Centering Tools

The In's and Out's of Forgiveness

The Essential Elements of the Six-Pointed Star of Healing

1.  It's elusive, and it doesn't lie. 

2.  It occurs as a serendipitous response when one experiences acceptance, the final stage of grief.

3.  It represents coming to completion. 

4.  When it occurs, pain disappears, and it is as if one's corresponding "record" of suffering is erased. 

5.  It is multidimensional healing involving body, mind and spirit, and it sets us free - free to be present in the present, recovering wholeness. 

6.  When we divide the word into its two primary sections, we have for-giving.

How to Explore Forgiving

These are the six key elements to describe forgiving.  It's interesting  to note that in numerology, the metaphysical definition of the spiritual meaning of numbers based on the understanding that each primary number exists along a unique corresponding vibrational frequency that has its particular characteristics of healing and development, the number 6 associates with personal, relationship and environmental harmony and balance.

So let's experiment with exploring for-giving, and see what happens.  Here is a guided meditation and journaling exercise to experience the "in's and out's" of forgiveness:

A Hands-on Exercise for You to Try

Settle back into a comfortable, supported position, close your eyes, and deepen your breath.  Count to yourself five, full, deep easy breaths.  Then for the next several breaths that you take, as you inhale, say to yourself "let be".  As you exhale, say to yourself, "let go".

Simply stay present with your sense of your own regular rhythms.  Then, for these next several breaths, as you inhale say the word "for" to yourself, and as you exhale say to yourself the word "giving".  Observe your sensations.

Now, for these next several breaths, allow yourself to say an additional word or phrase after you say "for - giving" as you continue to easily and fully breathe - whatever seems to naturally come up, say that additional word or phrase, and continue to observe your sensations.

Then consider, however you are moved to do so, a particular focus you feel called upon to take in further experiencing the power of forgiving.  As you continue to breathe so rhythmically and easily in and out, continue to experience whatever focus seems to quite easily and naturlly emerge regarding forgiving, even if there are several. 

See what happens as you continue this experiment.  When you feel complete with this healing journey, very easily and naturally return to full, waking consciousness, and record your experience and your insights.

Explore What's Next

What happened for you through this experiment?  What are you now moved to choose to do in any aspect of your life?  What has shifted for you?  Record your insights.

Many more opportunities to experience the multidimensional healing and development power that forgiveness offers you await your exploration, within organic, unfolding processes.  Know that life continues to primarily offer these opportunities, and if you can correspondingly support these challenges through your own consciously-determined inner journeys, you freely support many greater accelerated opportunities for multidimensional evolution for yourself and all others to whom you are connected.

I wish you all happy related results - Namaste, Marjorie

Pharmacology of alcohol and a useful tool: blood alcohol calculator

Alcohol is so widely used that its legality can be thought of as somewhat independent of its mostly alarming effects on the body. It's important to understand alcohol from the physical perspective to appreciate its psychological component.  In this post I will address the basic pharmacology of alcohol. I think this is an important piece to understanding alcohol in general. 

There are also a couple of blood alcohol content level calculators that are available online that deserve mentioning - they are free and relatively accurate so long as you have an idea about how much you're going to drink. 

The basics - alcohol is not merely a depressant

Alcohol is a depressant.  This represents a significant portion of our understanding of it, at least on a day-to-day or conversational level.  However, it is a unique depressant given its euphoria-producing properties.  Euphoria, characterized by a sudden onset of excitability and confidence (possibly over-confidence) is quintessentially indicated not in depressants but in psychostimulants (that is, "speed").  Thus for alcohol to have euphoria-producing effects is hardly intuitive.

How is it that alcohol causes euphoria if its a depressant?

A quick review of empirical literature on the pharmacology of alcoholism contains frequent indications that "the exact mechanism is not known" - though that saying is hardly specific to alcohol per se. 

In any event, alcohol influences the activity of at least four major neural systems: the NMDA receptors, GABA receptors, Dopamine receptors, and the opioid receptors. There are certainly additional effects, however it is the influence on the dopamine receptors that interests us here because it is likely that system which is responsible for the euphoria associated with alcohol.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that, when manipulated, can be associated with diverse behavioral effects including addiction, euphoria, pleasure, psychomotor repetition, and cognitive enhancement.  Alcohol appears to influence dopamine receptors in the limbic system.  If you think about the times when alcohol has made you apt to be more emotional than what you consider to be normal, this might be a physical explanation. 

What are some tools for monitoring alcohol's influence on me?

Of course the most important thing about alcohol is that you know its effects.  This goes beyond simply knowing how it behaves as a drug.  It also requires proactive action that indicates such knowledge is being put to use.  A simple awareness of your blood alcohol level (BAC) will suffice.

You can use a blood alcohol calculator online so that you can prevent a problem.  As long as you know roughly how much you're going to drink its reasonably accurate. 

Another tool in this regard is your friends and family.  If someone you know voices a concern about your habits, try not to take it personally.  Chances are they are simply concerned.  They may not be as accurate at estimating your BAC, but they may provide what makes it possible for you to think about that in the first place.  Social support is absolutely key in managing alcohol and alcohol-related health concerns.

Additional resources

Global status report on alcohol

Success!

Success and Failure

What does success mean to you?  Failure?  We live in a culture that profoundly and primarily drives us to "success" and "failure".  I want to focus  in this article on clarifying what those terms mean to you, because your consciousness works with those terms, probably, every day of your life - and correspondingly directs you to respond.

Let's start by drawing a line down the center of a blank sheet of paper.  Write at the top of the left section the word, "Failure", and title the right section "Success."  Fold the paper so you only see, for the first part of this exercise, the title titled, "Failure".  Focus on this word for a few moments.  Write down whatever comes up inside of you in response to this word, "Failure" - one word or phrase to a line until you've run out of ideas.

A Profound Jouranling Exercise for Healing and Success

Now flip your paper so you can only see the right column, titled "Success".  Spend a few moments as you did above focusing on this word, "Success".  Write whatever words or phrases come up inside you, one word or phrase to a line until you've run out of ideas, in response to the title, "Success".

Now open your paper so you can see both columns.  Using the phrase "I am" or "I have", write either phrase, whichever seems to make the most sense to you, before every item on your lists, including the titles.  For example, you could write, "I have failure" , or "I have success".  Then settle back and take a few moments to read to yourself all that you have to say from accessing deeper levels of consciousness about success and failure.

Restore Your Power to Command Free Choice

Record whatever insights occur.   Now focus once more on your first list, titled, "Failure".  On a separate sheet of paper, write every item on that list including the title, as its exact opposite.  For example, using the title of that list, suppose you wrote, "I have failure".  You would convert the title to its exact opposite, which would read, "I have success".

Read down the entire converted list when you have finished, and record any insights that occur.  Now draw a big "X" down the original list titled "Failure".  You can use the new list you've just completed, and your original list titled "Success" for a tremendously targeted list of powerful affirmations to initiate and extend your innate power to create your chose reality; and support and reinforce yourself going forward.

It's All About Your Freedom to Be - And Accept

Consider that what you have drawn an "X" through on the first list is simply a list of faulty belief systems, and you could write that phrase at the top of that list above you word, "Failure".  Consider a s well that you have just created a supreme template going forward to define and dictate right direction for you to go forward in the way that best brings you what you want and need in your life, in order to continue to heal and evolve. 

There are no failures - only challenges to extend to right completion.  Happy landings . . . and all blessings in the spirit of organic unfolding . . . rmeember, where you are is only a relection of being .

Memoir Writing Group

• Dates: 2nd Monday of every month

• Time: 10am-12 noon

• Fees: $30.00 per month, payable by check, Mastercard/Visa, and Paypal

• Contact: email Marjorie or call her (585-244-6210) to inquire

TELL YOUR STORY, WRITE YOUR LIFE MEMOIR WRITING GROUP

Do you love reflecting on all the amazing stories that make up your life?  Or perhaps you know a friend or loved one who writes or tells amazing and inspiring stories that make a difference in your life.

Join Marjorie Baker Price the second Monday morning of every month from 10am-noon to share your memoirs, and continue to develop and explore your ability to "tell your story . . . write your life". This acclaimed, nurturing group grew out of a repeated class that Marjorie taught at the Center for Lifelong Learning at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York for several years.

Each session focuses on developing your own unique writing style to say what you want to say and perhaps what you didn't know you could say; to wonderfully reflect and extend meaning, healing, personal growth and resolution in your life.  The small, nurturing group experience offers powerful inspiration and creative acceleration for your writing practice.

We are all storytellers as we find ourselves at a time in our life to be able to reflect back on our own unique, multidimensional circle of experience, and offer it to others as a loving gift.  Group members have published their memoirs and shared them with extended family and friends.

Each class, which meets in Rochester, New York includes recommendations for writing, as well as development of your own unique style.

Fee is $30 per month, check, Mastercard/Visa, Paypal accepted.

For more information and to register email marjorie@centeringtools.com or call Marjorie at 585-244-6210.

Applying Pressure: The History and Efficacy of Reflexology

By Danielle Grilli, content director of rVita.com

My first brush with reflexology was on a soccer field.  Sitting on the sidelines, watching my big brother kick the ball around, my little 8 year old head began to ache something terrible.  One of the soccer moms, a nurse, took my hand and began to squeeze the area between my thumb and index finger; several minutes later, my headache began to dissipate. At the time I thought it was magic but she corrected me saying, “It’s not magic, it’s just reflexology.” 

Although the exact origins of reflexology are unclear, it is believed that the practice reaches as far back as ancient Egypt.  Evidence of use can also be found in China, North America and in other areas of the ancient world.  Modern reflexology as we know it has its roots in Zone Therapy which was established by Dr. William H. Fitzgerald in the early 1900’s.  Several years (and theoretical adjustments) later, in the 1970’s, the International Institute of Reflexology was established.

As a therapy, reflexology involves the application of pressure to specific points in the feet, hands or ears.   Not unlike Acupuncture points, reflexology points are thought to coincide with different energy channels in the body.  As a result, it is believed that the application of pressure to a particular point stimulates the muscles, organs, and nerves that lie along that zone, or channel, allowing them to function more effectively.

As regards the efficacy of reflexology, the jury’s still out.  Although several studies have shown reflexology to be beneficial in the treatment of conditions such as premenstrual syndrome, recurrent migraines, and high blood pressure; to date, there have not been enough successful results to unequivocally prove its efficacy for any given condition.  That said, as with many CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) treatments, reflexology is personalized and trials are few and far between so it is difficult to determine how effective it really is as a system of treatment.

Science aside, I can say that I have never had to take a pain pill for a headache.  The first thing I do when I start to feel a impending headache is squeeze that point the soccer mom showed me all those many years ago and – just like the magic I thought it was – the pain disappears into thin air.      

References

1. rVita: Alternative Therapy
2. T Oleson, W Flocco, "Randomized controlled study of premenstrual symptoms treated with ear, hand, and foot reflexology" Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vol 82, No 6, Dec 1993, 906-911.
3. "Headache and Reflexological Treatment" by E Brendsstrup & L Launso, publ. by the Council Concerning Alternative Treatment, the National Board of Health, Denmark, 1997.
4. B.S.M. Frankel, "The effect of reflexology on baroreceptor reflex sensitivity, blood pressure and sinus arrhythmia", Complementary Therapies in Medicine (1997) 5, 80-84
5. http://www.reflexology-usa.net/
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexology

Centering Books: Willing to be Led Toward Your Heart

Willing to be Led Toward Your Heart: Centering Poems for Self-Healing and Development

Price: $15.97 + $1.50 first-class shipping

This is Marjorie Baker Price's therapeutic and recently published book of poetry.