Musings and Reviews of Metaphysical, New Age and Meaningful Writings

Posts tagged ‘EFT’

Replacing Stress and Depression with Joy! Joy! Joy!: #BookReview and #AuthorInterview


Screen Shot 2017-11-13 at 7.34.25 AMThe subtitle of Joy! Joy! Joy! says it all. Read this book and you’ll discover 7 Mind Body Spirit Self-Help Practices to Relieve Stress, Reverse Memory Loss and Live Happy – I Did It! You Too Can Bust the Blues.

Ellen Wood, author of the award-winning Think and Grow Young, now shares how she transformed her many physical and emotional problems to remain peaceful and joyous by making these practices into daily habits: observing your thoughts, releasing toxic emotions, using affirmations, power posing, dry brushing your skin, meditating and doing something good for someone.

Her gripping memoir of depression, Alzheimer symptoms, cancer and other distressing situations are interwoven with how she coped, and then miraculously freed herself of chronic stress and the blues.

Ellen cites many experts and clinical studies that show how these quick and simple Mind-Body-Spirit practices help people remain calm, productive and joyful no matter what is happening in the world around them.

She also sprinkles words of wisdom throughout her story:

“When something bad happens, say ‘Something good will come of this,’ then expect something good and watch for it.”

You can take charge of your thoughts and emotions, says the author, for example…

“Stress doesn’t come from what’s happening to us, but from our response to what’s happening.”

The book is entitled Joy! Joy! Joy! because if you put these techniques into practice, you’ll find yourself, like Ellen Wood, filled with joy for no reason, with a closer connection to your inner knowing and to spirit.

“Love is often an action first, then a feeling. You love yourself by taking actions in the direction of your wellbeing.”

Ellen Wood, at 80, is an inspirational speaker and writer, and I encourage readers of Joy! Joy! Joy! to follow her blueprint, using the bonus Daily Practice Checklists in the back of the book to help you anchor new habits that will transform your life too.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW with Ellen Wood, author of Joy! Joy! Joy!:

What would you like readers to take away from your new book?

 In just minutes a day, by making these 7 mind/body/spirit practices into habits, you can change your life forever. If you’re stressed out and have the blues, and it seems like the whole world is going crazy, these habits can calm your mind and help you access inner peace and joy. If you are experiencing mild memory loss (and perhaps worrying about Alzheimer’s because a parent died of it), take heart: through these practices I was able to reverse early Alzheimer’s – even though I have the Alzheimer’s gene, APO-e4. Meditation alone has been proven in scientific studies to reverse memory loss, in addition to reducing stress, anxiety and depression, among other benefits. Some of these studies are cited in my book.

You write of reconnecting to your true nature. How does one do that?

By practicing Meditation (Daily Practice #6) and by experiencing “life” in the present moment through our senses (as explained in Daily Practice #7) – inviting our divine nature to see through our eyes, hear through our ears, taste with our mouth, smell with our nose and feel through our skin or fingertips – we can reconnect to our true nature. Observing our thoughts (Daily Practice #1), Releasing Toxic Emotions (Daily Practice #2) and Affirmations (Daily Practice #3), especially surrendering control and allowing our Inner Self to lead, are also techniques for reconnecting.

How can a person have joy – no matter what?

Our essential nature is JOY and we have access to that joy when we stay rooted in the present moment. Joy and love are innate. (On the other hand, HAPPINESS is dependent upon a situation or circumstance – often fleeting – that delights our human nature.) We suffer when we dwell on something terrible or regretful that happened in the past or we fear something that might happen in the future. Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychologist and author of the book, Man’s Search for Meaning, survived and even experienced BLISS in the concentration camps of the Holocaust.

 Why is it so important to be in the present moment?

There is POWER in the present moment. And we can access that power when we still our mind and experience the NOW moment.

Can you summarize how we can love ourselves just as we are, when we want to be better people?

Loving yourself just as you are is part of the PROCESS of creating a more magnificent you. I’ll give an example of why I say we can love ourselves just as we are AND want to do practices to CHANGE the way we are: Suppose you buy an old house – one that had been neglected and has a garden that is nothing but weeds. Shortly after fixing up the house and moving in, you go to the nursery and bring home flower seedlings. As you stand there for a moment and look at that garden full of weeds, if you’re like most people, you won’t think: Oh, I hate this garden. It’s so ugly.

No. You feel a thrill of creation as you decide which patch of earth to start on. Then you kneel down and pull out the weeds, turn over the soil, dig some holes, put the seedlings in, cover the roots with earth and pat around each one with both hands. And you love the feeling of creating your beautiful garden. In fact, you love your beautiful garden already even though most of it is still full of weeds.

Think of yourself as a garden you’re creating. Love yourself just as you are as you weed and till and plant the seeds of a more magnificent expression of you. Celebrate every sprout and the eventual flowers. Loving yourself just as you are is essential for creating happiness.

How would you recommend this book be best used?

Read it all the way through once or twice, then commit to making those 7 practices into habits. In the back of the book is a section that contains 12 weeks of daily checklists to prompt you as you go about each day. (Or request a Word doc of the checklists by writing to ellen@bookofjoyjoyjoy.com.) Start with just two practices. Choose the two you feel will be the easiest for you to do for 21 consecutive days. Then after three weeks with the first two practices, add two more for another 21 days and three weeks later add two more and when you start your tenth week, you’ll integrate all 7 practices into your daily routine. If it works better for you, aim for 5 days a week for three weeks instead of 21 consecutive days. Check the box to the left of each practice to indicate which practices you’re working on that week. This is the process I used for myself beginning 13 years ago. It totally changed my life. I no longer need the checklists or sticky notes or other reminders. Well, actually I still have sticky notes in my life, like the ones on my desk that say, “Something good will come of this” and “What marvelous things do you have for me today?” Here’s one I recently put by my TV, “Where my attention goes, energy flows. (Do I really want to be stuck in politics?)”

To sample Ellen’s inspiration, sign up for her free gifts, including Affirmations to Grow Younger, plus sample Chapters from Think and Grow Young and Joy! Joy! Joy! at http://bookofjoyjoyjoy.com/. Both her books are available at Amazon.com.

Namaste!

Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets, Balance Your Chakras-Balance Your Life, and The Chakra Energy Diet
www.theChakras.org

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Put Energy Medicine to Work for You and Experience Holistic Healing


cover high def Heidi DuPreeFor a complete, easy-to-understand, and illuminating introduction to energy healing, see The Other Medicine…That Really Works! by Heidi DuPree, RN, CTN. She was a nurse who found Western allopathic medicine lacking in her own healing, which led her to explore and integrate alternative healing modalities into her practice and healing way of life. DuPree explains how the Western model of health care revolves around symptom elimination, while energy medicine gets to the cause of imbalance and can lead you into growth, transformation, and healing of body, mind and spirit.

DuPree uses her own personal experiences, healing stories of her clients, and references to the work of many well-known healers to explain our bodies’ energy systems, such as the chakras and meridians, and how to heal any blocks. She also explains how to recognize your own healing process, what can block your healing and how to work with it. The book ends with useful energy medicine techniques that you can put into practice, including homeopathy, flower essences, craniosacral therapy, meditation, and acutapping (such as EFT and Dynamind, which I explain in my book, Balance Your Chakras – Balance Your Life).

Both the stories of healing and the explanations of healing modalities are beautifully written. After reading this book, you feel you’ve been given a comprehensive introduction to the true path to wholeness.

Here, Heidi DuPree, award-winning author, energy healing therapist, holistic nurse, Certified TraditionalNaturopath and transformational entrepreneur with over thirty years of experience in healthcare – half in clinical nursing and half in energy medicine – answers my questions about her work.

BECCA: What can the reader learn from your own life journey?

Author Heidi DuPree

Author Heidi DuPree

HEIDI: If there is one thing a reader can learn from my life journey, I hope it is the realization that every difficulty in life is an opportunity for deep healing. We have a choice between focusing on “getting through,” surviving or conquering challenges, or embracing these challenges as a vehicle for transformation. If it feels like your life is falling apart, that may be what needs to happen to clear the way to your authentic self.

BECCA: What hope or message do you wish to offer others with this book?

HEIDI: That self-love, acceptance, and compassion are the most powerful medicine in the world.

BECCA: In your book, you write of reaching self-love through compassion. Could you explain that further?

HEIDI: Many people have been conditioned from an early age to judge and reject themselves. This has far-reaching effects on our energy, which compromises health and stunts growth. Transitioning to self-love is a process that begins with accepting every part of you, even the part of you that is self-rejecting! It’s about applying a higher vibration intention to a lower vibration thought or emotion and raising your frequency toward self-love. If you are currently in a low-frequency state such as fear, anger, grief, apathy, guilt or shame, if you can identify what affirmative action you have the courage or willingness to take, this will raise your frequency. Here’s an example: “Even though this thought, feeling, or situation is unacceptable to me, I am willing to accept myself.”

BECCA: What self-care healing practices can benefit the majority of people?

HEIDI: I refer to self-care healing practices that can benefit anyone as “everyday energy medicine.” These practices would include spending time in nature and with supportive community, and using water, nutrients, sunlight, play, rest, movement, creative expression, sound and music, and ritual and ceremony for healing. These practices may sound simplistic, but they can facilitate deep healing.

BECCA: What technique(s) would you recommend to orient to one’s core, and experience oneness with the universal energy field?

HEIDI: Any meditative, mindfulness, or deep-breathing technique would orient self to core. To step into one’s core and into the oneness is to step into the heart center. We all step into and out of our heart moment to moment, and day to day. It’s a process of living more and more in our heart-centered higher self, and less in the head-centered, fearful lower self. My favorite techniques to do this I call Energy Medicine First Aid and Energy Medicine Daily Care skills, which can be downloaded from my website and found in my new book Awaken Your Greater Health.

BECCA: What model of integrated health care would you like to see available?

HEIDI: While I can’t speak to what model of integrated health care should be available for others, as I believe health care is an individual choice, I can share my personal approach. Although energy medicine is typically used as a complement to, or an alternative when Western medicine fails, I use it the other way around. For any health issue that is not life-threatening, I use energy medicine as my primary health care and Western medicine as an adjunct when necessary. Unfortunately, many people have been traumatized by Western medicine and may avoid it all together. The current widespread availability of both Western medicine and energy medicine at the same time is unprecedented in U.S. history, and empowers us all with health care choices.

BECCA: What suggestions do you have for other writers who feel they have an important message to share?

HEIDI: I would suggest that writers use the law of attraction to attract all the support they will need to take their message from concept to published book. This would include the time and space to write, a good writing coach and editor, supportive readers, a publisher if they want to traditionally publish, or financial support if they want to independently publish. Visualize the completed book, the people who helped make it happen, and the people who are benefiting from reading it, and feel what that feels like, as if it has already occurred. And then…this is the hard part…let go of how you are going to get there. Don’t try to figure it out. Let go and stay alert for the signs that will guide you that come through the coincidental, serendipitous, and synchronistic events that occur in our daily lives. These guiding signs usually come one step at a time with the next step revealed once action is taken.

For more information or to contact Heidi DuPree, RN, CTN, please visit her website at http://HeidiDuPree.com.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets, Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life, and The Chakra Energy Diet

www.theChakras.org

 

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Forgive Everyone for Everything


forgivenessCan you forgive everyone that’s ever hurt you, including yourself? With Iyanla Vanzant’s help in her new book, Forgiveness: 21 Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything, I was able to recognize emotions I thought had been long ago dealt with, and deal with them as I traveled the forgiveness journey with her.

Spiritual life coach Iyanla Vanzant takes you headfirst, soul deep into the practice of forgiving yourself, your body, your life, your parents, your choices, your relationship with money, and more… no stone or grudge is left unearthed.

What is the benefit of following Iyanla’s forgiveness protocols in this book? Practicing forgiveness, as she demonstrates, helps you keep your energy clear and manifest what you truly want… living your life with more love for yourself and others. Through the journaling pages and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping instructions in the book, and the soothing meditations in the accompanying CD, you are given the tools to eliminate any excess mental or emotional weight that keeps you stuck in repetitive situations, circumstances and experiences that are not healthy or productive.

You can simply read this book for its wonderful insights and interesting “Forgiveness Stories” in each chapter. Or you can take it one day at a time with Iyanla and spend 21 days following her system of total forgiveness. It’s work, but it’s worth it. As she says, “Forgiveness helps to transform and eliminate the energy blockages that we hold in our minds about who we are and who others are, and the subsequent issues or upsets that grow from the thoughts, beliefs and judgments we hold.” If found the part on letting go of judgments to be very powerful, as they create needless suffering.

tapAlthough I practice Dynamind, a simplified version of EFT that I describe in my books Chakra Secrets and Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life, I found the tapping effective in eliminating the stress caused by energetic blockages from negative thoughts that needed to be forgiven.

Day 1 in the Forgiveness Ritual is “Forgiving Myself for Judging Myself,” the most self-loving, self-affirming practice you can do, opening the heart, mind and spirit to greater possibilities. Once you reach Day 18 and “Forgive the World,” you spend the last three days of the program writing forgiveness letters that you never send, because acknowledging your emotions and writing them is what is important. Once completed, forgiveness will be a new tool in your skill set to live your life to the fullest.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life, Chakra Secrets, and The Chakra Diaries

www.thechakras.org

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Becca's Inspirational Book Blog, Book Review, Chakra balancing, Inspirational Books, Inspirational Read, Inspirational writing, Reading Recommendations available on Amazon, Spiritual Books

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