self calming

Rediscover peace

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When fear in your body feels too much, when the voices of doom and gloom and ugly rants on the news on social media get you down, when you can’t settle, when your head is filled with anxiety, go outside if you can.

You will feel more clarity and greater calm when you go outside without your shiny device, your ear buds, your blinking object.

If it is not safe to go outside, to breathe the air, imagine yourself in your favorite spot in nature. Use your inner vision to go to a place you love and feel completely safe and comfortable.

Move in comforting ways, walk slow or fast, swing your arms, breathe in the fresh air, move through the shifting shade under old and friendly trees, notice the sights sound smells and the feel of your chosen place on this Earth.

Summer grasses

Let your awareness reside in your heart, your body, your senses. Let thoughts from your logical mind and the demands of your ego float in and out like clouds, knowing they are not reality. Do not give them any power by clutching or grasping onto them.

Notice the colors of your world, the flow of the creek or river, the animals and birds, the plant life, the clouds, sky patterns, tree growth, the blooming flowers.

Feel your feet meeting Mother Earth. Feel her support of you. Feel your lungs filling and emptying as your chest rises and falls. Feel the movement of your limbs swinging in rhythm.

Feel the energy of fear leaving your being with each out breath. Feel anxiety melting away as you hug and lean on a friendly tree, letting the tree with deep roots support your weight and connect your heart to the heart of the Earth.

GCW in fall

Let the weight of your worries drain away into the earth for this moment. Mother Earth will neutralize the energy of excess fear, anxiety, and dread.

You may be absorbing unpleasant emotional energy from the collective mind, from other people and groups. Let it go! Let it drain away into the Earth. It is not yours to carry.

When you can get out of your head and spend time in nature, you can rediscover peace.

Calming Through the Heart

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Do you feel stuck with no escape, ungrounded and flighty? Are old addictions coming back to haunt you during the pandemic and the times of social distancing and isolation?

I offer another way to calm and soothe yourself in times of high anxiety.

Find a quiet and calm space and get comfortable. Take a few deep breaths to settle yourself. Now bring your awareness from your monkey mind with its whirring machinery of worry and fear, its endless capacity for self argument, the unkind inner critic, the constant mindless chatter, the never ending ego complaints to the peace of your heart.

Tune into the gentle beat, the quiet rhythm. You might be able to feel your pulse by gently placing a hand on your neck right below where the ear and jaw meet.

Now hold your heart with both palms on the center of your chest. Imagine that you can breathe through your heart. Feel the exhalation, the emptying. Imagine the breath flowing from your heart, releasing the stale worries, the old thoughts that bring you down, spent energy you are ready to let go of.

Now as your lungs fill, know that you are bringing in fresh new air, new energy, new possibilities to your heart, the seat and center of your life.

Tune into the steadiness the cadence of your heartbeat that’s been with you since before your birth. Even before your heart began to beat, you knew your mother’s heartbeat, and before her birth she knew her mother’s heartbeat, the underlying rhythm, the legacy of life.

Trust that right now as your heart beats you are alive. You are safe. You belong here.

A Practice to Calm and Raise Your Vibrations

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Dear ones, as you try out this practice, set an intention to raise your vibrations and calm yourself during this time of great uncertainty.

Breathe in Earth energy, breathe out fear

Visualize beautiful deep roots like the roots of a large tree growing down into the Earth from your hips, legs, feet. Now breathe in through your roots and feet. As you inhale, allow your feet, legs, hips, abdomen and lower body to fill with Earth energy. This will anchor and connect you with Earth’s loving vibrations, the energy of home.

Take several deep breaths in and out through your feet and roots. On the out-breaths, let tension, stale energies, old emotions, fears, and worries you no longer need to carry within you drain into the Earth for energetic recycling. This will ground and clear you.

Connect to the Earth

Fill yourself with divine light and color

Visualize a beam of pure clear golden light filling you through the crown of your head. Allow it to pour down through your entire body, permeating every cell like liquid gold.

Imagine every hair follicle, skin cell, blood vessel, every nerve, all organ systems, every bone, connective tissue and tendon, all muscles, your immune system and glands, respiratory and circulatory systems, every energetic particle of your physical being filled with this sacred light, bringing all body systems and organs into balance and harmony, clarifying your aura.

Now, as you visualize this beautiful light, allow it to become any color in the spectrum, whatever vibration of color is needed in your body to bring wholeness, healing and well being. Let the colors change and flow and mix as needed.

No need to think too hard about it or consult a chart. Ask for the colors to be just right for your body’s needs. Allow yourself to sit with the healing colors and light as long as needed.

Yellow swallowtail butterfly on deep pink Zinnia

Create sound and connect with all that is.

Set an intention to use your voice to resonate those areas of your body that feel out of balance. You will fill them with the healing vibrations and loving waves of your voice. You do not have to be a good singer, the only requirement is that you can make sounds with your voice.

Begin by humming, then make vowel sounds. Change the pitch and sound you are making and feel the vibrations resonating in different parts of your body that need attention. Intend for the sounds you create with your voice to reweave and harmonize the subtle energy of your physical and spiritual being and fill your being with peace.

Flowing stream, light dancing on shallow water

Connect to the Earth through your roots, fill yourself with divine light and color, weave all together with sound. Experience the oneness of all creation.

Take the Time You Need

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Dear ones, It is vital to take the time you need to heal, to grieve, to grow, to be. Allow yourself to take the time you need

Even if it is to pause in an overcrowded day so you can take a deep breath, to feel your chest, ribs, and belly expand with life giving oxygen. Pause a moment to fill yourself, then slowly release with full attention.

Surely you have the time to do this, to give this moment of calm to yourself.

Grandmother Cottonwood

You might pause a moment to notice the feelings and sensations in your body- where they are located, their quality, intensity, the fleeting nature, how they shift and change with your breath.

Pause for a brief time in your crazy busy day and pay attention to this moment. Feel the weight of your hands in your lap, the balance of your head on your neck and shoulders, your feet contacting the floor or earth, your body’s contact with the chair.

You are paying attention to being in a body and loving yourself in these small and simple ways. Let yourself feel and be without judgment, without worry or hurry.

Have you bound yourself with too many shoulds and oughts and must do’s, striving for an impossible perfection? I ask you to come back to your body, your breath, the stillness at your center beneath all the surface flotsam, the noise and the rushing from point A to point B.

When you learn to quiet your crazy busy life for several moments each day, you will learn to know and love your true and deep self once again as you knew yourself as a child.

Anxiety

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Dear ones, do you feel anxious and overwhelmed? Is this your go-to vibration, the default setting for your life?

Let me tell you something… When you feel anxious your energy vibrations are broadcast to others around you on the frequency of anxiety, otherwise known as the fearful network.

Anxiety can spread like a virus as others feel the vibrations and absorb them. Others around them may sense the anxiety and perhaps take it on, broadcasting it as well. This can cause a cascade effect in the web of life, a distortion in the energy of many thousands of people.

This anxiety virus makes so many lives less than they might otherwise be, causing unhappiness constriction, a dimming light and power, a fearful outlook. Is this what you want for your children and your loved ones?

You can learn simple energy techniques (here’s one) to center, balance and bring harmony to your life. You do not have to live this way!

There is help available! Ask for help from your medical doctor, counselor, energy healer, shamanic practitioner and other trusted healers and helpers.

Let nature heal you as you breathe in the fresh air, rest under a spreading tree, walk along a beach, with nothing but the rolling waves and wheeling birds for company.

We are all filaments connected in this great web! Our energy vibrations affect each other.

When you calm yourself and your vibrations, you heal the world and help create a more peaceful planet for all beings.

Betty’s note: You can find many simple energetic calming techniques on YouTube. I like those from Donna Eden.

Home to your heart

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When you return home after a long trip or a day at work, or hours of rushing around doing errands, you can relax, be yourself, let down your guard.

At home you can do whatever you want to – wear sweat pants, drink right out of the milk carton, sing out of tune at top volume, feel what you feel.

At home you can lay on the ground under a tree in your yard, watching the branches sway, the shifting shade. You can ignore your to-do list for weeks, if you want to.

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Squirrel with a walnut

Likewise when you’re living in the past or future, when you’re hooked by feelings that drag you down, when you’re worried about problems in your life, you can come home to your heart and breath.

Place your palms over your heart and breathe. Bring awareness to your heart and chest  Relax into the rhythm and familiarity of your heartbeat, your inhalation and exhalation.

This is your calm place in a storm, a safe and peaceful home that is always with you. This is the haven where you regain your center and find clarity. 

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Your heart and breath offer a loving space where you can be yourself, can feel what you feel. In this place you can rest and go inward, you can be fully yourself and know the truth of who you are without having to defend or bargain, with no embarrassment or worry.

Come back home to your heart!

Contentment

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Do you fear that you will lose your edge, become complaisant, or a lie-about if you allow yourself to be content? (Those of you who push, jockey, and fight for position in life will need to cover your ears and eyes for a moment.)

Contentment is peace and peace is your true nature. Contentment is a feeling that all is right with the world. “All is right within me. I want for nothing in this moment. I feel good in this moment. All is well in this moment.”

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Belted Kingfisher

Yet, in the next moment, you may find yourself remembering a want, a need, trying to solve a problem, or worrying about what is next for you.

Can you hold the memory of the feeling of contentment in your heart? Then you can bring it back to mind when you want to feel peace again.

You might remember the feeling of contentment you had while sitting on your porch watching golden patches of sunlight light up the trees in late evening.

You might remember the feeling of contentment while walking in the woods on a cool summer morning listening to birdsong.

You might remember the feeling of contentment you had when holding your new grandchild in your arms.

Savor these moments of your precious life and inhabit them fully, for they are your life. Remember the sights, smells, feelings and emotions of contentment and bring them to your awareness.  Pay attention, absorb the feelings into your heart and breathe in the peace you feel.

And now I ask on behalf of the trees and all living things: Can you be content with the earth and her living creatures, her rooted beings, her stones and bedrock without bulldozing the sacred trees, scraping away the precious soil, paving over the prairies, felling the forests, scarring the landscape with ugly buildings, making war on those you do not understand?

Dear ones, these acts  reflect discontent, a pulling away from your center.  They are not you at your best, not a reflection of your higher self.  Find gentler ways to live and interact with this earth and her people, and we will all thrive.

Those who find contentment and peace within will live in harmony with nature, with the earth, with others, and with all that is.