Getting prepped for the Thanksgiving Holiday?

Whether you will be embracing the holiday with friends and family or alone, Here are some tips to help:

Think SMILE:  Spirit, Mind, Intention, aLignment, and Energy

Holidays can be stressful on your spirit, mind, body and community connections.

A little stress is fine, you can think of how it helps you stretch yourself and push the boundaries of your life and living habits.  But too much stress is harmful, it can lead to inflammation, anxiety, wear and tear on your spirit, attitude, and physical self.

Humans experience stress by hunkering down, pulling in, holding in tense muscles and releasing cortisol.  This is all good if you are faced with a situation that requires immediate reactive attention and action.  But it’s important to then move through that event to recovery and reset…homeostasis, return to balance.

This is a normal aspect of how your integrated physical/emotional/spiritual body works….sympathetic nervous system is the action system in your integrated self and the parasympathetic nervous system is the regenerative system of you integrated self.

Holidays give the promise of regeneration, connection, and gratitude…but often the reality is STRESS…feeling disconnected, running around to make things work, and/or intense feeling of loss or lack for those are not in the situation to be with community.  The last part of this has to do with the basic human empathic drive to connect.  This drive to connect is not just emotional it is hard-wired into your brain through mirror neurons.  Mindful meditation assists in increasing empathy and altruism as part of how your brain works.  Of course having a willingness to simply breathe, meditate and refocus is a great way to deal with stress.  But for any of you who need some tricks to get yourself there, here are some great ideas.

SMILE is a way to help yourself. Not only is the action of smiling releasing of positive chemicals in your brain it also has a relaxing effect on your muscles.  Next, after you smile remember to breathe deeply into your solar plexus…this also causes a deep sense of relaxation and triggers the positive effects of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Have on hand the following helpful Brain foods, spices, smells, and tastes….

Brain foods...Walnuts, pecans, eggs, kidney beans, white beans, ( these food have positive effects on your brain neurotransmitters and strengthen the plasticity of your brain – that’s what helps with memory and learning) ( also these foods have important amino proteins that help strengthen the cortex of your brain) Cacao (that’s right dark chocolate treats anxiety by calming our heart), coffee ( the coffee bean has positive antioxidant and health benefits for brain and heart activity – careful on the amount, stay at 2 cups a day), cauliflower, broccoli, and dark colored berries (blueberries, cherries, raspberries) as well as the amazing energizing, immune strengthening food, goji berries… and wonderful avocado, the best kind of fat necessary to really keep your blood vessels going and your brain working.

Spices…Cinnamon (calms your spirit while energizing your body…balances blood sugar, eases digestion), Licorice (licorice bark, fennel, anise) licorice calms your heart – actually slows your heart pulse, and eases digestion for those upcoming heavy meals, Clove, ( energizes and balances – it has a synergistic effect on your spirit mind and body – which results in a sense of peace, and use these Smells to further positively effect your integrated energetic system.

Tastes..Citrus has an immediate effect on mood..Lemon, and Lime help to diffuse anger; Orange and Bergamot are anti-depressant; peppermint opens the nasal passages and the lungs, oregano helps to balance the internal digestive system.  Clove, frankincense , vanilla, lavender, all, reset and balance deeper levels of dissonance, sadness, grief and loneliness, anxiety and heart injury. These work best both from a taste and scent perspective.

So using these foods as medicine helps you to set the stage for the returning to balance and get your parasympathetic nervous system to engage and shift your energy.

SMILE is a perfect acronym for this – the action reminds you to focus on the attitude of gratitude.

Try these these three things:

• Pay attention to what is working in your life, rather than what isn’t working…Rather than continuing to pile-on exterior examples of how the world is against you – consider the things that are working in your life…this action helps you focus on the WHOLE of your life and so diminishes the negative effect of your life stressors and increases the positive effect of your life’s benefits.
• Focus on what you want rather than what you fear..this is a way to reset where your power is- attend to what you have control over and put your energy into that rather than worrying about the events or possibilities that might happen or that you have no control over changing…this is a locus of control concept and resets your locus (place) of control into your internal center.  The result is empowered action and inner strength.
• Change have to Be… If you want to have something in your relationship, be that.  This is the power of modeling and increasing your internal empowerment and focus on what is working…Gandhi’s:  BE the change you wish to see in the world.

The idea of shifting your perspective to gratitude, is the intention behind the idea of Thanksgiving, when this intention is lost in the activity of making it perfect or feeling like you have nothing to be thankful for, Smile can assist you to shift your perspective.

Smile:  Spirit, Mind, Intention, aLignment, and Energy

Spirit:  reconnect to your heart’s joy through these foods, spices, smells, and tastes..

Mind:  Shift your attitude to where you actually have power, engage compassion, forgiveness, and perspective shifting.

Intention:  reset to your parasympathetic nervous system, slow down and rest what you really want to accomplish- what your goal is for the holiday — the attitude of gratitude.

aLignment:  reorder your priority to what you want not what you fear – to what is working  – what you are grateful for – to where you have power… Ie: if you burn the turkey – you are still all together – so maybe you are having a vegetarian thanksgiving…the old make lemonade out of lemons rather than stressing about approval and perfection.

Energy:  get out and move, make sure you sleep, release and let go of historical grudges – forgive, (if the action is something that disallows you from seeing the person – this is a reasonable choice -> it is the holding on that I am suggesting you release – it happened, it changed you or the other person or your relationship – accept that fact, and then release the anger, fear, and negativity so that it can be placed into your history and not create stress or disease in the now).

Smile.  It is a gift to yourself and a gift to those with whom you interact.  It is a flower that can uplevel your and other’s consciousness.  Smile gratitude, forgiveness, rejuvenate, return to balance. These are good preps to having a Happy Thanksgiving and a positive experience in the coming holidays. in love and light, bg

Check out these videos on Krqe.com in April 2014 and November 2014

You can find out more at http://www.bethgineris.com. Beth’s upcoming book, 6 steps to transcending conflict and elevating consciousness, due out in 2015 offers special techniques for releasing unresolved injuries…and the elevation of consciousness.

You may participate in seminars to learn these techniques through the bethgineris.com. Beth’s groundbreaking book Turning Me to WE: The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness(2013), has some great tools about Temperament style and your personal style of partnering, as well as the insecurity Drivers MAAPS. Discover how your worldview works to your benefit or detriment, and whether you have an attachment that is creating problems in your relationships. MAAPS will help you to discern your insecurities and understand how and what underlies how you developed your insecurity driver (Money, Achievement, Attachment, Power, Structure).

You can find ways to simply connect to yourself in a loving forgiving way through theTurning No to ON: The Art of Parenting with Mindfulness Book (2011). If you want to change your life, see how you can bring mindfulness to your parenting and relationships.

 

One being at a time you can elevate the way in which you treat one another and elevate the consciousness on the planet so that equality, balance, and freedom BEcome the norm for all. in love and light, bg