you know I have absolutely no desire to partake. I like who I have become in this change, I am steadier and more responsive to my immediate and long term needs, always with an eye to the consequences of my actions. The price I pay is to be out of chemical resonance with those around me and their plummeting and soaring sugar moods. I have been altered and the change is enlightening and so simple, my impulses are not my master and I can settle into the business of being humanly steady and present, walking without falling off the sugar free bandwagon.


Check ignition, and may God’s love be with you

 

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EL ANATSUI, from the exhibition at Carriage Works

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EL ANATSUI, from the exhibition at Carriage Works

I’ve spent some time in Sydney with my family and friends, the days were hot and cold. A strange summer with its Christmas land fill excesses, party after party frazzled parents and the assault of red Santa colours on posters and wrapping paper. I may sound disingenuous with regard to the material ritual of Christmas and that is because I am.

I have been living in Cambodia and will return there soon, to a country assailed by poverty and a right wing government. People in searing heat work long hours in big breathless markets, Tuk-tuk drivers work all the hours God gave them to support their families. A wedding can cost a  large fortune, so it is difficult to marry in the traditional way and Khmer people love their traditions. The tradition of white rice and adding sugar to everything has given most older Cambodians, Sri Lankans and Indians type two diabetes. Cambodia is a Buddhist country mainly so Christmas is not big but the tinsel and red decorations are there in an attempt to bling up the shoppers. The tradition of the West has given us an epidemic of debt, excess consumption, obesity, and diseases related to sedentary lifestyles. Traditions can suck the life blood out of us and I really think they are.

The tradition of Christmas means families reunite and can also mean that those without support are depressed, alone and of course the suicide rate goes up. My last post was about the health giving benefits of connection. I have re-tweaked those thoughts on my immanent departure and realise on reading my mentor Thich Nhat Hanh that, “To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.” I return to my simplest precepts, I mindfully breathe when I notice that my thoughts are taking over my mind space and practice Patangali’s suggestions for the good life: be friendly, practice compassion, practice dispassion and non envy.

David Bowie’s passing has put us all on notice, that time is short, and life is too short to hold onto thoughts that can make you ill. The creative muses in each of us are always ready to erupt. The problem is that if they have been malnourished they wither into pathology and disease and life becomes a lurch from one painful moment to the next. A survivor of life’s vicissitudes take pleasure in the small joys and accomplishments of each day. These are the food of the muses. You are under no obligation to become a creative genius but merely to satisfy your own creative appetites is enough. Life does not need to justify itself, but it’s a whole lot more fulfilling when you can express the strange and wonderful love within yourself and connect to your spirit within.

I wish you all well in 2016 and may you love within yourself and extend it to this beautiful little planet. Say to yourself daily, “I truly love myself.”

 


2016, The Year of (inner) Peace.

Happiness

So we are in the year of 2016. Will this year be significantly different for you?
What are you doing or going to do to feel okay, healthy, happy?

What is your deepest ambition or value? Do you want to be rich? Famous? Loved? What makes you feel fulfilled?
Well good relationships keep you happy and healthy, good warm connected relationships are accurate indicators of future health. Social connections to family friends and community are important.

Loneliness is toxic and decreases your lifespan by increasing all forms of illness mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. Pain and ill health are increased, magnified and exacerbated by feelings of isolation and disconnected dysfunctional relationships.

In the long run we as fallible humans, all want a quick fix but the quick fix does not satisfy the deep tribal need to connect and love.

What to do?
Patanjali in The Yoga Sutras suggests this four behaviours will move you towards the possibility of happiness and fulfilment.
Dispassion: do not take another persons behaviour personally, when you are offended, annoyed or angry attempt to see the offenders point of view. Physically relax and soften your eyes it changes you on the inside chemically and enabled you to stand back from negative behaviours, your own and others.
Compassion: Take the time to see the world from another persons point of view and then you might at least understand them. That’s not to say that you stand aside and let injustices or violence be perpetrated but if you at least see another point of view the world will shift its perspective for you
Be Friendly: again relax your eyes and smile or at least stay neutral and observe a situation. Give yourself permission and time to respond and not react to situations. A pleasant word or kindness can diffuse potential hostilities.
Non Envy: Do not envy the luck, beauty, wealth, fame or success of another. Celebrate their success and realise that the lives of others, their inner worlds, are unfathomable to us and their success hard won.

FOUNDATION TRAINING CLASS
I will be in Balmain from the Monday 4th January till the 12th, if you wish to be in contact for a therapy appointment, cuppa, yoga session just give me a ring or text on 0403095779. I look forward to catching up.
I will be staying near Punch Park so for those of you wishing to participate there will be another Foundation Training Class on Thursday the 7th at 10:00am.

7RulesofLife