overcoming poor self esteem | InstinctiveHealthParenting4U

June 28, 2016
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Resilience is the key to strength

Mental toughness is more of an inner flexibility than an external rigidity. It is adaptability with push through.

I just finished my first half Ironman. It was an extraordinary experience. Running across the finish line took grace and grit. I think my experience there is a metaphor for life. Each event has its own challenges and rewards. Life is no different: Work, play, relationship, friendship, education/training, personal growth, parenting…these are all events in the landscape of life. The common factors of success in these utilize the tools of mental toughness.

When I’m working with a coaching client I focus on resilience, the ability to bounce back to push through undeclared, unexpected circumstances; ones capacity for adaptability creates the highest level of happiness and success in life. Adaptability can cause troubles when there’s a lack of inner stability or core strength then the flexibility results in being pushed over.

This link applies mental fitness to triathlon:

https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Triathlon/News/Blogs/Multisport-Lab/2016/June/07/Mental-Toughness

Here are the ten tips: the italicized information offers key ideas for developing resilience, adaptability, and mental toughness in life…mindfulness.

1. Approach new situations with a flexible mind and recognition of your own preconceptions. You know you don’t know everything, so you can’t really be surprised. Paradigms are key here. It’s not only what you think you know, it’s also what you have locked perceptions about. Allowing yourself to have a foundation that is flexible open and responsive to change makes all the difference.

2. Roll with the unexpected. If you’re giving a presentation and the lights go out, you move the party to the local restaurant and continue onward. Stuff happens; everyone knows it. But how you react to it is what counts. If you’re racing a triathlon and get a flat tire, you don’t throw a fit and break your bike in half. You change it — even if it takes you 30 minutes. Don’t give up. Perseverance, ease of transition, responsiveness… I call this respons- a- bility. The ability to calmly and quickly assess, decide and act (respond) is the key.

3. Remain centered and focused. Other competitive types may try to throw you off with gamesmanship. It’s part of the competitive world, and you may do it too, consciously or not. Don’t let a competitor bait you into unwise moves ruled by emotion. As far as mental toughness within competition goes, you need to know your strengths and play to them, not to someone else’s tune. Stay on task with your goal whenever anything or anyone tries to interfere. Run your own race. This applies to competition, and applies to life at every level. Your skills are best exhibited in your own pacing, timing, and paradigm.

4. Defeat isn’t the end for you. You have lost before. You’ll lose again. Your ability to absorb these and move onwards with your race, career and life is what counts. Michael Jordan has a quote about missing 9,000 free throws or something like that. You get the point. Efficient learning happens after mistakes are made and corrected. Find your way through the labyrinth to the center. Leave that there and move to the next event with a fresh face and clear mind. This will keep you centered, mindful, and give you the best chance at success.

5. Believe in yourself. Recognize your talents with a realistic assessment of your skills. Really knowing that you’re good at something is empowering and will generally help you become even better as you believe in your ability and that skill. No one is good at everything, but we’re all great at something. Recognize this. Confidence creates strength and courage; draws success to you. Insecurity creates loss and deflation; pushes success away. The key is to know yourself; having a healthy recognition of your assets and limitations.

6. Deal with the discomfort. Almost everyone is in pain the last few miles of a marathon or gets tired at some point in an IRONMAN. The front of the pack often separates not on their physical ability but their mental ability to deal with temporary physical states (like pain or fatigue). With a strong mind you can overcome. Mental toughness is knowing when the pain is something that requires immediate attention and when it is not. This is what allows for push through and breakthrough in strength training and physical fitness. Your mind can interfere with your physical fitness by stoping too early or going to long and creating injury. This is paramount in relationship and emotional development.

7. Channel your inner Wolverine. He’s angry, he’s got claws and he heals very, very quickly. Sometimes you have just got to break out a little Wolvie. I like to encourage your inner goddess or your inner warrior. Focus, focus, focus. Know your skills and use them to meet your goals.

8. Crap rolls downhill. It also rolls over you. Anyone in the business world knows that one. As an athlete, you will also experience your share of crap. Crappy workouts. Crappy days. Crappy equipment. Crappy training partners. Crappy races. My goodness, the world is full of crap. But you’re Teflon, baby. Let it roll on down. Move on to that hill over yonder. Shake it off, shake it off.. reset.

9. When things go wrong, keep moving on. “Don’t give up” is a powerful and simple statement. What other options do you have? Is there another way? Is there any way? What do you have to do to make things go your way? Find it. Do it. This is the mental toughness that carries people through situations where weaker minds crumble. Commitment, perseverance…accept the situation respond to it with grace and grit, and a little bit of anger and a little bit of joy..that mixture gives you the strength and the mindfulness to persevere.

10. Things aren’t always your fault. Mentally tough people also tend to be drivers and doers with a predisposition to strong internal locus of control. That’s a funny way of saying that it’s easy to start to think you can make things happen by just doing your best. Some things are just out of your control, and there is nothing you can do to change that. Sometimes there is a competitor out there with a better idea, a higher V02 max or slightly better taper coming into his A-race. See the two rules above and move on. Channel your inner goddess, your inner warrior, your inner magician…recognize with focus you can bend time, break barriers go where no one has gone before…I can do it. The best mantra to get you to the finish line.

Mindfulness is a type of mental fitness. Thinks that will completely stop you are misbeliefs. This bog can help :

https://instinctivehealthmedicine.com/2016/05/17/healing-core-misbeliefs/

Keep developing your mindfulness and you will finish and possible win whatever race you enter in life. in love and light, bg

Beth’s upcoming book, 6 steps to transcending conflict and elevating consciousness, due out in 2016 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.

Discover your path, set an intention for what you want to create in your life: It’s difficult to get where you’re going without a map.

May 17, 2016
by instinctivehealthparenting4u 2 Comments

Healing core misbeliefs

I went to a conference recently that focused on healing core beliefs. The idea behind the conference is

“What you believe you perceive, and what you perceive you experience”

Each of us fashions our life on misbeliefs.

Beliefs we developed in response to injuries, loss, and difficult situations.

The mind puts together an equation that reads: if this then that… if there is a contest then I will not win..the belief being I never win anything. Or I never get picked first. Or even deeper I am not Worthy or Loved.

When you build your life on a core misbelief such as I am not worthy or I am not lovable. Your experiences lead you to this conclusion.

Let’s check out how one might create a structure that teaches her that message over and over again.

With a core belief I am not worthy: You might choose lovers or partners that either don’t have the communication skills to share with you your worth; You would experience always feeling taken for granted or unimportant.
Or you might choose people who are so self-focused they can’t see you (such as a neurotic or narcissistic personality); You would experience that nothing you ever did was good enough so that you mattered.
Or you might choose people who need you to take care of them and they can’t focus their energy on you…in that instance you would have to give and give without experiencing receiving love.
You might choose overwhelming tasks that you could not accomplish. Or you might accomplish many things and still feel empty after completing them

The tendency is to think the problem is with the other person.

Catch yourself, notice if there is a pattern. Is it in all your partners, close friends, lovers? If it is, it may be more about you and your core belief.

This isn’t to say that the other person might not have the issue you think he does.

It’s just that if you want to change you experiences you have to change your core beliefs.

It’s harder to do than you think. It takes real courage to see how you are holding yourself back from having the love or life you want.

Usually these core beliefs are set up from a standpoint of necessity. They are a result of injury, trauma, something that has gone wrong in your original psychosocial development. They may have been true about that one event, but not generalizable to all of life. Once in place they are like shorthand, if this then that. I have to give and give, no one will ever love me just for myself…how do I know because that’s how (fill in the blank important caregiver) treated me. And, it’s not that person’s fault either.

It’s a belief.

It isn’t solid or real. It drives the mind, but it doesn’t have to drive the heart.

Go into your heart feel your beauty, your lovableness, your worth. Love yourself first then you will experience the love from those around you …and no that isn’t narcissism, that’s the flow of life.

It comes from within first. Then it touches on everything else. in love and light, bg

Discover your path, set an intention for what you want to create in your life: It’s difficult to get where you’re going without a map.

October 15, 2015
by instinctivehealthparenting4u Leave a comment

What if…part 2. Working through loss.

There was such a positive and powerful response to the first section of chapter one, I thought I would offer the second section to the chapter…please let me know your sense about it… in love and light, bg

I notice the Dean’s lips are moving, but I can’t quite make out what she is saying.
Oh good. Finally she is talking.

Involuntarily, I shivered. She was sitting right next to me, but I couldn’t really understand what she was saying; the words were coming in like an out of tune radio station, they just didn’t make any sense. And then I heard her, sharp and clear…
“Robbie is dead.” “His car went off the road Saturday morning. The police think he was killed instantly.”
The thoughts inside my head blew about me …
No!
No, he isn’t dead; he can’t be dead. I have to tell him…
I have to see him.
I have to tell him how sorry I am.
I have to tell him I’m ready to marry him.
His face flashed across my inner vision. The feelings from our last meeting crashed in my heart.

Flash. Crash!

No! I have to set this right.
I heard my words reverberate back to me. “No! No, he isn’t dead.” “No you mean he’s in the hospital. He’s just hurt; he’ll be okay,” as if I was giving her the corrected line. I couldn’t accept what she was saying.
My urgency must have been unbearable for her. Her eyes blinked with tears. Gently, her head shook no.
She reached across the space on the couch to comfort me, patting my leg rhythmically. I felt faint. The room began to spin. I fell into her chest as she continued to now rhythmically pat my shoulder. She supported me as I broke down.
Her voice unwavering, “No Beth, he is not in the hospital. He’s gone.”
He was gone?
He left me without knowing that I had changed my mind?

Our last interaction, me being such a jerk, was now unforgivable.
It hit me like a one, two punch to my stomach. He was gone, my beautiful future stolen from me. My uncaring and inflated behavior was our last interaction. It stood like a headstone marker on his grave.
Her words and my memories pierced through my consciousness like a knife through my heart. The pain was debilitating. I couldn’t breathe.
I felt at the edge of nothingness, completely powerless. I sat there deflated, like a pierced party balloon. I don’t know how long I remained in this state. When I looked up, the sun was no longer shining and the trees outside mirrored my inner storm.

I finally composed myself enough to walk out of her office.
Her secretary smiled at me weakly as I passed down the hall.
It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other; I could barely walk. I found myself at my dorm room. Thankfully, my suitemate returned to her previous muteness.

That was the only thing that returned to normal. Everything and everyone else was different. Night came and left. Day came and turned to night. Life continued around me but I was not a part of it. I felt robotic, disconnected, remote and out of sync with the whole of life around me. I couldn’t tolerate the birds singing or my friends laughing, wherever joy presented itself I turned away. Happiness grated on me like nails on a chalkboard.
I recoiled from life. Spiritless on the inside, I couldn’t even find the energy to fake it on the outside.

The image of her sweater with black marked stains stuck with me for a long time.

I numbly completed my last semester of college, in a fog, unable to concentrate on anything. Everything changed. I couldn’t bear to listen to music, people laughing, or see my friends. And it seemed they avoided me too. I was flat and lifeless; there wasn’t much there for connection.

Entire days went by without me seeing anyone.
I felt desolate, angry with myself, angry with Robbie, lonely and lost.

In the days that passed, I discovered how in his last moments of his precious life Robbie reoriented the direction of the car to save his passenger’s life. A stranger to our community, this sweet young man began to wish he had died instead of Robbie. To his face I said “no, no…don’t think that.” But in my heart I screamed, yes, yes, why do you get to live; why not Robbie. I hated myself for thinking and feeling that way. I couldn’t stop my heart pain. Life was so difficult and challenging. I was walking though water without a regulator, drowning with every breath.
That heroism was so consistently Rob’s character; he was always there at the right time, loyal and dependable when it really mattered.
Why didn’t he save himself? I was coming back for him.

Inconsolable, time passed in starts and spurts, and then it seemed to trickle by. So much of my energy went to managing my grief that little was left to relate to friends or complete my studies.

“Beth, I’m giving you this A grade because of your work here-to-for, not for the work in this paper.” The words written in red ink across the front of my final paper stung, but I was grateful for the understanding of my dearest sociology professor.
“This is sub-par work Beth, but I know this has been a difficult time so I’m giving you an A in the class anyway.” Another painful note in red from my psychology professor, I vacillated between painful prickling and numbness. I was grateful for their understanding. There was nothing inside to pull on for my studies; I was bereft of passion. There was just enough life in me to robotically go through the motions.

For the next six weeks, my senses were in a state of paresthesia; over and over my professors forgave my distracted, poor work.

Working at 20 percent, I limped into graduation.
Two months after Robbie’s death I graduated, said goodbye to my friends and school, and shut the door to my previous life.

Spiritless, I walked into my barren future. I was the skin you see from a cicada, perfectly formed with no life inside.
I filled the space with work.
Astonishingly, my logical, solution-focused father was the dearest comfort to me during that time.
Notes arrived. They slowly filled the empty space in my apartment and heart.
“Hi honey, thinking of you! Dad” staring at me as I brushed my teeth.
“Remember to get out and see friends. Dad” taped to my steering wheel. I taped them to my mirror, and used them as bookmarks. They marked my path back to life.
He had an unerring capacity to simply be present with me in my grief.
“Here’s a picture of Robbie from when he was at the house. Love, Dad” That picture became my velveteen rabbit.

One day on the phone he told me that Robbie (unbeknownst to me) arrived in my hometown earlier in the year that Robbie had died; he asked my father’s blessing to marry me.
The pictures of them together at my house simultaneously felt stabbing and comforting.
He knew I would come around. He knew I loved him.
He had to have known to fly from New York City to Albuquerque, just to see my Dad.

I kept seeing his face at that last meeting, and feeling how out of sync my actions were. It was shocking and triggered intense discomfort. Steadily though, my unconscious kept driving me toward forgiveness. Like a river pushes and pulls fragments down the current, my thoughts drove me toward forgiveness of him, forgiveness of me, forgiveness of God.

My Dad and I shared this deep love for Robbie.
“He was a good man honey. He loved you so much. I’m glad I got to know him. Keep working it will help you stay strong. You can come home any time you want to honey. Love, Dad.”
He loved you so much, stay strong, those words reverberated in my mind. It was one of the best notes I received from my Dad. I kept it in my favorite journal.

I worked by day as a law firm runner in LA and by evening as a residential counselor with developmentally delayed adolescents, teaching them independent-living skills.
I loved running by moonlight through downtown LA.
I savored my time alone. I don’t know if it was punishment or protective but it was healing. It gave me time to think, forgive, and distance myself from the intensity of what had happened. Although I did most things alone, I shared my apartment with my best friend from college. She was mostly gone working on political campaigns. I was mostly gone working. It was a perfect arrangement for healing.

I loved her so much because I didn’t have to explain what was going on with me. She knew. She loved me anyway. Other than Trish, I can’t remember making any friends.
My memories of that time are like snippets of fabric sewn together with travel along the Southern California freeways.
After fourteen months my senses came back.
Trish had to move to another state to follow an important campaign. I decided to move back to Albuquerque.
It seemed that light began to come back into my daily life.
I heard the birds singing and it didn’t make me want to yell stop. Music was inviting. I danced.
Somewhere, I found the space within me to have faith again in the fabric of Life.

Robbie’s death became a defining experience in my life. The importance of love, honesty, forgiveness, and acting in congruence with my true character became the boundaries required for health and freedom in relationship.
Ultimately, I felt my deliverance from my inner prison. Salvation lit me slowly with the realization that he knew I loved him. He saw through everything from beginning to end. I was the last to see the truth and it was too late to enjoy the love waiting for me.

I forgave myself for being immature and unthinking.
I developed an urgent need to be authentic in all my communications, a left over compulsion from that fateful night. It made me a bit intense and probably too serious.

Overtime, I befriended the ebb and flow of life and death.
I came to accept that there was a tapestry of life that I could tap into and flow with but that I had to remain sincere and accept the consequences of my actions.
If I had married Robbie, I may not have become the person I am today, leaving a hole in the fabric of the lives of those whom I have offered healing counsel. That’s how I think about it now. I walk in a state of grace, with a sense of gratefulness for the gifts I developed out of my devastating loss; grateful to have positively affected so many through that loss.

And it was from that knowing I spent my last weeks with my father as he got chemotherapy for end stage pancreatic cancer.

And so here is the first chapter of the book…Working through loss offers deep awareness of the tapestry of life…, how have your traumas elevated your consciousness? Send me a comment or write one in the space below…in love and light, bg

August 3, 2015
by instinctivehealthparenting4u Leave a comment

Empower your child through modeling authenticity, strength, and security.

Practicing mindful meditation on a daily basis changes the interchange between your inner tripartite mind.

Your tripartite mind was identified by Freud where he observed that decisions were made through an inner interaction between your inner id: primitive wants and desires, your inner rule holder, your superego and your inner mediator, your ego who looks for ways to make both the id and the superego happy. Too much emphasis on the id ruling your decision-making and you end up being a person who is self-centered, not very good at negotiating with your peers and in general a taker in society. Too much emphasis on the superego ruling your decision-making and you end up being a bit bossy, rigid, and not very good at navigating in relationship. While the balance is found in emphasizing the ego’s role of balancing inner needs and society’s rules. Mindfulness is a fantastic way to empower the balancing aspect of your tripartite mind, the ego. ( In general, those who are encouraging mindful meditation reference the selfish and rigid aspects of the mind, (id and superego) by calling them the ego – so it can be confusing.)

Mindful meditation It increases your ability to respond in real-time and allow your instinctive sensory connected cues to guide you rather than your habit reaction patterns reactivity. This allows you to increase your internal sense of empowerment, inner sense of strength and your inner security.

This is a powerful lesson in parenting. To teach your child to develop his or her authentic sense of self you free up an inordinate amount of defensive energy so that he or she can simply allow the flow of life to create and innovate and be happy. But it has to start through your action. What you model is the first lesson taught to your child about health and inner strength, security.

When you model mindful action and respond to tragedy and difficulty with joy, patience, mindfulness, and a sense of inner security, you offer a specific model to help your child develop his or her own sense of inner strength and security.

Forgiveness, mindfulness, and focus on what matters are important keys to this process.

Here is an example of this process of modeling in action. This happened as a result of my authentic modeling of powerful inner security and acting in a way that moves a situation forward.

Several years ago, when my daughter was five years old, I was writing an important lecture for my continuing education class at a community college. I was close to completing the project. I had a time-crunch and was working quickly, at my kitchen table while my daughter was drawing next to me. I thought I was saving the project. I had just completed some important slides wherein I had created some complicated graphs about the power of mindful meditation and it’s effects on the brain. So I had added statistics, information and graphics of the brain. I was completing slide 65. When I went back to send it to my colleague at the university I only had 30 slides. 35 slides had been lost. This was a disaster, as the information was due in two hours so that it could be printed for the participants. I had lost two days of work. When I realized my situation, I had a shortness of breath. I looked on my desktop and in other areas to see if the slides were available on the computer elsewhere. I was unsuccessful in finding them anywhere. So I emailed my colleague to let her know the situation and sent the slides I still had saved. My daughter observed my behavior and my demeanor. What she heard me say was, I don’t want to waste my time getting upset, as it wouldn’t help me with my problem. I sat back down and restarted writing the slides. I was able to finish the project in 90 minutes, because I focused on the process with faith and inner security that I could do it. It was logical as I was only redoing what I had already done, so it was not going to take the same amount of time as it did when I was creating the original slides. Maintaining a sense of mindfulness and letting go of my negative emotional response I had more energy to get it done. The slides went to the printer in plenty of time and the conference was a hit.

But here’s the important part of this story.

Two days later my daughter was working on her computer to draw a picture for her friend for her birthday. She worked on it for an hour. She was bringing it to her friend’s house for her birthday that day. Just as we were getting organized to leave she went to print the picture and there was nothing to print. She had forgotten to save the final product. My five-year old daughter looked at the blank page and rather than crying or throwing a tantrum or making a big deal she said, I don’t want to waste my time on getting angry, I’m just going to go back to the computer and redo it, just like mommy did with her seminar. She returned to the computer and did another picture, she didn’t have as much time, but she was happy with her gift.

A sense of Power is derived from inner security, and inner strength. It requires confidence and clarity. When you feel insecure, or confused you feel powerless.

Pay attention to your feelings to assist you in releasing that which no longer serves you.
You may need to forgive before you can let go.

Anger is an important part of survival. It links with fear and energy to survive.

The limbic system is the part of the brain that reacts to the physical world reflexively and instantaneously, in real-time, and without thought. This is based on previous experience and a number of pathways set up through habit reaction patterning. This causes individuals to automatically act in specific ways that over time are against their best interest. Freud called this repetition compulsion.

Freud identified that humans had a compulsion to repeat specific negative experiences in an effort to change the outcome.

Buddhist thought identifies that mindfulness allows a person to delay that compulsion to react and offers an opportunity to respond to the specific instance in play. When one does mindful meditation consistently the meditator increases his or her ability to mindfully respond.

There are studies that show that mindful meditation changes the shape and lighting up of the amygdala and hippocampus such that there is an increase in the attitude of altruism. This increases the chance for collaborative, mutually positive mindful response to situations and reduces that automatic firing of reactivity that causes defensive reactions. The Amygdala integrates emotional meaning with perception and experience. The hippocampus integrates short-term memory storage and retrieval. All of these physical activities within your brain are shifted to the positive through mindful meditation. This allows for a shift from reactivity to proactivity.

When you model the practice of mindful action, meditation, thoughtful compassionate action you are changing the world around you through your positive effect on those closest to you. Your children will reap the benefits of this behavior and you will promote the development of inner power, security, authentic action and social change on a core level.

This social change will be away from propaganda and an external locus of control through popularity and following the outside push of reactivity to an internal locus of control, a sense of empowerment, security, inner strength, resilience and overall spirit-mind-body health.

Children learn through modeling.

As they grow and develop, they say what they heard and do what they saw in childhood.

Sometimes that means they develop the same inconsistent words and actions they observed in they youth.

Make your best efforts to be congruent, or to discuss the conflicting beliefs you hold. Help them understand the multi-layer aspects of decision-making so that they can find their own personal, congruent beliefs.

Practice compassionate understanding and compassionate discipline, lovingkindness, forgiveness, courage, inner strength, and bravery. Modeling these shows them a way to stand up to the propaganda and simple answers they are bombarded with through marketing, and divisive political activities so they can create authentic multilevel personal solutions to the difficult problems in their communities.

Parenting is more than providing the physical support needed for children to grow. It is important to offer protection and support to develop their spirit and mind as well. A healthy spirit in a child will lead to mindful action and physical health. A healthy spirit is one where children have flexibility, resilience, inner strength, courage, bravery, compassionate understanding, inner drive, and a sense of connection to the fabric of life. in love and light, bg

Being in the environment, modeling care of plants, animals, forests, oceans, and that the earth and its inhabitants are all connected as one is the most powerful way to bring us all together as one community and create a sense of unity.

Gather support from the natural environment.

Meditate, create art, work in the garden, exercise, walk through nature, in reconnecting with the tapestry of life you can see the support there as you offer shift in consciousness to your human community.

Shed your skin, Trust your heart-centered, inner guidance IV system. Live your life fully and allow your full, big self to be present in the tapestry of life. You may experience a new Alignment within you, around you and between you and source. in love and light, bg

Find out more in my new book,Instinctive Health Medicine, Finding Your Path to Grace, due out in July 2016.

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.

Aligning with your true path, your true self in your multidimensional self allows for healing.

November 19, 2014
by instinctivehealthparenting4u 2 Comments

Smile

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

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

October 4, 2014
by instinctivehealthparenting4u Leave a comment

gratitude as a form of cleansing

gratitude can be used as a form of cleansing

When you want to feel a shift in your relationship I suggest you shift your perspective. Rather then focusing on what isn’t working, focus on what is truly positive about the relationship.

When you are upset with your partner and you feel hurt or angry, your mind starts to produce examples of what a horrible person your partner has been. Pretty soon you are feeling like you are in a truly terrible relationship.

To create the space to have a better more mutually satisfying relationship you can try these few steps.

You do not have to ignore the negative thing that happened but you can shift your attention to the whole.
place your concern or displeasure aside and focus on the whole of the relationship
look at what is working,observe the ways your partner is there for you
Pay attention to what creates the negativity and see if you can shift your energy, positively.
Often the result is that you can feel happier, more secure, and then go to your partner and kindly, compassionately discuss the event and really find some solutions.

Energy flows through attention and intention.

Mindfulness can assist you in shifting the flow of energy from negative to positive.

It’s like a feedback loop of energy, if you feel bad and you focus on negativity, you actually feel worse rather than better.

One of the fastest ways to see what is working in your life and really uplevel your personal consciousness is to identify things for which you feel grateful.

This attitude of gratitude shifts your inner sense of security, from insecurity to secure. It allows you to make choices from a centered, holistic place. It aligns your sense of empowerment, courage, strength, and spiritual openness.

It actually creates the space for you to shift negative situations into positive ones because you will feel more empowered and you can actually see the problem within the context of the greater whole.

You operate more easily, honestly and more in your best interests from a secure, happy, compassionate place.

Any time you are faced with a difficult situation,

take an inner review of how you feel in the now, without going into the drama or trauma you are experiencing…
Consider how you feel toward yourself, your life, your relationships..From 1-10, 1 being joyful and secure and 10 being fearful, depressed, or in despair.
Okay, now write down where you are on that scale and put an emotionally descriptive word by it.

Great.

Now, write down 5 things for which you are grateful.
These can be five things about that person with whom you may be experiencing a sense of displeasure,
OR just five things,
include people or personal qualities that buoy your sense of peace and strength.

Once you have written down your 5 things do a review of how you feel.

Did it change? For most people it does change in a positive way. If you feel better but not completely in your center write down five more. Do this until you feel yourself shift into center. this feeling will feel balanced. Solid internally and yet flexible without. Usually it will take twenty points of gratitude to get you to your centered space, compassionate and whole.

It isn’t that the things that may not be working in your life start working, it’s that you have refocused your energy on the positive so that you can feel strengthened to change the things you can and accept the things you cannot change. It is a mindfulness reset.

This is a great exercise to employ any time you start to feel down and just can’t get out of the rut of negativity.

You can practice this daily, even when you aren’t feeling down but just as a prevention tool to keep you centered.

Practice this daily. Simply identifying what you are grateful for in your life, in your relationships, in your work, and the environment around you. You are developing your mindfulness muscle; you are developing your capacity to see from an integrated and centered perspective. This practice increases your capacity for empathy and forgiveness.

Also, as a habit don’t focus on what isn’t working first. Identify everything that is working in each of your relationships and then you can place the problem within the context of gratitude. It will help you to be solution focused. You will have greater compassion for those with whom you feel conflict and be able to own your own part of any negative situation.

And for those of you who may feel that this practice might make you accept situations that are not good for you, let me assuage your concerns. This practice allows you to actually get out of truly negative situations as well as increase the positivity of those situations that are mutually empowering and good for you. It is a practice in clarity and wholeness.

Note: If you sit down to attempt this practice and you just can’t feel positive about yourself, or your partner, or your situation.. try reseting through toning (sound), and smells. Energy has a lightly substantial quality to it – so if you just had a fight or just had the same fight for the hundredth time you may need to clear the air.

You can do this with sound, ring a bell, or chime a toning bowl to clear your physical environment. Or simply tone with your voice the vowel sounds, eh, ee, ah, O, oo, several times over with increasing breath. This will center you. sound healing shifts the vibration, elevates consciousness May 6, 2014

For a shift through smell you may use essential oil sprays of any citrus for anger and depression. Or rose geranium for apathy or despair. Or clove, lavender, or pine to create a sense of serenity and forgiveness.

Salt has the capacity to suck up negative energy, so you may throw a little salt on the ground to help get the space to neutral. And if you feel that the negative energy is still on you, try washing your hands with a little grapefruit wash or a dab of baking soda.

Once you feel that sense of calm, resume the practice of focusing on what is working in your relationship first, before you put your attention to solving the problem.

Cleansing is the most important habit for health. It helps to keep your homes, environment, bodies, thoughts, and spirit free of toxins. It helps to unclog stagnation and release the garbage that holds you back from living happy, mutually satisfying constantly elevating lives. You can think of the attitude of gratitude as a way to recycle your habitual thinking into new thinking that derives from that centered space within you to give life to your relationships, your evolving self and your environment. in love and light, bg

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 2014 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 where you are in the Temperament and the MAAPS section. You can see how you see the world, 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

August 26, 2014
by instinctivehealthparenting4u Leave a comment

Sometimes, it’s all you can do to stay in the light

Sometimes, it’s all you can do to stay in the light.

There are a lot of challenges to staying positive and feeling grateful.

Unexpected shortfalls,
friends leaving or hurting you (even unintentionally),
delays, (mercury in retrograde),
accidents of all kinds…these things can pull you down, and leave you feeling dark, moody, alone, or even fearful.

The best way to deal with this is to make a choice to focus on the positive.

Focus, is attention and intention.

Put your attention on that thing bringing you down and see if you can shift your perspective;

do a cognitive inversion, a reframe.

Align your intention to your highest good, SEE HOW the universe is working for you… Looking for How this may be true is the fastest way to shift out of darkness to light.

Your empowerment is not in stopping bad things from happening to you…even the most cautious person must deal with unexpected turns in the road….

Empowerment requires a sense of inner security and an understanding of boundaries.

Your empowerment is HOW you RESPOND to what happens to you. Remember to have your authentic self be your guide. Release the need to give other’s power over your inner well-being.

It is though this process of response that you can find your way to joy, again and again.

Life will have ups and downs…but if you are willing to shift your perspective ever to how whatever is going on is IN your BEST interests, that you are on your path to enlightenment…then, it will feel as if you ALWATS have a tailwind, and never a headwind in the journey of life…well except when a headwind is beneficial then you can embrace it.

And remember to find the joy, laughter, and play in all that you encounter..then you will experience ongoing healing and light.in love and light, bg

June 22, 2013
by instinctivehealthparenting4u 2 Comments

Life Lessons in Relationships, Energy, and Color

Hello and Welcome

A lovely concept of how to shift negative emotions and actions is to focus on each chakra center and apply a system of inversion to the negative feeling housed there.

Begin by recognizing how you may be caught in a negative emotion or action that limits your access to balance, stunts your health, or interferes with your prosperity.

Each energy center –>chakra, corresponds to a negative energy state and the capacity for a positive blossoming energy shift.

Here is a list of how these energies resonate
from negativity, imbalance/ to balanced, positive empowerment
–> beginning with the first chakra, red: fear/action;
second chakra, orange: isolation/integration;
third chakra, yellow: low self-worth/non-judgment;
fourth chakra, green: hopelessness/unconditional love;
fifth chakra, blue: negative speech (toward yourself [negative self-talk] or others)/positive speech, affirmations, and compassionate understanding;
sixth chakra, indigo: depression/creativity;
and the seventh chakra, violet: anger/acceptance.

To shift your perspective first discover which energy center appears to be out of balance then apply the positive empowering action to shift the negativity and create balance in that center. Your first internal response will be a release, a lessening, a flexibility, and a sense of peace. You will experience a deeper sense of strength and flexibility and an outer sense of lightness and peace.

You can also use the colors to help you resonate with the chakra energy centers. Using meditation and breathwork breathe into the space in your body that is being stagnated or blocked with the corresponding color to help cleanse out the negativity and re-energize the center.

The spaces that correspond with the chakras begin at the base of your spine, then the area just two inches below your belly button, the third is your solar plexus, just under your ribs at the center of your body, the fourth energy center is on your breastbone between your breasts, the fifth is your throat, the sixth your third eye which is the space between your eyebrows and the seventh is at the top of your head in the center – your crown chakra.

Your first picture of yourself is from your interactions in your family, peers, and lovers. This idea of reflection being the way in which you see your self is a longstanding tenant in sociology and psychology.

The concept of a mirror reflecting to you your personality and self picture is the earliest style of seeing your true nature.

A deeper style of connecting with self is to have a knowing from within that is separate from the concept of reflection in relationship. This is related to your personal sensory guidance system.

Over my lifetime I have had the distinct honor of learning about chakra imbalance and balancing through my relationships.

When struggling with postpartum depression I learned the valuable lesson of taking action in response to fear…sometimes going toward the source of my fear, actually stepping into that which I was fearing to see through the mindset of fear, into the strength of empowered, responsive action.
In my lonely, isolated childhood I learned the power of integration which required dealing with my low-self-worth and the importance of pulling on my non-judgmental posture and a reframing of hopelessness to unconditional love. These lessons have powered the long positive train of amazing, productive and fulfilling relationships in my life.
To shift into mindfulness I endeavored to continually shift my negative speech to positive speech reframing, inverting, and freeing every negative thought like butterflies and wildflowers; from this stance in the world compassion, inner truth and outer prosperity are my constant companions and experiences.
In my loneliest times, when I felt deeply bereft I turned to creativity, painting, sculpting, gardening, and writing to allow my grief to spill out and be replaced with strength, renewal, and joy.
And finally, that unpleasant and undignified friend anger – through my acceptance I experienced the power of my true self –> the reality of what was became the ground upon which I built a bigger, better, more beautiful Tao.

Discover your inner radiance and rainbow of energy. Heal yourself through breath, color, and relationship by shifting negativity to prosperity through these active shifts in being and responding in your relationships and within yourself. Namaste, in love and light, bg.

June 6, 2013
by instinctivehealthparenting4u Leave a comment

mindfulness and parenting revisited

Hello and Welcome

Negotiating the treacherous waters of parenting can be anxiety provoking and discouraging.

This results from both internal insecurity and external unpredictability.

Three steps will keep you in the flow and having fun as you reclaim the role of mama/papa/leader.

Step 1. Strengthen your connection to your personal sensory guidance system. This is the connection to the information freeway from your five senses and your intuition. This is information about your environment, your child, and others that assists you in making thoughtful decisions. Step 2. Trust your knowing of your child. Listen to him or her – listen with your ears, your heart, and your sensory guidance system. Step 3. Guide with strength and lovingkindness. Be self-confident and go with the flow. Be patient, kind, and firm. Say I am sorry, and make efforts to shift your responses to best meet you child’s needs. Model respect and trust by being respectful and trustworthy. In all your disciplinary responses focus on learning and loving; be loving and sensitive to the multi-level issues involved, respond quickly and clearly, and use the opportunity to teach joy and strength in being a responsible person; an individual connected to a community.

To help you embrace the three steps, understanding the nature of the parenting is key.

Parenting is modeled.
This means that you learn how to parent from your interpretation of your own parenting. This concept of learning social interactions through your group associations is a function of how the human brain develops over the first 24 years of life; and a part of what happens whenever you enter a new social group, environment.
What you see done is what you incorporate into doing to others and to yourself; as you age the internalized reflection of yourself becomes solidified. Once you are into middle age the malleability of your reflection, your internalized sel-persona/picture requires a release of the accepted self and a reevaluation of ‘who you are’… due to the solidified nature of your introjected self, often this requires a traumatic event to shift your internal accepted picture of self.
There is a strong desire to be accepted and approved of by your significant others (beginning with moms and dads, and then moving on to peers).
You know who you are and how you should be treated, what you perceive as your role in relationship, from what is reflected to you by your parents, your primary caregivers, and your first social groups –> your siblings and cousins, and then your peers, friends.
So, if there is dysfunction or trauma or damage in those early relationships you have deficits in your ability to navigate the waters of parenting your children.

Cognitive/behavioral therapy, meditation, yoga, and mindfulness development uplevel your consciousness so that you can shift and rebalance your inner self perception and your outer actions.

Trust, be trustworthy, act with strength and kindness, be forgiving and persevering.

As you guide, be willing to incorporate new information about your child or your beliefs and make adjustments to your course to align your actions, beliefs/values, and your parenting.

Parenting is a dynamic, organic (as in living and responsive to environmental changes) process.

Be confident, proactive, reflective, flexible, and trustworthy in your actions and intentions.
Be willing to adjust your response and be flexible as you see the need to do so and be firm when you perceive this is important.
Respond with seriousness to serious problems, and playfulness with problems which are not serious; stay responsive and discern the difference. in love and light, bg

May 23, 2013
by instinctivehealthparenting4u 2 Comments

Anti-oxidant living: Choose a path that brings you joy, in every interaction

Hello and Welcome.

Anger, fear, discouragement, and insecurity have oxidative properties to your spirit, mind and body. When you choose a path that brings you strength, empowerment, joy, and confidence you are creating anti-oxidant properties that regenerate your cells, your thinking power, and your spiritual health.

This is a natural outcome of mindfulness and mindful meditation, focused breathwork, and heart or breath-led yoga practice.

I have a neighbor who cannot let go of any perceived injury. She plots and plans to get back at any individual who in her mind has ‘injured’ her. These perceived injuries feel very painful to her. Her face carries the look of a person who has been in battle for many years; deep furrows between her brows as if in a perpetual frown, loose skin that has deep furrows around her mouth make her look as if she is angry when she is at rest. Strangely, or perhaps understandably because she is always looking for injury, she has difficulty with any service professional who comes into her home… either she feels they are cheating her or they overcharge her or they do not correctly complete every job assigned. This spills off onto the constant negative, fearful energy of her constantly, fearfully barking tiny dog who seems to be in a constant panic attack. This woman actually has a great deal of prosperity in her life which she appears to not receive any comfort from. She owns her home and another rental (of course her tenants are always taking advantage of her from her perspective), has a good job and a nice retirement pension coming her way…. yet she is not happy – she is rich in things but poor in her sense of wealth and her style of relating in the world.

This is an example of how the oxidative energy of vengefulness, anger, and dissatisfaction are wearing away at her wellbeing. She cannot experience the comfort she actually has, and her face and body show the signs of advanced aging so that she looks older than her years. Even when she chooses to smile the anger and dissatisfaction comes through.

This kind of energy so close to my own home can be destabilizing. It can spill off onto my space and my interactions. The first step in dealing with such a being is to remember that defensiveness ties you into the negative path, so use the verbal aikido methods of deflection of the tone and negative behavior, deflation of the negative energy, and then definition of how you desire to act regardless of her actions. This is choosing the path that brings you joy

Regardless of another’s choice you are free to choose your own way. If another indeed is harming you or injuring you with his or her actions, taking a step to set it right is good. Do so with a lack of vengefulness or anger in your ideation, intention, and action. This will keep your cells vibrant, your face and voice and heart glowing and bring prosperity to you. This is healthy living and results in vibrant health in your spirit,mind, and body.

If you have been drawn in to a difficult relationship. Give yourself a chance to re-choose and to set your intention on this joyful path.

You can always choose a different path, a different response.
Consider this if you are feeling discouraged with previous choices which turned out less than well…
When are able to act in this loving responsible way, even saying you’re sorry when you make a mistake and resetting your plan, you teach your children to be resilient, flexible and truly responsible… and you build your own inner resilience.

Choose this anti-oxidant style of living in every interaction and you will see the positive results in your health and wealth… you may even be able to turn back the hands of time in how you are aging. Namaste, in love and light, bg

InstinctiveHealthParenting4U

Change your Attitude, Heal your Soul, Balance your Life. Uplevel YOUR consciousness. Find your way HOME through MAAPS.

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