Join me starting February 6th for Foundations to Meditation and become grounded in your practice through exploring various techniques.
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When we talk about digestion, we think about how the body processes the foods we eat.
As a nutritionist it amazing that not many people know that digestion starts in the mouth and how important it is to chew our food. Carbohydrates such as pasta, fruit smoothies, potatoes, etc. require the enzymes contained in the saliva called Amylase to start to digestion the sugars. The process of chewing helps to fraction the food before it enters the stomach.
The mouth is also used in communication. Have you ever considered digesting your conversations?
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The navel area is also known as the solar plexus. If the sun is the center of our solar system, it’s radiant and life sustaining so is our solar plexus. Here we find the digestive system. We can imagine the digestive system as a furnace with a strong fire that disintegrates everything, breaking down the food we eat into single particles that the body can then absorb as nutrients and building blocks for nourishment and repair. We need a strong fire in our stomach for optimal digestion and health.
Now we are emotional beings and our emotions play a role on our ability to digest effectively. When we are stressed, digestion is put on hold. Our sympathetic nervous system stops digestion
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In this episode I will reveal a key that will activate your healing response and possibly transform your life.
If you experience chronic stress, chronic tension and an anxious mind that has you drained and dis-empowered then you may want to read on.
Our stress response is part of the autonomic nervous system, more specifically the sympathetic nervous system. Stress is a natural response of the body to any threat or critical situation. We sometimes call this response the Fight or Flight. There is also a counterpart called the parasympathetic nervous system that is responsible for the relaxing, digesting and rejuvenating the body.
When stress becomes frequent, there is an imbalance that occurs in the body.
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Awareness is our super power to create change. One of the gifts we have is our breath. It is what ancors us in the present. It is also the bridge that connects the mind and body together.
We are all born into this world with a deep breath and we will eventually die by taking a deep breath. We can say that life is held by this subtle thread of wind called the breath of life.
We do not not have to think about it because the body ensures of its survival. However, the moment you turn your attention to your breath, everything changes.
Have you ever held onto your breath? How long can you hold your breath for? More importantly, what happens in the process? Breath retention can actually be used therapeutically for managing anxiety and addictions. I will share more about his in a later episode.
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It has been 5 weeks since we have been called to stay home and isolate from the Covid-19. This complete stop in our regular routine is causing a great concern for our health. This stop is not only creating concern for our future but causing many people to experience heightened emotions such as fear, worry, grief, anger, anxiety and whole lot of restlessness and irritation. If we do not care for ourselves now we may have to deal with the consequences of this emotional burden may have on our health once when is it all over.
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It was at the end of 2010, when I heard a voice loud and clear in my head. It said, “It is time to sit consistently every day.” Ah, okay, I will start January 3rd, after the holidays have passed and I can focus on getting up early every morning. I will start with 40 days and go from there.
There were a few things I needed to figure out. Where will I sit? I chose to sit in my office in the basement. I had a beautiful pillar candle made of beeswax which I lit with every sitting. I purchased a meditation cushion. I decided which technique of meditation I would practice for my 40 days. What time of day would I practice? Since I had young children, the only time that would work for me was before the day started. So I chose 4:30 am.
Now, how on earth was I going to get out of bed at 4:30 EVERY morning? I decided to
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It was 2010. I was curious about the experience of being fully immersed in mediation. I asked, then the answer came. There is an international meditation organization with meditation centers all over the world. I looked them up and to my amazement, there was a center 40 minutes from my home. Wow, I want to try this. Ten full consecutive days in silence. I wondered what that would be like?
February 2010 was my first experience. It was a lot easier than I had expected. It was in this sitting that I learned that the mind and body are connected. What I mean by this is that all of our thoughts, experiences and sufferings are all recorded in the body. It’s as if the body is a large repository of our thoughts.
We would sit on and off for ten hours every day. After seven days, I started to observe
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It was 2008. I was practicing one hour of meditation theory followed by one hour of meditation. I went through the motions. Focus. And the mind would wander. Bring it back. Focus. And the mind would wander. Focus. Bring it back. And the mind would wander. Over and over again.
Be kind to yourself. Have compassion. Be patient.
Okay, how much patience do I have? It is a never-ending story of catching myself as my mind wandered off again. I wondered, does it ever get easier? Will the mind ever sit and be still?
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It was 2005. I chose to practice meditation in a more serious way. I started to sit in silence and stillness for ten minutes. This seemed unbearably long so I used a timer to keep track of time. It was incredible how long one minute really was.
The irritation increased and a sense of guilt would come over me. I would think, ‘Marise, how dare you do nothing when your house is a mess. You should be doing the dishes. When was the last time you vacuumed?‘. The first week, I could not make it to ten minutes without looking at the timer at least 20 times. The irritation was so unbearable that on two occasions I got up to do something.
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It was 1998 and all I heard at work was yoga, yoga, yoga. I asked, “Can you please explain what yoga is and what happens in a class?”. The answer I was getting was so unsatisfactory that I popped into one of the Town classes offered on Thursday nights. We put our bodies in different positions. It felt good and I totally enjoyed it, especially since I had always been flexible. At the end of the class she guided us to sit upright and close our eyes. We sat like that for ten minutes. Was it really ten minutes? It was the most annoying ten minutes and it felt like an hour of my life.
It was so loud in my head, with random thoughts running continuously without any pause. What was I supposed to be doing?
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