Psycho-Analytical Meditation

Visit www.lifepathsolutions.com/meditationcourse.htm for the first practical lesson in how to use meditation and self-analysis to improve your life.

Meditation is a process of stilling the mind. It can be practiced for relaxation, to feel more whole and complete, or to gradually reveal ones higher Self. In it's deeper levels meditation can be likened to a self-psychoanalysis as correctly applied meditation techniques help to clear and reprogram our thoughts, habits and conditioning to slowly reveal the Self within.

Meditation is a process which can be used throughout the day and not just in quiet periods of silence. All areas of life are important in the ongoing process of personal growth; spiritual, emotional, mental and physical. To grow we need to acknowledge and sustain and balance all of these areas. Meditation is a way of life and leads to health, balance and happiness.

A particular form of meditation which is beneficial for personal growth and self-therapy is 'psychoanalytical meditation'. This can be likened to a self-psychoanalysis as correctly applied meditation techniques help to unravel the soul within. The idea is to undertake self analysis during the day and take unsolved problems into quiet time during meditation when answers may arise. The day can also be spent analysing the results of meditation. Self-analysis and meditation thereby going hand in hand.   Through meditation one becomes more aware of the Higher Self or soul. Once an understanding of how the mind works transcendence is gradually attained through a combination of techniques involving:

Self-analysis during the day

Dream analysis

Balancing techniques for the physical, emotional and mental 'bodies'.

Meditation

When meditation is combined with self-analysis we can enhance our personal growth and well-being and feel more complete within ourselves. With regular meditation past formations in the mind are exposed before conscious awareness and freedom is obtained from them. In fact all our past conditioning must be transcended before our worldly consciousness can merge with soul consciousness.

It can be shown scientifically that thought carries a frequency of vibration. In our Western culture thinking is predominantly left brain, rational, logical and dualistic. This kind of thinking is stressful. In fact it is thought that we use no more than 5%-10% of our total brain capacity.

As one practices meditation the brain wave frequencies are decelerated and a greater balance is achieved between the left and right brain hemispheres. As these slower frequencies are attained thinking is less dualistic and less stressful, thus the relaxing affect of meditation. Non-dualistic awareness occurs when we are aware that we are one with all that is.

In deep meditation the threshold to non-dualistic awareness is attained. The point is eventually reached in meditation where we are able to separate from, and become witnesses to, our thoughts. Also, in successively deeper levels of meditation, first subconscious and then unconscious patterning are brought before our awareness and through the process of catharsis are cleared, or successfully integrated into our being.

At these deeper levels, meditation is a tool for clearing away unwanted past conditioning in order to reveal the true Self within. As more and more of the Self, or inner light, is revealed it can be likened to the term "enlightenment" used in eastern philosophy. An enlightened person is one who has consistent conscious awareness of being the Self.

Depending on your needs, meditation can be practiced for one or all of the following benefits:

• Relaxation and an aid to reduce stress.
• Self-therapy to aid in greater health and well-being.
• Personal growth and Self-awareness.

Until recently most people hadn't even heard of life coaching but all of a sudden it is gaining in popularity so fast that it is the second fastest growing industry in the world after information technology. That in itself will indicate one huge difference between life coaching and counselling - people seek out a life coach because they know it can help them to achieve great things in life and it works. That's not to say that counselling doesn't work, but rather, unless you follow Hollywood stars who find it fashionable to have their own therapist you don't seek out counselling unless you have an emotional problem you want to solve.

People seek counselling for many reasons. It could be stress, anxiety, relationship difficulties, grief, addiction, marriage problems or one of a number of difficulties which basically don't feel good. The bottom line is a counsellor will help a person to overcome a problem and quite often this is related to difficulties which occurred in the past and are now, through conditioning, repeating themselves in present circumstances. There is a problem related to the past which is making life difficult in the present.

Life coaching, on the other hand, starts with the present and helps you to aim for a better future. It has proven so successful that in the USA more than half of companies are using coaching techniques to develop their management teams. Life coaching refers to helping individuals improve their lives, but their are many different kinds of coaching including business coaching, corporate coaching, sports coaching (of course), career coaching, academic coaching, behavioural coaching, financial coaching, spiritual coaching, and many more. The essence to all of these is quite similar and basically involves goal setting, reality checking, working out options, and action planning, There are different methods and styles of coaching, the approach could be psychological using behaviour management and a scientific approach, it could be more humanistic, existential, spiritual or a combination of many of these. It may utilise neurolinguistic programming (NLP) or even EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). Basically anything that works and helps you to break out of the old patterns and habits and move forwards.

We all have had great ideas and plans but how often have they not eventuated. The idea behind Life coaching is to help you see things differently and then to make sure you can actually go about achieving what you want. To be quite honest there is not always a lot of difference from counselling and in fact many of the skills required by a good coach are the same as those required by a good counsellor such as the ability to listen, challenge, probe and have empathy to walk the path with you. The difference is mainly in the starting point, counselling looks at what in the past has brought you to where you are now and how the difficulties in the now can be resolved, whereas life coaching starts with the now and takes you forwards to where you want to be in the future. Counselling is more related to emotional health issues whereas coaching works more with the mind and beliefs, strategies and goals.

Finally, it is worth noting that Life Coach is not trained to do counselling and if he or she feels you need to see a counsellor to resolve some issues first then a referral will be suggested. Many counsellors could also take on life coaching but if they are serious about moving more into life coaching then they can upgrade their skills to take on this focus. I fit into this last category originally training as a counsellor but then when life coaching appeared on the scene I realised that my focus for helping people is perfectly suited to life coaching. I now offer both.

 

It's Karma, Baby - and It Goes Around
By Nancy Mure

A man is greedy. He is materialistic. He is a successful and very savvy businessman, and secretly gloats over his ability to charm or manipulate others so he can continue to accumulate money and material things. Then one day he finds himself a pauper, having been outdone by another with greater charm or manipulation skills. Is this karma? It certainly is.

Where one's trouble can be traced directly to one's own actions in this lifetime, is an example of karma.

Not karma: A car accident, where one is driving down the highway, rounding the curve and finds himself in a head-on collision. Did the victim cause this accident somehow? It was simply a matter of time and place, a matter of chance. These situations do not involve karma, not even as retribution from a former lifetime, which never occurs. Each time we pass through this life is truly a fresh start.

Karma comes from our own thoughts. We create our own karma, and WE are the only one’s that can change it by changing our thinking. Until we do, Life keeps reminding us to when we keep creating or attracting situations which reflect the beliefs we are still holding in our minds and about ourselves.

The concept of karma originated from the hindu belief that there is a perfect universal order in the world. Nothing happens at random, but things happen under a universal order. "Whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." [gal 6:7] this is the basis of karmic law which means, that every action has a result. In Buddhist teachings, the law of karma says: “for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first, and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful.”

Karma is another lesson in human relationships and in how we function and experience life. In theory each school of thought, be it buddist or hindu, proclaims more or less that the moral law of Karma is "A good cause, a good effect; a bad cause a bad effect". Does this mean we have control of that which occurs in our lives? Karmically speaking yes, but we shouldn’t confuse Karma with fate. Fate is the notion that a person’s life is preplanned by some external power but there is no control over destiny. Karma on the other hand, can be changed. Because we are conscious beings, we can be aware of our karma and thus strive to change a course of events because we are a result of what we think.

Author, Human Behavior Expert and Celebrity Life Coach, Patrick Wanis believes that “Karma is not simply about a mechanical cause and effect principle or what goes around comes around. From a spiritual perspective, Karma is about helping us to understand the meaning of our actions and as such to teach us to have greater compassion, to love unconditionally and more deeply, and to forgive.”

Wanis also believes Karma isn’t about punishment. Another example would be, a man cheats on his wife: they eventually separate and divorce. Sometime later, the man is in a relationship and his partner now cheats on him. Some people might say he got what he deserved - to be punished. But what does punishment teach: If we hurt someone else then we will be hurt in turn? A better lesson would be to help one to see and feel how one's wrong actions hurt other people. This approach encourages compassion, empathy, love and respect -for self and others.”

Thus, in the case of the woman who first cheated and then was cheated upon, he now has the opportunity to feel the same pain and hurt that his wife felt when she was cheated on. Now he (the husband) has the opportunity to feel compassion and to gain a greater and deeper understanding for the consequences and impact of his actions on others and himself. Further, maybe his wife chose not to forgive him and so his Karmic lesson might be to now forgive the woman that cheated on him, thus helping him to express more love than before. The greater lesson here is to learn to love, forgive and accept ourselves and so, in turn, we can love, forgive and accept others.

Our strongest karma lessons are ingrained in us from our family members. The lessons we take with us from our upbringing are those lessons that help create our karma because it is within immediate family that we learn our best and least desirable behaviors. The family is where we learn how to get along (or not get along) with others, how to love or hate and how to praise or condemn others. When we take these as well as other learned behaviors, good and bad, out into the world and use them we are creating our karma.

Karma or no Karma – it is incumbent on every parent to teach their children what their purpose is in this life: to be the best we can be. Nick Mojzesz, creator of the website, Lessons in Theosophy writes that “Karma is the idea that a record of our deeds (good and bad) stays with us. Good deeds will mean better opportunities for us in the future. Conversely, we will need to make amends for the bad things we do. Specifically, a good deed or a bad deed may mean good or bad things happening to us in a future life.” Sharing simplified karma lessons with children can help them to develop an understanding of the notion that doing good for others, may very well bring us good in return. Hopefully these lessons will grow and develop along with them.

While the nobility of a person’s character is dependent on their "good" thoughts, actions, and words conversely, if we embrace degrading thoughts, those thoughts can invariably influence us into negative actions and so it is important to remember that we ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery and that if we simply do good for others it may very well come back to us - which begs the question: Do we reap what we sow? The answer is a definitive yes. Because we are a direct result of what we think, when we are forced in our own lives to reflect on why what happens to us, happens to us, the most constructive thing to do is to calmly assess our situations and determine how we will conduct our lives from today forward.

Again, it never hurts to try to live one's life from the standpoint of compassion and wisdom, making sure that one works to be part of the solution, wherever one can. As sung so boldly in her song Karma, Alicia Keys puts it best when she sings “It’s Karma baby, and it goes Around”.

Nancy S. Mure is the author of The Really Jealous Jimmy Crab, An insightful yet simplified story about Karma, published by SynergEbooks and presented in Vertical Media.

Though some disagree about the overall effect the internet has made on society, there is no doubt that the World Wide Web has made the world smaller in that it has changed the nature of communication and the attainment of information. Riding the trend of viewing stories in vertical media allows children to experience reading in a new and different way. This medium has proven to be particularly appealing to children diagnosed with ADHD as well as children who are simply no longer stimulated by reading conventional books. They are enthused by the vibrant colors on the computer screen and derive a sense of control from the physical aspect of using the mouse to get from page to page.

http://www.nancysmure.com

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