Author: manabunnow4zph

How has the mindfulness challenge this week to listen like a sponge been going? I’m guessing that your comfort level with this mindfulness challenge will be a function of your background and education.  If you are a lawyer or a judge, this assignment and challenge would have been particularly challenging.  You have been trained to always respond, argue, debate and criticize.  This is also true of academics, the foundation of my own background and experience.  If you are a therapist, artist or musician the challenge might not have been quite so difficult.  Therapists are trained and experienced at fully and completely devoting their full attention to another person. Artists and musicians are trained to go with the flow so to speak.

Have you avoided the challenge? Did you forget about it? Have you engaged it? If so, what has been your experience?

I am hoping that there has been at least one encounter that you have had over the last several days when the other person sucked your energy with a war of words that allowed no opportunity for you to even respond or reply even if you wanted. In such circumstances, the urgent need is to make up an excuse to get away from the person. My response is typically –

 “I have a meeting. Sorry. Have to go now.”

Of course – the meeting is often with myself, but it is familiar company and we get much done the two of us.

There are people in my life just like the person I described above. I suspect there are people in your life as well. There are people who are experts at sucking the energy of other people. There is no exchange of energy. With each and every encounter, it feels as though such persons have sharp claws that grab into our physical body and pull out any and all remnants of energy remain.

Individuals who make it a practice to suck the life force of others have what is described as an oral personality; they have been abandoned at one point or another in their life.  We need to have forgiveness and compassion for such individuals.  Many people carry the wound of abandonment.

Still, it is very challenging to be around such persons for longer than a few minutes.  I can personally be depleted of all my energy in a matter of five minutes.  My energy depletes and drains quickly. Has this possibly happened with you?  Have you thought to yourself –

“Oh, my God, I can’t be a sponge any longer; I’ve got to exit this particular conversation.” 

Or, did you have to abort the mindfulness challenge altogether? Did you find an excuse to leave? Did you just stop listening like a sponge? Did you get angry? Or, did you somehow interact in a way that allowed for the encounter to be suspended or terminated?

Why am I hoping that this particular experience might have been one that you have had over the last several days?  It is actually similar to our reactions when we have no choice but to listen to our own body communicate messages of distress and pain.

Perhaps it is the case that your body is sending out many signals today of pain and discomfort. Perhaps you are feeling, frankly speaking, lousy.  What are you going to do in response to this lousy day? Are you going to want to try to get away from the messages your body is trying to communicate? Most people do. Do you think about taking a vacation so that you don’t have to be living with your body?  Many of us have had those feelings.

We can always get away from another person using one excuse or another or just walking away. It is unfortunately never possible to take a vacation from our body.  Many people check-out in the sense that they stop listening to their bodies.  They say to themselves,

“Boy, things are really haywire in there.  I’m really angry at you.  I’m going to go to somewhere and get this fixed.” 

There is then frantic rush to find somebody out there that can somehow relieve the symptoms that are being experienced. No quick fix exists for most people, so this response usually leads to more frustration.

The real challenge for the rest of the week is to be fully and completely present to all of the messages your body is communicating to you moment to moment. Be fully and completely present to all messages and information that you body is sending in the form of symptoms.

Perhaps there is a tremor in your right hand.  Connect with that tremor. Ask your hand, just as if it were a person,

“What’s up?  Talk to me, let me know what’s going on.” 

Ask your body (as if it were another person) to give you the information you need to understand what in the world might be causing the tremoring.  You can do this with any symptom whether it is –

1. Pain due to stiffness
2. Difficulty with walking
3. Challenge with swallowing
4. Embarrassment due to tremors

It does not matter what the symptom is. Connect with the organ, limb or muscle in your body that is problematic in the moment. Instead of running away from the challenge –

Connect with it.

Become a sponge. 

Ask your body to say more.

“Hello? Help me out. What’s going on here?”

Engage an authentic dialogue. Some therapies treat symptoms by masking them. The cause remains undiscovered and untreated. Over time symptoms usually get worse.

The challenge for recovery is to go a step further and to ask,

“What is causing this symptom?  What’s really going on here?  What do I need to change about my life to be able to correct the problem that is causing the symptom that I am currently experiencing?”

There is no simple solution. There are no simple answers.  The factors that create the symptoms of Parkinson’s are multi-faceted.  They are indeed complicated and convoluted.

It is possible and doable to chip away at the causes little by little.  How do we do that?  We become a sponge.  We treat our body as if our body were another person.  We connect fully and completely with the full essence of what our body is trying to communicate. This is how we figure out what is causing the symptoms. This is also how we figure out what to do about it.

Our body is a miracle. Our body knows how to heal.  When the body is out of balance, it is not its normal state. Wellness and balance is.

Become a sponge.

1. 1.      Connect
2. 2.      Listen
3. 3.      Receive

Your body is giving you information every minute of your life.  Listen to your body as if you were a sponge, just as you have been listening to others communicate their concerns to you this week. Extend to your body the precious opportunity to heal. You will be amazed and dazzled at the result.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery

There is no question about it; we all carve ruts of irritation in our neurological system.  I use the word ruts intentionally.  We all become irritated over and over, oftentimes at the very same circumstances that, for whatever reason, drive us up the wall and make us crazy.   These patterns of behavior are repeated frequently. Such patterned and habitual responses create an elaborate infrastructure of pathways that are irritants to our neurological system. We carve out ruts in our sensitive neurological pathways much like the stream of pioneers created in the dirt roads which led westward. It doesn’t take much for us to re-enter these well established ruts in our neurological system.  This rut is in part what aggravates the neurological challenges that individuals who currently have a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease experience.

The mindfulness challenge this week then is to basically craft a new roadway to get out of those same old ruts which continue to irritate that sensitive neurological system of ours.  When we engage in negative thoughts like,

 “Why can’t that idiot hurry up and get done.  I’ve got something important to do and I’m going to be late.” 

The body’s neurological system does in fact become irritated as we process the signals of irritation and anger through the very same pathways.

How do you create new neural pathways that calm the neurological system rather than upset it? Learn how to offer a different response to situations that are likely to irritate you such as standing in long lines. Instead of accessing the same neurological ruts, craft new pathways. Calm your body with a focused intention to respond differently.

Shift your awareness from one of outward projection to inward reflection. As you are waiting in line, breathe and notice the deliciousness of what it really feels like to take on the critical source of life itself – oxygen. .

• Relax all the tension in your body as you wait.
• Notice how you stand
• Observe where you stand
• Re-positioning your weight if it helps you become more comfortable
• Silence all angry thoughts of people ahead of you who may simply be having a bad day.

As you engage a new response to a circumstance that can be irritating for anyone you get the added benefit of forging a new neurological pathway. As your stress level dissolves, notice how symptoms you might have been experiencing are suddenly not as troublesome or perhaps even do not even appear to present themselves.  A body that is calm and stress free is not capable (or interested) in creating neurological difficulties for you.

Switch on a mindfulness practice as you wait –

• Become aware of each and every sensation
• Look up at the ceiling. 
• Look down at the floor.
• Notice the walls;
• Notice the texture of the walls. 
• Appreciate the colors on the walls.
• Smile at the people who wait with you.
• Hear the sounds
• Smell the scents

Take in sensually everything in your surroundings. Notice how delicious it can be to become aware of where you are standing in the moment.

Mindfulness practices do result in an alleviation of neurological symptoms.  The more you practice, the more you will be delighted with the result.  We are the ones that manifest our own destiny.  Make it so this week as you wait in line patiently and mindfully for the service that you need to receive

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery