The Tricks of Meditation

Meditation is amazing, especially when there are such peaceful and beautiful places in the world, and in our own back yards. I think that there is a common misconception about meditation and how you have to sit still and silence your mind. I know that when I first started it was next to impossible to sit still and quiet my mind. As soon as I started to try to meditate I noticed what areas in my body felt uncomfortable, and often those feelings were exasperated by trying to sit cross-legged and perfectly still! Then my mind would inevitably wander off to random thoughts, then they would become less random and then before I knew it I was off on an internal rant about one thing or another. So feeling like I was a poor meditation student, I started researching it, I knew that I couldn't be the only one to start out like this (at least that was what I was hoping!!) and I was right!

So here are the tricks:
First off, throw out all of your misconceptions about meditation, it is a PRACTICE, practice allow you to figure out what works the best for you, and don't be hard on yourself if your practice doesn't look like someone else's.

When you start your practice utilize a space that you enjoy, it doesn't have to be a specific place that you go to every time, it can be out in your garden, in your bathtub, on the side of a beautiful river with the mountains in the background, at your desk at work, in your car, sitting cross legged in the middle of your living room, the possibilities are endless.

When you find your space, unplug yourself, turn your phone off ( or if you only want to meditate for a short period of time, set an alarm and turn your phone to airplane mode so no calls, emails, facebook or twitter alerts , or text messages can come in, but your alarm can still be heard)

If sitting doesn't appeal to you, walk. You can walk back and forth across a room, around the block, by the river, on a treadmill. I don't recommend lying down, often this leads to sleeping! Check out Qi Gong it is a moving meditation that is incredible, plus it forces you to focus your mind on the movements so less distracting thoughts come in.

If you are having trouble quieting the mind, get a guided meditation, or listen to music that you find really calming. Focus on your breathing, a good technique is to count to 4 on the inhale, count to 4 while holding, count to 4 on the exhale ( you can use a higher or lower count if it feels better for you). If you are a visual person picture white light entering your body as you inhale and allow it to grow brighter with each inhale, or picture your favourite place in nature, or use your imagination and create a space in your mind that you can come back to time and again when you meditate.

Most importantly - Allow yourself to take time for yourself, you deserve it, and everything that you need to do can wait, I promise the world will not collapse around you and everything will still be waiting there for you when you are done. You don't need to meditate for an hour (unless of course you want to) to start aim for 5 minutes or 15 and increase the length of time when it feels right to, and when you have time to.

Ok, now go and try some of it out, and if anyone has any technique that works for them that they would like to add, leave a comment!

Grateful

Starting up a new business is a tricky thing, there are a lot of ups and a few downs, but all in all its been an incredible journey so far! I have been blessed with amazing family, friends and clients that have helped make the start of Omnia Wellness so great. I am truly grateful for all of the kind words, support, and encouragement to help keep me positive and moving forward while I am fulfilling my dreams and doing what I love.
Thank you, I truly couldn't live my dreams without you all, and I am grateful and honored that I get to be one of the people who do what they love and love what they do.

Omnia Wellness begins!

I have decided to take a huge step forward in my career and open my own practice! Since it happened so easily, I figure it must be the right step. I have decided that with this new ad/venture I also needed a new name, and Omnia Wellness was born. Omnia means 'everything' in Latin. I decided on it because of the phrase 'Omnia Causa Fiunt' which simply means 'everything happens for a reason', it is a phrase near and dear to my heart ( and on the wrist that it is tattooed on). It's purpose for me is to remind me that every single person that I am working with/on is there for a reason, and it is my job to do the best that I can while I have the privilege to help them along their journey, and have them help me along mine. 

The love of a new modality

I am adding another modality to my tool belt, my repertoire. The Body Talk system is incredible. It integrates all of my knowledge from all of my modalities, in one beautifully simple and highly effective session. It is not the easiest one to explain, so bare with me. Basically your body speaks its own language, and due to life experiences,stress, or the conscious mind (or ego), translation for what is going on in the body can become misconstrued. Normally we would treat the one small part, and can on occasion, sacrifice the greater good of the whole body for the good of the part because we are not able to get all the information we need. My training allows me to 'talk' to your body and find out what it really needs to restore balance within itself, what it considers to be the top priority. Here is the interesting part, your body, once it gets the information to create this balance (which it receives by gentle tapping on the top of the head that signals to the brain there is important information coming in) and sends this information out to the rest of the body (received from the gentle tapping over the heart - the information is basically sent out to where it needs to go through the blood) Your body's innate knowing, will take care of the rest. Your body already knows how to be the healthiest being it can be. It sometimes just forgets, or lets other things get in the way. I am simply there to remind you.

The process of talking to your body works on the same principle of  muscle testing in kinesiology, I place my hand underneath your wrist or hand, and go through my series of questioning, and receive yes and no answers based on if your hand/wrist moves or not. Sounds fairly simple, right?  Here is the interesting bit, I generally ask everything internally, which allows the conscious mind to be free to think about what ever it feels like thinking about while allowing the body to speak for itself ( I can also ask all the questions aloud if it is preferable, the same things your innate/body sees as priorities to return to balance will come up no matter which way). After getting the priority information that your body needs, the tapping on the head and heart will happen and your innate will take care of the rest. 

That was a whole lot to wrap my head around when I first started getting body talk treatments myself. I am a self professed open minded skeptic. I need to know that every modality I spend my passions in is worthwhile and works. I go into every class, seminar, and treatment that I receive in a new modality with an open mind, while searching for my own form of evidence that it works. I will say that my first body talk experience was a memorable one. I didn't really know what to expect, I truthfully went in without doing any research, aside from the information I had from other people that had experienced it. Which was mostly, "I had this treatment, I don't really quite know what happened, but everything that came up made a lot of sense and now I feel better". So being the curious sort, I had to check it out. I will say that " I had this treatment, I don't quite know what happened, I cried a lot (which is the first time ever in a treatment), everything that came up made a lot of sense, and now I feel better" and now here I am on the brink of becoming a Certified Bodytalk Practitioner, because I feel that much better, and I believe that Body Talk is a very useful modality and a great new tool for me to use. 

Grateful

Sometimes I forget how amazing it is to love what I do and love going to work. I had a great conversation with a fellow practitioner who has taken a break from her practice and is now starting to miss how awesome she felt when she was going to work, missing laundering her linens, and telling people what she did for a living, even when it was only part time, it was the first thing she spoke of. So I received a gentle reminder to be grateful for getting to do what I do, and feeling amazing for being able to walk the path intended for me, and being able to help people on theirs.
In Gratitude...

Qigong

Spring Forest Qigong is amazing. I have recently taken up the practice and it has been incredible. I have always had a belief and a bit of an understanding of energy, but SFQ has opened my eyes and much more to the world of energy and meditation. I have had a struggle with meditation in the past, and I know that I am not the only one! I have had the constant chatter run through my mind increase in not only volume but in uselessness the harder I try to calm and quiet. One of the important things I learned is that it is all okay. It isn't about the proper stance and proper hand placement, it isn't about fighting to completely clear your mind, it is about the practice, the energy, and the intent behind it. All of that coupled with not being hard on yourself,  and my practice has grown leaps and bounds. I have had the honor of being instructed by Munira Jiwa,and with her kind words and encouragement, it has been the start of another part of my healing journey.
In five short weeks I have transformed. I am starting to be able to quiet my ever thinking, thinking, thinking mind, and amazingly all of the movements have slowed down. By week four I was shocked that an hour had passed, when it felt like only fifteen minutes. I have decided to take on the 100 day Qigong 'challenge' and see where this beautiful practice will take me.

The Thing About Pain

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who had a bad massage experience, which turns into a personal lesson for me. The problem was pain tolerance. The therapist she saw expressed that her preferred pain level to work in is an 8, (of a 1-10 scale, 1 being none at all, 10 being the worst pain ever) however her clients preferred pain level is somewhere in the 3-6 range depending on the area being worked on. This has created a wonderful opportunity for me to explain pain in relation to massage therapy.

In school I was taught that the pain scale number never to be surpassed is 7. Here is where it gets tricky, what is a 7?? I consider anything from 8-10 a point in which your muscles rebel against treatment. When the combined pressure and pain levels create the muscle to contract, and kick in the automatic guarding response. In other words, it is the point in which you legitimately consider causing me bodily harm (fight response) or run out of the room (flight response). A 7 is something that I believe is the point in which you are uncomfortable, but don't want to punch me. I try to stay in the good pain range (4-5) as best I can, but often people come in to see me when they are experiencing some discomfort already, and have some expectation of pain when treating those areas.

I never want to have my clients experience of pain go above a 7. The reason why the phrase 'no pain, no gain' doesn't apply to massage is because too much pain creates damage to your muscle. If a client doesn't tell me when the pain is too much, not only does the treatment feel like it is taking forever, and isn't enjoyable in the least; it can create pain for days after a treatment, cause bruising, and ultimately leave you feeling far worse than you did when you came in.

Pain is subjective. I have no idea how painful, or not painful my treatment is on your body. The only person who knows is you. Everyone has a pain tolerance that differs and the only way I know if the pressure is too much or not enough, is to have you let me know as soon as I need to alter my pressure. Remember, once again the massage is about you. How light or how deep you prefer your massage to be is important for me, as a therapist, to know. I will honor what type of treatment you want, and what pain range you want to stay in. It is your body, and truthfully, you are the one who knows best.