Couple Meditation – Strengthening your connection

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Jennifer Pizzicara

Couples Meditation

The beauty about meditation is that it can be adapted to suit whatever you are experiencing. The past few months has seen a rise in couples counselling at Hawk Therapies Wellness Centre. We have effectively delivered programs through Meditation, Holistic Counselling and Life Coaching to guide and empower couples to look beyond the circumstances to find balance and to restore their heart centres.

Couples meditation is a great way to combine your healing and to recreate a positive and loving energy as a couple. We all go through tough times and we can inadvertently pick up negative energy from another. However if we adapt a mindful awareness of how we feel and what it is that we are reacting to, we are able to effectively disengage from the associated stress response, or at the very least reduce it. Applying a meditative approach is an excellent way to do so

Below is a simple and fun meditation by Isabelle Cunningham that you can practice with others. It works in a group but it is especially nice for couples to practice together.

Simply sit opposite your loved one and hold hands. Look into each others eyes and take turns of saying the following three statements.

(First person) I Am Happy I AM
(Second person) I Am Blessed I AM
(First person) I Am Fortunate I AM
(Second person) I Am Happy I AM
(First person) I Am Blessed I AM
(Second person) I Am Fortunate I AM

So the three statements are simply
I Am Happy I AM
I Am Blessed I AM
I Am Fortunate I AM
You just keep saying them in rounds, in that order, so that each person gets a chance to say each one of the statements.

You can even do this while you are taking a walk together.

It can become a trigger for you both if one or the other starts sliding into negativity. So that one partner will simply say “I Am Happy I AM” prompting their partner to reply with “I Am Blessed I AM” and so it goes!

This mantra helps us to focus and tune out of the minds ‘chatter’. It also uses very powerful statements to reprogram the brain with positive mindsets.

Do this mantra meditation as often as you can, together and alone. You could even teach your children to play it with you. Imagine driving along in the car and hearing your children chanting these beautiful words.

It is fun because you have to remember which statement you are up to when it is your turn (as there is a specific order.)

It is a beautiful way to share time with people you love and it has great psychological benefits.

It is also one of those things that gets stuck in your head and so you will find yourself chanting these beautiful life affirming words in all sorts of moments.

This meditation can also be practiced in a group where you go around the circle taking turns to say the statements in order.

I hope you have fun with it!

CHALLENGING & CHANGING NEGATIVE BELIEFS

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Jennifer Pizzicara

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR NEGATIVE BELIEF SYSTEMS & LIVE A HAPPIER LIFE

Much of the pain and suffering we experience in our lives is a result of old belief systems we have stored away in our unconscious minds. In many ways the unconscious mind is like a library where ideas have been filed like books waiting to be referred to, when an answer, a solution or a response is required.

These belief systems are not always in alignment with our intelligent mind. In fact, if we were able to really look at them clearly and pull them apart, we would think most of them to be ridiculous. This is because most of them were formed before we were five years old and have been kept unaltered for all these years, jumping off the shelves and dictating our actions, thoughts and responses before our intelligent mind even has time to assess the situation.

For example, if you had a parent that often ignored you as a child, you may have concluded that your parent did not like you or that you were unimportant or even unlovable. This information may have been stored away in your unconscious library, ready to be called upon every time anyone ever ignored you or even seemed to be ignoring you, for the rest of your life.

So that when a lover does not answer us straight away, or a friend does not return our text as fast as we want them to, the old belief system can be triggered. Our unconscious mind connects to the old story and we immediately start to feel rejected, unloved or whatever we felt as a little child when our parent was not giving us the attention we needed.

This is not something our intelligent, conscious mind concludes. It is an old belief system that we can often be completely unaware even exists for us. But do we really want a five-year-olds’ ideas to be guiding our lives as adults?

This process for storing belief systems in the reactionary unconscious mind, is a fool proof way of helping us gather important information that will keep us alive. When we are little and our unconscious mind is in that early stage, it is collecting reference material for the future like, don’t cross the road without looking, fire burns, dont run with scissors, etc. These are all good belief systems but the way our lifestyles have evolved means that we have also stored a lot of information that is not necessarily true and often more destructive than helpful.

In the situation above, where we were little children, who have concluded that we are unlovable because our parent ignored us, we have adopted a story that is stored in the library of our unconscious mind. The story says people ignore us (or don’t listen, or don’t spend time with us, or whatever else) because they don’t like us, we are not acceptable, we are not valued, etcetera.

In fact, there could be many reasons our parent appeared to ignore us, that we, as little children had no concept of. Perhaps our parent was suffering from depression and didn’t know how to deal with the demands of a small child. Perhaps they had relationship problems or hated their job. Maybe they had financial problems and were preoccupied with worry. Perhaps they had belief systems of their own to do with spoiling children by giving them too much attention! There could have been hundreds of reasons and only one of those hundreds of possible reasons had anything at all to do with us not being loved, valued, wanted or acceptable.

Still the one we usually choose at that very young, self-centred and inexperienced age, is the one that is all about us. Then it gets locked away in our unconscious library and we use it as the “true story,” the reference point, for the rest of our lives. Until one fine day we realize, that belief system is not helping us or benefiting us at all. We realize that old story is, in fact, hurting us; causing us to suffer, ruining our relationships, making us respond or behave in ways that are not in alignment with the way we want to behave, or feel is the best possible versions of ourselves.

As little children we believed that absolutely everything that ever happened was about us. So the conclusions we drew, as a result of our experiences, that formed our automatic belief systems were mostly about us. We were not capable of formulating belief systems that took everything being our fault or about us, out of the equation. This is why most of our unconscious belief systems (the reference books in our survival library) just don’t serve us very well today. They were all written by a small, inexperienced child who thought everything that ever happened and everything anyone else ever did was all, ultimately because of them.

If you have ever reacted in a way that made you question yourself or that you didn’t like or that made you feel out of control, then you were acting from your unconscious belief system. It is not the way your intelligent, experienced self would choose to act.

If you ever feel sad or depressed, angry or afraid and can’t really come up with a rational reason, it is probably because a story is running in your unconscious library which is causing you to associate with feelings you experienced as a small child.

We don’t always live completely from these old belief systems and most times we are able to stop and think before we respond but when we are stressed, taken by surprised or the situation resembles the old childhood scenario a little too closely, the intelligent thinking mind is bypassed. The unconscious reference library jumps in to save us so fast that it completely avoided the logical thought process and BAM! We find ourselves acting like a child (either throwing a tantrum, sulking, hiding, whining, hitting out, overcome with fear or running away).

As we don’t have a list of all the thousands of belief systems we have stored away, that have been wrongly recorded and that jump out and take us over like some sort of Mr Hyde, it may seem difficult to start getting rid of those ones that do not serve us.

However there is a very simple and effective formula we can use to help us identify and change these old erroneous belief systems and live happier, more positive and less reactive lives.

Hawk Therapies Wellness Centre offers one on one consultations with clients who wish to reprogram negative belief systems in order to flow through life with happiness and abundance. These sessions will enable you to identify where the negative programming originated and effectively reverse it, allowing the positive life flow to take you to where you really need to be.

For more information, contact Hawk Therapies Wellness Centre via our website www.hawktherapies.com.au

Or send an email to info@hawktherapies.com.au or call (03) 9331 0737 to book a consultation.

CD’s and Books available on this topic in store: 35 McFarlane Street, East Keilor VIC 3033

Reprinted with permission from Dr Cunningham

Benefits of Yoga for Teenagers

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Jennifer Pizzicara

Reasons why you should encourage your teen to engage in regular yoga practice:

The teenage years set the foundations of behaviours and habits leading into adulthood, therefore it is extremely important for teenagers to connect to themselves and become mindful of what is happening internally and externally, forming an awareness of the mind-body-soul connection. This blog will discuss some of the physical and mental benefits of yoga,how it can counter the stresses of teenage life, improve sleep and performance at school.

Physical Benefits:

Yoga-for-teen-02 On a physical level, immense changes take place in the teenagers’ body’s chemistry and physiology, such as more activity in their chakras as they continue to develop. When imbalances in the chakras occur, the chemistry and hormones in the body are altered, often presenting as low energy, increased emotions, and mood swings. This in turn effects all aspects of their lives, from friendships to the ability to study and cope well at school, their self-esteem and self-image, and their general ability to move through life with ease and positivity.

Regular practice of yoga helps to balance the chakras, strengthening the soul and the spirit, and improving health, resulting in huge benefits for the mind and body. The physical component of yoga helps to strengthen and tone the body, increase flexibility (after sitting in a chair all day at school), assist with circulation, detoxify the body, promotes good posture and spinal health, among many other benefits.

Mental Benefits and School:

With a focus on the importance of breath, teenagers soon discover the correlation between correct deep breathing and the associated calmness in the body, which they can apply in all life situations if they are feeling stressed, worried or concerned. This in turn assists by reducing anxiety, depression and overall stress levels, thus further improving the health of the mind and body.

Regular yoga practice for teenagers promotes improved concentration and focus, better sleeping patterns, increased energy levels, and provides a strengthened internal perspective, helping self-image develop free of media and other cultural influences. Research has shown that students who practice regular yoga and meditation enjoy better recall and retention at school, perform better overall in exams, and are better equipped to handle the increasingly high demands of schoolwork during the teenage years. This practice assists with preserving energy levels so that they can better cope with other life areas and commitments away from school without feeling overwhelmed. The importance of maintaining a good balance of school, work, exercise and social connections cannot be understated.

Yoga and Meditation:

Our Thursday evening Teenage Yoga class runs for one hour and incorporates ten minutes of relaxation meditation which deeply assists this highly mentally active age group to completely detach from the busyness in their world, enabling them to self-connect and trust themselves whilst bringing their bodies down from a state of “fight or flight” to a clam and optimal state of “homeostasis.” It is from this place that the body activates its own innate healing process, strengthening the immune system, deterring colds, flu’s and allergies, regulating the digestive system, and eliminating the cocktail of chemicals that are released into the teens body during times of stress.

Sleeping Benefits:

It is common for teenagers to experience issues with their sleeping patterns such as broken sleep, inability to enter a deep sleep, and trouble switching off and falling to sleep; this is a huge issue as it effects their mental and physical health as well as their studies. Yoga and meditation help to alter the brainwave states making for a more effective night’s sleep and a more positive mood the following day.

Teenage yoga is highly recommended by many professionals as a great stress management program in addition to the many physical benefits that this physically sedentary group requires. No phones or texts, no iPads, laptops or Facebook, no beeps or notifications – absolutely no distractions, just one full hour of connecting to yourself, slowing your body and mind down through your breath, working your physical body and releasing stress and tension, creating a lasting state of balance for the week ahead!

So make a difference to the lives of the teenagers you know, share this link and be part of improving the well-being of future generations.

Contact Hawk Therapies Wellness Centre via the website enquiry page or email info@hawktherapies.com.au