Lib at Camp Eureka, near Yarra Junction .

STESS KILLS & COSTS
STRESS KILLS
One in three adults suffer from moderate to extreme stress....ABS NATIONAL HEALTH SURVEY 2009

.....This represents an increase of nearly 40% in only 4 years.

.....Stress related workers compensation claims have risen 400% in the last 10 years... VIC.WORK COVER.

.....Payout costs have doubled in the last 6 years...VIC. WORK COVER.

the LANDSCAPE of yr MIND
ARE YOUR THOUGHTS MAKING YOU STRESSED ?KILLING YOU?
.....Stressful people and situations will always exist........
it is not stressful situations or stressful people that make us sick but how we react to them........
our reactions affect us physically, emotionally and psycho-spiritually........

YOGA breathing...(pranayama)...will help you slow the mind, so that you can observe it and your habitual reactions........
once you have familiarized your self with your habitual thoughts, which takes years if we are to be authentic, you can choose to change them.....then more years of work....
.....we must learn how some of our habitual thought patterns can create a negative result....

.....we must observe THE LANDSCAPE OF OUR MIND.

......BUT HOW.....?????
scroll down ....keep reading

CHANGE yr PHYSIOLOGY to change yr MIND
In order to understand your mind you must first slow it down, to slow it down we must slow the physiology......this is done via PRANAYAMA (controlled breathing...)
Pranayama AKA controlled is a vital part of this process. I believe without pranayam (controlled breathing), this process is likely to be impossible. The physiology of the body needs to alter before you can slow your mind....to create that change you must control you breathing first.

**please do no practice pranayama if you have high blood pressure, unless you are supervised by a certified yoga teacher.

.....once your breathing has slowed you will notice thoughts are difficult to eliminate....

These constant thoughts are known as 'VRITTI'....or I like to refer to them as 'ORDINARY THOUGHT'.

To familiarise yourself with your 'VRITTI' or 'ORDINARY THOUGHT' close your eyes and try not to think for one minute....you can count to 60 if you like...and watch the flow of 'VRITTI ' enter your mind un invited.

In my experience some students are able to clear their minds effortlessly. Unfortunately they are a minority. For most of us, including myself the mind if full of 'VRITTI' most of the time.

This may not be a bad thing.
If you are highly functioning happy and healthy, clearly your mind is supporting you. It is your ali.

But, if you suffer any form of ill health, whether it be physical or emotional it is likely that your thoughts are not helping.

In fact your thoughts may be making you sick..!!!

You've all heard "YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT"...some of you may have heard ...."YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK. !!!
both very true.....
.....DO YOU HAVE THOUGHTS LIKE.......
....i'm too tired...
....i'm bored...
....this is too hard....
....i want to go home....
....i cant do it....
....i hate my life....
....cant afford it....
....they think im stupid...
....im an idiot....
....this is rubbish...
or as Jonny Depp said in the movie...' THE LIBERTINE '..
....why should i....what's the point...


and hundreds and hudreds more...

.....these habitual / negative thoughts have the power to stop you in your tracks... making you tired and grumpy....and eventually sick.
YET...if u simply turn around and make them positive they have the power to make u strong and happy....
eg:
I HATE MY LIFE becomes
i love my life...too easy.....

....one of the most common malaise that i see in my students is negativity coupled with fatigue....

.....even the fittest and healthiest people can exhibit these symptoms of negative thinking.

.....old core/subconscious beliefs have the ability to plague you your entire life....

.....eg:if you had an unfortunate experience as a child...deep within your pshyche that trauma may still exist...often manifesting in a core belief that you are not worthy....

....a common clue to this is when women, mostly young women frequently apologise when they have done nothing wrong...

....actually they are apologizing for existing...

....this is extremely common.....not to mention sad but very easy to change..





Most of us have had dissapointment in our lives...Not to mention many many sad and traumatic experiences. Each unfortunate experience has the capacity to leave us feeling negative about ourselves and our lives....My own experience is worthy of sharing.

I had prepared to become a PRIMA BALLERINA (seriously) from the day I fell in love with ballet. I was 5 or 6 years of age...
Over the years I had sacrificed a normal childhood for the dance...I was in love with ballet...it was normal for me to have no friends and to leave school in a hurry every night and rush to dance .I was happy when I was dancing. Nothing compares...even now...

By 15 years of age I got as far as the AUSSIE BALLET SCHOOL.....which is where young women from all over australia prepare to compete for a place in the AUSSIE BALLET COMPANY. I was good...very good...but I was too tall and my achilles tendons too short....I couldnt jump high enough.

I was not selected for the AUSSIE BALLET....

Im telling you my story to demonstrate that an ordinary occurance for a young person such as mine can create long term negetive self image...thus low self worth.

My disappointment in not becoming a ballerina as a teenager set me up for poor self esteem...low self worth...basiccally i didnt like myself very nuch...although at the time I had no idea...i was doing what veryone else did....SELF MEDICATE....

during the 70's and early 80's I was extremely self abusive...Alcohol, drugs and late nights were part of my everyday life...the outcome of long term self abuse was depression....

...after many years of relative misery I was able to turn my life around with Yoga, Traditional Chinese herbs and the power of positive affirmation / meditation. I was able to "re-boot" my brain... changing old core beliefs about myself....

.....interestingly i never actually thought much about my failed dancing career,until my life and health began to unravel after my mothers death several years ago. Once I scratched the surface I realized that it had actually been extremely traumatic for me.....sending me spiralling down leading to decades of self hatred, which most often manifests as self abuse....then depression...

In my yoga practice I see alot of women you have old unresolved issues , creating negative core beliefs....

these negative core beleifs create life long habitual negative thinking....that can ruin your life.


.... we dont have to have had experienced extreme trauma in our lives to develope negative thinking....it just happens..

USING YR AFFIRMATION

Creating an affirmation is great and EASY...if its not easy u r trying too hard....please email if u r not sure... libbymitchell@bigpond.com.au
some affirmation will give u the opposite outcome .......careful...
once u have a few good ones unless you use them often they r useless....

....As we are all so busy, it's difficult to find time to use / repeat affirmations....


here are some simple ideas....
*every time you are in the shower...repeat it as many times as you can...
*every time you are in the loo, repeat it as many times as you can...
*when you are driving...
*when you are walking the dogs....

**you will eventually come to understand that whilst you are repeating your affirmation you dont think any other thoughts......

this is when the re-progaming of the mind takes place....

....your old reactive habitual thought patterns will slowly dissipate..until they are no more....then you will turn around one day and say....I USED TO BE

REMEMBER

YOU ARE WHAT U THINK