If You Want Help, You Must First Be The Help
People suffer from all kinds of problems. Physical and /mental/emotional, and social life inevitably produce painful situations. In the words of a song from the 60s., " There is no way to delay that trouble coming everyday." When problems come to us or our loved ones that do not match our coping skills life gets pretty rough for most of us. Then we have to face the fact that we need help. What to do? A friend of mine wrote a song back in those days that went something like this, " Dogs in the dog house,cats up a tree, and the whole worlds crying, oh please Mr Fireman won't you please save me."
We want to be saved from whatever pain invades our lives or the lives of our friends or families. When the easy or familiar ways do not work, we pray to God. We rush to the doctor or the shrink and hope like hell that the problem will go away. If it does not go away, or God forbid, it gets worse, what do we do? We pray more, or go to new doctors or therapies. Still nothing? We give up, or get angry or depressed or suicidal. We reach for a drink or a drug. At that point, life sucks.
I wish I could say something wonderful now. I wish I could give you the magical answer or call the Big Fireman and get you or your loved one out of the tree. But I cannot.
All I can do is tell you what I was told by an an old Sufi guy I met back in 1972 at a summer retreat in Holland. " In the persistence of your desire lies the answer." If your desire or intent is strong and determined and you dedicate yourself to being a good student of your situation no matter how it manifests you will find what you seek. It may not be exactly what you hoped for, but it will be worth finding.
I was told by someone else that most people give up just before they could have arrived at the resolution of their problem. History is full of examples of people who have tried over and over again to accomplish something and finally did it just as it seamed impossible. History is also full of people who failed no matter how much effort they expended over long periods. Life is like that. There are no guarantees. We have to live with that reality. We will fail many times, we will get hurt or sick and suffer. We will have to watch many of our loved ones suffer and die and be able to do very little or nothing about it.
This does not seem to be a very happy blog entry so far does it? Ces't la framage. C'est la vie.
I face the reality I am writing about all the time. Believe me I know what being helpless in the face of suffering is about. I know it for myself and I know it for my loved ones. I am sure most of you do as well. That is why I have this blog.
My intent is to be a place people can come and find some possibilities of help for themselves or their friends and family, and maybe help a stranger or even an enemy or two. There are no guarantees on my blog. No sure cures or easy fixes. There is just good information. Information about things that have helped others in similar situations or with similar problems you might encounter or are encountering now.
In my years of healing work I have found there are a few things that can make almost any situation a little better. The first one is to understand how to breath properly. For those who have read through this blog, I know you have heard this before, but are you doing it? For the new people make sure you are belly breathing. That is make sure your lower abdomen is going out as you breathe in and in as you breath out. It is that simple. If you are not doing that, start doing that. And keep belly breathing. The link below has more information on belly breathing. When a person is in a stressful situation they will usually forget to belly breath and the results will always make things worse. When you are stressed out check your breathing pattern are you belly breathing? If not and before you do anything you do not have to do immediately, return to belly breathing. Belly breathe as consciously as you can all through the stressful problems. If you want to help others who are stressed by one thing or another, teach them about belly breathing.
Next, I help people understand the importance of noticing any unnecessary muscle tension in their bodies. I urge them to learn how to move their awareness through their bodies and notice and release any unnecessary muscle tension especially in the head neck and shoulders areas. Notice your own body. How is your breathing? Move through your body, from head to feet. Notice any unnecessary muscle tension. Release it when you do. How does it feel? See what I mean? If you master the art and skill of belly breathing and notice and release muscle tension especially in time of stress, your life will be a lot less stressful and painful, all other things being equal, then the people around you no matter what the situation.
I urge you to go to the following link and learn a technique called Sky Nourishes Earth that combines belly breathing and muscle awareness.
Once you have Sky Nourishes Earth down, I urge you to look at how your mind and emotions interfere with your life in general and with your ability to handle difficult situations in particular. Ignorance can be a very good excuse for prolonging suffering. Before you understood that your breathing patterns and muscle tension were adding to your problems you had an excuse for continuing along without changing them. There is an important saying, "With increased knowledge goes increased responsibility" Before, bad breathing and muscle tension producing bad effects within you was not your fault. You were innocently ignorant, If you have a good understanding of how bad breathing and unnecessary muscle tension can be harmful, you are no longer an unconscious victim of their effects. Now you are responsible. If you continue to breath badly and keep your muscles tight, then you are no longer a victim, You are a self abuser. Instead of making your situation better, you are helping to make it worse. Change it or live with it consciously.
Once you have Sky Nourishes Earth down, I urge you to start to look at how your mind and emotions interfere with your life in general and with your ability to handle difficult situations in particular. I will write about this in the next entry, inshAllah.
The steps are as follows:
First get your breathing together.
Then get control of your muscles.
Then learn and gain mental/emotional control.
Then you can begin to learn how to go on a journey of exploration.
As they use to say in the old movie serials. "Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of Buck Rodgers confronts the evil Dr Doom."
Below is a blog entry I wrote a few months ago that is related to this one. to this one.
How do you balance and strengthen your energy body? The mystical sufi poet, Jahladin Rumi, has a line in a poem that says: "There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Well there are hundred of ways to strengthen the energy body as well. The most beautiful way is the way of love. The more you love the more balanced and stronger your energy body becomes. Remember I said earlier that God treats you like you treat your lover. It is also true that God gives more attention to those who give God attention. I am not talking about religious attention. I mean the attention a lover gives to the beloved.Mantak Chia, a Taoist chi kung teacher and author, writes about the relationship between a chi kung student and the Universe in his book Tan Tien Chi Kung. "By transcending the separation between oneself and the universe and honoring one's intrinsic unity with it, the universe becomes one's own body.The Chi of the Universe can only be absorbed to the extent that we open our hearts to the universe and extend our consciousness and Chi to it as a token of our love. Only then will it respond. We will only receive the love energy of the universe to the extent that we acknowledge and honor our love relationship to it.This first of all implies that we acknowledge that the universe is alive and that we are it's children. Unless we awaken to this and bring it into our lives, it will be difficult to realize that we are part of it. We will tend to see ourselves as the center of the universe and to relate to the universe and the earth as objects to be conquered and manipulated. However, with increased sensitivity to our interconnectedness with the universe and the earth, a sense of responsibility, love and compassion for the universe and the world will grow.This experience of interconnectedness, rooted in the cultivation of love and compassion, is summarized in the ancient saying, "Embrace the universe as the mother her newborn child." Through the practice of chi kung, we become grounded and connected and begin to feel at ease and relaxed in our body, this sense of unity is cultivated and reinforced."You can cultivate and develop your energy body without a conscious relationship with God i.e. the Universe. Practice chi kung exercises long enough and you will grow stronger and more powerful. But in the end you will be like a wealthy man who has no family or friends with whom to share his life in all its manifestations. Western medical studies have found that people in good relationships tend to be healthier and live longer than those who do not have good relationships. For me the three most important relationships are between a human being and God, a man and a woman (or between a gay or lesbian couple) and between parents and children. If these relationships are vigorous and loving the people in them will benefit themselves and each other in innumerable ways. If they are toxic the people in them will sooner or later manifest sickness and imbalance in other areas of their lives.When a new student comes to me and asks me to help them learn chi kung or recover their health I always tell them the same thing. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I can usually help. The bad news is that you must do most of the work." I tell them they need to open themselves to becoming students not only of chi kung but of themselves. In order to learn and recover balance and strength they need to re-examine themselves and the Universe in new and challenging ways. As Einstein said, "you can't change the situation with the same mindset that created it." The truth will often set you free but first it will cause you pain and piss you off. Let's face reality, who wants to examine themselves and their relationships on a fundamental level. And who wants to really commit to doing the work to act on what they find? See what I mean? Do you still want to learn and practice chi kung? Do you still want to recover your health?
posted by River Gibeaut @ May 15, 2007
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