Articles Index

	Sign up Now for Email Updates!
	» CLICK HERE

Newsletter Information

Newsletter Archives

Healing Products & Services For Purchase

Register For Workshops and Certifications

Directions

Holistic Integrative Breathing CD's and Online Store

Wisdom Of The Earth Medicinal Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils

DVD's Coming Soon!

Holistic Community Circle Links

Articles

by Rusty Stewart, Ph.D.

You've been here before, right? The New Year is approaching and you may be reviewing the past year and broken promises. It is a time for fresh starts and a renewal of our relationship with everything. Our slates are wiped clean. Winter is known as a time for hibernation and going inward. The problem is, this can become an all too familiar rerun of isolation, short-lived inspiration, waiting for spring, and the same ol' same ol'. You get the picture; nothing really changes, except another year added to the calendar and to our bodies. So now you may ask; how can this New Year be different? Start with how this very moment can be different!

In order to break on through to the other side and walk your talk, you must first honor your self in the now, in the present moment. This is the ultimate commitment to self and others! "All you really need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself." (Practicing The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle, 1999). Nothing can happen in the future. Nothing can happen in the past. Action happens in the now. Every moment of every day we get to choose again. Once we get this, I mean really feel and experience this, we can begin to understand on an experiential level that we are the dreamers of our own dreams, or said another way, the creators of our reality. In essence, we manifest our reality through our thoughts and perceptions. And the only way we can detach from our thoughts and change our perceptions is by living in the present moment. How do you do that? Start with embracing the uncomfortable and be willing to take an integrated holistic approach to yourself by being open to many different ways of growing.

What I mean by embracing the uncomfortable is realizing that change only happens in disequilibrium or chaos. This is not a bad thing, just the natural way the universal energy moves toward change and equilibrium again. Many times the unfamiliar brings uncomfortableness. This is normal. Ride the uncomfortable and unfamiliar knowing that a new level of awareness is awaiting you in the experience of taking action in the now. Taking gentle persistent action on a regular basis retrains our mind, body, and spirit to learn and reinforce new ways of being versus doing. This is what I call the cognitive and behavioral piece of Just Doing It! A key piece to personal transformation is integration. There is no one way to heal, achieve wholeness, or change. We have to find what works and helps still us in the moment.

Many of us have to release thoughts and patterns from our past through feeling and re-experiencing painful moments. This is what I call the psychotherapy/regression/inner child/past lives/karmic piece. In other words, by learning the lessons of our past we are able to experience forgiveness of ourselves and others. Healing can also be facilitated through the body piece (massage, Hawtha Yoga, exercise, nutrition, etc.) and/or the experiential spiritual/quantum/energy piece (Reiki, conscious forms of breathing, meditation, Tai Chi, creativity, nature, other forms of yoga, non-ordinary states of consciousness). All are important in reclaiming our power as Our Authentic Godselves as Creators of our Dreams. All are pieces of the puzzle. However, my experience with both my clients and myself is that the spiritual/quantum/energy piece is the glue that holds the pieces of the puzzle together and brings us back to wholeness.

What's all this have to do with renewing relationships you ask? When we engage in renewing the relationship to ourselves and spirit, our hearts will burst open to others. "Ecstasy, the continuous experience of the divine through knowledge of our own nature, is our natural state. The infant knows this state, enjoying it from the moment of conception. It is only under pressure from the outside, education, a bad family situation, that little by little the child loses inborn capabilities – strength, capacity for wonder, absolute self-confidence, openness to the world, the free blossoming of the heart, which it learns to fold up again and then close tight. Returning to this childlike state is the door that reopens the heart" (Tantric Quest, Daniel Odier, 1997).

This is waking up to a miracle -- changing our perception of ourselves and remembering our already perfect Godselves. This happens in the present moment, in the now. We are the dreamers of our own dreams, both sleeping and waking. Commit to yourself now and you'll automatically open your heart to others. Start the New Year by expecting a miracle and you'll wake up to one!

Yoga Living, January/February 2004