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Meditation, Guided Meditation, The Shamanic Journey #1

 

 

 

 

Meditation, Guided Meditation and the Shamanic Journey

By Bob

I’ll write many articles about meditation, guided meditation and the shamanic journey, but this first one is to provide you with a quick overview.

Few people can agree on what constitutes a state of mind different from either the waking or sleeping states. Generally though, I’ll use the term “altered state of consciousness (ASC),” which indicates a state of awareness different from the normal waking state. (More on Wikipedia) And that’s where meditation and the shamanic journey can both be loosely classified. Anthropologist Michael Harner further delineates a “shamanic state of consciousness” in his classic book, Way of the Shaman.

Both practices can be quite beneficial to one’s well being. Research on positive gains resulting from meditation are widespread, while results from more and more studies are currently being reported on the benefits of shamanic-like practices, including drumming. These include the powerful production of helpful endorphins and other naturally-produced body chemicals that boost the immune system.

Generally, meditation induces relaxation, peace of mind and a sense of well being, and is undertaken as a service to one’s self, where healing, understanding and wisdom can grow. This, of course, will eventually influence those around you in positive ways, so your practice is a service to others, in one way of considering it.

The shamanic meditation / journey is undertaken to broaden one’s awareness beyond ordinary reality in order to actively be of service to one’s self or to someone else through healing procedures or ceremonies, and to discover knowledge or to otherwise connect with archetypal beings or energies which shamans have identified for thousands of years. Often, in seeking healing for someone, a shaman will encounter spiritual beings who agree to return with the shaman in order to be of service to the shaman’s patient. In other instances, the shaman may seek to recover a patient’s soul part that splintered away during a traumatic experience in the person’s past. This is called “soul retrieval.” And in still other cases, the shaman may, while in the altered state of consciousness, attempt to remove through a ceremony known as “extraction” an illness, disease or other energy matrix which may be harming the patient.

These practices, while potentially seeming odd to some people in modern America and other Western cultures, have successfully served humankind since the beginning of its collective consciousness. And now, thanks to Harner and others in indigenous and traditional cultures who are willing to share their knowledge, these practices are making a comeback.

Though I don’t see meditation or shamanism as complete alternatives to modern medicine, they are certainly effective aids in any healing process, and can be seen as complimentary approaches in a rather recent trend in medicine to incorporate treatment for the “whole person,” mind, body and spirit. This “integrative medicine” approach is certainly well overdue, and is bringing civilization full circle to the roots of healing.

 

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Meditating About, Understanding, and Coping With Emotions, Part One

Life is a roller coaster ride of emotions. You’ve felt so many emotions in the course of your life! Looking back on your life, you may wonder how you made it through everything. But you did.

When we are having an emotional experience we can easily lose perspective of the situation, as well as lose sight of the bigger picture of life itself. Very strong feelings distort how we perceive and what we are able to understand in the moment. This can seriously muddle our thinking and make things worse… putting us too deep in the forest to see the trees, as they say.

When we get muddled it’s time to step away from what we feel, through the process of meditation…or just getting very still…and let go of the feeling so we can find our core self. The core self is the eternal spiritual being that we are, under the emotions, behind the circumstance, and before the ego personality of this life was formed.

Family Tree of Emotions

People aren’t the only created beings with relatives. Emotions and thoughts have birthdays and relations of their own. By tracing the roots of your emotions and pairing them up with the thoughts that gave birth to them, you can get to the core cause of many of your most troubling emotions.

Relatives on your emotional family tree are much worse than slothful cousins or meddling in-laws: they can crash your best parties and whip you into a weeping puddle without a moment’s notice.

The “Family Tree of Emotions” exercise is designed to help you when you are struggling to figure out why you feel the way you do. The diagram shown here has blank boxes that spiral inward. You can sketch your own on a separate piece of paper.

Suppose you are struggling with a feeling of sadness. Write “sad” in the first box at the beginning of the spiral.

Then, ask why do you think you are sad? If your answer is something like, “I’m depressed because John won’t call me, then write that down in the next box.  If your deeper belief is “…it means he doesn’t care”, then write that perception in the next blank box.

“Nobody really cares about me”…”My brother said I was a pain in the butt” …”I remember when he…” and so on, progressively working your way to the core beliefs that are hidden behind the screen of the emotion you are dealing with.

How Emotions Happen

Emotion begins with a perception, followed by a thought that incites a feeling inside you. For example, as a kid you may have had the perception that someone was making fun of you as you saw them smile when you tripped on a shoestring. An incorrect perception (the belief you were being mocked) was followed by an incorrect thought, “she’s making fun of me!” which could have given rise to an emotion of feeling embarrassed or put down. Later in life, then, the root experience could lead you to become overly self-conscious and sensitive. —All this for nothing, since the reality at the time of the occurrence  was that the person was smiling because of your childhood charm. (You were terribly cute all the time!)

Perceptions vs. Reality

The trouble with emotions is that they can “talk” us into believing our own story. We believe that what we perceive is a fact and thus, we can believe that feelings of anger, sadness, fear, etc. are not only justified, we can believe them to be unavoidable.

We often let emotions control our outlook on life, our thoughts, our behavior and our choices. Thus, they  have an enormous effect on the way we live our lives. But there is something we can do about that, which is why at My Spirit Care we provide extended spiritual coaching to enable a balance and spiritual power over the “emotional dictator” that so often inhibits life progress.

Next Post: Part Two, Becoming the Master of Your Emotions

 

 

 

 

 

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Stepping Above Guided Meditation: 5 Steps to a Daily Spiritual Practice

Okay, guided meditation is a cool thing, no doubt. It’s used for all kinds of reasons, with good results.

But what about the spiritual aspect of our lives? What about getting familiar with who we really are, without needing a CD or technology to try to do that? What about…just you, and Life…becoming one, moving together smoothly the way a dolphin is one with the sea or a rainbow trout is one with the river? Becoming one with Life and all things is the most ancient spiritual wisdom; shamans from the dawn of history have known and taught the greatest of all truths that everything is interconnected.

Once you learn how to relax and let go, once you learn that imagination is NOT “imaginary,” it may be time to just be with yourself and the silence. Why? Because when it gets right down to it, guided meditation is a beginning for some, but then what? To mature spiritually we will have to sometime surrender the training wheels.

Most people want to be spiritually connected. Those on the spiritual path want to ascend, for crying out loud! We tell ourselves we “should” meditate, we “should” pray, we “should” and “should”…and (sigh) let’s change the subject! So, how’s work coming along?

Yep, for many people on the spiritual path that’s about the size of it. We don’t have a spiritual practice once a week, let alone once a day. I bet some of you felt a twinge of guilt when you read the title to this article. (Some of your friends may have skipped it altogether.) See! I can read your mind!

Actually, if you don’t have a dedicated spiritual practice you would be in the majority and so my guess is merely “playing the odds.” Most people just don’t make the time to connect spiritually. Many people don’t even think about it, or even dare to hope it’s possible. Others don’t find it at all important and even more people leave this up to churches and clergy to “do it” for them!

But all of the above probably isn’t you, either. This is a spiritual site and you’re here for a reason, so for those who are open to the path to enlightenment but can’t get in the groove, maybe it’s time to make it happen for yourself.

In order to get motivated, it helps to understand how an intimate, living spiritual practice can make a difference in your life, and what that entails, exactly.

A personal, dedicated spiritual practice will lead to a sense of connection to the Divine, and to an inner strength that comes from knowing your life has a unique purpose. You will develop your own psychic awareness. You will gain clarity, wisdom, knowledge, foresight…and if you are truly successful, you will become a more loving being.

Here are a few short suggestions on how to get started:

Want to make the connection: you have to want to know what you are all about, under your skin. People with a Christian background will recall that Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is within. To advance spiritually, we must first know ourselves.

How you decide to have a spiritual connection is completely individual. There are no rules, only guidelines. Find a personal system, or a composite of modalities, that work best for you. So here are 5 steps to get you past “I should” to “I do!”

  • Remember, you have to want to improve your life and be willing to explore for greater truth.
  • Turn off the phone, and eliminate external distractions. Put a “do not disturb” sign on your door if others in the house are used to summoning you at their fancy. Let others know this is YOUR private time.
  • Set aside 15 uninterrupted minutes, the same time each day. Why the same time? …A little discipline is needed to develop good habits, and setting the same time establishes a basis for sacred ritual, which enriches the experience over time. (If you should miss your appointment with the Divine, don’t skip that day. Find the 15 minutes somewhere else in your day before you go to bed and give that spiritual time your full, surrendered attention.)
  • Prepare to share. A relationship with the Divine, whether the Creator of All-That-Is or your own Higher Self, is a two-way street that involves expression of your feelings or intention and the reception of insight or guidance.
  • Listen. Don’t run out on yourself…allow time to just listen in quiet for the guidance from within.

Try not to think of this as work…it’s not. It’s joyful self-development! It’s an awesome experience to be on the right track, gaining solid inner guidance. Higher insight, or personal psychic connectedness, is worth more than anything in this world that money can buy.

Don’t be surprised if you realize, during your spiritual connections, that you are not alone in this world. Opening your heart in this way is to go through that “straight and narrow” Gate to Infinite Consciousness, which is your true and perfect Home. Heaven, you will find, is in your own heart and is with you all the time, right where you are, right now. 🙂

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Your “My Spirit Care” Practice Includes Meditation

You Too Can Enjoy The Benefits of Meditation!

Here at My Spirit Care, our spiritual mentoring helps people with problems rooted  in the fast-paced, goal-driven way they live their lives.  We teach various meditative and spiritual practices that allow a person to have personal quiet time, a very necessary step to the achievement of material and/or spiritual success.

Make Time for Yourself!

Although many clients say they “should” meditate or they “try” to meditate, very few have actually developed the joyful habit of making contemplative “quiet time” a regular part of their lives. This is almost always because they haven’t yet realized the genuine benefit that comes from a meditative spiritual practice, like more energy, greater mental clarity, or simply feeling better.

The Joy of Having a Clear and Healthy Mind!

Any time we need to solve a problem the first thing we must do is make space in our minds. We have to have a “clean mental workspace” to identify the issues and then we can find the right solutions.

When our thoughts get cluttered, we get confused, we go from one thing to the next, in circular loop that frustrates and amplifies the problem. We can begin to have obsessive thoughts, suffer with anxieties, worries, even develop fear and phobic-like feelings simply because we have not kept our mental/spiritual house clean.

Every person needs a daily practice of relaxing the mind, body and the spirit. Far from being the “waste of time” that busy people believe it to be, taking the time to be alone in a meditative, spiritually-connected state is necessary for overall well-being.

Helping the World as We Improve Ourselves

And there’s a bonus, too! When we help ourselves, we help the world. Not only does a spiritual practice make us more conscious, caring, and stable it makes the world a better place to be for everyone. Why is that? Simply, if we want to create positive change in the world, we have to start with ourselves, first.Taking the time to be alone in a spiritually-connected, meditative moment is the first step toward creating the life you are meant to have.

So whether you are wanting to feel better–mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually–or you want to do something to make your environment and the world a better place to be, indulge yourself with a daily practice of quiet spiritual connection/nature connection/meditation time. It is a gift you give to yourself!

MySpiritCare Helps You

And remember, we’re here for you. Just give us a call, anytime, and we’ll help you get started on that very personal path to an empowered and joyful life!

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Meditation Basics – Benefits Of Using A Guided Meditation

 

What is Meditation? How Can I Benefit From It?

Meditation is a practice of relaxing your mind, body and the spirit, voluntarily and consciously that has been generalized all over the world due to the different benefits that it brings to the mind and body (relaxation, stress management, better concentration and curing different diseases).

Some people think that meditation is a religion, but this is wrong. It isn’t. It is just a natural state of the mind and body that anyone can practice to feel better and relaxed.

Something You Can Try Right Now At Home.

The first thing that we need to practice meditation is to relax our body. To do this, find a comfortable position. Then focus on the different parts of your body (your head, arms, etc), and gradually allow the tension to ease and disappear from each part before moving to the next. Take your time to feel the tensions, and relax them. You can practice this procedure for several evenings, and you will find wonderful benefits!

Using Guided Meditations to Get Better Results.

You’ll get positive results in short time. There are many meditation courses and classes online that you can take without leaving your house. We offer several right here on the site, and soon we’ll have some of our originals that you can download for free or little cost.

Most of the time we do an active form of meditation called “journeying,” in which we play our shamanic drums. But I’ll write more about that in the future.

For now, if you practice your relaxation techniques, I think you’ll find great benefits. And then, gradually, you can work at more sophisticated methods.

Hope you’re having a wonderful day!

Namaste.

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What are some good guided meditation and creative visualization cd’s out there?

Questions About My Spirit Care (Or Anything Else!)I’ve already got the title Meditation Made Simple, which goes into different healing light visualizations and breathing exercises. I also have Lifescapes Guided Meditation, which is more of what I’m looking for right now. They have actual scenarios that they go through while you visualize them (one where it takes you through a rainforest, another where you lay out in the moonlight, and even one where you float in the ocean).

Does anyone know of any other similar types of CD’s out there?

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Guided Meditation Exercise – Ocean Breath

For hundreds and thousands and even millions of years the ocean has done this. It has breathed against the shores of country after country. Shaping the crevices and caves and cliffs, smoothing the sands, exposing and carving the rocks for the myriads of life forms that evolved and found just the nutrients necessary for them to grow and thrive. An uplifting and healing visualization connecting to the ocean and beyond. Take time out to visualize and meditate with the Meditation Society of Australia (meditation.org.au). These guided meditations feature video footage from around the world designed to inspire and illumine. The Meditation Society of Australia has no religious, political or financial affiliations, it is a community organisation designed to help people meditate.

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Simple Relaxation — A Guided Meditation

This guided meditation is from www.quietmindcafe.com and is one part of a three-part relaxation and stress management system. This guided meditation uses visualization techniques and a subtle rhythm to guide your mind to the relaxing Alpha state. You will experience a deep relaxation of the body and mind. The focus of this meditation is to quiet the Somatic Nervous System (Voluntary Nervous System). Created by QuietMindCafe.com For a complete relaxation practice use Simple Relaxation to relax the muscles of the body and the somatic nervous system. Use Quiet Mind to restore the experience of calm and balance to the mind and central nervous system. Finally, use Sympathetic Breathing to restore profound relaxation to the heart and autonomic nervous system — your fight or flight response. Together these three practices form a profound relaxation system that is essential for any stress management or stress relief practice.

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Guided Meditation – Relieve Sleep Problems

www.project-meditation.org A guided meditation by Michael Mackenzie to help with sleep problems.