Burpees Alternative: Low Impact and Easier on the knees
3/12/2015
By Paul Brundtland
www.paulbrundtland.com
info@paulbrundtland.com
As a strong believer in integrated well-being, my regular exercise routine includes cardio, yoga, strength training, meditation and relaxation. As a part of my cardio/strength training, I often do burpees. At one point, after deciding to really step up my number of burpee sets, I noticed some knee pain. It was not very strong, but as it seemed to get worse each day I did the burpees, I started to rethink the exercise, and decided look into its origins.
In 1939, New York physiologist Royal H. Burpee designed the first version of the burpee as a quick test of fitness for those who were already in good health. This original exercise did not include the push up (people would simply squat, go to plank, jump back to squat and come back up to a standing position). This was meant to be done only 4 times. Mr Burpee would take a series of heart rate measurements before and after the exercise and then calculate the heart’s blood pumping efficiency. The resulting equation would give an indication of overall fitness. Burpee himself spoke against doing the exercise in high volumes.
Doing several sets of burpees, we can feel the impact on the knees when we jump both into and out of plank position (the position the body is in before lowering in a push up). There is a high dynamic load on the knees during these two movements.
In the version I propose in this video, this dynamic load is dramatically reduced, due to gently placing the knees on the ground before and after the plank, and by moving one leg at a time. Because of removing the jumps to and from plank however, the cardiovascular aspect is reduced. The remedy for that it…learn the exercise by heart and do it as quick as you safely can!
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLnupKUC5AU
This burpee variation can be used as a part of a HIIT (high intensity interval training) routine. As with all HIIT routines, be sure to stay hydrated and watch your action/rest ratios. For beginners that should be 1:2 (e.g. 30 seconds of exercise and then 60 seconds of rest).
To your health
Paul
References:
http://www.active.com/cycling/articles/high-intensity-interval-training-for-beginners
http://www.livestrong.com/article/535142-reasons-for-knee-pain-with-full-squats/
http://blogs.denverpost.com/fitness/2013/12/02/burpees-the-exercise-you-should-never-do-again/13492/
http://greatist.com/fitness/history-burpee
perfectionism and fear. the emotion behind getting it “just Right”
2/18/2015
By Paul Brundtland,
Mindbody counsellor and coach
info@paulbrundtland
www.paulbrundtland.com
Many of us know that feeling, that nagging voice inside saying “No, I want it THAT way”. Even when we say “Sure, it’s fine!”, there might be a little (or a lot of) tension in the gut that says “Why am I agreeing to this? This isn’t fine at all!”.
One can argue that perfectionism can bring out the best in us and others in certain situations. The great inventors, artists, scientists, engineers and architects in history undoubtedly found themselves struggling to realize exactly what was in their heads, and pushing those involved past what had been previously considered acceptable.
In daily life for many of us perfectionists, we’re often not talking about finding the perfect angle for a structural member in a building. We might be more at the scale of finding the perfect angle for the hat on our head or getting our look for the day perfect. Maybe it’s the perfect way to end an email or expecting the perfect response at the perfect time from a colleague , friend or partner.
“What’s wrong with that?”, you may ask. Well, nothing, if it causes you no tension and doesn’t drive the people around you mad.
There is a point when perfectionism leads us away from a “perfect” experience of life. This is to say, the feelings associated with having it “just right” actually can cause us to miss the beneficial qualities of having it in all its glory just “as it is”.
Believe it or not, these negative feelings can actually build up and cause not only constant mental tension but chronic physical pain as well. In his book Healing Back Pain Dr John Sarno sites perfectionism as a major contributing factor to a decrease in blood flow and resulting muscle pain in an overwhelming majority of cases of chronic back pain.
So, how can an urge to do something right end up doing something so wrong, in both the mind and the body? To see the connection we can look at the origins of our perfectionism. Many of us become more and more perfectionistic with age. Why? Protection. Protection from unwanted results on one level, but on another level, protection from the associated feelings around having those unwanted results.
Picture this for example: at age 3 doing something wrong and your mother saying “No”. You feel bad. You don’t really know much about subtleties in feelings so it’s just simply bad.
At age 15 you try to kiss a boy/girl who doesn’t like you that way. They move out of the way with their hands in front of them and you feel not only bad, but now you know it is embarrassment. Another negative feeling.
At 28 you think you are in line for a promotion at work, only to find out that not only did you not get the promotion, you are actually fired! You feel not only bad and embarrassed, you become very aware of a feeling of failure. This is once again, a feeling that drains your body of positive energy. It doesn’t matter what negative feeling it is, as long as it is negative, we want to be protected from it, especially if we have been drained or hurt in the past and we don’t feel particularly strong. We can become more and more sensitive to them as each new negative feeling reminds us of, or triggers a variety of negative feelings from the past. They build up and we become afraid of feeling them.
This fear of negative feelings can become so strong that we try to carefully build our lives as “top security” structures that will keep us safe; keep us feeling good. This good feeling is not that great at all though when we think about it. It’s too delicate. Think about the contrary: the exhilaration we feel when we do something successfully even though we were previously afraid of doing it. This is a much more resilient good feeling. We feel happy AND strong. It’s hard to tell if that pure bright feeling comes from the success in achievement or the defeat of that old predator called fear. The first time I went rock climbing, it was great to look up at the cliff I had “conquered”, but even better to know that I was not afraid to do it again. Even though it had just been a minor fear of heights, knowing that I had not let it stop me from climbing made me feel purely wonderful.
Beating something as obvious of a clear fear of heights is easy, in a way, because we know some ways to get over it. It’s an easy target. What can we do about these other more subtle fears that drive our perfectionism?
Becoming conscious that they are fears is the first step.
Realizing that our reactions to “imperfect” situations and actions that others do are based on a build up of negative emotions from past experiences is another. We are not just reacting to one clerk who didn’t give us good enough attention, we are also reacting to EVERY clerk that didn’t give us good enough attention AND a teacher who ignored our burning question in class AND even something seemingly unrelated as falling off the curb and scratching our knees a trillion years ago….the list goes on and on and gets longer as we grow. We are not practicing our work presentation 50 times just to ensure we have a positive result, but also to avoid another one of those bad feelings.
As written by Keijzer and Geiger in NERTI (The Key to a Life without Hyper-reactivity or Phobias), and also Ekart Tolle in The Power of Now, when we do get triggered, we should stay in the moment and allow our body to feel as it wants to without reacting to it. If possible, take several minutes to just observe your body without trying to stop what is happening inside. Observing it and allowing it to follow its course is the essence of the cathartic process and if it is allowed to run its complete course, this can erase the links to past experiences.
Find out more about liberating yourself from the baggage of past negative experiences by looking into Mindbody coaching, Vipassana programs, EFT and NERTI.
Look out for my future blog about finding the balance between using your wisdom from experience but living fearlessly as though you’ve never been hurt.
To your health
Image by Markj Sebastian
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markjsebastian/
je suis peace. 5 things we all share
2/18/2015
Je suis peace. I am peace…. or at least I aspire to be. I’m not a politician or even an activist, however with global tensions rising, and the recent events in Nigeria, Yemen, Niger and France, I feel that it is time to look at some underlying issues to help generate an attitude towards peace. By focussing on these commonalities, we may be able to direct our thoughts towards producing actions that facilitate peace.
Regardless of age, gender, nationality or faith,
We all mourn the loss of people we care about. Many of us mourn the loss of people, period.
We all can be angered when what we hold dear is repeatedly attacked or threatened. These attacks or threats could be physical or verbal. Some of us care about religion, others care about ideas, others care about the environment, others care about freedom, others care about peace etc.
We all want to live in accordance with principles we believe are correct. These could be secular, religious, spiritual etc.
We all are limited by our lack of understanding.
We all are, at least for the moment, limited to one planet.
So what can we do with this information? How can being aware help? We can remind ourselves about how we feel about each of these points. The more we think about this information on a personal level, the more alike others we will feel, and the more we will see that if we want peace, we have a responsibility concerning what we put out into the world.
We all mourn the loss of people we care about.
We want to avoid losing people that we hold dear. At one level, the fewer people we harm, the fewer will seek vengeance against us. Our loved ones will be that much safer when the element of vengeance is reduced. The less violence and negative energy we put out into the world, the less will come back to us.
On a deeper level, if we develop true compassion, because we know how it feels to lose someone, we simply hope that other people can avoid that feeling.
We all can be angered when what we hold dear is repeatedly attacked or threatened.
Very connected to the first point, if we feel anger in certain situations, others may as well. Again, we can look at this in two ways. We don’t want to facilitate anger in others, because that anger could be directed towards us later. Being on the receiving end of anger often complicates life and leads to negative emotions and situations. Further, again, if we develop true compassion, we simply will not want another person to feel this potentially destructive emotion.
We all want to live in accordance with principles we believe are correct.
We were all educated in some way. This could have happened at school, through other people, through information we had around us, through stories, through nature, through our own thoughts and reactions to life…there are countless ways to be educated. Even if we have rebelled against outside influence, we have somehow been educated or “formed” into the people we are today. Through that education, we have generated ideas about what our basic rights are and what is right and what is wrong.
As there are countless ways to be educated, there are also innumerable ways to live. There are also drastically different opinions about what is right and what is wrong. Without even addressing the possibility of the existence of a universal ethic, we can address the existence of universally experienced human emotions. Think of the negative emotions you feel when you are “wronged”, or restricted in terms of how you want to live, and realize that others may feel the same way. If we want peace, the less we infringe on others’ fundamental rights, the less negative emotions will be directed towards us.
We all are limited by our lack of understanding.
The above points address feelings that we may share. Contrastingly, if we don’t know someone intimately, it is very difficult to know exactly what they are thinking. Even with those closest to us, we may find this challenging at times. If we want a greater understanding, we need to have true communication; communication that accesses a persons core, rather than their anger, pride, fear, ego, or other obscuring factors.
This also comes in to play when people do things that we know will lead to negative consequences. We have different levels of understanding about different issues. When we need to teach it can be more effective when we do so from a place of simply wanting to lead a person to true understanding; a place void of anger, frustration, inflated ego or condescension. When we need to learn, we need to open ourselves to being lead past our preconceived notions and prejudices… all the way to true understanding.
We all are, at least for the moment, limited to one planet.
Just to name a few ways, we are connected geographically, economically and environmentally. Because we are all on earth, our actions affect others, even when we believe they are “far away”. There is only so “far away” we can be from each other on this relatively small planet. We are all in “this” together.
All of the above points indicate that we have a personal responsibility in creating peace. Peace may come from within, but we also live in the external world. If we want peace on that level as well, we must contribute to it…personally. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, I aspire to “be” peace, and finally, I endeavor to share it.
Pain, anger, and one powerful tool to get rid of them
2/18/2015
By Paul Brundtland info@paulbrundtland.com www.paulbrundtland.com
Pain that stays with us. Anger that just keeps coming back. They can drastically reduce our enjoyment of life and put severe strain on our relationships. Here is a very powerful technique to use for both.
I have found that conditioning or REconditioning my subconscious mind for more positive reactions around things that I don’t like, has done wonders. I have seen this to be effective for everything from back pain to dealing with regular situations I just don’t want to be in.
Here are a couple of examples:
Physical
I suffered from years of back pain and used to think that if I sat down for too long the pain would become severe….and I did! At the height of my back pain 15 MINUTES was too long! At one point, I began doing mental exercises involving visualizations of sitting for long periods. I did these exercises regularly (with A LOT of motivation) and when I sat down for longer and longer times I would remember the visualizations where in my mind I was able to sit. During the sits I also did not pay attention to the pain that came. Eventually it stopped coming.
Emotional
A few years ago I was teaching a group of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17. For those of you who have been responsible for many teenagers in one room, you can imaging how I would feel sometimes…..aaaaarrrrghhh! I knew that this was not going to be work I did for a long time; it just wasn’t me. I did know, however, that I needed to feel “aaaaarrrrrrgggggh” less or it would be the end of me. I began reconditioning myself. Before each class, I would visualize the class going well, and more importantly, myself not getting frustrated. When in the class, when that nasty feeling started to grow, I did not give it any importance….I tried to ignore it. In doing so it did not build, and that gave me the time to remember the visualization and how I WANTED to be calm. Visualization + motivation worked very well.
How to do the visualizations
Doing visualizations in a normal waking state of consciousness is like having a conversation with someone in another room, through thick walls and a very heavy closed door. Some communication may get through, but it will be unclear and/or distorted. To really communicate with the part of you that controls your automatic responses to things, you must open the door to the subconscious.
Our subconscious minds are accessible in the state where alpha brain waves are dominant. This is the state of deep relaxation or meditation. To achieve this, do a simple breathing meditation (counting breaths in cycles of 4 and letting all thoughts that arise float away) or a progressive relaxation (click for link). You can even just try to sink deeply into your couch, count your exhalations and really enjoy a few relaxing minutes of quiet.
Once you are relaxed, vividly image the situation you want to be in. See the colours, feel the textures, scents, the people’s faces…a comfortable, pain-free situation. Allow yourself to feel as good as possible. Let any tensions go. Once you have managed to “be” in the imaginary situation, stay in it for a while and enjoy. A very important point is that the subconscious does not distinguish between reality and imagination. When visualizing in the way I have just described, you can use this to your advantage. When you are ready, bring yourself back to “the real world” and just see how it has changed through the influence of your imagined world.
Important point
The next time you are in the potentially uncomfortable situation, note ANY improvements — even slight, and congratulate yourself. Consciously feel good about your improvement. This is important as rewards activate dopamine in the brain (nucleus accumbens) and this will help to add a POSITIVE association/conditioning with the once-difficult situation.
To you health
Image by graur codrin co freedigitalphotos.net
P.S. To read how I used this and other techniques to cure years of back pain, purchase My Lasting Relief from Chronic Pain. It will take about 2 hours to read but could permanently change your ideas around health.
Also, to receive a free MP3 of super relaxing percussion music, sign up to my mailing list on the side of this page ☺.
Paul Brundtland
Mindbody coaching, therapy and education
www.paulbrundtland.com
info@paulbrundtland.com
Stress? In 4 minutes you will feel better. Trust me
2/18/2015
STRESSED OUT? Do you think you can do NOTHING for 4 minutes? Nothing but thinking about something you love? Just turn to this video, watch the first few seconds, close your eyes and I'll let you know when time's up (no worries, I'll do it gently).
You deserve this and so does your body.Try doing it every day...it's good for your brain and health in general! Try it and challenge someone you know to do the same.
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mindbodyhello.
If you manage to do this even a couple of times, you are probably in the right mindset to start some simple meditation exercises. We'll keep you posted on how to. For the moment, just ENJOY :).
what do the beatles, buddha and the brain have in common?
2/18/2015
It really worked for the Beatles, making them even more successful
Buddha said if you want to find peace in meditation you should do this with any thought that comes into mind
Your brain will allow you to reprogram it if you do this when an unwanted or unpleasant emotion or sensation comes up
The answer to all 3....Let it be.
By Paul Brundtland, www.mindbodyhello.com
Author of My Lasting Relief From Chronic Pain
Are you obsessing over something you know is just a waste of your valuable time? Do you have a shoulder that seems to act up whenever you do something that most people can do easily, and neither doctors nor therapists can help? Are you having trouble getting over a break-up?
One of the key techniques that David Hawkins describes in Letting Go, The Pathway to Surrender is letting emotions "be". Hawkins writes that each emotion is connected to, or can produce a multitude of thoughts. When we feel something, it brings to mind opinions, memories etc.
When we don't react to a feeling (when we just let it be), we don't allow ourselves to analyze it, attach new thoughts to it, or bring old thoughts back in to reinforce it. When the feeling is just acknowledged in a completely non-judgemental way, it will not produce more thoughts and it will pass much more quickly, as the mind is not actively doing anything with it. When dealing with unpleasant feelings (emotional or physical), this is what we want...we want them to go away so we can get back to living. Using the unwanted feeling as a cue just to consciously take a slow, deep, relaxing breath will keep you on the right track.
The more we do this, when the feeling comes back it will be seen as less important by the brain because there was no weight added to it It when we just "let it be". This takes determination and can take a while to happen, but once the habit is formed, life becomes lighter and less painful on either emotional or physical levels.
To your good health
Paul Brundtland
Author of My Lasting Relief from Chronic Pain
Watch The Beatles rehearsing Let it Be - great version!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11t3i_beatles-let-it-be_music
Buddha photo by lavoview co freedigitalphotos.net
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Burpees Alternative: Low Impact and Easier on the knees
3/12/2015
By Paul Brundtland
www.paulbrundtland.com
info@paulbrundtland.com
As a strong believer in integrated well-being, my regular exercise routine includes cardio, yoga, strength training, meditation and relaxation. As a part of my cardio/strength training, I often do burpees. At one point, after deciding to really step up my number of burpee sets, I noticed some knee pain. It was not very strong, but as it seemed to get worse each day I did the burpees, I started to rethink the exercise, and decided look into its origins.
In 1939, New York physiologist Royal H. Burpee designed the first version of the burpee as a quick test of fitness for those who were already in good health. This original exercise did not include the push up (people would simply squat, go to plank, jump back to squat and come back up to a standing position). This was meant to be done only 4 times. Mr Burpee would take a series of heart rate measurements before and after the exercise and then calculate the heart’s blood pumping efficiency. The resulting equation would give an indication of overall fitness. Burpee himself spoke against doing the exercise in high volumes.
Doing several sets of burpees, we can feel the impact on the knees when we jump both into and out of plank position (the position the body is in before lowering in a push up). There is a high dynamic load on the knees during these two movements.
In the version I propose in this video, this dynamic load is dramatically reduced, due to gently placing the knees on the ground before and after the plank, and by moving one leg at a time. Because of removing the jumps to and from plank however, the cardiovascular aspect is reduced. The remedy for that it…learn the exercise by heart and do it as quick as you safely can!
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLnupKUC5AU
This burpee variation can be used as a part of a HIIT (high intensity interval training) routine. As with all HIIT routines, be sure to stay hydrated and watch your action/rest ratios. For beginners that should be 1:2 (e.g. 30 seconds of exercise and then 60 seconds of rest).
To your health
Paul
References:
http://www.active.com/cycling/articles/high-intensity-interval-training-for-beginners
http://www.livestrong.com/article/535142-reasons-for-knee-pain-with-full-squats/
http://blogs.denverpost.com/fitness/2013/12/02/burpees-the-exercise-you-should-never-do-again/13492/
http://greatist.com/fitness/history-burpee
perfectionism and fear. the emotion behind getting it “just Right”
2/18/2015
By Paul Brundtland,
Mindbody counsellor and coach
info@paulbrundtland
www.paulbrundtland.com
Many of us know that feeling, that nagging voice inside saying “No, I want it THAT way”. Even when we say “Sure, it’s fine!”, there might be a little (or a lot of) tension in the gut that says “Why am I agreeing to this? This isn’t fine at all!”.
One can argue that perfectionism can bring out the best in us and others in certain situations. The great inventors, artists, scientists, engineers and architects in history undoubtedly found themselves struggling to realize exactly what was in their heads, and pushing those involved past what had been previously considered acceptable.
In daily life for many of us perfectionists, we’re often not talking about finding the perfect angle for a structural member in a building. We might be more at the scale of finding the perfect angle for the hat on our head or getting our look for the day perfect. Maybe it’s the perfect way to end an email or expecting the perfect response at the perfect time from a colleague , friend or partner.
“What’s wrong with that?”, you may ask. Well, nothing, if it causes you no tension and doesn’t drive the people around you mad.
There is a point when perfectionism leads us away from a “perfect” experience of life. This is to say, the feelings associated with having it “just right” actually can cause us to miss the beneficial qualities of having it in all its glory just “as it is”.
Believe it or not, these negative feelings can actually build up and cause not only constant mental tension but chronic physical pain as well. In his book Healing Back Pain Dr John Sarno sites perfectionism as a major contributing factor to a decrease in blood flow and resulting muscle pain in an overwhelming majority of cases of chronic back pain.
So, how can an urge to do something right end up doing something so wrong, in both the mind and the body? To see the connection we can look at the origins of our perfectionism. Many of us become more and more perfectionistic with age. Why? Protection. Protection from unwanted results on one level, but on another level, protection from the associated feelings around having those unwanted results.
Picture this for example: at age 3 doing something wrong and your mother saying “No”. You feel bad. You don’t really know much about subtleties in feelings so it’s just simply bad.
At age 15 you try to kiss a boy/girl who doesn’t like you that way. They move out of the way with their hands in front of them and you feel not only bad, but now you know it is embarrassment. Another negative feeling.
At 28 you think you are in line for a promotion at work, only to find out that not only did you not get the promotion, you are actually fired! You feel not only bad and embarrassed, you become very aware of a feeling of failure. This is once again, a feeling that drains your body of positive energy.
It doesn’t matter what negative feeling it is, as long as it is negative, we want to be protected from it, especially if we have been drained or hurt in the past and we don’t feel particularly strong. We can become more and more sensitive to them as each new negative feeling reminds us of, or triggers a variety of negative feelings from the past. They build up and we become afraid of feeling them.
This fear of negative feelings can become so strong that we try to carefully build our lives as “top security” structures that will keep us safe; keep us feeling good. This good feeling is not that great at all though when we think about it. It’s too delicate. Think about the contrary: the exhilaration we feel when we do something successfully even though we were previously afraid of doing it. This is a much more resilient good feeling. We feel happy AND strong. It’s hard to tell if that pure bright feeling comes from the success in achievement or the defeat of that old predator called fear.
The first time I went rock climbing, it was great to look up at the cliff I had “conquered”, but even better to know that I was not afraid to do it again. Even though it had just been a minor fear of heights, knowing that I had not let it stop me from climbing made me feel purely wonderful.
Beating something as obvious of a clear fear of heights is easy, in a way, because we know some ways to get over it. It’s an easy target. What can we do about these other more subtle fears that drive our perfectionism?
Becoming conscious that they are fears is the first step.
Realizing that our reactions to “imperfect” situations and actions that others do are based on a build up of negative emotions from past experiences is another. We are not just reacting to one clerk who didn’t give us good enough attention, we are also reacting to EVERY clerk that didn’t give us good enough attention AND a teacher who ignored our burning question in class AND even something seemingly unrelated as falling off the curb and scratching our knees a trillion years ago….the list goes on and on and gets longer as we grow. We are not practicing our work presentation 50 times just to ensure we have a positive result, but also to avoid another one of those bad feelings.
As written by Keijzer and Geiger in NERTI (The Key to a Life without Hyper-reactivity or Phobias), and also Ekart Tolle in The Power of Now, when we do get triggered, we should stay in the moment and allow our body to feel as it wants to without reacting to it. If possible, take several minutes to just observe your body without trying to stop what is happening inside. Observing it and allowing it to follow its course is the essence of the cathartic process and if it is allowed to run its complete course, this can erase the links to past experiences.
Find out more about liberating yourself from the baggage of past negative experiences by looking into Mindbody coaching, Vipassana programs, EFT and NERTI.
Look out for my future blog about finding the balance between using your wisdom from experience but living fearlessly as though you’ve never been hurt.
To your health
Image by Markj Sebastian
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markjsebastian/
je suis peace. 5 things we all share
2/18/2015
Je suis peace. I am peace…. or at least I aspire to be. I’m not a politician or even an activist, however with global tensions rising, and the recent events in Nigeria, Yemen, Niger and France, I feel that it is time to look at some underlying issues to help generate an attitude towards peace. By focussing on these commonalities, we may be able to direct our thoughts towards producing actions that facilitate peace.
Regardless of age, gender, nationality or faith,
We all mourn the loss of people we care about. Many of us mourn the loss of people, period.
We all can be angered when what we hold dear is repeatedly attacked or threatened. These attacks or threats could be physical or verbal. Some of us care about religion, others care about ideas, others care about the environment, others care about freedom, others care about peace etc.
We all want to live in accordance with principles we believe are correct. These could be secular, religious, spiritual etc.
We all are limited by our lack of understanding.
We all are, at least for the moment, limited to one planet.
So what can we do with this information? How can being aware help? We can remind ourselves about how we feel about each of these points. The more we think about this information on a personal level, the more alike others we will feel, and the more we will see that if we want peace, we have a responsibility concerning what we put out into the world.
We all mourn the loss of people we care about.
We want to avoid losing people that we hold dear. At one level, the fewer people we harm, the fewer will seek vengeance against us. Our loved ones will be that much safer when the element of vengeance is reduced. The less violence and negative energy we put out into the world, the less will come back to us.
On a deeper level, if we develop true compassion, because we know how it feels to lose someone, we simply hope that other people can avoid that feeling.
We all can be angered when what we hold dear is repeatedly attacked or threatened.
Very connected to the first point, if we feel anger in certain situations, others may as well. Again, we can look at this in two ways. We don’t want to facilitate anger in others, because that anger could be directed towards us later. Being on the receiving end of anger often complicates life and leads to negative emotions and situations. Further, again, if we develop true compassion, we simply will not want another person to feel this potentially destructive emotion.
We all want to live in accordance with principles we believe are correct.
We were all educated in some way. This could have happened at school, through other people, through information we had around us, through stories, through nature, through our own thoughts and reactions to life…there are countless ways to be educated. Even if we have rebelled against outside influence, we have somehow been educated or “formed” into the people we are today. Through that education, we have generated ideas about what our basic rights are and what is right and what is wrong.
As there are countless ways to be educated, there are also innumerable ways to live. There are also drastically different opinions about what is right and what is wrong. Without even addressing the possibility of the existence of a universal ethic, we can address the existence of universally experienced human emotions. Think of the negative emotions you feel when you are “wronged”, or restricted in terms of how you want to live, and realize that others may feel the same way. If we want peace, the less we infringe on others’ fundamental rights, the less negative emotions will be directed towards us.
We all are limited by our lack of understanding.
The above points address feelings that we may share. Contrastingly, if we don’t know someone intimately, it is very difficult to know exactly what they are thinking. Even with those closest to us, we may find this challenging at times. If we want a greater understanding, we need to have true communication; communication that accesses a persons core, rather than their anger, pride, fear, ego, or other obscuring factors.
This also comes in to play when people do things that we know will lead to negative consequences. We have different levels of understanding about different issues. When we need to teach it can be more effective when we do so from a place of simply wanting to lead a person to true understanding; a place void of anger, frustration, inflated ego or condescension. When we need to learn, we need to open ourselves to being lead past our preconceived notions and prejudices… all the way to true understanding.
We all are, at least for the moment, limited to one planet.
Just to name a few ways, we are connected geographically, economically and environmentally. Because we are all on earth, our actions affect others, even when we believe they are “far away”. There is only so “far away” we can be from each other on this relatively small planet. We are all in “this” together.
All of the above points indicate that we have a personal responsibility in creating peace. Peace may come from within, but we also live in the external world. If we want peace on that level as well, we must contribute to it…personally. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, I aspire to “be” peace, and finally, I endeavor to share it.
Pain, anger, and one powerful tool to get rid of them
2/18/2015
By Paul Brundtland info@paulbrundtland.com www.paulbrundtland.com
Pain that stays with us. Anger that just keeps coming back. They can drastically reduce our enjoyment of life and put severe strain on our relationships. Here is a very powerful technique to use for both.
I have found that conditioning or REconditioning my subconscious mind for more positive reactions around things that I don’t like, has done wonders. I have seen this to be effective for everything from back pain to dealing with regular situations I just don’t want to be in.
Here are a couple of examples:
Physical
I suffered from years of back pain and used to think that if I sat down for too long the pain would become severe….and I did! At the height of my back pain 15 MINUTES was too long! At one point, I began doing mental exercises involving visualizations of sitting for long periods. I did these exercises regularly (with A LOT of motivation) and when I sat down for longer and longer times I would remember the visualizations where in my mind I was able to sit. During the sits I also did not pay attention to the pain that came. Eventually it stopped coming.
Emotional
A few years ago I was teaching a group of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17. For those of you who have been responsible for many teenagers in one room, you can imaging how I would feel sometimes…..aaaaarrrrghhh! I knew that this was not going to be work I did for a long time; it just wasn’t me. I did know, however, that I needed to feel “aaaaarrrrrrgggggh” less or it would be the end of me. I began reconditioning myself. Before each class, I would visualize the class going well, and more importantly, myself not getting frustrated. When in the class, when that nasty feeling started to grow, I did not give it any importance….I tried to ignore it. In doing so it did not build, and that gave me the time to remember the visualization and how I WANTED to be calm. Visualization + motivation worked very well.
How to do the visualizations
Doing visualizations in a normal waking state of consciousness is like having a conversation with someone in another room, through thick walls and a very heavy closed door. Some communication may get through, but it will be unclear and/or distorted. To really communicate with the part of you that controls your automatic responses to things, you must open the door to the subconscious.
Our subconscious minds are accessible in the state where alpha brain waves are dominant. This is the state of deep relaxation or meditation. To achieve this, do a simple breathing meditation (counting breaths in cycles of 4 and letting all thoughts that arise float away) or a progressive relaxation (click for link). You can even just try to sink deeply into your couch, count your exhalations and really enjoy a few relaxing minutes of quiet.
Once you are relaxed, vividly image the situation you want to be in. See the colours, feel the textures, scents, the people’s faces…a comfortable, pain-free situation. Allow yourself to feel as good as possible. Let any tensions go. Once you have managed to “be” in the imaginary situation, stay in it for a while and enjoy. A very important point is that the subconscious does not distinguish between reality and imagination. When visualizing in the way I have just described, you can use this to your advantage. When you are ready, bring yourself back to “the real world” and just see how it has changed through the influence of your imagined world.
Important point
The next time you are in the potentially uncomfortable situation, note ANY improvements — even slight, and congratulate yourself. Consciously feel good about your improvement. This is important as rewards activate dopamine in the brain (nucleus accumbens) and this will help to add a POSITIVE association/conditioning with the once-difficult situation.
To you health
Image by graur codrin co freedigitalphotos.net
P.S. To read how I used this and other techniques to cure years of back pain, purchase My Lasting Relief from Chronic Pain. It will take about 2 hours to read but could permanently change your ideas around health.
Also, to receive a free MP3 of super relaxing percussion music, sign up to my mailing list on the side of this page ☺.
Paul Brundtland
Mindbody coaching, therapy and education
www.paulbrundtland.com
info@paulbrundtland.com
Stress? In 4 minutes you will feel better. Trust me
2/18/2015
STRESSED OUT? Do you think you can do NOTHING for 4 minutes? Nothing but thinking about something you love? Just turn to this video, watch the first few seconds, close your eyes and I’ll let you know when time’s up (no worries, I’ll do it gently).
You deserve this and so does your body.Try doing it every day…it’s good for your brain and health in general! Try it and challenge someone you know to do the same.
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mindbodyhello.
If you manage to do this even a couple of times, you are probably in the right mindset to start some simple meditation exercises. We’ll keep you posted on how to. For the moment, just ENJOY ☺.
what do the beatles, buddha and the brain have in common?
2/18/2015
It really worked for the Beatles, making them even more successful
Buddha said if you want to find peace in meditation you should do this with any thought that comes into mind
Your brain will allow you to reprogram it if you do this when an unwanted or unpleasant emotion or sensation comes up
The answer to all 3….Let it be.
By Paul Brundtland, www.mindbodyhello.com
Author of My Lasting Relief From Chronic Pain
Are you obsessing over something you know is just a waste of your valuable time? Do you have a shoulder that seems to act up whenever you do something that most people can do easily, and neither doctors nor therapists can help? Are you having trouble getting over a break-up?
One of the key techniques that David Hawkins describes in Letting Go, The Pathway to Surrender is letting emotions “be”. Hawkins writes that each emotion is connected to, or can produce a multitude of thoughts. When we feel something, it brings to mind opinions, memories etc.
When we don’t react to a feeling (when we just let it be), we don’t allow ourselves to analyze it, attach new thoughts to it, or bring old thoughts back in to reinforce it. When the feeling is just acknowledged in a completely non-judgemental way, it will not produce more thoughts and it will pass much more quickly, as the mind is not actively doing anything with it. When dealing with unpleasant feelings (emotional or physical), this is what we want…we want them to go away so we can get back to living. Using the unwanted feeling as a cue just to consciously take a slow, deep, relaxing breath will keep you on the right track.
The more we do this, when the feeling comes back it will be seen as less important by the brain because there was no weight added to it It when we just “let it be”. This takes determination and can take a while to happen, but once the habit is formed, life becomes lighter and less painful on either emotional or physical levels.
To your good health
Paul Brundtland
Author of My Lasting Relief from Chronic Pain
Watch The Beatles rehearsing Let it Be — great version!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11t3i_beatles-let-it-be_music
Buddha photo by lavoview co freedigitalphotos.net
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Originally published at www.paulbrundtland.com.
