About 15 to 20 years years ago I had the immense pleasure of doing a yoga teacher training at the Kripalu Institute of Yoga and Health in Massachusetts.  It was in the days back when the school was already famous and well known yet still relatively small.   I treasure the good memories I have. Silence breakfast; very tasty vegetarian food, a stunning lake at the foot of the evenly stunning gardens, with canoes lying on the shoreline to disappear into the wild. And then of course there were the many many skilled teachers and courses passing on profound information.

One of the teachers was Stephen Cope, a psychotherapist who coupled psychotherapy and the quest of finding the true self-  (Nan Yar- Who Am I ) the basic question of Yoga philosophy, Nan Yar- Who Am I) to Yoga and…. Meditation.

I remember one story quite specifically because I felt it was hilarious and at the same time so very very very true. It involves a small group of students being taught by Stephen how to meditate.   All were sitting in a semi circle; eyes closed, legs folded, trunks resting and rising from the pelvic  floor, in connected to the earth; spines and necks nicely straight and stretched, the crowns of their heads pointed towards the Universe; shoulders relaxed hanging off the centre of their sockets, neither leaning too much forward nor stretched too far backward; all in all the puurrrfect position to sink into the oblivion of meditation, to cleanse the ever busy mind and find that place of wonder and revelation within, where we can be at ease with ourselves.

One student however felt terribly restless.  His folded legs were hurting; all sorts of emotions were knocking at his consciousness and troubled  thoughts were disturbing his quest to be mindful. Through his eye-lashes he peeked around in the room and observed the others sitting in precision buddha pose some with smiles on their faces some looking extremely serious and concentrated, some even with a soft satisfied glow   ‘Why, o. why, this one particular student wondered ‘Where is everybody? Where are they that I cannot find. How did they get to where I apparently cannot go?

After the meditation session  all students gathered around to sit and share their experiences , guided by Stephen Cope. The unhappy student was the first to share his feelings of misery and confess he was jealous of all the others who seemed to float seamlessly into their meditations.

Now it was the other student’s turn to get restless. Some confessed they ware just closing their eyes and took on the pose they  thought they were was expected to take. They shared how their thoughts were bouncing around, tumbling all over each other and how inadequate that made them feel. Stephen always shared this anecdote in his teachings; an early advocate of confessing and showing vulnerability.

To this day I think it is a wonderful metaphor for daily life; where we often keep up with the Jones’s by taking the position we think is expected of us while within, our true self is crying out for help.  Something to keep in mind next time when you try and meet set expectations and ask yourself whether this is really you.

The card that goes with this this is the Knight of Challenges.

Challenges as this Suit personifies the development of the I-consciousness which has everything to do with becoming aware of who you really are and what your role in this life is meant to be;
the Knight, as this is your personal protector and explorer of who you are; the guide of your soul purpose.

To read more, click the card.
You can also draw your own card at the right side of this blog

Wishing you an insightful time

Ingrid

The abridged spoken version of this spoken blog, features as end note on  ‘Dutchbuzz’, the radio hour for Internationals every Tuesday  from 10 to 11 pm on ‘Den Haag FM’ and can be found in the Programme Archive of  the Dutchbuzz podcasts, dated February  6 , 2019 or click the link below

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Even in the days when I could afford it ( please note I don’t say ‘when I was better off’ );
I was not one for buying expensive creams or beauty products, and if I would buy any, I would buy animal test free products.
The thought of cuddly rabbits hurting for my sake while having mascara smeared in their eyes or testing creams on their raw shaven skins, is far too unsavory to my taste.

To me, having to use ‘repair wear’, which is basically what all these potions are, is like having to use aspirin.
While it may take away the symptoms, I feel it’s better to treat the cause, using naturally available sources of energy  to make myself feel good and look good.
Thus, I found my way around in alternative ways to pamper myself and can now truthfully say my Home Made Awareness Budget Spa is based on years of experience.

Its based on a few simple rules:

- Self Care Time

• Energy exercises, like Donna Eden’s daily routine to kick-start the energy flow are an important daily ritual to help open up to the naturally present supply of energy that lives within each and every living being. Integrated into daily life, they are simple and short, while making sure you can go with the flow and make maximum use of the day,
• Equally important is to create your own space. Feeling comfortable with where you are, is a number one prerogative, to feeling good.

- Hydration Care

• First thing in the morning I set the energies in motion by drinking  one to three 200cc glasses of water  optional with the juice of  half a lemon.
• Throughout the day I always make sure to have a jug of (‘lemonized’) water in my vicinity, so I remember to drink.

-  Facial Care.

I use what is naturally present in my kitchen, ranging from honey and avocado’s to eggwhites and all sorts of fruits of which the juices and blended products make excellent facial masks.

But to be honest…. I think the secret to the effect of a facial mask, is most of all that you are forced to lie down for 20 minutes, rather than whatever it is you paste on yourself.
It might well be something we all do far too little of, simply granting ourselves the time to do nothing for about half an hour a day and actually enjoy it!

This brings me to:

- Mental Care

In our quest for daily life we give ourselves very little time to process the impressions that pass by us;
and instead spend most of our energies focusing the logistics; (the ‘life is what happens while you’re making plans‘ paradox)

The side effect of doing a lot of logistic thinking however, is that when we do get time to think about who we are or what we really want out of life all sorts of forgotten yearnings invade the brain like star wars storm troopers; ranging from forgotten things you used to like to issues you’d normally rather not think about.
Relaxation Anxiety I call it, The fear of having time to yourself and think things over.

Taking some time out of the logistics, and by that I do not mean going on a holiday, but simply implementing it into the daily routine, are great moment to clear oneself of compulsive, conditioned or negative thinking,
allowing the issues that cause us to think the way we do, to be processed.

A simple way to support this process is to place your thumbs on your temples and fingers underneath the hairline, that way activating the frontal lobe, therewith releasing whatever issue it is that come to mind.

This brings me to energy counseling motto

- The Trick is to EnjoY It

Like everybody else I get unkind moments out of life. To kick the stone however only hurts my feet.
I’ve learned to trust the energies that created me and learned to be grateful for being able to bend them my way, and no matter what, being given the chance to experience life in my own way and make my world a better place.

Ingrid Schippers, 03-04-2016

This blog is recorded as weekly end-note of Dutchbuzz.nl, the radio program for internationals on Den Haag FM; broadcasted (in season) on Tuesdays from 10 to 11 pm. All programs are archived at Dutchbuzz.nl.
‘The Home Made Spa’ is filed in the podcast of April 12 2016

The post Home Made Awareness Budget Spa appeared first on EN Energycounseling.nl.

It might well be an unusual subject to start a new season of spoken Dutchbuzz blogs with, but this first week I want to talk about silence.

Take a moment to sample that word….Silence…
Play with it, say it out loud, think it, feel it.
What differences do you perceive between saying it out loud and thinking it.
What sort of feelings does the word ‘silence’ evoke from within you?

You see, at times people fail to perceive the true meaning of the word. That is because they blabber a lot leaving little to no space or time for actual silence.
They blabber to find reassurance on what they have been blabbering about before and about what they heard other people blabber, that way blocking their own thoughts from within to surface.

For that is another unusual thing; did you ever notice you can’t think while you talk?
Talking is basically thinking out loud. As long as we are talking we can only sort of think of what to say next, but we can’t think while we speak. It is always beforehand we do the thinking, which leads to an interesting deduction:

The more you talk, the less you are inclined to think, let alone meditate, i.e. allow the words to rise up from within.
There’s this general misconception that in order to meditate one needs to clear ones thoughts completely and stop thinking.
Truth is one only needs to stop talking silence the chatter of the brain, to then see what comes up from within, that source of silence, staying away from the blabber.

Would you agree that in the Western World we tend to , as they say ‘live in our heads’?
We have constant chatter in our heads. Boss-chatter, partner-chatter, financial chatter, commercial chatter, culturally conditioned chatter, parent-chatter, court-case-chatter, shopping-list-chatter, no wonder some of our children grow up to be chattering human beings.

This is where meditation should come in.
Clearing the mind from chatter, I’ll use the word one more time and then no more…..silence.

You’ll find when you meditate and reside in that place of silence,
the most profound thoughts will come to mind….mindful thoughts.

Try it once, sample the silence, sample the word.
Play with it, say it out loud.
Think it, Feel it, Live It

What differences do you perceive when you think the word silence and when you say it out loud?

This blog was written for the Dutchbuzz podcast of September 8 2015 and can be listened to on the Duchtbuzz.nl programm archive.
You can leave a comment to this blog on the ‘leave a comment form’ at the bottom of this page or sent me a personal response at: info@energycounseling.nl

I wish you a silent week.

Next Dutchbuzz blog: Tuesday 15 September.

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