***Mindfulness

I thought you might enjoy an excerpt from my new book, Nurturing Wellness Through Radical Self-Care: A Living in Balance Workbook. I hope you find the information helpful.

Mindfulness has become popular in the United States as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). MBSR education began in 1979, developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Mindfulness refers to a calm and peaceful approach to life and has the ultimate goal of creating a mindfulness life-style, meaning a relaxed, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually aware way of life. MBSR combines mindfulness and Yoga, both flowing from Eastern healing and spiritual philosophies. Both mindfulness and yoga concentrate on breathing and the creation of inner alignment and fitness. In our work, we’ll combine mindfulness, energy psychology , journaling and the use of affirmations. I believe this combination of approaches is an exceptional way to create inner harmony and the integration of mind, body, spirit and emotion. The incorporation of the Radiant Circuits, known as the circuits of joy, helps harmonize every system within your body, establishing and maintaining your relaxation response, creating a sense of well-being and inner peacefulness.

During the REB Nurturing Wellness Through Radical Self-Care program, we work to achieve a mindful life-style. A Mindful life-style is defined by the the following ideals:

• Conscious connection to self and creation
• Conscious decision making with clear awareness
• Living a now-focused life
• Living in gratitude
• Understanding the mutuality of all life
• Living in harmony with each other and the world around us
• Positive self-worth and good self-confiden
• A feeling of self-love and connection with life, all
living things.

The main ingredient of a mindful life-style is positive thought. Positive mindful thought is based in the principles of unconditional love and is achieved when:

• Each thought has a positive intention
• Each thought has positive content
• Each thought produces a positive outcome for self,
others and for all life in general.
Information adapted from Pathways to Wholeness by Janet Nestor (2010)

Every word we think or speak is a type of energy and creates either a positive or negative frequency (charge) within and around us. As we mentioned earlier when we discussed the use of the word healing, the frequencies we create with our words and thoughts affect our decisions, relationships, employment, our successes, our failures, our health and wellness . Have you ever walked into a room and just “felt” the negativity so strongly you wanted to turn around and run? Maybe you have approached someone at a social function to introduce yourself and felt a barrier that said very clearly you were not to approach them. Instead of extending your hand in greeting you merely said hello and turned your attention elsewhere. Have you walked into the home of a new friend and instantly felt welcomed, not only by their greeting, but by the cozy feeling and the positive energy that permeated every nook and corner of every room. These scenarios illustrate the diverse experience of coming into contact with a negative, low frequency energetic situation and a positive high frequency situation. The difference is immediately experienced in our entire mind-body-spirit system.

Positive thoughts help us construct a positive life, one thought at a time. Most of us have thoughts that are not entirely positive. Some of us have some very negative beliefs about ourselves and about life. Neutral thoughts do not have a frequency strong enough to create a positive life.

Neutral statement: I feel OK, I guess. It is just one of those crazy days.Positive statement: I am grateful for today and for the challenges I’ll encounter.

The word “worry” is both a word and a frequency. “Grateful” is both a word and a frequency. Worry has a very low frequency vibration causing us to feel anxious, heavy and depressed. Grateful is a high frequency word causing positive emotional responses that lighten our mood. The initial felt heaviness created by the worry frequency creates concern, and suddenly we have established a negative thought chain. All the created negativity has us moving emotionally down hill at the speed of light. We are caught up in worry and begin to worry about the worry and the anxiety it creates. Unless we break our negative thought chain we stay caught up in it. How many times have I been asked “How do I stop worrying?” I usually say that there is a way out of worry addiction . And there is. It is my hope that the growth opportunities in this book will help you move out of worry and into a new freedom.

Living and learning are process activities. A process activity is one that progresses in natural steps. We learn step one, grasping its full implications. We move to step two, understand it and have the ability to apply it in our daily life. We move to step three, and as we acquire understanding and the ability to apply it to our lives, we move to step four. We move ahead at our own pace, one step at a time, one day at a time. We live in process. Ann Wilson Shaef discusses the art of living in process in her book by the same name: Living in Process (1999). She is one of the premier writers in the field of addictions and co-depencency. Three of her notable books are: (1) 365 Mediations for People Who Worry Too Much; (2) Beyond Therapy, Beyond Science: A New Model for Healing the Whole Person; and (3) Co-Dependence: Mistreated-Misundersood.

When living in process, we gradually learn to live our best life. We all want to live within freedom, hope, and unconditional love, but we don’t always know how to make that happen. The first step is to understand what it means to live within these great, high frequency virtues. When we live within freedom, hope and unconditional love, we strive to achieve the following environment within our personal life, especially within our family life. Ideally, each family member will:

• think and act in positive ways
• honor the natural interdependence of family life
• allow independence within family togetherness
• live each day with a hopeful, joyous heart
• develop a positive sense of self, including worthiness
• experience a sense of belonging
• make loving, appropriate, reality-based decisions
• be accountable for their behavior
• ask for support when wanted and needed
• embrace peacefulness
• offer and receive respect
• feel safe
• trust
• enjoy emotional intimacy with family, friends
• enjoy emotional intimacy within our romantic relationship
• feel compassion for dysfunctional family members,
current and past
• believe in our personal power and ability to write our
own life story
• live within our healthy belief system
• have fun and laugh a lot
• live within a healthy life plan, one day at a time
• love deeply, wisely, with joy and passion
Pathways to Wholeness Janet Nestor (2010 )

During the 90 day Nurturing Wellness Through Radical Self-Care program you’ll use a Mindful Journal Page to record your experiences working with Mindful Meditation, REB and The Nurturing Wellness Affirmations . You’ll be tracking your moods and jotting down a daily gratitude that helps
you create a positive outlook for your day. You’ll be using the Self-Care First! page to help you plan and participate in activities that give you much needed social contact and positive, effective exercise. Exercise does not mean you have to take up jogging or go to the gym everyday. Exercise can mean walking up and down the stairs 2 times in a row, going for a meditative walk each day or doing some deep breathing and stretching . If bed ridden, it can mean imagining yourself going for a walk and enjoying nature. There is some research evidence that indicates that imagining yourself exercising and moving around freely has positive psychological and physical benefits.

During the Nurturing Wellness Through Radical Self-Care Groups at the Center of Well- Being, each session begins with a mindful meditation and closes with each person stating a positive intention for the week. Since you’ll be doing the Nurturing Wellness Relaxation and Release work, you’ll want to stay in balance by listening to the mindful meditations that are included in the Guidebook and writing about them in your mindfulness meditation journal. You can find them recorded for you on the Mindfulpathways meditations