***Positive Partners: Mindful Awareness and Healing Physical Illness

When we love ourselves and trust ourselves all things are possible.

Love of self brings softness toward self. You are less critical of yourself – less judgmental of yourself and others. Therefore relationship with yourself and others improves. When your relationships improve, the quality of your life improves and you naturally have more joy. Your moment to moment joy produces all kinds of positive internal change and allows your body an opportunity to heal itself. Your stress level is down. Your fear level is down. You are more connected to source because your reduced stress and fear allow you to open your own internal door to your heaven, the God within.

Strength of spirit comes with moment to moment mindfulness. Spirit is always present, but human beings are not always aware of the presence of spirit, even when we are believers. Spirit is part of us, always. There is never a moment when this is not true. However, when men and women are preoccupied with success and failure, fear, and overwhelm, the presence of spirit can not be felt. Negativity blocks our true nature and our conscious awareness. When blocked all kinds of symptoms are experienced. Feelings of alienation and abandonment are common, as are feelings of anxiety, including those internal jitters that can wrack our body.

As a species, we often become ill because of our lack of mindful awareness. We miss subtle clues to damaging environmental conditions and subtle internal changes that are needed to avoid the illness. Even when sick we ignore, or don't recognize, the small voice within that is always talking and teaching, clambering for our attention. Mindfulness reverses this habit of ignoring our intuition. With mindfulness we are focused on listening and observing, which naturally keeps us in the moment. Our inner wisdom encourages us to experience minute to minute living. Yes, of course it is important to have positive long rage goals like completing a marathon, graduation from college or creating a retirement fund. Having our goals in place, we live in trust that we are enough and we are doing enough. When we trust something greater than ourselves and believe in ourselves, we begin to enjoy each moment of our life.

How interesting it is to give in to what is. Giving in, acceptance, opens doorways to new experience, growth and healing. Many books have been written about mindful acceptance and all of them ask us to leave the past behind and stop pre-living the future. How do we do this? How do we accomplish mindful, now focused living?

Ten Ways to Experience Mindfulness

1. Take a deep breath and hold it. If you'll notice, the “hold it place” before you exhale, your mind is perfectly now focused. Not a thought exists, and you are mindfully exploring your breath.

2. Match your step with your breath while practicing walking meditation, and the focus on the repetitive in-breath and step, out-breath and step brings you to mindfulness. You'll notice that there is no room for wondering thoughts and a chattering mind.

3. Smile, and then immediately focus on your body's response to that smile. As you focus on your body's response, all else ceases to exist! You are being mindful of your smile and your body's response.

4. Go stand by a creek, a lake, a river, a puddle! Toss in a rock and quietly watch the circles ripple outward from the point of impact. You are practicing mindful observation, and your mind is focused on the rings rippling outward from the point of impact.

5. Rock a baby, hold a kitten, play with a puppy. You'll be immediately in the moment.

6. Kiss your lover. Your focus on the kiss brings you fully into the moment. Be mindful of how the kiss effects you. You might be surprised at the information you gather.

7. Ask the angels to come be with you, to surround you. Use your imagination until you can really feel them. As the angels respond, you are impacted by the energy of the moment and mindful of your experience.

8. In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle asks us to listen for our next thought. Sit quietly. Tell yourself, “I am now listening for my next thought”. As you listen for your thought your mind is focused on when the next thought will appear. The silence of listening may last for 2 seconds or for 10 minutes. If your mind is quiet for 2 seconds, and this is a first for you, congratulations!

9. On a warm day, spread a blanket on the ground and watch the clouds pass by over-head. You'll be lost to the world and completely involved in the actively. You'll be mindfully watching the clouds, body relaxed, now focused.

10. Stop worrying about whether you can achieve mindfulness or not. The worry prevents the process. The less you think about your ability to achieve a mindful state of being, the easier it is for you to accomplish it.

As you practice mindful activities, the activities gradually progress from one mindful breath to 10 minutes of mindfulness, to a mindful afternoon and eventually, a day of mindfulness. You realize that each activity or task you do can be accomplished mindfully. You can walk mindfully into the grocery store and then shop mindfully. You can breathe mindfully at the stop light. You can talk mindfully to a friend. You can take a mindful shower. You can listen mindfully during a class or meeting.

It is up to each of us to create the kind of life we want. You can't have the life you desire, unless you consent to live it. You have to allow yourself the time to breathe mindfully. You have to allow yourself the time to walk mindfully into the grocery store. Allowing these small shifts in behavior begins to create change within your body's chemistry and within your thoughts. You are secreting fewer stress hormones. You are producing more endorphins. Your autonomic nervous system is balanced. You realize you enjoy the results of the changes you are making, and the heightened pleasure creates the motivation to continue your transformational journey.

Mindful acceptance of a physical illness, including issues we usually think of as emotional distress, is like wrapping a cold infant into a warm blanket or lovingly holding an elderly woman in your arms to comfort her fear of living the rest of her life without her partner. Mindful acceptance means you have stopped fighting against the illness, stopped fighting against life. Fear causes us to fight anything we feel is harmful or unpleasant. Acceptance causes positive change. When you've stopped the war against the disorder, against yourself for getting sick, and against your medical helpers, true healing begins. This change in attitude does not mean you've given up. It simply means your mind, body and spirit are free to create wellness and you have begun to trust the process of life.

Choose to be aware, focused and alert.