Self-Help Approach

Self-Help for Stress and Pain (Self-Help Approach): Offshoot of applied kinesiology originated by Elizabeth and Hamilton Barhydt and described in their book of the same name, published in 1989.

(See also: Self-Help for Stress and Pain , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

In our New Age and self-help literature, another important realization about feelings has been emerging strongly over the last six or eight years. More and more, we hear of the connection between suppressed feelings and chronic poor health. Healing professionals are venturing the idea that in order to resolve health issues, we must resolve the emotional issues behind them. The awareness is growing that the unreleased and trapped negative emotional energy keeps building inside and eventually manifests in the physical.

In this article, John Ruskan describes how he originated his system for releasing feelings, how the system works, and what benefits may be realized.

Read more here: » Emotional Clearing: Healing thru Emotional Clearing

The following steps will help you make the shift from ineffective good intentions to being a powerful catalyst for positive change. With this approach you are very likely to see results, which is important because when we see that we've had an impact, we have more faith in our spiritual power. With faith, our power increases and our Area of Power expands.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: Discovering Your Area of Power

The Healing Path begins with an event that changed my life as violently as an earthquake wrenches a river from its course. Its medical label, "cancer," means little. Like other words that try to describe deep human experience--- love, hatred, joy, grief---it only hides the enormity it signifies. Our most personal moments are immune to language. And disease is so ineffably ours, so much part of our own irreproducable tale, that we are almost obliged to call it by our own proper name.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: Book Excerpt of 'The Healing Path...' - Illness As An Inward Journey

Mind/Body/Spirit Medicine:

Mind-body medicine (also referred to as psychoneuroimmunology-PNI) focuses on the interactions among the brain, mind, body, and behavior, and the powerful ways in which emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and behavioral factors can directly affect health. It regards as fundamental an approach that respects and enhances each person’s capacity for self-knowledge and self-care, and it emphasizes techniques that are grounded in this approach.

Mind-body medicine typically focuses on intervention strategies that are thought to promote health, such as relaxation, hypnosis, visual imagery, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, tai chi, qi gong, cognitive-behavioral therapies, group support, spirituality, and prayer. The philosophy of mind/body medicine views illness as an opportunity for personal growth and transformation, and health care providers as catalysts and guides in this process.

(See also: Mind/Body/Spirit Medicine , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Body-Mind Integration in the Personal Growth Process

Does the matter mind? I mean, does the mind matter? That is, what's the matter with the "mind over matter" attitude, and what's the matter if matter (the body) doesn't mind? Okay, I'll put the questions a little less pun-like and paradoxical. How often does it seem that our body is just something for our mind to use to achieve certain ends? And from the way the body minds at times, do we too often lack confidence that it's really going to cooperate with our plans? Or, even though we may try to "listen to our body," does it still surprise us when the massage therapist finds knots, "rubber bands," and sticky layers of achiness in areas we thought minded us the most?

Read more here: » Massage Therapy: Body-Mind Integration in the Personal Growth Process

Our nature is to give and receive love. All other requirements are not essential to the basic experience of giving and receiving love. From this basic requirement or shall we say experience, come different expressions of love. During our life experience we learn through various methods and teachers how to express love in wide and varied ways. This is where interpretation and distortion creeps in.

Read more here: » Love: Nature of the Human Spirit - Love

They say that the most important relationship is the relationship you have with yourself, and that the key to most successful relationships is communication. So it follows that it would be helpful to communicate regularly with yourself.

The fact is, our bodies are talking to us all the time, but frequently we don't listen. Both through physical sensations and our emotions the body has much to say to us. However, for many people these communications are all but a distant, meaningless rumble or even troublesome somethings that must be suppressed or endured.

Read more here: » Integrational Dialogue: Talking Yourself Into Wholeness - Integrational Dialogue

The focus of this article is how to effectively deal with people and neighbors who are dominated by the negative ego.

To begin, it must be understood that when life is looked at from the perspective of the soul, everything is seen as a lesson, challenge and spiritual test. Every interaction is seen as an opportunity to respond from a Christ Consciousness attitude rather then a negative ego attitude, to respond from unconditional love, rather than fear and attack, to choose oneness with God rather than separation from God, to choose forgiveness instead of grudges.

Read more here: » Ego: Dealing With Negative Ego Neighbors And People

Indigo Children

Children born since around 1982 really are different, like no other generation of record. If the movie "Indigo" makes this point and no other, it has done the world a favor and hopefully will help to engender an overall transformation in how we regard and teach children. Surely it will inspire a forum whereby the children themselves can speak and be heard... for our youngest citizens truly have something important to say that is worth hearing.

Read more here: » Indigo Children: A view on the movie Indigo by Twyman/Walsh/Simon about Indigo Children

Some say a critical mass of more conscious individuals can shift our evolution away from wanton destruction toward a positive future for living things on the planet. Bay-area researcher Paul Ray has found that we may be living through a rare population mind-set shift -- something that happens only once or twice a millennium. A growing number of people, according to Ray's research, express concern about ecological sustainability (green issues) and a core group express a commitment to personal and spiritual development in addition. He calls these individuals "Cultural Creatives".

Read more here: » Cultural Creatives: Cultural Creatives Making a Difference for the Future

Mantra Yoga Reveals A New Universe

Mantras help draw energy from both external and internal universes. The nature of our thoughts is largely compulsive. We are conscious beings but we live like machines. Our likes and dislikes are programmed. Addictive thoughts take away from the soul of the individual as a conscious being. By chanting mantras with understanding, compulsive thoughts are transformed. The mind becomes calm and our perception will be wise with respect to both the external and internal universes.

Read more here: » Mantra Yoga: Mantra Yoga Reveals A New Universe

The insights we attain come through the heart. Perhaps the intellect can be a vehicle for enlightenment, but for me and millions of others, the pathway through the heart is the most healing and beautiful way to learn and grow. Relationships with friends and family are filled with learning opportunities. They come in many forms, and could be intellectually discussed for many hours, though there is only one true lesson to learn. We learn to give service unselfishly to our partners or friends and others who may knock on our doors.

Read more here: » Relationships: Relating To Others: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Body Work:

Manipulative and body-based practices focus primarily on the structures and systems of the body, including the bones and joints, the soft tissues, and the circulatory and lymphatic systems. Some practices were derived from traditional systems of medicine, such as those from China, India, or Egypt, while others were developed within the last 150 years (e.g., chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation).

Although many providers have formal training in the anatomy and physiology of humans, there is considerable variation in the training and the approaches of these providers both across and within modalities. For example, osteopathic and chiropractic practitioners, who use primarily manipulations that involve rapid movements, may have a very different treatment approach than massage therapists, whose techniques involve slower applications of force, or than craniosacral therapists.

Despite this heterogeneity, manipulative and body-based practices share some common characteristics, such as the principles that the human body is self-regulating and has the ability to heal itself and that the parts of the human body are interdependent.

(See also: Body Work , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)