Author: healadmin

Parenting – a question of Love or Fear

I heard an unusual story yesterday that really make an impression on me. A friend told me of an acquaintence who decided to elope who informed her local police station about her wedding before her family as she was terrified that she and her husband may become victims of an honour killing. To me this sounded like a tale from deepest darkest Afganistan in what other place would a girl be so terrified of the people who conceived, nurtured, loved, protected and invested time and money on her for 30 years. I now know it happens everywhere and such a threat has nothing to do with Mullas or religion at all.

The gentleman the lady in question had eloped with, apart from some degree of financial disparity, was of the same in religion, class, cast and as a couple they could infact be considered as socially very compatible. The lady in question is educated as is her family they live not in cave or a tent but a codo in a city with running water, electricity and all the amenities that normal people enjoy. She does not wear pardah or any head scarf at all. She even wears a swim suit when she swims!

So when such a lady goes to the police and informs them she fears her life from her parents it really makes no sense as there is no issue between the lady and her previously loving, caring parents other then the fact that their social conditioned ego had been punctured by her decision to choose her own husband.

It is the norm in certain cultures to for family elders to make every conceivable decision that relates to their child’s existence in any way. This is severely compounded in case of women in most Eastern cultures. I had no idea how very strong and potent this was until a few years ago when I met a lovely lady of Asian origin who lived in London who was disowned by her family for leaving her head uncovered and choosing to cut off her hair in order to fit into English society.

As I reflected on these stories of these women I realised that we condition ourselves to accept certain idiocyncratic behaviours and beliefs presented by society. Most men love to assume the mantel of supreme controller of their families it is a powerful feeling which makes them feel wanted and important. Men feel this is a priviledge that they deserve as they are the bread winners of the family. Although today most women contribute to the family coffers as well the belief that the man is the one in control is firmly maintained even if he earns less then the women of the house.

What happens when the control such a man has over his family challenged? Does he dispose of his errant (in his belief system) child or does the accept his child’s decision which will cause him great discomfort as his ego will be injured? It is hard to say as there is no statistical mean formulae or precedent here as these matters are private. Everything evolves on a case by case basis. Howeverthere is always choice, the choice is love over ego.

Most of us fail to remember that a soul chooses us to be their parent to learn lessons in the physical form to attain some advancement on a spiritual level. Parenting is a privilege and not a chore. So how we parent should reflect that great honour of being a parent. Unfortunately once an ego gets in the way instead of guiding and teaching one’s child through love one switches to bullying one’s child and getting their child to function through fear. This is the case with most parents who worry about loosing face. In such cases the honour is lost, the honour of parenting that is to the ego. Such are the parents their progeny to conform with their belief systems whether right, wrong, relevant, outdated or even just morally reprehensible.

Once in a while parents who function on the level of love also get seduced by their egos, be it in fits and starts, to scare their children to conform with what is socially acceptable. To love unconditionally and keep teaching and guiding with that level of commitment and love is a task that God is capable of doing and does. When we become parents though this is what is expected of us as we undertake a huge spiritual responsibility towards our children. As our children have honoured us as their guides to to learn to live which in turn enables them to learn their life lessons would it not be fantastic if we can teach them of love and through love rather then through the fears rooted in Ego and self?

Accepting the inevitable…Humans Change!

The one thing you can count on in a human being is his or her ability to change. It is not ironic its a fact. We change in every single way imaginable. Superficially we change our hairstyles, make-up, clothes, shoes etc. Physically we grow as per our genetic make up, emotionally and mentally we constantly alter our perceptions, thoughts and are ability to deal and handle situations.

We actually have the potential to change in every second of every day as we process millions of thoughts through our mind, which produce numerous emotional and psychological changes. Those in turn trigger our nervous system which causes the release of hormones and other physical bodily reactions. In this way our physical state also probably unknown to us to some extend does change constantly too.

There are a few things which we can’t change and one is the fact that we need to grow out of many things in life due to the fact that we are constantly changing. Shoes, clothes, hairstyles, mobile phones, computers etc all get replaced by newer ones due to many variable factors like fashion, affordability, technological advances etc. we seem to go pretty much as they say with the flow on those superficial things.

One of the saddest things to grow out of is not our sexy youthful bodies or our even our hopes and dreams, it is to outgrow our friends and lovers. One of the hardest things to accept in life is the end of a relationship that one thought would last forever. No matter how bad things get we try to focus on past happiness and keep the relationship there. So many people have friends they have absolutely nothing in common with, or are even downright embarrassed to be seen in public with as their behaviour and attitudes are so contrary. Yet one still plods on like a martyr in the relationship as they just cannot bear to let go. The memory of old loves and fun times are so etched in their memories that they just cannot let go.

The very same is applicable to certain couples who have been in relationships for a very long time. Everyone knows those couples, they exist universally, they never have anything much to say to each other and they at times even seem to loath each other but they just cant let go of each other and are simply tied down by their inability to face the future alone and their partnership is nothing but a crutch to get through life in the safety of a witness to their existence. Such people do not live but live survive like two people shipwrecked onto a raft in a deep and dangerous ocean.

“But why? We were so in love!” is the most common question asked when one is stuck in such a relationship. Oddly enough the reason for this is usually is not “my partner got fat and ugly” or “I am not sexually attracted to my partner” or even “my partner cheated on me”, all those things can be remedied and fixed to some extent. What is irreconcilable are changes that result due to life experiences, which in turn affect one’s mental and emotional make-up or one’s change in attitude to one’s spiritual path. In a relationship any if one person progresses or regresses emotionally, mentally or spiritually it will be very difficult for the relationship to stay intact as is known to both partners.

What keeps most relationships intact is when partners change together whether they progress or regress it is done together. It is indeed an outstanding relationship if two people have drifted in their emotions, thoughts and spiritual beliefs and remain “genuinely” together and have a “real” relationship not one for their children or any other reason involving a third party or societal pretences.

Another thing that humans find hard to accept is change from life to death. It is an irrefutable part of life that we will die one day or another. When you live in fear of death all the time why bother to live! You wont live you will waste your entire life waiting for death. Death is a progression into the subtler form. It is like going up a grade or a level in a video game. All you do is drop your physical form like a pile of old clothes that is the only thing you part with. What is left of you will be your best, your personality, character and your true being. If you spend your entire time in your physical form warding off death what you tend to do is warp your personality character and true being thereby failing to achieve all you must in your lifetime. You can’t avoid death but you can make the most of your life even if you have one breath left make it count.

Take back the Power

We are born free and no matter what we do in our lives we die free. Unfortunately none of us is free. All of us is a slave to needs, wants and desires. Nothing wrong in that however if everyone pursues their own needs, wants and desires paying no heed to their fellow earth inhabitants then really we have a world of chaos.

The energies of the earth have sustained us and all we have done is depleted it without providing replacements for our very own children. Even if we have actively never cut down a tree, built over a swamp, encroached into the rainforest or hunted a wild being for pleasure we have stood by and watched others do so in silence.

Silence makes us an accomplice regardless of whether we just could not be bothered or we had more self preserving and enjoying pursuits to follow. The ‘silence’ is also a sign of us giving up our power as citizens of this world to demand what is right. Most of us are blessed to inhabit democracies. We have the power however no one acknowledges this.

If each and every one of us stand firm and demand that our politicians do all they can to perserve and regenerate our habitat they will have to. After all a politician is merely a servant of the people.

The nuculear accident in Japan is a huge wake up call for the entire world. We are blessed Japan is isolated as an island and yet it is a country so well planned and organised that it will survive and rise like a phoenix due to the dedication of its people. Had the same incident befallen in a country with no infrastructure and politicians who dip into ever coffer, who knows what would have happened to the world today.

What we need to do now is accept these events as a blessing and voice once and for all a huge NO to anything that can harm our planet and our children in any way. Next time we may not be so lucky. If it were Pakistan, India or Iran it would be God’s way of extermination of all as a form of punishment for abusing his most beautiful unique creation our planet.

What’s up with Mother Earth

We are born baldish and without teeth completely dependent on whomever we are thrust upon. We progress to childhood, then bud into youth, blossom into a golden age commonly known as adulthood or maturity then we become over ripe at middle age and then one begins to droop and whilt. The ravages of age gnaw at us until one finds the cycle complete, one is in a baldish sate with few or no teeth once again completely dependent on whomsoever one is thrust upon. Such is the life cycle of a human and its pretty much the same for every inhabitant of the earth known to man.

Ironically the Earth that provides us all with life giving resources and sustains our life cycles does not seem to have such a well defined life span. There are wide ranging differing opinions how she was created the Big Bang or by the Lords Hand and then there are those who try the two theories what has been established is that she exists and has been around a while now. She has experienced life in many forms and many different expressions and has managed to nurture living forms to culminate into what we have become today.

She too like every other form on earth has been subject to cycles, whether it be seasons, revolutions around the sun, timely release of larva, movements in her tectonic plates she has seen it all but in a cyclical from.

If we have a look at the state of her being today all we can do is be ashamed of ourselves. We have sabotaged every nurturing aspect of her. The food she allows us to grow food to nurture ourselves is scientifically modified and she reacts to it like an allergy. We also saturate her bounty with chemicals which kill ecosystems of beings close to her. We may not like insects or worms but they do have their place in the bigger scheme of things.

Even if we managed to grow crops without modifying or blasting them with insecticide we do still do everything to mess up the water with a plethora or poisons and pollutants. Ironic as every single living being needs water to live on or live in! We have also manage to polluted the air to such horrific proportions that that we has sizeably damaged the ozone layer. The ozone layer used to function as a universal filter a miracle sunscreen that prevented the harsh UV rays of the sun from harsh cancerous UV rays which do not discriminate against plant, animal and human when annhilating all equally.

Once upon a time it was some sort of myth that the icebergs in the polar regions would melt and we would be purged into oblivion in Noahesque floods. The polar ice caps are now melting but whats scary is the weather change. Scientists are going wild predicting another cataclysmic ice or other equally dread inducing prospect.

Mother Earth’s menstrual cycle of seasons has been swaying off course for a while, her ecosystems like a memopausal woman’s beauty is in the process of getting ravaged. Very obviously she has been suffering from the effects of hot flushes and she has been reacting to those in the form of erupting volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, acid rains, droughts, forest fires and other natural phenominon we cant even comprehend.

She is a mother who is at wits end. She is loosing her precious children in the form of certain animals, plants and other of her inhabitants to extinction. Humans who used to tend to her, care for her and even worship her have abondoned her and she is tremendously broken hearted. Some of are busy terrorising and murdering others, while some torture her by polluting and trying to murder her, others are too busy in the worship of materiality and then there are the ignorant and those who choose to be ignorant and and show no respect for her. The remainder are torn up in shock of how cruelly she is dealing with their kith and kin.

And now there are those who have spread virulent rumours about her demise in 2012. Scientifically there seems no reason for her demise but really if you look at things her way one may start to thing what is stopping her from giving up on all of us and committing suicide?

Yoga Injuries…Fact or Myth

So are Yoga Injuries a myth? … yes and no. If you have a properly trained therapist assisting you through your practice, one who is aware of atleast the effects of every practice they teach, your chances of a Yoga Injury are minimal. You could only get injured if you don’t follow instructions and are trying to abuse your body.
However if you have someone who is trained to contort their body and teach others how to do so without any theoretical and scientific knowledge is likely to have a class full of consistently injured students. In such classes competition is encouraged which leads to the students further trying to force their bodies into positions and practices unnatural to their body. Such classes rarely focus on how the practice is entered into, maintained or released as the teacher is trying to perfect their own techniques. Regardless of how much money you pay to go to a famous yoga studio, a Country Club or Spa, unless the person is appropriately trained they are more likely to harm you than help you.
Now you may think I am blowing this all out of proportion so I will elaborate … Let us assume you are a patient suffering from cardiac disease or have high blood pressure. You go to a yoga class as you feel it will help you. You join in a class of 15 or more people that are just copying an instructor. You start with the practice of Asanas. Along with the 15 others you begin to perform a series of spinal flexion and extension exercises. During the class instructor who effortlessly contorts himself from time to time looks up and barks words of encouragement to everyone to push harder and stretch longer and make more of an effort. In some cases the instructor or an assistant form time to time comes around and physically pushes and pulls your body. (I have even known of cases where instructors have eagerly yanked arms and managed to dislodge a shoulder joint or two!)
Retuning to our scenario where you the cardiac patient is trying his best along with everyone else in the class who is hale and hearty, the others will all benefit from the spinal flexion and extension exercises as they will put raised amounts of pressure on their intra thoracic & intra abdominal cavity leading to increased loads on both the heart & the respiratory airways especially in compromised individuals. There is no doubt that benefits of this are super for when the pressure is released the lungs will take in huge amounts of oxygen and the blood will contain higher levels of Oxygen or in lay-mans terms the internal organs will be infused with cleaner blood.
There is just one drawback, you the cardiac patient will not benefit from the practice. Your having increased your intra thoracic pressure will most likely fluctuate your blood pressure and God forbid if you are in bad shape considerably increase your chances of a myocardial infarction (a heart attack).
However if your instructor was informed of your condition and was trained well enough to anatomically understand your medical condition the instructor could merely have modified the practice to suit your condition.
Let’s take this a step further, lets assume you’re not ready for an Asana, but you believe that Pranayama which you perceive as ‘yogic breathing’ will help you. Your thinking you have read so many articles on the internet and you have spoken to your healthy friends who swear by it what harm can possibly come of it.
Educate yourself to some extent now…most forms of pranayama have a direct co-relation with intra thoracic pressure and will probably be a faster method to raise the patient’s pressure.
Yoga can drastically also affect a person’s emotional and psychological state. A Yoga instructor who is not classically knowledgeable in yoga can unknowingly get a depressed person to go into even deeper depression or a person suffering from stress to get even more stressed.
The reason for my writing this blog is sheer disappointment at the supposed purveyors of yoga. As a healer this week I am dealing with three patients suffering from injuries resulting from yoga classes they attended, all very posh and expensive. One of the three happens to be a very dedicated instructor who practices physical forms of yoga and is forced to work her body thereby abusing it for too many hours every day.
When they asked why I never get injured or why my therapy/yoga patients never get injured I always argue that there are no injuries in yoga. My guidelines are simple. My most important rule is to leave ones ego at the door. I always explain that yoga is not competitive in any way. We are dealing with the body-mind-emotion complex. Therefore on certain days we are all more flexible and energetic than others.
I apply this rule to myself too and I have no shame in telling my patients that I am unable to perform certain practices on certain days. As yoga is beyond physical contortion I refuse to injure my physical body and as my class is educated by me on this principle no one ever seems to mind. In fact this connects me more to my students. This is not to say I don’t expect or request them to make an effort, but I explain the difference between effort and strain and strain is something all my students know to avoid.
If you are a therapist/teacher/instructor reading this I urge you to change your approach to teaching yoga. For every injured student there are ten potential yoga students that are dissuaded from taking up yoga. One hint on how to avoid injuries is to take smaller classes or work with an assistant to supervise your students.
If you are a student be very firm that you only want a qualified and experienced instructor or therapist. Ask to see their qualification, do some research on where your instructor was certified and make sure if you have any physical, emotional and mental problems to convey this to your instructor and more importantly the instructor of your choice understands your ailment.

What is Love – A critical evaluation

February 14th is a day that instigates people into states of emotion that I classify in two ways. The first which for that specific day may seem positive I term as ‘drama’. The second emotional reaction to the day is “grave trauma” and seems to affect all those not actively involved in the drama.

The “dramatists” are those who feel obligated to make efforts to buy cards, gifts and plan romantic dinners to prove to their partners that they appreciate them adequately and love them absolutely as per the guidelines set by mass media. The “traumatised” are those without partners or those neglected by their partners who spew forth feelings of “unloved”, “alone”, “unworthy”, “depressed”. Then there is the lot that feels they have not been appreciated enough as their generous overtures have been rejected or have not been able to live upto the expectations of their partner or those who feel their partner failed to live upto their expectations.

Now all this trauma triggers of an entirely different twist to the “commercial activity post valentines day” when psychologists, psychiatrists, councellors, therapists etc are retained for months to mend broken hearts and spirites.

Its quite funny actually that a day with no real connection or significance to anything has gained so much importance. Even the Vatican has clarified in 1968 by removing the feast day of saint Valentine, as the only corellation they could find between any Saint Valentine (they have accepted a few by that name) and 14 February is that is the date that one of the Saint’s called valentine was buried. WHat is even more interesting is to quote the Vatican “…since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14.”

So why does Valentines day have the power to generate such intense human emotion? quite simply because we have allowed it to become what it is. The fact that we are bombarded by express and subliminal messages continually about “Love” does not help as this is in reality a very powerful human emotion.

Love is the foundation of our being. Every human being loves and is loved. Every single human has the ability to love. Animals too can love but humans a special ability as they can connect with God/the Divine/ The Supreme/ Mother Nature etc. and that is said to be the highest form of love. That higher love trickles down into our very being and we share this love with all.

We have love for those we are related to for which there is a scientific and psychological basis. We are also capable of love for those we are not related to such as our friends as they through words and actions have endeared themselves to us. We feel love for our pets, plants and even our profession’s, ability to do certain acts and our physical/material posessions. Why should be ashamed of admitting to love houses, cars, clothes, shoes etc.

We are even capable of feeling love for complete strangers be it some people suffering the brunt of a natural disaster, an accident or terrorist attack across the world, a child begging at yoru car window, an actor or singer, an admired sports personality, a sexy model, a hallowed prophet or saint, historical personalities, a cute baby in a diaper advertisement and so on.

At times we can even love fictional characters like cartoons, characters from movies and TV serials. At times great love is felt for the entire earth we have all felt this when we have seen a great sunset, a rainbow, a starry night or even on a sunny day when we have looked up into the sky. The ability to love is infinite there is no end to what we can feel love for. We are born to love its in our energetic make-up.

Love is an energy the more we love we are loved. We are always loved. Every single religion preaches God’s love for us. We are also told of angels, fairies, nature spirits and other beings which surround us all the time and shower us with love and protection. Everyone has at a certain time of their life had the one near horrifying accident where they would have been knocked down by a speeding car, or drowned in an unexpectedly ferocious wave, or fallen down the stairs but for something inexplicable that held them back at the last second and saved them. How does one explain that if not by some form of divine intervention or assistence from an invisible being.

If you want to think you are alone you can, if you want to feel unloved you will but if you make that little effort to be a bit consious and aware you will feel the unseen and never experience ‘alone’. Every known religion states that there are always higher invisible and even at times visible beings and creatures about you all you need to do is feel them and ask for them to let their presence be felt to you.

Where love goes wrong most of the time is confusion in the feelings of “love” blended with our human need for a “partner” for the purposes of sex. We need to acknowledge that we are conditioned to expect all encompassing love from our sexual partner. Love and sex are a combination that are not exclusive to one another.

Until the Victorian era most of the world was good to have sex to procreate and enjoy sexual urges. It so happened that what became the social “norm” in England was imposed on their entire Empire as appropriate and this set off a whole chain of events to alter the course of sex and its expression. Love was the accepted emotion and sex something unmentionable. It began to get infered with time that sex was exclusive to love if it was to be in a acceptable form and then somewhere down the line things got so convoluted that even references to sex were always partnered with love, as can be noted from the term “making love”.

The true essence of love, divine love in sex was lost through the ages to the common man. The importance of sex is its ability to be the easiest way to connect with the Divine. This is because the ‘Kundalini’ or fire energy which is within us all gets activated and during the act o sex and reaches its pinnacle during the state of orgasm. Saints and sages meditate for years to reach that same level of connection which they define as “Samadhi” or the ultimate connection with the divine. It is just as simple as God gave us an easy means to connect with him he did not deprive those who were not meant to devote their entire being to him of that deep spiritual experience. A sign of Gods divine love for us another kind of love that is neither accepted or acknowledged.

It is due to this that sex has always been dealt with in spiritual scriptures as sacred. However its quite ironic that it is not a marriage that makes sex sacred but the sex that makes the marriage sacred. In order to experience the sacredness or “Samadhi” it makes common sense that one must like ones partner and feel respect for ones partner. All of which leads to trusting one’s partner without which it would not be possible to experience the ability to leave body consiousness from the act of sex and going beyond into the realm of an inexplicable spiritual experience.

The reason why we tend to feel a deep emotional attachment and a lot of love for our sexual partner is simply the fact that we are bathed in the bliss of divine love which we tend to relate as caused by our sexual partner. We also have so much divine energy within us that it is pretty impossible to feel anything but love a that time.

We really have no problems with love or finding it or giving it to others. Our problems all arise from the mental modifications from our social interaction with books, movies and all the subliminal messages we are bombarded with everyday by the mass media.

Do not let anyone or anything tell you what love is. Gauge it by what you feel within. Love is many things but not an act of giving or receiving flowers, chocolates, jewellery or any other gifts or a fancy dinner just because a calendar says its 14 February. Love just is within everything and everyone. Every act we perform is capable of being an act of love. Every relationship we forge is capable of being love. The ability to give and receive love is there. The choice is ours we choose to give and receive it.

Healing Boutique: Yoga Injuries…Fact or Myth

Healing Boutique: Yoga Injuries…Fact or Myth

..would you trust your health to a physician or psychologist without an accredited degree or experience? Yoga is a holistic therapy it goes beyond your body and your mind through to your emotions and your etheric or energetic body/anatomy. Entrusting your yoga therapy or practice to someone who is not adequately trained/has experience can end up being more dangerous then theraputic.

The Shift: From Broken Hearts to Anger

As mentioned in my earlier blogs I am a sceptic of 2012 and what the “End of the Worlder’s” define as “The Shift”. I have always felt that ‘the Shift’ is an energetic change which will result in a spiritual evolution of our world. As a spiritual councellor and energy therapist I had noted a trend which started in October 2012 which I termed as the “Epidemic of Broken Hearts” (ttp://healingboutique.blogspot.com/2010/11/shift-and-broken-hearts.html?spref=bl).

In the last two months I have noticed a new development, I have been consulted by lots of people who are experiencing inexplanable emotional fragility, skin allergies, odd boil formations, cysts and other painful growths, excima, overeating, weight that just does not want to leave certain areas of one’s body. All of these are simply physical manifestations of a variety of deeply suppressed emotions which with the passing of time have calcified into anger. I was only able to identify the common theme of anger when I noticed that each and every one of these patients I worked on had a lot of energetic fire within which I witnessed leaving their energetic body. In the last two days I have actually had some of my more sensitive past patients call to inquire what their dreams of being on fire meant!

Anger is a very dangerous emotion and is a very physical equivalent of fire, it is catching. Anger is a dangerous emotion it is tremendously contageous and one can observe mass anger in the Middle East just now. The masses in Egypt, the Yemen, Algeria, Tunisia and it is rumoured even Lebanon have found an outlet for decades of unvocalised feelings, emotions and anger at being politically, economically, financially, psychologically and emotionally suppressed in their demonstrations.

Anger is very complicated. It is actually an emotion in itself and yet it can also be the end result of various emotions and/or any amount of physical, psychological and emotional situations or a combination them all. It is very difficult one to advise someone how to deal and live with anger. Some say express it and others to suppress it. Suppression results in a plethoria of physical and psychological manifestations as can be noted from the varying patients I have seen recently.

On the other hand anger expressed is also not a solution, but an severe expression of ones feelings and emotions, which in most cases fuels or worsens most situations. The expression of anger leaves one empty, depressed and low. All of which can actually lead to someone feeling angrier! Anger begets anger. If you get angry and express your anger it is hihgly likely that the person at the receiving end will return your anger and set of a chain reaction with no end. In such a situation there is no alternative then to “turn the other cheek”.

Anger when expressed sets of a chain of reactions in our physical bodies which range from high blood pressure to the release of chemical secretions which are harmful to one’s body. There is no doubt that anger has an advserse effect on ones mental state it clouds one’s judgement, distracts one from concentrating thereby frustrating one even more and fuelling one’s anger further. Energetically anger lets down one’s energetic immunity and breaks down filters which protect you from energetic, emotional and physical ailments.

So what is the solution? At the Healingboutique advises another alternative, to deal and work through anger without expressing it while relieving the suppressed emotion. Here is how to work on your anger::

1. address what caused the anger and sitting to logically look into the issue. In lots of cases the cause of anger is so old it is invalid with regards to one’s present circumstances;

2. forgive it is the most important thing to break the cycle of anger. (we highly recommend the following excercise www.healingboutique.net/?page_id=681). One needs o forgive and let go of past situations so one can be free of the past and enjoy the present.

3. physical excercise to rid oneself of all the chemical toxins produced in a state of anger which if left unexpended would actually result in further urges to be angry;

4. Yoga, meditation and prayer all allow us to become more aware and consious of our emotions thereby giving one control one’s anger. Meditation and prayer are also cathartic, they bring old suppressed issues to the surface so we can deal with them adequately.

In addition to steps 1-4 we strongly recommend one to three sessions with a holistic therapist to release past energies of anger stored within ones energetic body.

The Joy of Receiving

In the course of our lives we are socially conditioned to behave in certain ways which sometimes tends to go against our inherent human nature. This is more pronounced in Eastern societies where humility and politeness are synonymous, some to the extent of self depreciation.

Now when we are self depreciating, even if it is a show of politeness it is still a string of negative words even if not followed by negative thoughts. By this act alone we begin to condition ourselves subconsiously that we do not deserve. In time this message is passed onto every part of our physical, mental, emotional and etheric anatomy. All of us have hopes and dreams and lots of us read, watch and are involved in self help programmes in order to help us attain what we desire. All such programs prescribe being positive however most do not warn us that self depreciation whether in thoughts, words or deeds is what lets us down and that is how we manage to self-sabotage whatever we want to attain.

One of the things I have observed this last holiday season was the fact that most adults tend give gifts with great enthuisasism but receive gifts mumbling “you really shouldn’t have”, as they cover in embarassment. I love receiving gifts but I too for a while have been a mumbler of “shouldn’t have”. I have no idea why or when I started to do this for I am sure every adult human has the same reaction to receiving gifts as a child does. Every child craves receiving gifts. Perhaps its the fact that they were in greater realms recently where there is no shame in receiving.

I am sure in the unseen worlds or heavens reciving and giving are taken for granted. There must be gratitude but no shame or scheming on how to outdo gifts or re-gift or even the pressure of gifting a finaicially equivalent gift. When a child opens a gift no matter what its financial value its a matter of jumping up and down with joy, and tearing off gift wrapping with hands quivering with excitement, utterances of whoops of uncontrolable whoops of joy while tossing wrapping paper aside to discover the wonders that hide inside.

When did it become socially acceptable to mumble “you shouldn’t have”? Is that not hurtful? Hurting someone is something that should be unacceptable. Why shouldn’t someone who wants to give you a token of love, respect, friendship, thank yous and forth ‘not have’? Most personal gifts mean so much more then their intrinsic value. To me they automatically mean someone cares as they have taken the time, effort and money to get me something that I like or that may mean or signify something to me. Isnt that an honour not something to be ashamed of?

Although it is quintessential to teach our children “it is in giving that we receive”, we must not fail in educating them of the natural pleasure there is in receiving as well. Children should be taught how to receive with as much grace, gratitue and appreciation.

It is a fact that there is a natural give and take in life just as for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When I first became a holistic therapist I learnt a very important lesson on the importance of receiving. I was told that the reason that healers and therapists charge is due to natural law of give and take. If one provides a service and does not take anything in exchange or does not feel they deserve to take anything then the forces that be do note that the service provider has been plentifully blessed and begins to deduct from the person who has plenty with the excesses be it from their finances, relationships and/or even health.

This is one of the reasons why I have changed my attitude to receiving. I love to give but I am also honestly very happy to accept and receive these days, whether it be gifts, compliments or time from my friends, relatives, collegues or teachers. Although I do tend for the most part to refrain from jumping up and down while receiving he gift I do let my emotions of joy and gratitude show.

If the gifts of the three wise men we received with gratitude, grace and pleasure lets make that the template on how to give and receive gifts as that is the significance for exchanging gifts at Christmas.

I request you all to change your attitude to receiving. Let us all make this the year we receive as much as we give be it love, happiness, money, gifts, a sympathetic ear, a smile or whatever we can give or receive.

Gods Bless and a Happy New Year to you all from the Healing Boutique.