Introduction to my new book, "Entering Your Own Heart: A Guide to Developing Self-Love, Inner-Peace & Happiness"

                                                         INTRODUCTION

 "Just as rivers flow from east and west to merge with the one sea, forgetting that they were ever separate rivers, so all beings lose their separateness when they eventually merge into pure Being".
                                                                                                          Chandogya Upanishad

"Namaste: I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you which is of love, light, peace and joy. When you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, We Are One".
                                                                                                           Definition of Namaste

Entering Your Own Heart: A Guide to Developing Self-Love, Inner Peace and Happiness is a journey, a journey to the center of your own heart where you can see, understand and appreciate the fact that you always have loved—and still do love—yourself … way more than you imagine. Once you truly know this, you will not only treat yourself with the love and appreciation you deserve but you will accept no less from anyone else and offer no less to others. The love for self I am addressing is a love that maintains peace rather than hurt, anger, anxiety or depression in the midst of disappointment, betrayal or failure. The depth of love we allow ourselves to experience, toward our self and others, ranges from conditional to unconditional. When we reach the deepest state of love for our self, we experience unconditional love that never dies even if a loved one dies or leaves us or we leave. When we love our self unconditionally, it means the end of inner conflict, self-hatred, depression and anxiety—and it allows us to experience our true inner peace. Entering your own heart means taking a journey through your outer self into the very center of your being where the actual loving truth of you resides. It’s often said that it is very important to love our selves. How many of us truly understand what that means? Over the years, I’ve asked many people I’ve met socially if they love themselves. Their answers were usually yes. When I asked them how they knew they love themselves, most answered that they bought themselves massages, a nice car or attractive clothes. These very same people would often feel angry, upset, insulted and indignant; they would become boastful and judgmental of others and were not truly peaceful inside. Unfortunately, we have not been taught how to treat ourselves with unconditional love. In fact, much of our training has actually taught us the opposite—but we can still learn. My hope is that Entering Your Own Heart will increase your awareness of self-love and guide you to create a richer, happier life experience for both yourself and for those you touch. The journey is three-fold, with each aspect being inextricably linked. The first aspect of this journey is to become aware of and be able to hear a part of you that is sometimes referred to as “the still small voice” that resides within your heart. The second aspect of this journey is to actively listen to that voice, to “check-in” with it, and to fully understand its importance in your life. The third aspect of this journey is to arrive at a state of total identification or oneness with this voice, to realize that it is your true self, and to completely drop all identification with your personality or ego self. My personal belief, and the belief of many others, is that the all and the everything provides us with more than one lifetime to complete this journey, but this belief is not required to walk the path to self-love. Based on where you are on your path, Entering Your Own Heart will guide you through the first two aspects and lead you to the door of the third aspect. When you attain self-love, you will live pain-free: confident, happy, peaceful, accepting, patient and loving. My Journey I’d like to share with you how my life and this book evolved. When I was very young, I spent most of my days alone in my room, rocking and crying on my bed. One day, I just got up, climbed out the window, slid my small body to the very edge of the ledge five stories above the ground and tried to find the courage to jump off. It wasn’t the thoughts in my head as much as the feelings in my body that drew me out that window. The rocking would ease those feelings some, but, on this day, for whatever reason, the rocking wasn’t enough. As I sat on the ledge, with one hand raised above my head, clinging to the bottom of the open window for security, the other hand pushed down on the red brick in an attempt to eject myself over the edge. I was ten. At that age, I didn’t know how to ease my pain, and I sought relief the only way I could imagine. Luckily, I was too fearful to end my life, and, even though life was very difficult, I managed to stay alive until I could find a better way to ease my pain. My search took decades, but I learned that sometimes it takes profound pain to bring us to profound peace, and I did find the inner wisdom that enables me to have a peaceful, fulfilled life today. If you aspire to peace, it is within your reach as well because peace is within you. No matter how alike or different we might seem, we all have the same core needs and can all achieve a fulfillment of those needs. My life perspective developed into what I call psycho-spirituality. This is an understanding of the human experience being connected and whole with no separation between mind/body/spirit/other. I’ve attempted to put into words the complexity of what I know and to organize my message in such a way that the miracle of who we each are becomes clear and evident. My desire is that my words will spark in you a great love and appreciation for your self. My childhood was riddled with scary experiences, and I wound up feeling great doubt, even hatred, of both myself and the world. The world looked upside down to me. I remember thinking that everything that was important wasn’t, and that everything that wasn’t important was. I felt very alone. Even though I climbed back in the window and didn’t end my life that day, the years ahead were troubled with anorexia, prostitution, battered-wife syndrome, near-death from a self-induced abortion at a time when abortions were illegal, and more misery than anyone deserves. A few days after I climbed back from the ledge, I had an experience so strange that I’ll never forget it. I was sitting on my bed rocking, crying and thinking that I was not loved. As a steady current of tears ran down my cheeks, for some unknown reason, I turned my face toward my mirror. Seeing my reflection, I remember thinking, “How ugly!” I got up and slowly moved toward the mirror, my face appearing larger and larger as I got closer. “And uglier!” I thought. I remember again thinking that nobody loved me. Then immediately, out of nowhere, came a very distinct voice. It spoke fiercely to me, “If nobody is going to love you, then I’m going to love you!” The voice was loud, clear and sounded almost angry. I turned around, trying to make sense of it, looking to see who could have said these words, but no one was there. My family was not religious, so I never considered that it could have been a higher voice. Confused, I pushed the whole experience to the side and forgot about it until the voice reappeared strongly for me years later when I was 21 and in an abusive marriage to a troubled man who was threatening to kill me, our child and then himself. Though I then remembered my experience at age ten, I still did not understand the implications of it and, again, dropped it from my memory. By the time I was 34 I was attending psychotherapy regularly. I defined myself as an atheist because I simply would not believe in a god who allowed such misery—my own and all that I saw in the world. Then, through a very slow process, I became aware that there was something that kept me going, something that seemed to value my life. My personal journey led me to psychotherapy and eventually to exploring spirituality. As I continued to grow, I discovered that I loved providing support to others. I eventually went back to school to earn a degree in clinical psychology and a state license. I also trained as a non-denominational, metaphysical minister. I’ve been in private practice for over 30 wonderful years. The information I share in Entering Your Own Heart is not intended to lead you down any religious road. If I had to say where this book will lead you, it is to the very center of your heart—where you are connected to everyone and everything, to where peace and joy reside. No doubt, age ten was a profound year for me. Despite my urge to find peace through the only way I could think of at that young age, paradoxically, I also had a vision of me as a grown up. I remember it very clearly. I would see myself speaking to groups of people and each person would come away from listening to me loving themselves more. Because I was a child who was severely belittled, it’s not difficult to understand that I was not learning self-love or self-respect in my home. I needed to love, or at least like myself, but due to having a mother with extremely low self-esteem and a horribly abusive father, I only heard words that made me distrust, dislike and even hate myself. I felt like I didn’t deserve better. Yet even at the young age of ten, I understood a bigger picture. I knew that if my mother loved herself more, if the President of the United States loved himself more, if the “bad guys” in the movies loved themselves more, the world would right itself and the crazy abuses would stop. It seems my life has been about finding that internal loving and supportive voice for myself and to help others find it for themselves. This is one of the gifts I offer to you through this book. Entering our own heart is the way we consciously connect with peace and joy, which then spreads from within to without, creating a better world for ourselves, our children, our families, our friends, our co-workers and strangers. Joy and peace are truly already within us, and we are all entitled to it. We are also entitled to feel the confidence needed to move toward our dreams. Each one of us has the right to know this and to love ourselves unconditionally. I know, first-hand, the strength of the human spirit to heal and overcome adversity, even terror. It is in touching our pain that we gain the gifts within us. One important aspect to entering your own heart and connecting with the peace and joy inside is to learn how to touch and overcome emotional pain. Emotional pain is caused by mistaken beliefs both conscious and unconscious. These beliefs are not the truth no matter what evidence you believe you have for them. Think of your emotional pain as residing in a room that holds all of the mistaken beliefs that you need to correct. See that you must walk through that room, touching and accepting all that is in it, to get through to where peace and joy reside. This journey, to the core of your being, will lead you to your pain and your power, your fear and your joyful heart. In Entering Your Own Heart, we will look at the mechanisms for connecting and disconnecting from the higher self who resides at the center of your heart. I will explain, in detail, how the key to entering your own heart is found in the unconscious and conscious ways we relate to our self and allow others to relate to us. You will see how all behavior begins within your mind, a mind that is actually a relationship—a relationship that creates the energy that you experience as you. The Psycho-Spiritual Journey Our spiritual self, as others and I understand it, is the experience of oneness and connectedness. It is the experience of being connected with our self, with others, with the animals, with the earth and with “the all and the everything.” As we connect deeper within ourselves, our higher self, spirit self, higher power, still small voice, god, universal energy (by whichever name you want to call it) becomes a conscious part of us and strengthens us, bringing us closer to the experience of unconditional love, peace and joy. For the purpose of simplicity, I will refer to “the all and the everything” as “the higher self.” As this book progresses and you begin to do the necessary work to connect to aspects of your self that you have not, as yet, met and embraced, you will find that, through this process, your sense of being connected to everyone and everything will expand as well. Our whole physical being is made up of our bodies, our brains and our minds. This mind, which I call the personality self, is the part of us that reasons, understands, wills and experiences emotions whether on a conscious or unconscious level. Our physical body affects our brain, our brain affects our mind, and, in reverse, our mind affects our brain and our brain affects our physical body. Your body/brain/mind is a single unit working together to maintain your being. Your socio-political and physical environment plays a large part in influencing your body/brain/mind. We are molded by every aspect of our existence. There is a strong correlation between physiological and psychological flow, health and well- being. Flow and health are synonymous. When I work with clients, I acknowledge and treat their whole being, working toward opening up the flow of thoughts, beliefs and emotions as well as their body’s physical flow so that they can break through their blockages, stuck places or contractions. As we open up, we are more capable of hearing our higher self directing us to greater self-loving decisions and behaviors. It was over 30 years ago that I traveled to southern California to study with Dr. O. Carl Simonton, a pioneering medical doctor who is now known as “the father of psycho-social medicine.” Dr. Simonton stated, “You can learn to follow the inner self, the inner physician that tells you where to go. Healing is simply attempting to do more of those things that bring joy and fewer of those things that bring pain.” Most industrialized countries, like the United States, are so fast-paced that people are dissuaded from being mindful of their emotions and physical sensations. It can be difficult to find time for tending to both our outer and our inner life. In order to “keep up” within these societies, many people dampen their feelings and mask their pain with various numbing substances so that they can keep up with the pace. The result, for all of us, is that we are less in touch with our selves, especially our truest selves, and with the joy of our aliveness. We miss out on knowing someone very wonderful ... our self! Your life need not be a struggle. Ease, peace, love, health and joy are yours to experience—even if you have little money or physical comforts. We might say that the school of life and all of its lessons are offered to you as you travel this path. It is your path and, therefore, your choice whether to do the work. The opportunity will always be there for you when you want it and are ready for it. The universe is unconditionally patient. In the beginning of A Course In Miracles, a spiritual teaching sometimes referred to as the Vedanta in Christian language, it states: “This is A Course In Miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.” The path to self-love, inner-peace and happiness also leads you to the realization of your connection and sense of oneness with everything. This is the process known as awakening. Awakening is always available to you, along with self-love, inner-peace and happiness, as long as you choose to walk forward and not give up when you encounter difficulties. Your Journey The journey to the center of your heart is for the brave of heart because there are often many pains to face, hurts to heal and mistakes to correct. Allow me to be your guide as you travel this path. Entering Your Own Heart is a guidebook, explaining in detail how to dissolve the fears, beliefs and concerns that bring you pain and how to listen to and hear your feelings as they guide you to peace and joy. Allow the thoughts presented in this book to strengthen you for the journey and offer you a way through the rough spots so that you can embrace pain whenever it appears and not let it block your way. Allow this book to show you how to become strong in the face of self-judgment and how to enjoy and appreciate your self and each individual who appears on your path as your mirror. Most of all, allow Entering Your Own Heart to bring you to experience an unconditional love and peace that extends itself effortlessly. Throughout Entering Your Own Heart, I will use the term pain to mean any emotion that is the result of believing that you are less than innocent, less than loving, less than magnificent. In the upcoming chapters, you will learn the tools to become a spiritual warrior. I promise that, as you travel this path, you will become stronger and the process will become easier. The length of the journey is much less important than the amount of loving experiences you gather along the way. Throughout Entering Your Own Heart, I refer to a variety of spiritual teachings and quote wise people from all walks of life. We have the ability to learn from our inner wisdom and be inspired by the wisdom of all other teachings. Allow your self to be inspired by others and allow your self to open up to learning from your own inner wisdom. I have chosen to use all lower case letters when referring to both the personality self and the higher self. This is to point out that your personality self is not less than the higher self, but actually one with it. Where appropriate, I also use the two words, “your self” rather than the grammatically preferred “yourself” to refer to the true, inner, whole and holy being that is you. Because the concepts I offer build on each other, I strongly suggest that you read the chapters in order. Your work and your rewards lie ahead. Let’s begin.

I have news, I have written a book and I'm happy to say that it will be available later this year on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and bookstores everywhere, as well as being offered at a discount through a new website I will be setting up. The book is called, "Entering Your Own Heart: A Guide to Developing Self-Love, Inner Peace & Happiness". One reader commented, "Her insight, wisdom and compassion has created a work that, written so clearly, is easily understood, eye-opening and inspirational. I feel a lightness of being and a true hope of healing, wholeness and inner peace through the study and application of this material. Love is the greatest healer and you have paved the way there." I will be offering excerpts from the book on this blog over the next few months. Please check back and see what you think.

How to Stop Judging, Find Peace & Get Closer to Enlightenment

Have you read a million books, seeking the secret to enlightenment…or just the secret to being happier? Many of these books say the same thing, just differently. You’ve read it a hundred times and you really do know the way. You have the car, you have the gasoline …you even have the key! So, what is in the way?

Let’s start with your expectations. If you think enlightenment is experiencing bliss while being surrounded by misery, then I believe we have different definitions. I’m sure that the enlightened spiritual leaders of our various spiritual paths do not intend to lead us towards indifference.

I see enlightenment more as: a) a true acceptance of what is, b) embraced in a compassionate heart, and c) in a sea of peace. It is not continuous bliss; it is not constant happiness. It is presence with peace.

So here’s some good news about attaining enlightenment, 1) it’s doable and 2) it just takes practice. There’s only ONE -- yes, just one thing we must do to attain it – and you already know this one thing.

Another piece of good news is that you do not have to be cured of all your neurosis in order to attain it. You see, there is no judgment in enlightenment.

Judgment is the darkness… it is the peace disrupter; it is the impatience, the anger, the stress, the illness, the hurt, the guilt, the anxiety, the depression, the jealousy, the envy, the revenge, the procrastination, and above all, the fear.

We judge ourselves, and judge ourselves for judging ourselves. We judge others and judge ourselves for judging others. We judge others for judging others and judge ourselves for judging others for judging others. We are immersed in conscious and unconscious judging. It is what keeps us from peace, and feeds a peaceless world.

We have been given the tools to heal ourselves, and I would like show you how to use them. It is not “poof - you’re enlightened”, the tools help you do the necessary work, and it is work. You will have to face your fears, your tears, your sneers – it’s the path you must walk. If you think meditating once in a while or attending a spiritual service once in a while will get you there, think again. It’s a minute by minute path – with an inner guide provided to keep you on the path.

Most of you have already heard that “believing is seeing” (rather than “seeing is believing”). For those of you who are not yet familiar with this concept I offer a brief explanation. You have thoughts – some of them you have faith in, which turns them into beliefs. Example: “The world is flat”, is a thought, but not a belief (hopefully!). Thoughts do not influence our lives like beliefs do. Our beliefs are reflected back to us, mainly because we expect that picture of reality – so we tend to fade out those things that do not match our beliefs. That’s why we tend to “see what we believe”. The difficult part of this phenomenon is that we may believe things that limit our ability to be healthy and happy. Then when someone comes along and tries to show us that what we are seeing is incorrect, we think they’re nuts, naive, insensitive, or just plain wrong. What’s real for us is created by the beliefs we live with. This is where the statement, “You create your own reality” comes from. Beliefs are not always easy to change, but they most certainly can be changed.

If you are a very unhappy person, you might want to employ the help of a therapist, someone trained to help you journey into your Self. Otherwise, without that support and some good tools, when painful things come up to consciousness the tendency is to run, deny, project, rationalize, depress, etc. etc..

As I said earlier, you own the car, you’ve bought the gas, you even have the key – you just don’t know how to turn the ignition on.

So, learning to find where the key goes and how to turn it, in your quest for happiness and enlightenment means learning how to not judge but, instead, see, understand and feel compassion … for yourself, and for others. Compassion means employing one’s ability to mentally understand and emotionally care. It’s the mind and the heart, in unison.

Seeing, understanding and feeling compassion for all the ways we humans err, fear, and scare ourselves and others is a very, very large task.. You may be wondering, if I do this work will it really bring me to enlightenment, peace and happiness. I can tell you that it will allow you to experience inner peace, it will show you your true happiness and it will lead you to enlightenment. If you want to meditate until bliss opens magically – that’s another way. It’s worked for some, I understand. I also know of people who've lived in ashrams for years and came out as confused as they went in. My guess, and it’s just a guess, (because I haven’t done a study) is that the people who achieved enlightenment were also applying the spiritual principles of turning judgment into compassionate understanding. So, there you have it…in a nutshell! Now let’s talk about the exact way one turns judgments (both conscious and unconscious) into compassion?

I want to start with a term I made up back in 1989 – “Wall Words”. Wall words are words that judge, label, and put up a wall to understanding and compassion. One example of a wall word is “stupid”, another is “lazy”, and another is “selfish”. Let’s use the word “stupid” to demonstrate what makes it a Wall Word. A person makes a mistake, you think they should have known the correct way, you think, “this person is stupid”. That label ends the understanding, and the compassion from happening. It could be that the person never had the ability or opportunity to learn what was required to do it correctly. Another possibility is that that person, due to a worry or upset was distracted from what they were doing, leading to the mistake. There may be other reasons. What’s important is that if you stop at the label of “stupid”, nothing is understood, nothing changes for the better, and feelings of failure, anger, guilt, and fear of rejection remain. Also, a wonderful opportunity for compassion and connection is lost. So each time you find yourself using words that block understanding and compassion towards your self or another, stop, seek to understand on a deeper level, add compassion – and notice that your connection to yourself or to the other person deepens and strengthens.

This is the practice. As you chip away from the darkness of judgment a new light is able to shine through -- illuminating a heart felt, connected, peaceful and joyful experience of life.

Suffering

The Budda said, “Life is suffering.” I know suffering, but I respectfully would like to disagree with the Budda. We all know suffering, and some of us have had more then our fair share, but life is -- just that… life is.
Suffering is a response to self-blame, not to life. When we perceive that the unkindness of others or nature is somehow our due, our suffering is great. But when we feel no self-blame, when we truly know, deep in our heart, that we are good, we are innocent - then we take the life handed to us without suffering it. That is not to say that we don’t feel disappointment or sadness, or even a spark of anger - but we do not carry it within us. We do not dwell on the upset, we move forward, focusing on the solution.
Our lack of self-blame allows us to be in touch with our true self, our innocence, our deservingness, and we move forward standing upright - not doubled over in pain. It is not suffering. We are feeling our feelings and our strengths, hopes, confidence… our self-love. We are moving forward in acceptance of what is.
If you defend your right to feel wrong or deny it when you do, you will experience life as suffering. But… you can be free of suffering and you can experience life as is -- and then choose to focus on the love, the good, the cup half-full.

A Quote from a Harry Potter Book

I heard Oprah quote from a Harry Potter Book recently. My memory might not have it exactly as it was stated but it went something very, very close to this, “The happiest man alive would be the one who looks in the mirror and sees exactly who he is”.
Most women or men looking in the mirror see their physical flaws, past mistakes and/or failures, and remember experiencing unkindnesses from others. I say this with confidence as I’ve lived my own life, have friends and family and have worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients who experience this kind of seeing. Is there truth to this quote? My answer is, “Yes.” This is how I see it: I believe each of us is on a journey towards reaching this experience of happiness when looking in the mirror. We spend a little or a lot of time, depending on our needs and our personality, correcting the negative beliefs we carry. Each time we correct a mistake belief in our self-concept we feel a bit happier with our self, we become a bit kinder to our self, and often, that kindness then gets extended to others. When we have corrected all of our mistakes in how we think about our self, when we have found compassionate understanding for all of our “flaws”, when we come to appreciate all of the lessons or gifts we received by having these “flaws” and when we have found self-acceptance and our innocence - then our reflection in the mirror will bring us joy… and a love so great and so strengthening that we will not only see it in our selves, but in everyone and everything. The life journey that requires facing our fears and touching our pain is rewarded ten-fold with joy. The love that is you may be covered by fear - but like the sun that is covered by clouds, it is there, it is real, and it shines!

MAKING FRIENDS WITH "UNFRIENDLY" EMOTIONS

No one likes the painful emotions, the ones that make us sad and tearful, frustrated and angry, despairing, fearful or panicked. I believe that the reasons why the population of the United States is experiencing such an epidemic of depression is that we've been raised to either judge ourselves for having the pain or we haven't learned how to resolve the pain - so it's pushed into our subconscious for relief. We use excessive alcohol, sex, sugar, caffeine and nicotine to help us to suppress the pain. We also use excessive shopping, gambling, working, exercise, love obsessions and under or overeating to do this, as well.
As a psychotherapist in private practice for over 23 years I've heard more than a few depressed patients say that feeling their anger wouldn't help to change anything. Partly true -- feeling and expressing their anger may not change another person or situation, but it absolutely will change their mental/emotional/physical state -- giving them back their Vital Energy. Depression is not a feeling, it is a mechanism in which a person's Vital Energy (Prana, Chi)is used to hold down their uncomfortable emotional energy. The result is an inner struggle that depletes them, making them feel lethargic and unmotivated. In the case of anxiety, the person over-focuses on the upsetting emotion, getting locked into it and depleted by it. In both cases the individual is over-focusing, either by doing so directly (anxiety) or by focusing their Vital Energy towards it in resistence to it (depression). In both of these cases the patient would agree that the emotional energy they are stuck with is considered by them to be an "unfriendly" one - a painful one.
What's the antidote? How can we learn to face rather than run from pain?
The process of making friends with our pain starts with understanding that all feelings (whether emotional or physical) are friendly messengers -- coming to us for the purpose of keeping us whole and healthy -- not to hurt us. If we can stay with that thought rather than reverting to the thought that it is some kind of punishment or failure on our part we have crossed the first hurdle in making friends with pain.
The second step is using the signal to look deeper inside of our thoughts and beliefs to find the self-blame that is the underpinning of emotional pain. How are we blaming ourselves for the pain? Here's an example - if I like my brown eyes, and someone comes over to me and tells me that I have ugly eyes because they are brown, I will not be upset because I do not agree. If, instead, I didn't like my eyes I would be in agreement with the persons statement and I would either become hurt (sad) or angry (a defensive stand against hurt) towards this person for saying that to me. If I use my pain as a signal to look inside - I can see that I am holding a negative belief about myself and I am now, being conscious of it, able to question it and change the negative belief into an atleast neutral one. Here's another example - if I am insecure about being smart enough to go to college, and someone with a college degree calls me "dumb", I will most likely feel insulted, and feel either hurt or angry towards them. But, if I were secure about my intellect and someone called me "dumb" I would probably just ignore it or chuckle. With no insecure idea inside of me to be triggered by the comment I would not react with pain. If I did, it would be an opportunity for me to explore my true beliefs about myself and have the opportunity to correct it. Correction is the name of the game. When our mind is filled with negative ideas about who we are, our emotions signal us, and provides us with the opportunity to make corrections. Life is much sweeter when we are not walking around carrying a load of negative beliefs about our selves. If you find that you need some assistence in changing the beliefs I highly suggest that you ask for help, from friends, family, and, if need be, a psychotherapist. Our beliefs about our selves influence every decision we make for our self. The better we think and feel about our selves the more we beleive we deserve and the better we treat our selves. There are no "unfriendly" emotions - only signals for the purpose of healing and strengthening you.

A HEALTHY MIND - WHAT IS IT?

Physical Health is the result of:

1) the body’ ability to absorb and use proper nutrients and
2) the body’s ability to flow.

When there is a block in the flow illness develops. For example, with digestion, elimination, blood flow or liver functioning it is evident that flow is pertinent. Flow is energy in movement. Every aspect of the body/brain requires a constant movement of energy to maintain health. For the body/brain to receive the nutrients and immune responses there must be flow.

I would like to suggest that the intangible mind works in a very similar fashion to the body/brain. It needs both nutrients and flow, of the intangible energies.

Nutrients for the mind are comprised of higher or faster moving energies such as love, appreciation, gratitude, compassionate understanding, joy and affection. The lower or slower energies such as fear, anger, guilt, jealousy, greed and hatred do not nourish the mind, but all of these energies must flow for a mind to be healthy.

When the lower or slower energies become repetitive or stuck, it slows down the flow and the proper functioning of the mind. When a person is stuck in the past, repeating behaviors that are not appropriate to their current situation, when a person is close-minded and cannot make space for another person’s view, flow is blocked. For example, with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder people get stuck with a repetitive thought, such as checking to see if the door is locked over and over again.

The mind is made up of thoughts and beliefs. Beliefs have more influence on our behavior because they are thoughts we have given more trust or faith to, for whatever reason. Our attitudes, perspectives, emotions and defense mechanisms all spring from our beliefs. Our beliefs, therefore, influence how relaxed, stressed, anxious or depressed we are. The less relaxed we are, the less energetic flow there is. When the belief becomes repetitive it becomes debilitating and we become stuck. Whether it’s the flow of blood or the flow of beliefs and emotions, the body/mind needs this energetic movement to maintain health.

To maintain a healthy mind one must recognize their beliefs and emotions and express (in a safe and non-hurtful way) what they are believing and feeling. From this place they can choose to resolve or change what they are experiencing so that they can move on in a stronger and more peaceful way. By doing this they will create the flow needed and enable the nurturing higher energies to be experienced so that the mind will be a healthy, functioning aspect of the whole being.