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Good news
We can all do with some good news once in a while! Especially these days, with the political landscape shifting into a direction that is revealing insecurity and fear in us all. The next thing is to work with that! Things do not come into the open without a purpose. It wants to be heard, it wants to be seen. The answer is not strong and conservative leadership, though. But compassion, wisdom and purity. Towards others and ourselves.
The good news that I would like to share, is that there are already enough subscriptions for the three week Clarity Retreat in Portugal to happen! Three weeks for inner listening; for compassion, wisdom and purity to shine a light on the fears, insecurities and inhibitions that bubble up from an unheard subconscious. Life is too beautiful, too precious to not listen, to not help this part of ourselves back to reality. As Jeru, my beloved teacher, said it so beautifully:
"It's the lack of understanding of the subconscious that creates our misery, and it's the lack of understanding of the subconscious that creates the misery of the world. So if you can begin to understand what creates your misery and learn how to come out of that, then you can be an example for how the world can also come out of its miseries. Because the misery of the world is all individual, even though it does seem collective sometimes."
Subscribe in November and get a 75 Euro Early Bird!
Join us for this special three week Retreat in the beauty of the Algarve. You will meet yourself in a depth that you have not experienced before. Part of this retreat is a 72 hour meditation designed by Jeru called 'The Island'. To join this Retreat, you have to be familiar with the tools offered in the Clarity Week.
We also give this 75 Euro Early Bird to those who sign up for 'The Sacred Journey Home' this month, our three year Inner Core Clarity Training that has helped so many people to a more authentic and peaceful life.
Note: The Clarity Retreat in Portugal is the start of the Inner Core, but can also be booked separately.
C L A R I T Y T I P S
People with a low resting heart rate live years longer
In one of our national newspapers (NRC) I read an article last week about a study done in the Medical Centre of Groningen University. A low resting heart rate increases the chance of a longer life. By five heartbeats, women have an average of 2.6 more years of life, men 2.9.
I was curious what meditation would do, so I measured my heart rate just after waking up and also immediately after my morning meditation. And guess what? At rising, my heart hit an average of 60 times per minute, and after meditation 55! Apparently the body gets into an even deeper state of rest through meditation than by sleeping.
The relaxation in your mind determines the relaxation in your body
This is in itself not surprising, when you understand more of the influence of the subconscious on your body and how meditation can bring peace in those deeper and not so easy to reach areas in yourself.
The rest / stress level in your mind determines how deep the relaxation in the body can go. During sleep, daily stress is processed. But tensions connected with older structures, for example from your infancy and childhood, remain untouched. And because you are not conscious when you sleep, you cannot actively lend a hand to reduce tension and stress.
Meditation as communication
In meditation you can! In my silent meditations I do this in two ways:
1. by bringing my awareness to my breath.
2. by expressing in my posture my adult presence in the safety and support of the moment.
Both are a direct communication to my subconscious. In a wordless way, I let it know that there is space for deep relaxation and releasing unnecessary tension and stress.
The breath
Having my awareness with the breath, immediately invites it to become deeper and slower. Breathing deeper and more slowly is one of the few things that you can do to consciously influence the sympathetic nervous system. That is the part of the nervous system that, among other things, regulates the heart rate.
But there is more! By bringing my awareness to the breath, my consciousness is in touch with something real. Which automatically makes me less entangled with my thoughts. So instead of thought giving signals to the body, the reality of the moment starts giving signals to my body. And in the early morning, on my meditation cushion, that are all signals of peace and benevolence.
Body posture
I also consciously bring my posture in harmony with the reality of the moment. I make an effort to sit up straight, in my centre, in a way that expresses my strength and awareness. Not from a mental idea, but from the reality of my adult presence in a moment that is safe, complete and supportive, and to which I love open myself.
A powerful message. If... I actually do experience it! If it comes from sheer instructions, from an idea, then we're back in the mind again. It has to come from an actual experience of the actual moment. And with 'experience' I do not mean that you have to feel it emotionally, but that you perceive it through your senses in a realistic way. That's the only thing that really works. No fairy tales. Reality.
Would you like to try it yourself?
Put two fingers on your wrist or in your neck. Personally, I feel it in my neck most clearly. Look at a clock and count the number of beats in 60 seconds .
Measure it immediately upon awakening. Go to the toilet, and straight into your meditation, without doing any other stuff in between. Measure it once more at the end of your meditation.
Give your day a foundation of peace with morning meditation
It is fine to hand in some sleep in favour of meditation. Chances are high that meditation gives more peace to your day then sleeping a bit longer. Therefore meditate right after getting up, as a kind of extension of your sleep.
Reducing the basic stress level of the mind
In the newspaper article, they advise you to lower your resting heart rate through exercising. Exercising 30 minutes a day can already strengthen the heart muscle considerably, so it has to beat less often. Easy to do and probably you are doing it already.
What you can do more, is to bring down the basic stress level of your mind. For this you have to do something with those old patterns we carry from our infancy and childhood. But almost no one has the skills to do that. Actually a bit strange. You carry them with you your whole life, they affect your day and night, and you don't know how to handle them. Would you like to? Are you curious how you can do that? Come to our Clarity Week in France, February 25 to March 5, and I'll teach you.
