Finding That Sense Of Calmness

It isn't easy these days in a world full of turmoil and screaming.  Finding that sense of calmness and peace within us feels as difficult right now as hearing the winds of a category 3 hurricane slam the house walls.  You hope and you pray that your walls stand strong, but even doubts enter your mind.

I consider myself a person that can find that place of peace and calmness, but these days and in the past several months, my own life has been hit with so much.  It has become hard for me to find that place and know that I am all that I am.

It isn't easy to travel through the days and months, seeing what you once believe in or felt or who you once knew, ditch you and ignore you or run from you.  When you stand up at the moment of truth and you see everything disappear, it is difficult to find that sense of calmness.

Don't stop walking...

I'm not saying you can't find the sense of calmness.  I'm just saying, it is not always easy.  Should we give up trying - NO!  Should we hunker down - MAYBE!  Most of all, don't stop walking, even if you are only taking steps are almost too impossible to see.

Finding that sense of calmness is not about what others tell you it should be.  It is not what social media or the rest of the world says it should be.  That calmness is your inner sense of being and what you know to be true for yourself in that moment.  All else, does not matter.

I look forward to calmer days and I try to be an optimist thinking that they still exist.  Yet, there are moments when I cannot get myself to believe this is still true.  I must remind myself daily to keep looking forward so that I will be once again reunited with a sense of calmness.

These days and times are tough, but stay true to yourself.  Learn to really be true to yourself in all things, and not just those things you currently know.  Often times, what we think is true today, is not true tomorrow because we don't see today what we can see tomorrow.

#Calmness

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

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Nervous System Resiliency

One of the things that I am learning firsthand is how resilient our nervous system in the course of our day. Many of the things that I write about here are ones that I have been introduced to and then I learn about them by living through experiences that become my teacher.

It is not just concepts that are told to me and I continue the story. They are very real lessons that I experience firsthand within my body. When you can experience something within the body and feel the connection within, then there is no doubt that it is a real, truth altering experience.

For a long time I felt overwhelmed in life where I could not seem to get my balance as the winds of various events would come along and knock me off balance. It never seemed like I would get past many things in my life because I always felt overwhelmed. Then one experience in particular that I had on the table with Dr. Paul Canali brought this home in a very real and vivid way.

In this particular session, I came up against some of the root energy where very real and intense anger perpetuates and grows within me. As I pushed through this, my body felt physically awful for several hours but then as the energy of the release began to balance itself, I noticed a major change within my body. For the first time, I noticed a peacefulness and calmness that I had never felt before. It is more than difficult to describe here but it was real and I knew it wasn't just a temporary peace or calmness. It was a life changing moment.

As events of the following week transpired, I noticed that most of these were just rolling off my back. Yes, some of them were pretty intense and I was not ignoring the feeling of them but they were just coming in and almost like bouncing through me. It is then that I came to understand just how resilient our nervous system is meant to be and if treated properly, it can perform in ways that we may not be able to imagine.

For months, I did not think about this entire scenario until I recently went through a very stressful week. In that week, I noticed something about myself and how I was dealing with the stress. While the stress was intense and difficult to be part of, I noticed that much of it was just bouncing right through me. I'm not going to tell you that it was an easy week but without this happening within myself, it would have been much more difficult.

Please don't misunderstand me here because I'm not talking about "thinking happy thoughts" here either as many tend to do. This is about going deep within and connecting to the grounded part of your cells, your body and your mind. It is about having the nervous system at a healthy point that it can absorb these things and let them go. It isn't about avoiding any of the feelings or affects of the stress but feeling all of it and just swimming through it as if you were swimming in a pool.

Of course, most humans go through life in a hurried fashion barely ever taking time to take care of the body, oblivious to the fact that this is taking place. We like to self medicate ourselves with things that keep us from living in reality and keep us from getting to truly know ourselves in an intimate way.

All too often, I've heard many people tell me that they don't have time to get a massage or relax or to take a vacation. In this day of electronics, people cannot even get away from their jobs for a minute. We keep ourselves and our nervous systems in a heightened state of arousal and stress but yet we expect our bodies to hit peak performance.

We go through life dabbling in this or that new age therapy or we turn to religion, doctors and our families to help us exist in our day. However, none of these things will help you deal with the stress in your life unless you go in and stand up to the fear and the ego within your body and your mind. You can fool yourself all day long into thinking that various things are helping you and they may be temporarily, but if you really want to leap upon the mountains, you need to journey within yourself.

The nervous system is meant to act like a rubber band where if you pull it and stretch it, when let go, it should go back to its original shape. However if you stretch it beyond those limits time and time again, you may alter the shape of it. If you stretch it beyond what it is capable of, then there will be a break. The body acts in much the same way.

If we as a society really wanted to improve the overall health of our world, we would be focusing upon learning how the nervous system works and how we impact it every day of our life. We would focus upon learning how to reclaim it and harness the power that we hold within our bodies and our minds. The nervous system should be our friend but much of the time in our world, we barely even notice its existence.




Blog Post & Images (c) 2/20/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com




Photo by NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org

Our Screaming And Yelling Affects Others

People, who scream and fight and argue, really cause me a lot of distress. It gets to me quickly and it leaves me feeling very agitated. Finding the silence of peace and calmness in our communities seems to be as rare as winning the lottery.

Sometimes in the morning when I am sitting out by my pool for my morning meditation, I can hear the neighbors screaming at the kids they are watching. In fact, as I am writing this, I can hear them scream and a car alarm buzzer is going off in the background. These things disrupt my quest for peace and calmness in the morning. I'd much rather hear the birds singing any day than listen to the noise from the neighbors.

Another example is watching TV. Even shows like America's Got Talent where Piers Morgan likes to argue with the other judges is something that really gets to me. His name calling, lack of respect and extremely critical persona make me very sad for whoever it is on the receiving end. While I do realize this is reality and drama TV, it affects people more than we sometimes want to accept.

Even on the new season of the Apprentice (with the unemployed contestants), the constant bickering and screaming made me feel on edge. I felt like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I could even feel my arms, shoulders and back tense up during this show.

When I was a kid, there was a show called "I Love Lucy" or I believe that was the name of it. Supposedly my parents would not let me watch it because the show would upset me and make me angry. Again, it was the screaming and yelling on the show that got to me.

All my life, I have struggled with this. I grew up in a home where my father constantly yelled, screamed and berated everyone around him. There was no pleasing the man! It doesn't take much either to affect me these days. There are times that someone talking fast, nonstop and loud is very difficult for me to be around.

The unusual thing is that as much as this bothers me, I found my own self doing the same thing. Only I don't berate the ones I love and I don't yell at them. I would never do that. The thing I do is scream and yell out of frustration at the little things in life. Sometimes I have very little patience or understanding for myself. Sometimes I demand perfection of myself while not forgiving any mistakes I make or could potentially make. I am very hard on myself. In fact, I am much harder on myself than I am on anyone else.

I had one of those wake up moments in life where I realized that my own personal outbursts were affecting those around me. From my relationship to my cats, everyone was on edge wondering when I would erupt. They never knew when the slightest little task as innocent as it could be would frustrate me and set me off. This was a big eye opener for me which made me take stock of my life.

I'm sure not perfect in this area of my life but I have really been working on it. I hate to think that something I'm doing brings tension to those around me. I know what it is like to grow up in a house of screaming and yelling.

Being a highly sensitive person, I know just how intense moments around me can impact my mind and my body in dramatic ways. I've worked to minimize some of those and to give myself moments of quiet in my day. I've stopped watching the news commentators on TV because so much of what they say comes from anger. It really just agitates the mind, especially my mind. For me, I see too many people screaming and yelling in life. It is too much for me to take most days.

There are many things we do in our own lives that strongly impact the lives of those around us. Often we don't realize just what these things do to others. We may realize that it is something we struggle with but we may not be fully aware of what we are forcing others to live through. We really need to be aware of this or at least be open to hearing from others how our behavior impacts them. Of course, we cannot go through life trying to be everything to all people.

I do realize that I am a highly sensitive person and that I am impacted stronger by things than most people. While I give myself moments of silence, I try to keep my distance from those that yell and scream. Finally now in life, I am able to really calm myself down so the little things don't get to me and erupt into screaming and yelling. I am learning that there is no need to add to the turmoil in our world. For me to be there for others, I need to offer my own peace and calmness, not my turmoil.



(Above Picture taken at the lighthouse at Ponce Inlet, FL - (c) 09/14/10)

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Health Of Our Nervous System

Have you ever considered just how important the health of your nervous system is to you? It regulates so much in our present lives and it sets up conditions and events for the future of our body systems.

Most likely we have all heard about how outside events and influences can become energy trapped in our bodies. If this energy is not discharged from the body, it will continue to hold residence within the cells, nervous system and our brain. While it may not show any visible signs immediately, some event or trigger will eventually trigger the energy and stir it up like a tornado or hurricane stirs up the ground it passes over.

There are two parts to the Autonomic Nervous System. One is the sympathetic branch which takes over when you are going through stress, illness or injury. The parasympathetic branch is in control when you are relaxing, sleeping or in a state of stillness. It is often called the rest and repair state.

Both of these parts of our nervous system are important to our health. One without the other is an imbalance. However, if we stay “activated” in the stress side of our nervous system more than in the rest and repair state, our bodies are being continually broken down. We need the rest and repair to keep our bodies in a state of optimal health.

Consider this example: You are walking through the woods and a tiger begins to follow you. Your body will pick up a state of fear thereby bringing about an increased breathing rate, heart rate, and muscle tension while your digestion, immune system and other non critical systems slow down. As the danger builds, the more your body prepares to either fight or flee. It is completely biological. Then when the danger has subsided, your body begins to slow back down and your breathing may come back to normal, your heart rate will slow down and muscle tension will change from the fight or flight mode to a more relaxed state. This is how the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems work together.

The only thing is, if the energy of the “event” such as being followed by a tiger in the woods is still located within your cells and your brain, then it begins to take up residence. This one event may not be enough to even cause a long term reaction within you but if the event had a stronger emotional connection with you, then the effects of it would begin to build. As these events build up within your body, the energy is stored until you find a way to discharge it. And that stored energy is “potential energy”, which holds the opportunity to bring about true rest and repair in your body or hold you hostage into the future.

There is a National Geographic video of a polar bear that is shot by a tranquilizer gun so the researches could give it some aid that it needed. When the tranquilizer began to wear off, you saw the bear begin shaking violently. After the shaking stopped, you could witness the polar bear taking a deep breath and then another as his body sank down into a more restful state. The bear was discharging that energy which he had stored up from being chased and tranquilized. It was a healthy thing for the bear to do, and it was automatic because animals just know how to do this. It is normal for them.

So realize that while there are times for us to be in an alert mode and endure stress, that we need to find a calmness in our life and allow ourselves to have that time of meditation, rest and repair. Sometimes it involves removing the tigers of our past, our present and our future from our lives but when we do this, we give so much to ourselves.