The Power of meditation and self-hypnosis
Today, I would like to share my understandings,
reflections, experience and practical method on meditation and hypnosis
learning.
I have been fascinated by meditation and
hypnosis for a long time. Among all of the self-development courses I have
taken, yoga and plate classes or well-being
seminars I have attended, I was surprised to find that none of them doesn’t
consider meditation and self-hypnosis as one of the most essential topics for improvement
of mental and physical health.
One of the most important courses in my life
were Mr. Chris Harvard’ 2 staged NLP Certificates, recently
“Money and You”, some
similar like the three night seminars
called the Encounter Happiness by the Great Buddhism master Rinpoche and Happy
Science by Master Ryuho Okawa. I
also read these masters’ books and
other great philosophers’ articles,
studying different theories and skills on meditation and hypnosis. Through above
learning, I have been trying
to grasp the essence from all
of the great practitioners, applying the skills to our daily life, my family life and career. Combining with my reflection on the
learning from all sources and
my personal self-hypnosis and meditation experience, plus my prospective to
life and value system, I have gradually created a systematical approach to practice meditation and self-hypnosis in an easy and
relaxed, confortable way. That
is to practice meditation and self-hypnosis anywhere, anytime and for many
purposes. This system gives me a sense of security and a peace of mind, guiding
me to live each day with meaning, with fulfillment and progress.
Relaxation
Through Meditation
My preference would be to call
meditation relaxation – conscious relaxation, chosen relaxation. These are
words that are more universally understood, more comfortable. Constantly
working toward the goal of discovering my own ability to reach a state of serenity,
I have learned to meditate.
Meditating is actually easier
than you might imagine. Most of us have dabbled in meditation by participating
in conscious relaxation. Maybe during an exercise class or to manage pain at
the dentist or anxiety before a test. We start by paying attention to our
breathing. The practical effort to focus completely on our breathing takes our
minds away from the "mind clutter" that constantly tries to invade
our mind and eliminate feelings that will lead to a time of calm. With repeated
effort the goal of clearing your mind – to think of nothing, does occur and the
process of meditation takes on its own energy. The result is, and I guarantee
this, peace, serenity, calmness, eventually opening yourself to new insights.
I hope this approach unveil the fact
that meditation and self-hypnosis is not as mysterious as you expected but
easier than you might imagine. I
learn meditation and self-hypnosis to I discovery my inner ability reach a
state of serenity. I would like to dedicate my method to people who want to improve their health, wealth and
relationship and ultimately find the life key for unconditional happiness.
First, what is meditation and self-hypnosis about?
What are the differences and similarity between
the two? Why is the practice so fundamental to our quality of life and what
wonders it does to our life?
Meditation is to focus completely
on our breathing, and eventually lead to a time of calm or relaxation or reach
to any other purpose like to release anxiety, pain or improve concentration or
energy. Usually we need to have a quiet place, sit down. Self-hypnosis can be
much freely carried out, no matter we are standing, walking, bathing, lie down
or typing. etc.
Meditation
can be initiated internally just with purely smoothly breathing and externally
by listening to music or watching movie or pictures, but self-hypnosis is
purely a mind activity like self-talk with music or without. A soothing music
is always more effective to bring a refreshment and lifting up.
The functions of
meditation and self-hypnosis can be divided into three categories:
One: M and SH for healing
and long term health
1)
For
sleep, relaxation and muscle pain
2)
For
weight control and fitness
3)
For
habits kicking off (e.g. swearing, sleep
and smoking)
Two: M and SH for
mental health and self-development
1)
For
creating good habit
2)
For
release of fears (death, speaking to people or stage freight)
3)
For
compassion
4)
For
love
and marriage
5)
For
happiness
6)
For
dealing with bad tempered people
7)
For
relationship
8)
Three: M And SH for
others
1)
For
concentration and focus before a big event
2)
For
stage freight and public speaking
3)
For
brainstorming of an articles or any writing
Now let’s discuss
in detail about this system:
1)
For relaxation
psychologically and physically
a.
deep breathing skill or abdomen breathing –
This is my
favorite relaxation method esp. during Yuga or Plate practice or before sleep.
I use this method to send me to my dreamland within 10 counters of deep
breathings every night. After this practice, our lungs are filled with more
oxygen, and cleaned up much more effectively. Our nerve-system sends message to
our brain to left relax and to our hearts to jump or pump more smoothly and to
have a relaxation safely.
In
details, deep breathing is important from the standpoint of both health and
spiritual development. Deep breathing increases our vitality and promotes
relaxation.
The
bio-chem Mechanics of Deep Breathing
When we breathe fully and deeply, the diaphragm moves farther down
into the abdomen, and our lungs are able to expand more completely into the
chest cavity. This means that more oxygen is taken in and more carbon dioxide
is released with each breath. Deep breathing takes advantage of the fact that
the lungs are larger toward the bottom than the top.
In deep, abdominal breathing, the downward and upward movements of
the diaphragm, combined with the outward and inward movements of the belly,
ribcage, and lower back, help to massage and detoxify our inner organs, promote
blood flow and peristalsis, and pump the lymph more efficiently through our
lymphatic system. The lymphatic system, which is an important part of our
immune system, has no pump other than muscular movements, including the
movements of breathing.
This slower, deeper breathing, combined with the rhythmical pumping
of our diaphragm, abdomen, and belly, helps turn on our parasympathetic nervous
system--our "relaxation response." Such breathing helps to harmonize
our nervous system and reduce the amount of stress in our lives. And this, of
course, has a positive impact on our overall health.
In this skill, we try to aware
of our deep Breathing track from nose to check and to abdomen and backward.
1.
Lie down or sit in a comfortable chair,
maintaining good posture. Close your
eyes. Your body should be as relaxed as
possible.
2.
Now place one hand on your chest and see if it is
moving in harmony with your abdomen.
3.
Inhale deeply and slowly through your nose into
your abdomen. You should feel your
abdomen rise with this inhalation and your chest should move only a little.
4.
Exhale through your mouth, keeping your mouth,
tongue, and jaw relaxed.
5.
Relax as you focus on the sound and feeling of
long, abdomen slow, deep breaths.
Complete Natural Breathing
1.
Sit or stand with good posture.
2.
Breathe through your nose.
3.
Inhale, filling first the lower part of your
lungs then the middle part, then the upper part.
4.
Hold your breath for a few seconds.
5.
Exhale slowly.
Relax your abdomen and chest.
Practice these two exercises, in whatever combination feels
best for you, for ten minutes, twice a day.
(Taken from Davis, Eshelman, and McKay; The Relaxation
and Stress Reduction Workbook, 2nd edition; New Harbringer Publications,
1982.)
©Academic
Skills Center, Dartmouth College 2001
Single nostril breathing
Our
noses have left and right nostrils.
When
having headache, try to close your right nostril and use your left nostril to
do breathing for about 5 min. The headache will be gone. Or you can try inhale
from right and exhale deeply and completely from left and then change the
order, repeating several times.
If
you feel too tired, do it the opposite way. Close your left nostril and breathe
through your right nostril. After a while, you will feel refresh again.
Because
the right side belongs to heat, so it gets hot easily. The left side gets cold
easily.
Women
breathe mainly with their left nostril, so they get calm down easily.
Men
breathe mostly with their right nostril, so they get angry easily.
If
the left nostril breathes not smoothly, press your left nostril and use your
right nostril for breathing and you will get refresh quickly. Or vise versa.
b.
Muscle relaxation skill
You can lie
down or sit in a comfortable chair. Let your muscle relaxed. You feel heavier
and heavier. Tension
muscle beginning with counting from 1 to 4 by clinching the toes to legs first
and then to tension the muscles in hips, low back to abdomen, arms and hands
until face. I, get the tension building, 2, increasing the tension, 3 and 4 and
5, your tension increased to max. Then allow the tension to release completely for
10 seconds. And then start from another muscle. Your mind eyes imagine your
blood flowing in the tissues around the just tensioned muscles and your muscle
become increasingly relaxed. The sudden flow of blood from the tensioned muscle
will wash away lactic acid which causes the muscle fatigue. Feeling yourself
totally supported by the surface.
c.
audio hypnosis
Simply breathe
smoothly, peacefully and focus on the melody flow, thinking nothing or just let
your mind drifting into your own imagination with the music progresses
naturally.
d.
visual hypnosis
e.
Relaxation by imagination and self-hypnosis
Count from 1 to
10, each count makes you feel heavier, and increasingly relaxed. Then imagine
yourself lie in the warm sun in the winter and they sky is crystal blue and the
sun is getting warmer and warmer and you are getting heavier and heavier.
Everything is moving slow down, the cotton clouds are drafting slowly, and
you’re increasingly relaxed. The space between your shoulders are getting
wider, your body is getting warmer and warmer and heavier an heavier. Telling
your self your mind is at peace and I am slowing down. I am slowing down and my
mind is at peace. Feel more relaxed that you’ve never felt before. You are
totally supported by the ground in a meadow.
Then come back
from half sleep to awakeners to by counting from 10 to 1. This practice can be
taken each day, you can do this on bus, on train, in office and lie on bed. You
will find this is an effective way to get relaxation in a very short time.
7) For
relationship: The main reason for a relationship to be broken up is usually due
to a loss control of our temper and a bad management of stress.
Here relationship
can be with our parents, spouses, children and relationship with our superiors,
colleagues or friends.
At family,
quarrels over trivia do happen all the time especially between spouses.
If one side shouts
nastily at other and other responses at the same way, a small thing can turn
into a big issue.
If the spouse is
a very touchy and short-tempered, blow up constantly without a reason or disproportionally,
how can we calm down to avoid an open-fire?
At this moment,
my practice is:
My brain starts immediately
self- hypnosis by saying repeatedly:
There must be
someone to retreat from the argument first if we don’t want to run into big
unpleasant situation for nothing.
It’s not a big
deal anyway, why do I lose temper for that trifles? I know he is mad but if I
go with him, I would be mad as well. No way, I hate myself like that;
Then I advise myself that direct fighting back on small issue is not
worth doing but only makes things bigger and worse. anger is damaging to
health, high blood pressure, headaches, gastritis and even cancer can be the
consequence of anger and resentment. If I really love myself and love my
family, I should keep quiet first and let the argument fade.
Next stage is to analyses
why my spouse will lose temper for this particular case and you will find two general
reasons for family arguments:
a.
It is about stress and pressure from external environments
but they don’t know how to release it properly. Unfortunately, their beloved
ones usually become the victims because they are the only people who can trust
and shout at without making a big trouble.
b.
It is about
love and caring most of the time. As the love is so deep and too much that if
one side ignores or not take their advice repeatedly, a serious arguments plus
chucking up to too serious statements or unrelated statements will yell out from
one side and this can be also very damaging and ridiculous.
With all above self-talk lingering in my mind whenever an arguments
happen, I will repeatedly to myself. Then, I can find a balance, so as to calm
down a bit easier and more effectively.
In job, superiors lose temper or blow up at sub-ordinaries seem
commonplace especially when pressure is there to meet deadline or an encounter of
outside complaints. Their stress or anxiety has to be released but not everyone
can do it in a controlled way or properly. Even we ourselves may not able to
control ourselves better. In this case, better don’t directly come into
confrontation by blaming or blow back. Because the consequence may be either
side has to go or run way to find another job or another relationship. Then I
will say to myself if I lose this relationship, I will lose another again
because the problem is not from the particular event but human, esp. me myself.
If I don’t adjust the way of communication and attitude, still keeping blaming
others and shift off/shirk all responsibility, this event can happen anywhere
and anytime again.
I apply the way of thinking – that is to try to put ourselves into others
shoes and take our own responsibility, I find we can avoid many arguments in family
and in society. The point is we have to be realistic, to be more rational to
yourself and others. That means you can forget similar unpleasant daily event
and forgive others as well.