Yoga To Strengthen Your Body Or Yoga To Strengthen Your Mind?

     It's actually quite a contradiction to say Yoga to strengthen your body “or” Yoga to strengthen your mind. It is, of course, a case of using Yoga to strengthen your body “and” your mind!

     You can start out thinking that you'll avoid all the esoteric and spiritual stuff connected with Yoga but it’ll be very hard to avoid the magical effect that doing the exercises has on your mind. It's similar to the focusing effect of using verbal affirmations, generally, but when combined with specific Yoga mantras the result is electric.

     Imagine this: you learn a new posture to use with your daily Yoga routine; this posture requires that you concentrate hard on finding just the right position to get the maximum benefit from it and have to use all your conscious power to hold it; because of the angles, strength and discipline needed to hold the pose you have to concentrate – really hard…
What effect do you think this will have on your mind?

     The beauty of learning new and demanding postures to use in your daily yoga program is that your mind automatically becomes focused on your body and engaged elsewhere from the worries of daily life. When it's busily engaged to this extent it becomes almost impossible to think of anything else. The result is a relaxed and empty mind.

     In addition to the effect of strengthening your mind you can add extra movement to your Yoga exercise to increase the cardio-vascular element of your practice. This is particularly true of Ashtanga Yoga and results in a stronger body. But there’s always more than one way to approach a subject like this.

     If you have the idea that something is going to be unpleasant and cause you pain then you’re unlikely to engage with it with any enthusiasm. If however, you use something to enhance the practice like powerful words or sounds, then it will raise your practice to a new level and give you renewed positive focus.

     While putting your body through its paces with demanding physical postures and improving your immune and respiratory systems with regular and systematic breathing, your mind will focus with rejuvenated clarity. This is why you should use Yoga to strengthen your body and Yoga to strengthen your mind!

Getting Steamy With Color: Chakra Healing Colors In The Sauna

     Gym membership is such a great thing, if only for the sauna and the chance it gives you to work through a bit of chakra healing! While healing my body in this way, I’m always aware of the energy flow within my body and its balance as I work up a sweat. In the warmth and darkness of most saunas you can check in to your chakras as you workout too. 

     Having an understanding of these colors will give you a really great insight into what’s happening materially and emotionally in your life and being aware of the colors that drift into your consciousness will give you pointers on what action to take. If you find you’re exercising in a cloud of yellow, for example, take note that you probably need to set more stringent boundaries for yourself and foster a bit of self-respect.

     But as we can equally intuit the colors flying around our aura, we can also draw inspiration from external sources. Colors are routinely used in saunas in Germany and this is something I realized I was missing the other day as I sat in my local sauna in Ireland.

     Wherever you are, it’s wonderful to clear out your system and feel the toxins flooding away in the heat, but you can focus on cleansing a particular chakra if you physically bathe in the color of that chakra. 

     As you sit in the heat, it helps if a sauna is a light place filled with colorful rays that you can physically bathe in. None of this dingy sweating away in darkness that seems to be so prevalent elsewhere. More importantly the lights change in a sequence that provides you with all the colors of the rainbow. That means that every one of the seven main chakras is influenced in turn. You don’t need to know the meanings of all the healing colors but it can help you focus on the healing properties.

     If you’re really lucky you’ll find that some saunas will play bells to accompany the colors. This is such a wonderfully all encompassing experience.

     Even in the absence of the bells, however, if you relax and let yourself dissolve into the color you’ll find that there’s a subliminal hum – the hum of the Universal energy – that resonates with your body. As the colors change the resonance alters and this becomes the most natural and spiritual melody in the world.

     In the absence of lights in the sauna I attend, I’ve started to visualize the colors. Believe me, it works just as well but you need a bit more discipline and it helps if you have a vivid imagination. It means, however, that wherever you are experiencing the joys of detoxing in a sauna, you can reap the benefits of chakra colors in the sauna and the sound of healing colors music.

Your Words and Thoughts Have Physical Power

     Ever heard the phrase “Be careful what you wish for” and wondered how sound it is? What's wrong with wishing for anything and then deciding that you didn't want it. The universal laws aren't going to get fed up with you if you change your mind. Everything is an evolving process that requires tweaking and Deepak Chopra would tell you that the Universe will only manifest positive outcomes. That's not saying negative things don't happen in the world (note, not to you or to people). They just happen. 

     That doesn't deny the existence of a positive force of intention. Putting together a vision board is a is a process that helps to focus your intentions and formalize your thoughts. If you're not inclined to agree with this then, before you dismiss it, just think about the process of a to do list or if you get up in the morning and write a task list down in a diary... isn’t it something similar?

     By the end of the day you’ll have realized your intention to do the things on the list. Try adding some positive words to change the way you think at a subconscious level. The subconscious really affects the flow of energy in the universe has the power to change your world, physically. That’s the only reason you need to be very careful to make your wishes positive and focused. It's just that you can save yourself a lot of grief by shaping the world you want to live in correctly the first time!     

     The more positive change you make in your life, the less the trivial negative things will matter.

Dog Training and Obedience Advice: A Free Language!

     I think that when it comes to training my dog obedience I can really do well to turn it into a spiritual exercise of sorts. After all, when it comes to addressing aggressive behavior in dogs there’s just no time to be messing around and it deserves the same kind of dedicated approach. Finding dog training advice can be a tricky subject, however. 

     There’s so much to choose from in spoken, written and electronic formats! Look past the words, however, and you soon start to realize that most of what these sources say amounts to pretty much the same thing. Keep it simple enough for your dog to understand.

     As much as we may like think it, our dogs don’t understand English and never will. They respond to the tone of our voice and various other clues. I had no idea how important it is to get these cues right. If you do, then you won’t even need the spoken commands.

     

Making a Realistic and Practical Vision Board

     I recently saw the question about making a vision board “Can a vision board be 3D?” The simple answer to that is yes but the implications for the whole system go far deeper. In making a vision board you have the options to engage the laws of attraction and make it as realistic as you can or as symbolic as you like. It’s really up to you and it depends on how your own neuro linguistic programing (NLP) system responds best. To find out more about your NLP preferences try reading some of the popular literature published by Tony Robbins such as Unlimited Power or Awaken the Giant Within.

     Going back to the original question, when making a vision board you want it to be as wild and way out as possible. This is your time to play. There are no rules and there are no boundaries. In short, if the fancy takes you then make your vision board as 3D as possible. Multi-dimensional vision boards, in my opinion, are the best. Imagine looking at a photo of Martin Luther King and recalling his speech. Now imagine seeing the photo and reading his words alongside. Next think how it would be to see him and actually hear a recording of his inspiring words as you look at his image. Which do you think has the greatest impact?

     Why not turn the vision board on it’s head, or side, or back or however you’d like to think of it and just build it up. There’s a reason why virtual reality is so popular and architects make models. The mind responds so much more favorably to vivid images because, in fact, it can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined. This is why to achieve success it’s so important to visualize it first.

     
     So, yeah, go on, make your vision board two dimensional, three dimensional or four dimensional if you can think of a way. Anything goes but most of all, enjoy the process!

Bliss with Training my Dog Obedience

     Moving onto a new theme of harmony thru addressing aggressive dog behavior I've looked into some dog training advice both online and in more conventional means. Improving your dog's obedience can only be a good thing.

     Combine that with the idyllic setting of living somewhere like West Kerry in Ireland and you start to get the picture of just how problematic it can be if your dog doesn't want to play ball - literally! I want the experience of walking the dog to be more like a meditation. It's almost like that already as when I'm walking with him my attention is so focused on him that it's only that current moment that exists!

     We've had a couple of problems lately where the dog has reacted in a bit of a surprising way and we weren't prepared for it or expecting it. More importantly, this can be dangerous for us, for him and for the object of his behavior, usually another dog.

     By doing a bit of research online it's possible to find ways to deal with this situation. I'll write more as the situation progresses but, thankfully, now we're starting to make progress and we're a bit more prepared for his behavior on our walks in the beautiful Irish countryside!

How Much Meaning Does a Color Have?

     Funny kind of topic really - the meaning of colors. If you asked a blind person the same thing you may get all kinds of answers but I can assure they'd have something to say on the subject. It's not a vague notion like in that Cher film either - heat equals red and white equals cold.

     Essentially a color has a frequency and a vibration just like everything else. We're molecules which are bumping and grinding together and our molecules vibrate when they come into contact with other wave forms.  So how can a color have meaning or even affect the way we run our everyday lives? Well if you're looking for something to calm you down look no further than the color orange.

     It'll be a great stabilizing effect on the very core of your being as it's the color of the third chakra and is located in your solar plexus. The beautiful description of a buddhist monk's orange robes as vibrant couldn't be more apt for this particular energy. Get some orange in your life to increase the vibration of you self-respect. You could even eat a few nectarines and taste the color too!

Combining Sounds and Chakras to Heal with Color

     Is it a coincidence that the colors of the rainbow are so magical and relate to the same colors that we use for healing? Of course it's not. The colors steadily increase in frequency from red through to violet until the highest color, violet, corresponds exactly with the highest stage of development.

     Each relationship between color and chakra corresponds to higher frequencies of physical, emotional and spiritual intelligence. No wonder, then that we can calm down anxiety by using the spiritual systems. Chakra Tapping is an alternative system that builds on this foundation of healing to increase the benefits of working with the whole chakra system.

     With the benefits of balancing energy throughout the meridians the centers of spiritual growth will swirl more vibrantly than ever.

Transmitting Subliminal Sounds

     The idea of positive or negative sounds in our environment always fascinates me. I can hear the same sounds from one day to the next and either be frustrated or calmed depending on my mood and so many environmental factors. It largely boils down to how I classify that sound and whether I see it as imposed or elective. This is discussed further in the article Subliminal Sounds: How to Transmit Them. Basically, if I have any sounds imposed on me - such as that kid practicing his drum kit until all hours - it's not going to do me a any good. If it's me choosing to play the drums, well that's a different matter.

     On the other hand, if I want to calm my mind, boost my immune system and generally increase my feeling of wellness and goodwill to all men, I take out my MD recorder and record the birds singing in the evening or the babbling brook. Then just having this tinkling in the background is enough to induce a feeling of immense calm...

Parking and the Law of Attraction!

   
     Here's something you can try with the law of attraction. If you don't want to go to all the bother of making a vision board or using daily affirmations then you can try out the law of attraction with something simple to begin with.

     How about this? The next time you go to the mall in the car, imagine where you want to park your car. I don't know what your preference is but mine is usually to get as close to the entrance as I can. I used to do gigs and had equipment to unload and set up so this was always a bonus. The mall I used to visit had bars and a cinema too so it really got busy about 6pm when I used to turn up. Having said that, I would nearly always get a space right next to the entrance whenever I did this exercise. The few times I didn't get one straight away I only had to reiterate my intention of parking there and on my next circuit there would almost always be someone reversing out of the exact space I wanted or one pretty close to it.

     This, for me, was a real practical application of the law of attraction. It impressed my girlfriend too - even more than playing music in a club (maybe I just wasn't a very good musician...)! You don't need to spend hours meditating on it or write it down - just state your intention to the Universe as you set off and don't doubt the outcome.