There is a gap between who we are by nature of our existence and who we are by the way we are learned to be. Who we are by the nature of our existence is to be alive at each moment to the best of our life capacity. Embracing the moments with its entirety and not trying to make it perfect. Being at peace with our faults and short comings. Accepting our abilities and disabilities by bringing them to their real proportion and not letting them to get out of proportion. Avoiding a pain to become catastrophic.
Who we are by our learning is to be all over the place in mind. Angry about unpleasant memories in the past. Bad event of the past continue to bother us each and every moment of our present life. so we continue to suffer from something that happened and passed long ago. Never happy at the moment and always worried about what future will bring. Will it bring on more pain and suffering. Will the catastrophe become a disaster? Will our loved ones still love us, will any body love us? Will we be able to make the ends meet again tomorrow? Who we are is filled with anger, worry and empty from happiness.
This is why there is a gap between who we are and who we are!
Its like an out of focus picture. Unless we bring the two, or many who we ares to one, we will never see the happiness and peace.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Visualization a safe way of pain and stress management
Visualization a safe way of pain and stress management
Visualization and Imagery techniques have been used successfully for management of pain and stress. It has been a technique used by many pre historic civilizations before the age of local or general anesthetics for managing pain. These older civilizations had learned how to go into a trans state of mind when injured in a battle or by an accident in order to handle the pain and get treatments. This practice was constituted by diverting the attention from the pain and stress into a comfortable zone while the pain or stress existed or the painful treatments were being performed.The same techniques can be modified and used by all of us for getting the same results for pain and stress management. It is shown that distracting the focus of mind from our stress and pain into something else that is peaceful and pleasant can improve our ability to manage the situation better. This, like any other mind capacities need exercise. We have to practice visualizing being in a different environment where we feel safe and protected. There is no classic one location for all to visualize, we should each find our own safe location. It can be in a comfortable room or along a beautiful beach. By going there in our mind, we feel disconnected from the pain and stress. This gives us more power and makes the issue we are dealing with less significant to our mind. We may not be able to eliminate the pain or resolve the stress altogether, but we will certainly suffer less from them.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
COMING BACK HOME TO OUR REAL SELF
COMING BACK HOME TO OUR REAL SELF
When we spend most of our lives in our thoughts about the past and future, we are not here and present at the present time. It's like we have departed from ourselves and drawn to the past sorrows or the future worries. We have departed and the same way we miss out homes when we go to a long trip, we miss ourselves at the present moment. The signs of missing ourselves present as Anxiety and Depression. We have to come back to the present time and learn too live at the moment. We have to come back to our real self to solve the anxiety and depression. Only by this coming back home we can resolve the sorrows and worries. It takes practice because our thoughts are used to fly to past and future. It takes practice but it works. We just have to start this journey to the road of coming back home to our real self.
When we spend most of our lives in our thoughts about the past and future, we are not here and present at the present time. It's like we have departed from ourselves and drawn to the past sorrows or the future worries. We have departed and the same way we miss out homes when we go to a long trip, we miss ourselves at the present moment. The signs of missing ourselves present as Anxiety and Depression. We have to come back to the present time and learn too live at the moment. We have to come back to our real self to solve the anxiety and depression. Only by this coming back home we can resolve the sorrows and worries. It takes practice because our thoughts are used to fly to past and future. It takes practice but it works. We just have to start this journey to the road of coming back home to our real self.
Monday, January 2, 2012
BODY SCAN FOR PAIN MANAGEMENT , ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION
BODY SCAN FOR PAIN MANAGEMENT , ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION
In our daily lives we walk through life without being aware of ourselves or even our environment. Most of the times we are flying in our thoughts and are not aware of many things, including our body. Although many of us may be suffering from pain in our body and are reminded of it every second of our life, still we do not pay attention to each part of our body as we go through life. Body scan is a technique that we can use for recognizing each individual part of our body from head to toe. We can focus our mind towards our eyes and remind ourselves of all the beautiful colors we can see in our environment with those eyes. We can focus our mind towards our ears and listen to the environment mindfully of our ears existence. We can focus our mind on our mouth, shoulders, arms, heart, lungs, stomach, hips, legs, hands, feet and think of all positive things we can do with each of these parts or what these parts of our body do for us, without our attention and recognition everyday.This BODY SCAN once practiced regularly will bring about a feeling of joy, happiness and gratitude about having all these that we never paid attention too before. These positive feelings of joy, happiness and gratitude will diminish the effects of pain and reduce our anxiety and depression. Try it for a few weeks and you we see the results. It will cost you nothing and will gain you many things.
In our daily lives we walk through life without being aware of ourselves or even our environment. Most of the times we are flying in our thoughts and are not aware of many things, including our body. Although many of us may be suffering from pain in our body and are reminded of it every second of our life, still we do not pay attention to each part of our body as we go through life. Body scan is a technique that we can use for recognizing each individual part of our body from head to toe. We can focus our mind towards our eyes and remind ourselves of all the beautiful colors we can see in our environment with those eyes. We can focus our mind towards our ears and listen to the environment mindfully of our ears existence. We can focus our mind on our mouth, shoulders, arms, heart, lungs, stomach, hips, legs, hands, feet and think of all positive things we can do with each of these parts or what these parts of our body do for us, without our attention and recognition everyday.This BODY SCAN once practiced regularly will bring about a feeling of joy, happiness and gratitude about having all these that we never paid attention too before. These positive feelings of joy, happiness and gratitude will diminish the effects of pain and reduce our anxiety and depression. Try it for a few weeks and you we see the results. It will cost you nothing and will gain you many things.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
2012 CAN BE THE YEAR OF SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION
2012 CAN BE THE YEAR OF SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION
Almost all of us have anxieties and sorrows. Depression is far more common than what the statistics show. Many suffer from lack of joy and happiness in life. Family conflicts, relationship difficulties and social or ideological conflicts are among only a few problems to name. Many of us may be caught frozen by this question: Why me? Not knowing that the dimensions of these human difficulties are far more advanced and widespread than one may think. We see conflicts inside our hearts and souls each day when we look inside. We also see conflicts among people, society and countries each day when we look outside. There is conflicts and sorrow all over the world, inside and out. What is happening? Why is pain and sorrow so common is our life on this planet? The science says that by of Genes, we are made up to be happy.So why are we feeling all these conflicts? It looks like we have fallen so far from our structure of normal being, the way our Genes are supposed to make us. If we look closer we see that we carry too much weight of bad memories from the past and too much worries about future. We live many years of our lives, or maybe all of it, in sorrow of the past or worry of the future. We never live at the present time. We keep planning for the future and lose all real present moments of out life. This allows the sorrow of our past and the worry of our future to penetrate the reality of future. SO we live everyday in pain, sorrow and worry. This makes us to feel our pain a lot worse than its real dimensions. The past is gone and does not exist anymore, the future is just a concepts and may never come the way we imagine it, yet we lose the only reality we have, which is now and the present time to the sorrow and worry of the past and future. Since we are a child we are thought to learn from our mistakes and plan to achieve important goals in future. While there is real value in this practice, it becomes the new Habit of our behavior and takes over our entire existence, separating us from the way our nature is being dictated by our genes, to live at the moment and be real at the present time. This is the origin of our internal conflict that leads into the external conflicts with others in family, society, the world. We need a SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION. A revolution of learning to live in reality of the present time. Disconnecting our minds from sorrows of our past and worries of our fut re. This is the most needed revolution at our present time in this world. Yet this is the only revolution that does not need any destruction or blood shed. This only needs awakening, realization of where the problem is and regular practice to bring our mind to each moment of our life. There is tremendous amount of energy, joy, healing, happiness, compassion and understanding locked inside us. We need to open the door and allow the light of present time to shine these gifts of nature inside us. EACH MOMENT IS IMPORTANT, BUT THIS MOMENT IS THE ONLY ONE WE HAVE, THIS IS IT. 2011 IS GONE. 2012 CAN BE OUR YEAR. THE YEAR OF OUR COLLECTIVE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION TO A BETTER SELF, BETTER FAMILY, BETTER SOCIETY,BETTER COUNTRY, BETTER WORLD. ONCE WE DO THIS, WE REALIZE THAT ALL THESE CLASSIFICATION AND BOUNDARIES SECONDARY AND THE PRIMARY REALITY IS THAT WE ARE ALL ONE BODY OF EXISTENCE AND INTERCONNECTED. SO WHEN EACH OF US MAKE THESE CHANGES, WE ARE IMPACTING THE BETTERMENT OF THE WHOLE WORLD.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.
Almost all of us have anxieties and sorrows. Depression is far more common than what the statistics show. Many suffer from lack of joy and happiness in life. Family conflicts, relationship difficulties and social or ideological conflicts are among only a few problems to name. Many of us may be caught frozen by this question: Why me? Not knowing that the dimensions of these human difficulties are far more advanced and widespread than one may think. We see conflicts inside our hearts and souls each day when we look inside. We also see conflicts among people, society and countries each day when we look outside. There is conflicts and sorrow all over the world, inside and out. What is happening? Why is pain and sorrow so common is our life on this planet? The science says that by of Genes, we are made up to be happy.So why are we feeling all these conflicts? It looks like we have fallen so far from our structure of normal being, the way our Genes are supposed to make us. If we look closer we see that we carry too much weight of bad memories from the past and too much worries about future. We live many years of our lives, or maybe all of it, in sorrow of the past or worry of the future. We never live at the present time. We keep planning for the future and lose all real present moments of out life. This allows the sorrow of our past and the worry of our future to penetrate the reality of future. SO we live everyday in pain, sorrow and worry. This makes us to feel our pain a lot worse than its real dimensions. The past is gone and does not exist anymore, the future is just a concepts and may never come the way we imagine it, yet we lose the only reality we have, which is now and the present time to the sorrow and worry of the past and future. Since we are a child we are thought to learn from our mistakes and plan to achieve important goals in future. While there is real value in this practice, it becomes the new Habit of our behavior and takes over our entire existence, separating us from the way our nature is being dictated by our genes, to live at the moment and be real at the present time. This is the origin of our internal conflict that leads into the external conflicts with others in family, society, the world. We need a SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION. A revolution of learning to live in reality of the present time. Disconnecting our minds from sorrows of our past and worries of our fut re. This is the most needed revolution at our present time in this world. Yet this is the only revolution that does not need any destruction or blood shed. This only needs awakening, realization of where the problem is and regular practice to bring our mind to each moment of our life. There is tremendous amount of energy, joy, healing, happiness, compassion and understanding locked inside us. We need to open the door and allow the light of present time to shine these gifts of nature inside us. EACH MOMENT IS IMPORTANT, BUT THIS MOMENT IS THE ONLY ONE WE HAVE, THIS IS IT. 2011 IS GONE. 2012 CAN BE OUR YEAR. THE YEAR OF OUR COLLECTIVE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION TO A BETTER SELF, BETTER FAMILY, BETTER SOCIETY,BETTER COUNTRY, BETTER WORLD. ONCE WE DO THIS, WE REALIZE THAT ALL THESE CLASSIFICATION AND BOUNDARIES SECONDARY AND THE PRIMARY REALITY IS THAT WE ARE ALL ONE BODY OF EXISTENCE AND INTERCONNECTED. SO WHEN EACH OF US MAKE THESE CHANGES, WE ARE IMPACTING THE BETTERMENT OF THE WHOLE WORLD.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
MIND EXERCISE FOR DEPRESSION AND PAIN
It is easy to fall in the path of depression when we have chronic pain. How can one be struggling with all daily chores, not being able to work or perform any duty of interest and not be depressed? Difficulty with sleeping, family issues, sleep disturbances and many more are among challenges we have when we deal with chronic pain. So if it is a natural path to getdepression with chronic pain, then how can we change the course and find some peace? Here is an exercise that has worked for me and I would like to share it with you. There are many others that we can talk about later but this one comes first in my list: Pick up a pen and paper each day and write five things that you like about your life. It can be things that seem simple or ordinary but you like them. In my case, the fact that I am still alive is one because I know there are many who would have liked to be alive today and are not. If you have only one good family member, relative, friend or pet mark it down. If you were good in your life for anything and you experienced the feel of being there, or anything else you liked or like right now, mark it down and the read them. Do this each day and I promise you in a few weeks you will see that your outlook to life has changed. Your brain gets used to focusing on the positive points and you pass by negativity without being affected by it. Let us try it together this time.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
SPINE PAIN - NECK PAIN - BACK PAIN
Spine is a complex organ. Our spine is made of different elements like vertebrae, disks, ligaments, nerves, spinal cord and vessels. Different problems can happen to any of these elements and cause injury or degenerative changes. Each of these elements when injured or degenerated can cause pain. People have different genetic backgrounds and live in different environments. As a result of these different variables people can develop degenerative changes at different ages. Pain itself is a complex phenomena. In acute phase, it may correspond with the location of injury or degenerative changes but when it becomes chronic, the location of pain may not directly correspond to the origin of it. So finding the source of pain can be difficult at times and needs patience while the investigations continue. After taking a thorough history and physical examination we gather enough information to know what investigation needs to be done. Then we have a group of structural and functional tests to find the source of pain. Structural tests show the structure of our spine. These are tests like X-Ray, CT Scan, MRI, etc. In these tests we can find the location of injury or degenerative changes in spine. The functional tests show how the organ works and if the function is impaired or not. Electromyography and Nerve conduction velocity test are among these functional tests that can show us if there is any nerve damage. In some cases we have to use some diagnostic injections to block specific nerves and find out if they are causing the pain or not. These injections are done under guidance of some sort of imaging like ultrasound or X-Ray to make it as precise as possible. By combining all of these information we can locate the source of pain. Locating the source of pain is essential in planning the proper treatment. We will talk about different types of treatment for SPINE PAIN later. Picture from Renjith Krishnan.
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