Real Deal Meditation: Is Moving

I know that I have not spent a lot of time on this blog as of late.  That is because I been focusing my attention on my other blog called www.ihealedmycrohnscolitis.com.  I am still writing weekly posts so please join I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis and get your weekly post email to you.

Thank You Bob Stickles

Real Deal Meditation: Questioning the Present Moment

Questioning the Present Moment

I received an interesting question from a friend of mine in the UK.  My friend has IBS and we have been working with his meditation practice to bring about the life he wants.  His question was something like this:

I am meditating and working to keep myself in the present moment during meditation and in my everyday life.  My question is, should I meditate and think about the future things that are positive that I want to happen (like buying a new car, the process of moving into a new home, or the right way of healthy living)? Or, does it take me out of the present moment if I meditate on the future?

This was a great question for me because it made me think.  To understand what I have done I need the right questions to bring out the best explanation of how I used my mind to heal myself.

My answer was this:  I too live in the present moment but I also live in the past and the future.  The key to my life is knowing which life I am in at the moment: past, present, or future.  Understanding that in itself is powerful. 

His question was also about how to move his body past his IBS.  Something inside of me clicked and I knew how to finally word what I did.  I continued to answer him:

You are living in the present moment and in your present moment you are having the symptoms of IBS.   When I was sick I too lived in the present moment. However, I saw it as my body was sick but my mind was in the present moment too and in my mind I was healthy and whole.  My present moment was creating health in my mind. My body had to follow my mind.  No matter what symptoms I had, my present moment thoughts were about healthy intestines.

Like I say in my book, “Free The Mind… The Body Will Follow.”  Using my mind, my present moment was engineered to bring my body in line with what I made up my mind for it to do.  When you’re living in the present moment and your present moment is sickness, what does your body do?  You are what you think you are.

Did I need faith to make that happen?  Yes, I did.  I needed blind faith because in that time of my life I had never heard of anyone doing what I was trying to do by healing my body with my mind.   So do you need faith? Yes. You need faith in yourself to keep moving forward even when times are tough and when every part of your body is saying one thing and your mind is saying another.  However there is one thing that you have that I didn’t back then and that is this blog and someone who has healed themselves using their mind.  So that means you can too. 

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My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore

I started a FaceBook group it is called Using your Mind and Thoughts to Heal Crohn’s Colitis. I hope you check it out.  http://goo.gl/gvjvO

 

Real Deal Meditation: Changing Lanes

Changing Lanes

In my last post, Looking Out the Rear-View Mirror, I talked about not trying to live in the past when you need to move forward with an illness.  It’s a challenge to move forward with illness because nothing is working in your life. The habits that you once had don’t work anymore.  Past thoughts, habits, stressors and beliefs of yourself might be making you more sick.  The people in your life who give you direction might be completely wrong. They too could be making you more sick.

When this was happening to me it felt like I was in the middle of the road with no place to go.  It was not easy. I felt like I had no direction, no past, no future. I was full of fear of the unknowns.  If you are feeling this way, this is when you need to start moving. Whether right or wrong, soon you will get feedback.  If it is wrong, you will feel worse. If it is right you will see signs saying it’s right.  The worst is standing still.

I know you want to reach your hand out and say “help me” at this time. However, to find your own way is where your true power is going to come from. Truly, you need to find your own direction. People have already led you down their roads. It’s now time to change lanes and find your way to your own cure.

We are meant to be powerful on our own and then share it with others.  We are not meant to get power from others so we can feel powerful ourselves; that is fake power and can be stripped away.  Change lanes.  

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My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore

I started a FaceBook group it is called Using your Mind and Thoughts to Heal Crohn’s Colitis. I hope you check it out.  http://goo.gl/gvjvO

Real Deal Meditation: Looking Out the Rear View Mirror

Looking Out the Rear-View Mirror

You cannot drive a car forward if you are only looking through your rear-view mirror.  It is the same way with your illness.  You cannot live in the past when you have to move forward with an illness.

I know, change is tough. OK we established that.  Now get over it!  Every time you say “boy I wish it was the way it used to be” you are not moving forward.  Are you pushing the boulder up the hill?  Wanting the old days is not helping you now.  How do you know your thoughts and the way you lived your life are not the causes of your illness in the first place?

Your illness had to start somewhere.  My belief about how my illness started is this: I didn’t handle stress very well. I had no coping skills.  Pressure built in my body and had no place to go.  I didn’t know how to release my stress and it attacked my weakest point in my body.  I got sick. 

I know it is hard to believe that the way you lived in your past might be the cause of your sickness.  However, that’s why I am saying it is time to look forward to making changes in your life.  If you look back at your past, and you notice that you don’t do well with stress, then find tools to deal with stress.  At first it might be walking or exercise. At the same time you are going to have to come up with stress-management skills that you can use in a moment’s notice.

Here is a powerful suggestion: Change is not hard, it is the fear of what you are leaving behind that is.

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My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore

I started a FaceBook group it is called Using your Mind and Thoughts to Heal Crohn’s Colitis. I hope you check it out.  http://goo.gl/gvjvO

 

Real Deal Meditation: Put on Notice

Put on Notice

I had an interesting thing happen to me.  A stranger read my book and wrote a wonderful review.  Nevertheless, in a gentle way she put me on notice.  She basically said to me if you are going to talk the talk you should also be walking the walk. In two sentences she showed that she had seen something in me that needed to be addressed, allowing me to explore another layer of thought of my being. 

She wrote: “My favorite parts are the reminders to believe in yourself, knowing that you have the answers inside. Since you have learned to trust yourself, you shouldn’t even rely too much on others to say what they think of your book.”

My back story is this:  When I graduated high school, I could barely write.  I was un-diagnosed but had dyslexia.  I thought I was stupid and people around me helped me make that thought true.  I know those are harsh words but that is what I feel.

Thinking back to when I was a kid I remember I was always frustrated because things in school just didn’t come easy.  Eventually I gave up and stopped trying.  I believe in my heart that the learning disability was a big factor which caused my Crohn’s Colitis.

Well, back to my main thought.  The act of meditation has a way of peeling away the layers of thought so you can see the true problem.  Those two simple sentences from a reader let me see the frustrated little boy who needed the approval, saying “look at what I have done.”  I have heard others close to me tell me the same things, but it was hard to hear because for so long I had also had people who were friends and family supporting the thought that I was stupid. I have learned they were wrong.  It is not that I don’t trust the people in my life however, in the back of my mind I sometimes wonder if they are just saying nice things because they are my friends. So, when a perfect stranger tells you that you did well then there is no doubt, at least for me. 

Am I insecure?  I guess I am.  Like everyone in the world my life is a work in progress.  At one point in time I could not write either.

The power of your mind is limitless. Believe that thought!

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My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore

I started a FaceBook group it is called Using your Mind and Thoughts to Heal Crohn’s Colitis. I hope you check it out.  http://goo.gl/gvjvO

Real Deal Meditation: Understanding a Simple Story

Understanding a Simple Stories

Simple situation: you see a cat run across a busy street.

Almost immediately your mind starts creating stories about the situation. It could be: “that cat is going to be hit by a car,” or, “I wonder what that cat was chasing across the street?” or, “I hope that cat doesn’t get hit by a car,” or, “that cat could belong to some little kid, and they are going to miss him.”

In the next split second you see the cat walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street.  Your mind starts a new story: “wow, that cat made it across the street,” or, “the owner of the cat should keep it in the house.”

Do you see how the mind works? These stories pop up with little effort when situations arise. I want you to start looking at how when you see, feel or hear something, you make a story about it. In the story about the cat, an outcome was created even before the cat could make it across the street.  Then once the cat was on the other side of the street,  the story of crossing the street became a story about what the owner should be doing with the cat.

This is the mind. By training it and becoming aware of it, you start seeing your stories. Each story you create within your mind has the potential to create stress, which can cause dis-ease.  Or, each story has the potential to create peace which can lead to health and well being in your life.  Stories have the power to change your body or how your body is performing. In sickness, how many of us receive a story from someone who we feel knows more about us or our bodies then we do?  How many of us take that information and create a whole big story that could potentially cause us more health issues because the energy and power of thought make it come true inside of the body?

On the other hand, how many of us believe that the mind runs the body? How many of us believe that with a trained mind we can change the story to a better outcome that we create?  I have written this whole post so you can see how to use the mind and how the mind works with a simple story. When you see this, you can begin to create wellness in your life.  There are many ways to train the mind. I just happen to use meditation.

Last question: what do you have to lose by creating a story of health in your life, based on understanding that changing your thought just might be your cure?

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My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore

I started a FaceBook group it is called Using your Mind and Thoughts to Heal Crohn’s Colitis. I hope you check it out.  http://goo.gl/gvjvO

 

Real Deal Meditation: Never Fitting In

Never Fitting In

In my life I never thought I fit in.  I felt I always marched to the beat of a different drum.  I was with a friend today and we were talking about never fitting in.  I believe there are some of you who think the same way.

One reason I found it hard to fit in was because I never wanted to give in on my beliefs.  I found that groups always wanted everyone to think the same way.  It seemed like if you bought one concept of the group then you had to buy the whole bag of concepts that they were selling.  That’s what I was not good at. I never wanted the whole bag, I just wanted to pick through the bag and grab what I thought I wanted or agreed with. So I got used to being by myself and rarely joined a group and if I did I was always close to the door so I could leave when it was my time. 

That way of thinking helped me when I was sick because I was by myself and I knew that I was on my own.  This is not a sob story. This is understanding one thing: when you choose to believe that you can change your sickness or your life, you are alone.  You are the only one who can change your mind. No one can change your mind for you; no friend, no family, no doctor and no priest. Just you.

You are doing the hard work. You are gritting your teeth when the going gets tough.  You, wiping your brow, walking tall, patting yourself on the back when the job is done.  And you, seeing the outcome of your sweat and hard work once you know what you have achieved.  Not fitting in? I will take it any day.

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My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore

I started a FaceBook group it is called Using your Mind and Thoughts to Heal Crohn’s Colitis. I hope you check it out.  http://goo.gl/gvjvO

 

 

Real Deal Meditation: World is Flat

World is Flat

In our history, the world was flat, the moon was made of cheese, and the car was a fad.  In the medical field they used tonics, herbal teas and crude operations to provide relief to illness.  Nowadays,  the world is round, we have sent men to the moon and there are millions of cars.  In the medical field we have medicines, operations, special pills, and diets to relieve illness.

In every one of the things I mentioned above, there were believers and nonbelievers.  In history, there was one person who believed in their theory and told the leading minds of their time that they were wrong or maybe they needed to look at things another way.  They stood up and said, “look at the facts, look at what I found, and look at what I have done.”

Without these people, our world as we know it wouldn’t exist. We would not drive our cars or even enjoy the health we do.  However, can we move forward?  Can we make ourselves better?  Can we make a change in our thinking and control our own health using our mind?  I believe so because I have done it for myself. Think about it. “There is a better way.” 

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My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore

I started a FaceBook group it is called Using your Mind and Thoughts to Heal Crohn’s Colitis. I hope you check it out.  http://goo.gl/gvjvO

 

Real Deal Meditation: Simplifying My Cure

Simplifying My Cure

I have been reading a lot about the subconscious mind and how it works.  I have been using the information in my meditation and also putting it together for a class that I am getting prepared to teach.  The more I am reading about it, the more I understand how I healed my Crohn’s Colitis.

By using meditation, I quieted my mind down to the level of the subconscious mind.  Then using imagery, I created what I wanted my body to do and I started working on what I wanted my life to be.

I know I have simplified this, however, this is how it works the best.  This is how I healed myself and now you can too.

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My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore

Real Deal Meditation: Controlling the Trigger

Controlling the Trigger

I recently wrote about becoming aware of what triggers your illness. I want to say a little more about that. In my life, my trigger was stress and how I managed it.  I would swallow my stress and it had nowhere to go.  So like food that you eat, it started coming out the other end and created my illness, Crohn’s Colitis.

Everywhere we go in life we have stress one way or the other. There is physical stress like cold, hot, rain or snow and then there is emotional stress.  I believe in my life my emotional stress, if I let it go on, would have ended up killing me. 

Like I said, I swallowed my stress because in my family I was not taught how to handle stress or my emotions effectively. I didn’t want to look weak when I was overwhelmed, so I sucked it up.  I believe the body is like a jar and you can only fit so much in the jar until it overflows.

That’s why I tell everyone to look into stress management and look for tools to help you stop swallowing stress. This alone might help you cure your illness.  There are tons of books and learning materials out there that will help you. It is also the reason I wrote my book. I wanted to share the tools that I have found helpful and which ultimately cured my disease.

Meditation is a great tool to empty your mind and give it a rest.  But, it is hard to do when you’re in a stressful situation. You need to have something you can do on the fly or in the middle of your job. One of my favorite things to say when I start getting stressed over something in the moment that I am trying to fix or work through is: “I am not going to get sick over this.”  Those simple words bring  me back to reality about what is important.  There is nothing in this world worth getting sick over. And if you think worry is going to solve the problem, it’s not! 

To control my trigger I needed to create a mindset that I have done my best and if something does not work out, I need to believe that it was not meant to be and move on.  Nothing is worth getting sick over!

  My book, I Healed My Crohn’s Colitis, is a simple and powerful book that shows you how I healed and gives you the tools to do the same. It is now available! Pick up your copy at any local bookstore or order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Balboa Press Bookstore