Living with More Energy and Awareness
We all know those moments when we do something we didn’t really mean or want to do and then feel bad. In this context, self-judgment can start automatically and spiral us down fast. Self-judgment in the West Years ago when a Western student asked the Dalai Lama about self-hatred, he repeated the word, “self-hatred?” He appeared perplexed. “What is that?”…
Read More
Consciously Choosing The power of mindfulness, awareness, and simple being When I learned more about the functioning of our nervous system, I discovered that we actually can consciously choose its support to balance ourselves. Whenever I calmed myself using my breathing, my body-awareness, and a conscious response to an unpleasant situation, I activated the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). An activated PNS relaxes us and enables a different way…
Read More
Two Different Nervous Systems We are the descendants of thousands of generations of ancestors who fought, fled, and played dead in order to survive and thrive. In a relatively short span of time, our life circumstances have changed radically from those who actually had to survive in nature. These days we navigate fast-paced traffic, sleep in locked houses, sit for…
Read More
Next to love and compassion, joy is a powerful emotion that can make our own life and the lives of those around us more beautiful. These positive emotions are related to states of mind that steer our inner orientation towards warmth, freshness, and an energetic lightness. There are many situations in which I might choose to live in a more open, joyful,…
Read More
A possible scenario: It’s Sunday morning and a free day lies in front of me. Our cat is sleeping by my side, rolled up into a warm furry ball. Outside the early morning sun starts warming the wintry garden. Possible projects for the day are circling in my head and thoughts about the past week are moving by in…
Read More
