Exercise and the Obstreperous Mind

We all know the benefits of exercise. It makes us Breathe. The oxygen enters the bloodstream while the heart pumps it through the body to the muscles, ligaments and tendons that are being used. It helps keep the body healthy and alive. The question is, why does exercise become such a burden at times in our lives?

Everyone has felt a lack of motivation for exercise at some point in their lives. Many feel it regularly. As with most of the major challenges we face, the main culprit can probably be found inside ourselves. In this case, the biggest hurdle to effective exercise is an obstreperous mind. Obstreperous means unruly. An obstreperous mind is one that doesn’t submit to discipline or control. It is an immature monkey in the library of our being.

The obstreperous mind feeds on the distractions and stimulations of the hectic outside world. When this happens we lose sight of what is really important. We start to think and consider all the various options, possibilities and permutations. We begin to get stressed. Stress scatters our attention and gets us worrying about irrelevant things. We start to run out of time for anything. It can quickly get out of hand if the body is in a weakened state. Even if we realize we are stressed, we have difficulty doing something other than try to laugh it off.

I’m soooo stressed out, haha!

Without focus and control, the monkey is in charge.

However, if we are able to breathe a little and move the body a bit, we can start to get the obstreperous mind under control. Exercise doesn’t have to be vigorous. All we need are some simple breath and movement exercises to get stared. It is an upward spiral as the more we breathe and move, the stronger our bodies get. The energy we generate begins to flow through us, breaking up stagnation and revitalizing us. This affects the mind in a positive way. Exercise focuses the obstreperous mind and disciplines the monkey.

Daily life in the modern world can be extremely distracting and often make it quite challenging to remain centered. Life can get difficult and confusing. In order to navigate the challenges one needs a healthy body and an unobstreperous mind.

Wishing you much peace...

Please visit my new Zen Anti-Diet page.
Mindful Eating for Health, Vitality and Weight Loss.

Cultivating Silence

How many people do you know who need to have the television or radio on continuously when they are alone? How many people do you know who talk just to fill what they feel is an uncomfortable silence? Silence should not be uncomfortable. Yet many people avoid it like the plague. The reason is that silence offers an opportunity to examine the inner self, something many people simply don’t feel comfortable doing. To open our inner self to the light of day is to acknowledge that some of the behaviors in our lives are not healthy and may not be contributing to the health of the planet. It becomes all the more important to begin this process as the difficulties in the world escalate. Only if we can care for ourselves will we realize the necessity of caring for the Earth. Silence is a wonderful place to start the process.
In silence, life slows down of its own accord. You begin to experience the beauty and joy of life more intensely. Cultivating this serenity brings a deeper appreciation of your own life and the world around you as you begin to truly observe what is happening and as your body learns to relax and function naturally without the blockage that stress and tension bring.
Put aside five minutes in the morning to be silent. No talking, no TV, no radio - just silence. See if you can find one moment where there is absolutely no sound. In today’s bustling world this is much harder than imagined. Try to experience that moment. Keep it with you throughout the day. Spend another silent five minutes in the evening. Notice the feelings that emerge during your silent time. See if you can get used to silence and make it a comfortable feeling. Next try to expand the time frame, ten minutes of silence, an hour, two hours. Refrain from talking for as long as possible for a day. Only speak when spoken to and then reply only after you have taken a moment to think seriously about what the other person said. The silence should be reflected in your actions as well. Try to do everything quietly. It might be helpful to inform those around you before you begin this exercise. They might even decide to join you in silence!

wishing you much peace...

10 Ways to Gain Weight, Feel Miserable, and Shorten Life

by Aaron Hoopes

1. Stay away from fresh vegetables. Fresh vegetables provide the body with essential vitamins and nutrients that keep the body healthy and are not recommended if you are trying to contract cancer or some other life-threatening disease. Vegetables also provide fiber which helps the digestive system process the food we eat. Avoiding vegetables should help you to experience digestive problems as well as keeping your bodily functions irregular.

2. Eat red meat, lots of it. Red meat is an excellent source of saturated fat and cholesterol which can cause high blood pressure and heart disease. A diet of red meat offers a much better chance of contracting colon cancer or having a heart attack. Be sure to eat the more processed meat from fast food outlets. This meat has been filled with antibiotics and chemicals that will play havoc with your health.

3. Drink diet soda. Don’t be fooled by the word diet in diet soda, this is the go-to drink for gaining weight. Studies have found that drinking diet soda has a direct effect on weight gain. Even better, every can or bottle of soda you drink increases the chances for you to become obese. Don’t be worried if you don’t like the taste of diet soda, they have added special chemicals to addict you to the taste even if it tastes horrible.

4. Stuff yourself. Stuffing is not just for Thanksgiving. Make every meal a gorge fest. You want to cultivate that feeling of heaviness in the belly, making you lethargic and unmotivated for anything. Filling yourself until full and then munching on a little bit more will guarantee bouts of indigestion and other uncomfortable bodily processes.

5. Eat while distracted. Be sure to eat with the television on so you are not aware of how much food you are putting into your mouth. Try to eat on the run if possible. Don’t stop to think about what you are eating, just eat. The practice of eating while driving your car is an excellent example of this type of eating. Another good way to practice this is to eat while talking on the phone or texting. Try to do anything but pay attention to what you are eating. That way you can overeat and be sure you don’t enjoy it.

6. Eat more candy, cakes, and refined sugar. This list would not be complete without sweets. Foods filled with refined sugar are an excellent source of calories and assist in rapid weight gain. The human body cannot tolerate large amounts of refined carbohydrates that come from sugar and you should be able to damage your internal organs with enough sugar. An added benefit from excessive amounts of sugar is irreversible tooth decay.

7. Take a lot of prescription pharmaceuticals. Prescription medications provide an excellent source of chemicals to unbalance your bodily systems and make you feel terrible very quickly. Be sure to mix them together so that the cocktail of chemicals can destabilize the body’s natural ability to heal itself and prevent you from recovering from what ails you. Consult your doctor and insist on a prescription for medications you’ve seen advertised on television or in magazines. If you are lucky the side effects should necessitate needing more medications.

8. Smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol to excess. Cigarettes are a shortcut to unhealthiness, smoke them whenever possible. Be sure to inhale the smoke deep into your lungs and cough as you exhale. In addition to damaging the delicate lung tissue it has the added benefit of burning your esophagus and staining your teeth and fingers. Drinking alcohol to excess is a wonderful method of causing cell damage in the liver. Even better, drinking can impair brain development and help with destroying the cardiovascular system. If you can manage to drink a lot on a daily basis you should be able to ruin your family and social relationships without too much difficulty.

9. Don’t exercise, ever. Exercise is the number one cause of healthy feeling within the body. It increases blood and energy flow through the body and can quickly make you feel much better. Avoid it at all costs. Exercise doesn’t have to be hard physical exertion, even gentle movement such as yoga or tai chi can cause positive feelings. Turn on the television and eat whenever the urge to move comes upon you.

10. Forget to breathe. Breathing brings more oxygen into the body. The oxygen is converted into energy and flows through your body. To stop this from happening, try not to breathe deeply. Short, shallow breaths in the upper chest are best for bringing in a minimum of oxygen. If you are in a stressful situation be sure to hold your breath and tighten up so that you can get the most benefit from the lack of oxygen and tension in your body.

Finally, if you are truly serious about gaining weight, feeling miserable and shortening your life, do not read the book Zen Anti-Diet: Mindful Eating for Health, Vitality and Weight Loss. Everything in this book runs counter to the practices listed here. In addition, be sure to avoid The Art of Zen Yoga as it instills a sense of relaxation, flexibility and overall good health to anyone exposed to it.

Remembering Ourselves

The winter season should be one of reflecting on our lives and remembering what makes us happy, healthy and peaceful. The holidays are often spoken of as a time of giving however, giving should not be something done only in the holiday spirit. Everything we are fortunate to have is a blessing and sharing those gifts with others is the way we give thanks for the miracle of this life we are living. The more we give away, the more we encourage the flow to bring things back to us. You never lose anything. This is the wonder of life.
Reflecting on the wonder of life should be a regular practice especially during the holiday season yet, more often than not, the holidays can stir up quite a lot of issues that lie just below the surface. When we combine this with a general sense of unease that seems to pervade the world at the moment, it breeds difficulty and uncertainty into our daily life. The result is a generous helping of stress and worry which we often don’t have an answer for. There is a tendency to simply try and hold on tight, hoping to make it through unscathed.
Fortunately, just as it feels as if things are unraveling, there is also seems to be something quite amazing taking place in the world. Many people are starting to sense a shift in consciousness as a transformational change begins to take place. No longer are the old patterns working for us and many people are starting to look for answers deeper within themselves. The distractions of the media would have us believe that things are at the brink of collapse, but if you take a moment to center yourself, you quickly realize collapse is relative. Talk a walk in nature and you can observe the life force energy flowing along. The sun rises, the rains fall, the wind blows and the snow accumulates. The hardships we face teach us valuable lessons. They temper our being and prepare us for change.
Embracing change can be a real challenge. Our ability to do it depends a lot on where we live and the holistic practices we engage in. Bringing ourselves into alignment is a long process, but it is one we cannot neglect.

The process has a number of steps:

1. Nourish the Body. We need to learn to breathe effectively to bring in more oxygen and energy. We also must engage in movement practices in order to circulate the energy through the muscles and joints. In addition we should be clearing out the toxins and poisons from our diet.
2. Calm the Mind. We need to bring clarity of thought to our thinking process so that we are able to react and adapt to the challenges we face. A drastic reduction in the distracting noise from the television should be a priority.
3. Open the Heart. We need to begin to use the heart as an organ of perception. By getting in touch with our feelings and the energy fields that surround all living beings, we can start to project a more loving and caring energy out into the world.
4. Honor the Soul. We need to take the journey inwards and confront the dark parts of ourselves and shine a pure light of truth onto them. Only then will we be able to release that which no longer serves us.
5. Embrace the Spirit. We need to embrace the spiritual part of us that is connected to the whole spirit of existence. By engaging in ceremony to honor the sun, moon, wind, trees, animals and elements we can more fully remember our place in the universe.

It would serve all of us this holiday season to try to be a little more forgiving and humble in our thoughts and actions. We always have a choice as to how we react in any given situation. We have all felt the energy change when an angry person walks into a room. Everyone gets a little on edge. Remember…this dynamic works both ways. If we can find a calm center within ourselves, then we give others a reference point to find calmness within their own selves. Let the holiday season be about cultivating peace and harmony in the world. Finding faults in others or laying blame for things elsewhere simply creates friction and unease.
When you drop a pebble into a pool of water the ripples spread out. You determine the ripples you send out to the people around you. Let your pebble be positive and loving. We are only going to find the way forward by turning inwards and getting our own self in order.

Please share any comments you may have.

I wish you much happiness, joy and peace this season.

The Foundation of Human Potential

Holistic traditions address all the aspects of ourselves as a complete being: body, mind, heart, soul, spirit. Each of these aspects of our self plays a vital role in making up who we are. Working to bring them all into alignment provides us with a framework to awaken to our full human potential. Holistic arts, by definition, are practices that assist with bringing these together and awakening the potential that lies deep within us all. Each of these aspects makes up part of the whole. However, it is necessary to understand that the body and mind are the foundation of our human potential. Like anything we build, the foundation must be firm and strong in order to support what it holds up. The body and mind must be balanced and aligned in order for us to fully access and entrain with the other aspects of our being, or we will find ourselves wobbling back and forth, unsure of who we are and what we are doing.

The body is our physical form. It is our connection to the physical world and allows us to interact with the world through our senses. Our body is the temple in which the rest of our being resides. The better care we take of the body, the longer it survives and the deeper we are able to explore the other aspects of our self. If we are eating healthy food, regularly moving the joints and muscles, and breathing properly, the body grows strong and resilient, providing us with more energy and the ability to do more. If we eat poorly, don’t exercise and maintain shallow breathing habits, the body will grow weak and fragile, unable to meet our needs. This is basic common sense. Continuing regular practice allows us to remain strong as we grow older. I remember living in Japan, training karate for four hours every day, and frequently meeting older Japanese men who, upon hearing of my training, would immediately launch into a discourse of their prowess in one or another marital art. Invariably these men were out of shape and unhealthy, having stopped training once they finished their university studies and entered the work force. They seemed to think that the fitness level they achieved in their younger days remained with them, even though they did no physical exercise at all in the present. I have found that this is a common mindset. The changes that take place in the body due to poor diet and lack of exercise are gradual. The body has a way of going numb so that we don’t recognize we have gotten out of shape. The longer we go without caring for the body, the harder it is to get back to a state of good health. The truth is that it really doesn’t take that much effort to reverse this process. Daily gentle breathing and movement practice will get the energy flowing through the body. A regular routine can soon make the body your ally, in whatever you seek to do, instead of a limitation.

The same goes for the mind. The mind is our thought process. It is that part of us that carries on the continuous inner dialogue throughout our waking lives. It is also that part of us that analyzes problems and creates solutions to solve them. When the mind is calm and centered, we are able to think clearly and adapt to whatever situation arises. If our thoughts are scattered or we are stressed out about events in our life, then the mind becomes preoccupied and is unable to deal with the problems that arise. Calming the mind is a challenge because the only method for doing it is to sit quietly and allow the thoughts to settle. If the mind is calm and centered, we are able think clearly and reason objectively. However, the modern world is full of distractions that have been designed to capture our attention. We need to cultivate a calm mind in order to navigate the challenges that appear before us. Practicing daily sitting meditation is a simple way to gain a measure of control over hectic thoughts.

Once the body is healthy and the mind is clear, we are more fully able to embrace our heart, soul and spirit. Perhaps it helps to imagine the body and mind as a garden bed. If we care for the body and calm the mind, we create the fertile soil for the seeds of our heart, soul and spirit to grow and develop. By cultivating this rich soil, our heart will open, our soul will be revealed, and our spirit will expand. It all begins with the body and mind.

The true awakening of the human potential within us is like slipping into a groove that was always there. It is as if we were bumping along off kilter until that moment when things suddenly click into position and we start to recognize our place in the universe. We begin to go with the flow, and the flow begins going with us. When such a thing truly happens there is a feeling of completeness that pervades our being. It is a wonderful experience that continues to unfold as we continue generating the energy that fuels our potential. In a world full of distractions and stress this can be a daunting undertaking. It means finding the strength within from which to begin the process. It takes courage and self-awareness in order to travel the path, and there are many roadblocks and detours along the way.

Building a strong foundation of body and mind gives us a place to begin.

Until next time...wishing you much peace.

Harvest Time

September was a big harvest month for us here in Vermont. I've been fully occupied with harvesting the bounty of my garden. We've had a bumper crop of tomatoes. The weather this summer was apparently just exactly what they needed. We had a lot of rain in the spring and then it dried up towards the end of summer. Leaving us with more tomatoes than I've ever had, lots of onions, broccoli, butternut squash and pole beans as well. Going out and picking food for dinner is simply a wonderful experience.

It does make me wonder about the stuff I find in the supermarket. If I pick a head of broccoli and leave it for a day or two is quickly goes yellow. How is it possible that the broccoli in the store stays green for the weeks it takes to get to the supermarket shelves? You don't have to answer that. I know....it is just rather discouraging to have such a contrast with the fresh organic stuff directly from the garden. Chemical preservatives are much easier to ignore if you don't grow your own food....but hard to forget once you've made the connection.

Speaking of Broccoli. For much of the summer I had a running battle with a groundhog who was intent on chomping on my broccoli plants. Of course, I would never do anything to harm him, but it was a little frustrating. Each time they sprouted a stalk he would come along and chew it back. Well, I finally gave in and planted a separate broccoli garden on the other side of the house. The groundhog never found these plants and we had broccoli all summer. Imagine my surprise when I found these huge broccoli heads on the plants the groundhog had been munching on all summer. Apparently his munching caused the plant to grow multiple stalks and gave me a late harvest of wonderful broccoli. Living in harmony with nature is much more plesant than bending her to our will.
Finally, I want to share some of the ways I’ve been dealing with all the tomatoes.

Freezing Tomatoes - Freezing tomatoes couldn't be easier. First you dunk them in boiling water for about 45 seconds. This causes the skin to peel off. Freezing without the skin is recommended. Once the skin is off, I cut the tomatoes into chunks and squeeze most of the seeds out. I've been heir looming seeds, so they are dried and stored for next year. (Let me know if you need directions on how to store tomato seeds) The tomatoes are then put into freezer bags and put in the freezer...too easy!

Salsa - The other simple project for the tomatoes I've been doing has been making salsa. This is also very easy. Cut up 3 quarts of tomatoes and put them in a big pot with about 5 medium onions. I add a couple of chili peppers to give it a mild spice. Next add 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of vinegar, 1/4 cup of salt, and 4 tablespoons of cornstarch to thicken it. Cook all of this at a low boil for 45 minutes and then simmer for another 30-40 minutes. When they are ready, pack into pint jars and seal. Boil in a hot water bath for 30 minutes. The finished product is ready for storage. You can bypass the hot water bath, but you will need to eat the salsa within a month or so.

wishing you much peace...

How to Deal with a Changing World

Change is upon us whether we are ready or not.
This struck home with me yesterday when some official group proudly stated that the recession was over. Pardon me? I had a similar feeling when BP announced the oil volcano was capped and that 75% of the oil had been cleaned up. Yeah...sure. I don't know exactly when the practice of outright lying to the public started but it has certainly become a standard practice these days. The changes taking place on this planet are going to be difficult enough, let's at least stop denying the truth of our predicament.

Perhaps nearly 30 years training in traditional martial arts has skewed my perception somewhat, but leaders lacking in integrity, honor and a genuine respect for the planet are not leaders at all. Is it just me or is there a real feeling like the inmates are running the asylum?

Anyway, there is way too much talk of doom and gloom, and the terrible problems we are facing and not enough clear answers as to what we can do as individuals.

How to deal with the challenges of a changing world is what we need to be focused on. Once we realize that there is no benevolent government or organization out there that is looking out for our best interests, we can start to help ourselves.

1. Get your body working properly.
A healthy body is of the utmost importance in dealing with change. You need to be able to react and adapt effectively to a variety of situations. Having a body that you can rely on is very valuable. If your body is sick, unfit, hooked on medications or contaminated with chemicals and toxins it difficult to count on it when problems arise. Learning to breathe properly is the first step. Deep relaxed abdominal breathing is the key to getting more oxygen into your system and creating more energy. Moving and stretching the body assists circulation of the energy and keeps muscles toned and flexible. Stop eating fast food and other chemically processed foodstuffs these are only making things worse. A regular detox or fasting program to cleanse the body is recommended.



2. Get your mind calm and clear.
A calm and clear mind is imperative if you need to react to changing situations. A mind that is distracted and cluttered is not able to think quickly and clearly. Unplug the television (and toss it out the window!). It is a waste of time that is much better spent on strengthening your body and calming your mind. Learn to meditate. Meditation quiets the thought process so you can focus on what is truly important. Simply sitting in silence for a few minutes a day is enough to get started. Spend some time out in nature. We all need a connection to the natural world. Listen to the wind blowing through the trees. Immerse yourself in the present moment.

Getting the body healthy and the mind calm is the first step along the path of discovering who you truly are. It is not always easy, but in the long run it will serve you much better than a meat lover’s pizza and Dancing with the Stars.