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Six Mudras to Heal Common Ailments

Sonali Bansal
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11
Six Mudras to Heal Common Ailments

 “When reflex points of the fingertip are pressed, these healing substances are released and one can rebalance any diseased area of the body.” ~ The Healing Art of Mudras, Deborah Nasca

Mudras are hand gestures or simple formations of the fingers and hands which stimulate specific energy pathway that can unlock higher levels of awareness and bring about healing when held with focus for extended periods of time.

Each finger represents an element of nature and when that is brought into contact with the thumb, it brings about balance in that element and helps cure the disease caused by the imbalance. Mudras start electromagnetic currents within the body which balance various constituting elements and restore health.

Deborah Nasca in The Healing Art of Mudras said, “Mudric finger positions tie in with healing arts such as acupressure, acupuncture, hand and foot reflexology, and massage therapy, as all of these work with the release of the human body’s own natural biochemical healing substances endorphins and dopamine that assist in the healing process. When reflex points of the fingertip are pressed, these healing substances are released and one can rebalance any diseased area of the body. For example it is a common response to clench the fists when experiencing stress or tension. This reaction actually creates a mudra, which activates certain reflex points, thus helping the individual to calm down.”

Let’s look at six mudras to heal common ailments:

Gyan (Knowledge) mudra for stress

mudras to heal common ailments

How to: Join the tip of the thumb to the tip of the index finger to form an O shape, while all the other fingers are straight & relaxed. Imagine the thumb and the index finger to be one and not detached, uniting the Brahma (thumb) and individual consciousness (index finger).

Why to: This hand gesture works with the air element in the body, and is often used during pranayama and meditation. It helps in managing stress, increasing concentration levels and calming the entire nervous system. Activating the pineal gland, Gyan mudra helps with headaches and keeps you calm.

Duration: Practice the mudra either for 45 minutes at a stretch or distribute it to 15 minutes three times a day. You can start with 5 minutes and extend gradually.

Linga (Phallus) Mudra for cold and cough

How to: Interlock your fingers and keep the left thumb straight and upright. While the right thumb should encircle the left thumb from the outside.

ling_mudra

Why to: Linga mudra is known to increase the fire element or bodily heat in the body. It is often used to overcome chills or cold due to increase of kapha element or cold weather. It reduces overproduction of phlegm due to cold, sinusitis and other respiratory disorders. Although it is suggested not to overdo this mudra and stop using it when cold leaves the body, as it can cause excessive heat in the body.

Duration: Practice the mudra either for 45 minutes at a stretch or distribute it to 15 minutes three times a day. You can start with 5 minutes and extend gradually.

Shankh (conch shell) Mudra for immunity and throat-related problems

shankh_mudra


How to: Place your hands just before your chest. Use your left hand to grasp the right thumb with your fingers wrapped firmly around it. Now bring the remaining fingers of the right hand into place so that they make contact with your left thumb. The shape of your hands will now resemble a conch shell or shankh. Maintain this formation with your hands at chest level and keep your eyes closed for as long as you can.

Why to: Shankh Mudra is effective to treat problems related to the throat chakra. It also relieves speech-related issues like stammering. It also balances the Thyroxine secretion from Thyroid gland. Working with all 72000 nadis, this mudra strengthens the entire body and increases immunity levels.

Duration: Practice Shankh mudra either for 45 minutes at a stretch or distribute it to 15 minutes three times a day. You can start with 5 minutes and extend gradually.

Prana (vital energy) mudra for eye problems

prana_mudra


How to: Join the tip of the thumb to the tip of the ring finger and the little finger while keeping the rest of the fingers straight.

Why to: As the name suggests, Prana mudra increases the vital energy in the body. It brings a sense of clarity in our aural field, creates inner focus, greater clarity and is beneficial for eye problems. Apart from this, it increases the energy levels in the body, reduces fatigue and nervousness.

Duration: Practice Prana mudra either for 45 minutes at a stretch or distribute it to 15 minutes three times a day. You can start with 5 minutes and extend gradually.

Shunya (sky) Mudra for ear ailments

shunya_mudra


How to: Gently bend the middle finger and press it against the ball or mount of the thumb. Now, with the thumb, press the first phalanx bone of the middle finger by the tip of the thumb. Keep the remaining fingers straight up and loose without any tension.

Why to: The Mudra of Emptiness reduces the space element in the body, and is known to help hearing problems, ear aches and pain. Also it cures numbness in any other part of the body. It is suggested to stop doing the mudra as soon as the symptoms of the disease vanish.

Duration: Practice Shunya mudra either for 45 minutes at a stretch or distribute it to 15 minutes three times a day. You can start with 5 minutes and extend gradually.

Agni (fire) Mudra for indigestion

agni_mudra


How to: Bend the ring finger and place it at the base of the thumb and place the thumb on the second phalanx bone of the ring finger. All the other three fingers will remain straight.

Why to: As the name suggests, this mudra works with the fire element of the body, so it increases the heat in the body, and speeds up the process of digestion. It reduces the Earth element, which is responsible for weight gain and lethargy. Agni mudra increases metabolism and relieves digestive issues.

Duration: Practice the mudra either for 45 minutes at a stretch or distribute it to 15 minutes three times a day. You can start with 5 minutes and extend gradually.

Come into a seated position, either cross-legged or Lotus pose, whichever is convenient before you perform any of the above mudras. An ailing person can perform the poses in a lying down position as well. Practice these hand gestures to experience the healing power in your hand.

(Please consult your health care professional or an experienced yoga teacher before starting this, its not a substitute for proper medical care in case of pre-existing conditions.)

Image source
Mudra Artwork by Miles Toland

References
Mudras
The Healing Art of Mudras
Hand gestures
Mudras and health

Sojourns and Soul Journeys: Exploring the Peripatetic Mindset

Gary Z McGee
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1
Sojourns and Soul Journeys: Exploring the Peripatetic Mindset

“Those who learned to know death, rather than to fear and fight it, become our teachers about life.” ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

What is a soul journey? To effectively answer that, we’ll need to ask ourselves another question: what is a soul? “Soul” is one of those concepts, like “God” and “Love,” that is a bit tricky to define. And like the concepts “God” and “Love,” “Soul” is a sensitive subject for most. Why is this?

sojourn

It comes down to this: there are over seven billion different people on the planet, and we all have a different psychophysiological interpretation of any given stimuli. Every concept, from spoons to Ferraris, creates a fundamentally different psychophysiological reaction within each and every one of us. We’re just typically not aware of the difference. Except when it comes to such sensitive concepts as “God/Love/Soul.”

I mean, we can all agree on a definition of something simple like a fork, or a chair, or the sun. But when it comes down to abstract concepts about the human condition, we tend to get a little nervous, and sometimes more than a little anxious.

Suddenly we’re ready to square circles and force square pegs into round holes. And maybe that’s a good definition for Soul? Soul (n): squaring circles and forcing square pegs into round holes. Then again, maybe not.

Now enter the peripatetic mindset

“It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~ Aristotle

Peripatetic means traveling from place to place. And if we can apply this to a mindset, we come up with a mind that can “entertain a thought without accepting it.” We come up with a mind that can “travel” from thought to thought, from idea to idea.

We arrive at a worldview that withholds a worldview for the sake of continuing the journey of truth. It’s a way of being in the world that takes things into consideration (ideas, ideologies, and worldviews), appreciates them for what they are, and then intellectually/sacrificially lets them go.

It’s the understanding that thoughts are like air: if you breathe in but forget to breathe out, you’re in trouble. And so it is with thoughts: if you think them in but forget to think them out (let go), you’re in trouble.

Aristotle knew this all too well. He also said, “It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.” Indeed. Gratification is overrated. Best to be satisfied in moderation. Best to maintain desire and curiosity so as to keep the journey constant.

The peripatetic mindset keeps us even-keeled on the choppy waters of Truth. It’s a mindset that’s never set. It reminds us that we are merely journeymen, sojourners, on the journey-being-the-thing. It reminds us that all things change.

There is no permanence. We either learn to adapt to change, or we become victims to change. Either way, vicissitude remains the hard and fast rule. But vicissitude is also the striking beauty inherent within the Great Mystery.

And the better we become at sojourning, at moving from place to place, at entertaining a thought without accepting it, at breathing in and breathing out, at having an idea and being able to let it go, the better we will be at adapting to vicissitude.

And, of course, the better we’ll get at not being fooled or making fools out of ourselves. That is to say, the wiser we’ll become.

Now enter the Soul journey

“Better to operate with detachment, then; better to have a way but infuse it with a little humor; best, to have no way at all but to have instead the wit constantly to make one’s way anew from the materials at hand.” ~ Lewis Hyde

A soul journey is a chain of soul-infused sojourns. It’s being soulfully present while treating the thought or place as a sacred space for further deepening the Great Mystery. It’s the ability to fully immerse ourselves in the moment, to feel it deep in our bones, and to let it fill our mind-body-spirit to bursting with an In-the-Now essence.

Like Vijali Hamilton said, “If there is any wisdom running through my life now, in my walking on this earth, it came from listening in the Great Silence to the stones, trees, space, the wild animals, to the pulse of all life as my heartbeat.”

A soul journey is the culmination of many tiny adventures compounded into a grand meta-adventure. Whether those adventures are “real” or imagined, merely ideas or lived ideals, fiction or non-fiction, hypothesis or tested theory.

Each sojourn is a link in a mighty chain leading across the bridge from man to Overman, from lower frequency to higher frequency, from primitive brain to advanced mind. Each sojourn is a sincere dance on an unforgiving dance floor, high laughter in a hall of stagnant mirrors, slow humor on a highway of fast gloom.

It is Nietzsche howling from an abyss: “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.”

A soul journey is a riot of the heart in a heartless realm, an insurrection of the soul in the midst of the soulless. It’s a mighty transmigration. It’s movement par excellence. It’s breaking down walls, stretching comfort zones, shattering mental paradigms, pushing envelopes, and testing Time.

It’s questioning to the nth degree, and then questioning why we’re questioning to the nth degree. It’s taking all things in moderation, to include moderation. It’s unapologetically getting in the overbearing face of authority. It’s slapping God.

Like Darnell Lamont Walker said, “Sometimes our walls exist just to see who has the strength to knock them down.”

From leap of courage, to sojourn, to soul journey, living the peripatetic mindset is the epitome of allowing the journey to be the thing. The journey must continue. The place, wherever it is, must be absconded.

The idea must be taken into consideration, not believed. The thought must be honored and then released so that new and better thoughts can arrive to strengthen the overall muscle memory of human experience.

It’s seeking the Theater of the Absurd, the Hill of High Humor, the pinnacle of Mount Wisdom, the Highlands of Unconditional Love. It’s using the cornerstone as a steppingstone toward the philosopher’s stone.

It’s taking the following wise words of Plato to heart, and then moving on with our desire in tow: “Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire of wisdom and beauty.”

Image source

Wanderlust
Andre Gide quote

What is Past Life Regression and How It Helps Us

Sonali Bansal
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What is Past Life Regression and How It Helps Us

“If you don’t make peace with your past it will keep showing up in your present.” ~ Wayne Dyer

Past life regression (PLR) is a healing technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations. The core practice of past life is about traveling through various planes while in the physical body.

past life regression

In a hypnotic state, where through progressive relaxation, the practitioner transcends the boundaries of the physical world and enters his own subconscious mind and experiences various incidents from past lives.

Eric J. Christopher in his research paper – Exploring The Effectiveness of Past-Life Therapy – mentioned that people who have experienced this state describe it as “Powerful, dramatic, spiritual, sacred, profound, transforming and exceptionally effective.”

During my past life regression, I laid there with my eyes closed to this reality, but experienced a whole new world of different realities. An Arabic girl, an old woman, a cruel African villager who was head of the clan, an old man carrying people’s luggage in deserts, an Egyptian lady in the kingdom, a young carefree girl, I saw myself life after life, meandering through various planes in different sessions only to come back with information that transformed my life.

Past life regression therapy acted as a blessing, I now see my past troubles as a response to my actions and freed myself of the burdens I carried for years. Also it brought about mental peace, release from victim attitude and experienced a heightened state of intuitive awareness.

How Past Life Regression works

Based solely on the belief of reincarnation, PLR takes the practitioner back to the source where it all started. In order to initiate the process the therapist with the help of progressive relaxation techniques calms the whole body and enhances our connection to the subconscious mind with focused awareness.

It is then upon the practitioner to pick up what comes to him/her and witness it like it is happening right now.

Christopher mentioned, “One way PLT commonly works is that the therapist may simply ask a client to go back to the source of his or her problem. If in a deep enough trance, the client may likely begin to envision himself or herself (in either gender) in a vivid past-life scene that relates to his or her present problem. The image is often so clear, lifelike and vivid that the client feels as though he or she is actually reliving the scene, and may express the appropriate emotions as if it were so.”

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A cathartic process, although science finds it difficult to explain the real reason behind it and often the issue becomes a matter of debate among people who don’t believe in its healing power, but only those who experience the regression but only those who experience the regression can talk on the truth of the matter.

Apart from hypnosis, suggestion techniques are also used by the therapist, which allows the practitioner to recall the incidents of the past. Also, bridging technique is used where the incidents or problems of the present lives are used to form a bridge to the past life memories so that they can be brought to conscious awareness for helping the patient.

Signs of having a past life

While all of us whether we believe in the concept or not are enticed by the efficiency of it by testing it. But the soul world works on the principle of what is the age of your soul, which translates into how many lifetimes have you had.

Once, in a group PLR session, we were asked what was the purpose of our life? If everything else was constant & could not hinder, what will we like to do with our lives.

Some said, I want a big house, some said fame, some said to help people, money etc. Based on our answers we were told whether we are an old soul or a new one. Those with desires pertaining to material world were considered new souls, who were still learning, while others with deeper aspirations were the older ones, gradually overcoming the material desires.

deja vu

Here are some of the signs you have had past lives

  • Any kind of phobia or fear, for instance, fear of heights, confined places, darkness, water etc. usually relates to a situation in the past that has led to the fear. If you did not experience anything in this life related to your fear, but you remember having it from your childhood days, it is most likely one of your past life incidents as the point of origin.
  • The feeling of Déjà vu is yet another indication that you have had past lives. Some of us have déjà vu more than others and this could be because we have many old lifetimes to relate to. Dr. Brian Weiss, author of Many Master Many Lives said, “one of the most common signs of a past life is déjà vu—the sensation that you have met a person before or have visited someplace previously. Sometimes, this déjà vu feeling is a sign of a past life with a particular person or in a specific place.”
  • The feeling of experiencing dreams likes true incidents, where every detail of the situation is crystal clear. We travel across time and space when we sleep and usually encounter incidences from our past lives.
  • A certain pull or push from places/situations/people/subjects/jobs etc. without any real reason occurs when we have our previous lifetimes’ memories at work. Many of us are born with certain talents, attractions or tastes while our current family backgrounds do not match with these talents or skills, and this is again a sign.
  • PLR often addresses the issues of being attached to certain people or a person. Dr. Brian Weiss insists that we all have soul groups traveling together in different lifetimes, coming into each others’ lives for lessons, help, guidance, love etc. Soul Mates, Soul Family, Karmic Teacher etc. falls in this category. Relationships between two or more souls may vary in different lifetimes, but are there to resolve or create karmic patterns to reach the ultimate goal of nirvana.

Benefits of Past Life Regression

regression-therapyI had many questions in my mind when I visited my therapist. With the past life regression therapy, I could resolve issues and know the reasons for the circumstances I was facing in my life. In one of my sessions, I visited a life where my friend cursed me for letting the lion shred her to pieces and not helping her when I could have.

The curse traveled with me, acting as an obstacle in my life. When we got closer, the curse turned into signs (crescent-shaped moon) and was printed on my whole body. We lifted the curse and replaced the symbol with unconditional love that made me feel whole and complete.

“PLT has been described as a method that can offer a glimpse of the mind’s enormous capabilities in a variety of ways. This mode of treatment has demonstrated that beneath the levels of consciousness within individuals lies profound wisdom, astonishing abilities, and above all, the power to heal oneself and/or empower one to improve life circumstances.” (Hickman, 1983).

Regression is considered to be a good exercise as it allows us to re-energize ourselves and also go into deep meditative states. Accessing deeper levels of consciousness helps us to understand the power that lies within us and gain self-confidence.

Fear and phobias can be overcome in just one or two sessions and many of us get answers to life problems, leading to catharsis and eventually a stress free life.

Doubts and skepticism about the therapy still prevail. While some might find themselves arguing that it is a figment of imagination others like Dr. Brian Weiss said, “When symptoms disappear, that’s usually not from imagination or something like that. It’s usually from the real memory, the experience. Imagination doesn’t cure symptoms.” Experiencing it yourself is the only way to be certain.

Image Source

Past life regression
Past life
Hafiz Quote
Deja vu

Rabbit holes, Wormholes, & Poking Holes

Gary Z McGee
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Rabbit holes, Wormholes, & Poking Holes

“Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and it’s spectacular.” ~ Joseph Campbell

Questing holds a sacred function. When we become too comfortable and content. When we’ve stopped growing. When our worlds feel like wastelands. It is time to hit the road.

Our sojourn is over. It is time to continue the quest. As Shimon Edelmen said, “The seeker after happiness returns home, only to become restless and eventually succumb to the lure of a new journey…When fishing for happiness, catch and release.” Indeed.

We catch the precious sojourn, appreciate it for what it has taught us, and then we release it, thus falling back into the sacred journey.

Because we are an aspect of the cosmos, our will and our good at the deepest level are part of the unfolding of the cosmos. Sometimes all we have to do in order to face our fears is to do like Christ did, who simply said, “take up your bed and walk.” The journey restores the balance between nature & psyche and we are transformed by it.

With that said, allow me to take you on a soul-bending, spirit-twisting, mind-jousting voyage down the rabbit hole, through the wormhole, and into a heightened state of awareness where you’re able to poke holes in all things.

Do not doubt the immense power of your imagination. The only thing faster than the speed of light is imagination. You can imagine yourself orbiting the North Star considerably faster than the North Star’s light takes to reach you. Nothing is too small or too big for your imagination.

Nothing is too finite or too infinite. Like Walt Whitman said, “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars; and the pismire is equally perfect.” Down the rabbit hole we go. Let’s begin.

Rabbit holes

“The journey between what you once were and who you are now becoming is where the dance of life really takes place.” ~ Barbara Deangelis

hole2 You’re not Alice. You’re not Neo. You’re not even a rabbit. You’re all three combined. In fact, in this particular journey, you’re the rabbit hole itself.

Can you feel it? The broken compasses floating by? The spinning bifocals? The alarm clocks blaring “wakeup call!” all in unison? The buckling bones of descent? God’s debris? It’s all there, completely incomplete in this terribly beautiful fall through nothingness.

But wait. Nothingness is where all things come from. Nothingness is the birth pangs of somethingness. Who you once were is a tiny white dot above you. Who you are now becoming is an infinite rabbit hole below you.

Your thoughts race: “What about my job?” “What about my bills?” “What about my faith?” “What about all my precious things things things?” But there’s no time for such thoughts. Like Eckhart Tolle suggested, “Here is a new spiritual practice: Don’t take your thoughts too seriously.” Indeed. This is a rabbit hole.

There’s not even time for Time. And, really, time doesn’t exist anyway, whether in the real world or in a rabbit hole. The rabbit hole just happens to put the illusion of time into better perspective. Here, seriousness is sacrificed to authenticity.

You’re between worlds, after all. You’re all worlds and none. You’ll never be freer than you are here. Each inhale is an exhale. Each exhale is an inhale. Life is death. Death is life. So what it’s all just a temporary altered state of consciousness induced by the fall? So what, it’s a transcendent state relative to the “ordinary” “sober” “reality?”

Everything is especially brilliant and intense for a reason. You’re spiraling out. You needed this. You needed new eyes –Over Eyes. You needed this sacred fall through the interconnection of all things in order to correct faulty perception and unlearn wrong habits and opinions. In order to see how everything is connected to everything else. In order to tap the cornerstone.

Can you feel it? The jutting roots of the Absolute? The ancient wound? The rich, blacker-than-black darkness surrounding you. The primordial womb? Fall, sweet Alice. Fall, darling Neo. There are Wonderlands and Deserts of the Real to be explored. There are banal realities to transcend. There’s vital adventure to be had.

Wormholes

hole3“Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.” ~ Gerald M. Edelman

At the “bottom” of your fall there is a door. In order to continue the journey you’ll need to open this door which leads into the mysterium tremendum et fascinans (the awe-inspiring, mesmerizing mystery). Upon opening the door, you are sucked into a soul-stretching wormhole.

Here, there is magic –big magic, ancient magic, new magic. There’s unbounded imagination. There’s buckling infinities and burgeoning finitudes. There’s broken clocks the size of moons. There’s eclipses casting shadows into Planck lengths larger than Time. There’s you perceiving yourself perceiving yourself perceiving yourself… ad infinitum. It’s a glorious expansion.

This is the multiversal asterism of all passageways; the Tao of all gateways; the threshing of all thresholds; the path of infinite crux; the eternal entrance to the zone of magnified power. Here, you are the mighty Zyzygy, splitting the multiverse between universes.

Where Time eats Time. Where all finite rabbit holes become infinite Rabbit Wholes. Where the space between the forethought of Moon is juxtaposed with the afterthought of Sun. Where hard stars are worn down by soft gravity.

You’re Einstein on a photon breaching cosmos. It’s all passing by at the speed of light squared. It’s all magic. It’s all yours to wield like a macroscopic-maestro manipulating operatic music. It’s your symphony, your song and dance, your assonance and dissonance. So dance.

Surf the soul-stream. Pierce the veil. Slice open the underbellies of stars and swim through the crucible of star guts. Suck the marrow straight out of the Big Bang. Master it all with the over-eyes you gained from the rabbit hole, and bare witness as the eye with which you perceive God, is the same eye with which God perceives you (Eckhart).

Poking holes

“The true transformation in the journey comes when you see the amazing beauty of the place in which you are trapped. This is the vision of the vision quest. You embrace the pain, discard your concerns about death, and then the world opens up to you.” ~ Laurence Gonzales

hole4You burst forth from out of the wormhole and into the “real world.” Your breath catches in your throat. Rabbit hole memories are like medicine in your heart.

Wormhole memories are like a magic red pill in your head. You’ve plucked the great mystery. You’ve stolen fire from the gods and now your Promethean heart is overflowing. What to do now?

Now it’s time to sidestep all pigeonholes. Now it’s time to poke holes. After descending through the rabbit hole and tapping the cornerstone, after ascending through the wormhole and touching the philosopher’s stone; now it’s time to make damn sure your magic doesn’t become pigeonholed.

And the best way to do that is to poke holes despite authority and in spite of the so called powers that be.

Like Chuck Palahniuk said, “Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat… He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix… With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”

Don’t allow the powers that be to hold your attention so much that your imagination atrophies. Laugh at them instead. Mock them instead. With your imagination in full-flame and your sense of humor in full-flutter.

Turn the tables. Poke holes into their pigeonholes of power. Poke holes until power leaks out like rain. Keep poking holes until it floods the world. And then teach people how to swim.

This is the way it has been done since time immemorial. We’ve just forgotten what time had to teach us. Power wills itself. Power magnifies itself. And, as Lord Acton warned, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

That is, unless there are those who have the capacity to keep power in check. To teach power how to expiate itself. You have that power. You’ve tapped the cornerstone! You’ve touched the philosopher’s stone!

You survived the rabbit hole. You survived the wormhole. Now it’s your absolute responsibility to dodge all pigeonholes and to poke holes in all constructs of power; to include, especially, your own.

Image source:

Sky hole
Follow the white rabbit
Wormhole

How to Stay Present with your Children in the Midst of Technology

Ester Eckhaus
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How to Stay Present with your Children in the Midst of Technology

 “At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents.” ~ Jane D. Hull

Here’s the thing: you can never spoil your kids with attention. Spoiled children are created when parents substitute attention with toys and video games. A trip to Disney World, instead of an intimate trip to the park. Children are not spoiled by love.

They are spoiled when parents think that love is shown by gifts, and all the latest technological toys. Love is shown with time, and a special presence in our child’s life. A child can have extremely hard-working and busy parents, and still feel loved, if their parents are conscious to be fully present in their child’s life.

Why this is important, especially now

There’s been another major shift between generations. As we all know, this young generation is deeply affected by the boom in technology and social media. They are taught to dress as the popular stars, sing along to the explicit songs, and above all, like, share, and post, on all the available streams of social media.

Alone, this would not be such a problem. Every generation felt they had to keep up with the changing social expectations. But now we’re all in a different world. Parents are on their computers, while their children are on their Iphones that can give them access to anything, anywhere.

A child in this generation can access pornography before they have even hit puberty, and sing horrifying lyrics to explicit songs before they even know what it’s talking about. Twelve year old girls are now at the level of a fifteen year old, and the fifteen year olds are going on twenty.

After all this access and premature experiences, what do children do with all this information? How do they process? Who do they go to with questions?

They go to you. Or they don’t, and remain with the illusions that all this information brings.
The parents and teachers of this generation have a huge responsibility. In this age of constantly being plugged in, this is the time when we most need to be paying attention and participating in important dialogue with our children.
Parent-Child-connection-at-sunsetA child’s first sex education cannot be from pornography. And we don’t save them from this by blocking more sites or breathing down their necks. We do this by being the first source of information for our children. We do this by being honest and unafraid of the open questions that children ask us.

We do this, by not creating shame around these subjects, but by treating them with care and wisdom. We do this by being fully there for our children, by showing them that we can talk to them without judgment. We do this by having a presence in our child’s life.
This is especially crucial when children are still young, and you are building your relationships foundation with them.

Here’s How You Can Stay Present with your Children in the Midst of Technology

“We live in an age in which telecommunication is very sophisticated, but communication between parents and children is suffering. We have lost the capacity to listen to each other, to talk to each other in the language of understanding. The practice of mindfulness can help us go back to ourselves, to calm ourselves, to look deeply in order to transform.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Put the phone down

When you and your child are interacting, whether they have sat down to talk, or whether you are just telling them to clean their room, your interactions should be free of your phone, or other distractions.

Just spend those few minutes focusing only on this interaction. It’s not enough to just turn the screen off. Put your phone face-down on the table or completely out of sight.

This will give a message to the child that what he/she is saying is important, and that it is a time just for you two, and no other distractions are taking away from it.

This sets a better environment for a child to open up, and a better environment for the parent to listen with their full attention. This also gives a message to the child for his future: that interactions are more important than what’s going on in his screen.

Spend quality time

bonding with childrenSet aside a certain time a week or even a day to spend quality time (again, without technology or distractions). This can be playing a game with them, or taking them out to the park for a picnic. Find your mutual interests and activities, and plan a day to explore them together.

Each child should feel that they have a special time with their Mom or Dad, when they are only focusing on them and their relationship. So, although it’s great to do things as a family there should also be separate time for each child.

Make space for open conversations

Another good way to spend quality time is to open up space for an ongoing, and open dialogue. Even if we are busy the whole day, and really can’t give our full attention, you can start paying attention at night when things have settled down.

Ask your child before bed if they have anything they had wanted to tell you during the day, but couldn’t; or even if they just have a question, or tidbit about their day. Most likely they will, and they’ll be grateful for the chance to talk a little bit.

Respect your child

When speaking to your child, remind yourself that they are capable and wise. Although every child needs guidance, we need to acknowledge that each child is on his/her own journey, and we should treat them that way.

This means, no “because I said so’s”. If a child is unhappy with a decision that you made, or a situation in their home or school, ask them to explain why it is they are upset, and be ready to help them find comfortable solutions or compromises.

Every child should be made to feel respected and capable of making good decisions for their life. By being able to talk about it with an adult who respects them, they learn the tools they need to make these decisions on their own later on.

Tell them how much you love them

It’s simple. You love your children, and they love you. And, some people need to hear it more than others, but why not tell them how much they mean to you? Tell them how much you love them until their response is “I know, I know, you tell me all the tiiiime”.

Children need so much from us in order to thrive and be their best selves. And yet, they don’t need anything we don’t already have for them. Every parent wants to give their child the love they need, and we don’t need to pay a cent in order to show them we care.

Fully present moments, honest talk, and lot’s of hugs and kisses, will put parents on the right track to fulfilling
relationships with their loved ones.

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