Twenty Quick and Simple Ways to Get Unstuck

Beth Shaw

Writing my most recent book Healing Trauma with Yoga forced me to get stuck and unstuck. A project that has not only consumed a lot of time, but obviously forced me to deal with a lot of my own issues around my own personal life experience and trauma. We all have ways that we distract ourselves, some healthier than others. Even with awareness, we can still participate in unhealthy behaviors. Here are some of the things I do to get unstuck that might also help you.

Mantras on YouTube going constantly in the background at my home—sound waves permeate your walls, your space, and you. Having mantras playing is calming and clears the space, infusing positive energy. I play the Bhagavad Gita a few times a week, and mantras almost every day and sometimes even while I sleep.
A long walk with my dog or a trip to the dog park to just enjoy dog joy. There is an unbridled joy that animals bring. They exist in the now, don’t get distracted by social media, and are very present and alert. The act of caring for a pet that gives unconditional love will bring immense joy (especially if you rescued the animal). I love walking with Bentley and taking him to play as it forces me to be present.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

Path to Recovery: How Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness Can Aid in Addiction

Mia Barnes

Are you working toward overcoming an addiction? If so, congratulations on taking charge of your health and working toward improvement.

You probably know that you need every weapon in your arsenal to defeat the negative thoughts and beliefs that drive your negative behaviors. Have you tried yoga, meditation and mindfulness? All three techniques can aid in addiction recovery. Here’s how.

Use Guided Meditation to Combat "Stinking Thinking"

What makes you behave the way you do? What makes some people reach for the bottle at the first setback while others sail through life sober? While many factors play a role, in large part, your beliefs stem from self-defeating thought patterns — and guided meditation can help you defeat these and rewire your conditioned responses.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

A Culture of Care During COVID19

Sister Dr. Jenna

During a global pandemic, civil unrest, job insecurity, elections underway in America, it is safe to say this would not be the best time to be diagnosed with a serious illness. Still, I was. Just for the record, I am okay due to all the good wishes and on-going support of friends, as well as the healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente. What began for me three months ago as a health challenge, I later named a “health crisis.” Yet, as I went deeper into the self, I realized it is actually a “health opportunity.”

You might be curious to know how I morphed from viewing it as a health challenge, to a health crisis to a health opportunity? Well, it all began with the awareness that I have the power to choose how I respond to life’s unfolding. I believe we become what we think. As scary as that can be at times, the benefits outweigh the concerns. If I can grab those thoughts that truly represent the bigger part of my existence, then I am living my truth. This “health opportunity” reminded me that I have the power within to create what I want and how I envision my life to unfold.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

Self Care: The Most Important Thing You Can Do

Dr. Sue Morter

Self-care is something most of us seek, or desire to seek. It feels elusive because we hit the ground running and don't stop. Self-care is a byproduct of being present.

So how to do self-care? When we feel intimidated or twist ourselves into a knot to try to fit in , we are running from our greatness & our ability to self-care. Discover how to build circuits and infuse love into your protective patterns so that you stop running. Self-care is a byproduct that occurs when we stop.

So what exactly is self-care? It is not ignoring your true self because that action leads to the belief that you need a type of self-care that often feels inaccessible.

Come home to the Self. Breathe more deeply in your belly, feel those uncomfortable feelings, & open your heart. Train you mind to get off the story that you are not enough or that life is hard. The result is life is a delight and self-care just is.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

How to Heal Your Body With Your Mind

Bruce H. Lipton, PhD

First let's use the example of addiction. It’s not a physical, organic thing. The addiction is a consequence of learned experience and repetitions of patterns. So is alcoholism in the genes?

The answer is no. In the science of epigenetics it’s been found that it’s the perception of your environment that controls your genes. You’re not a victim of your genes because you’re the one who can change your environment—or, more importantly, change your perception of your environment—and thus change your response to it.

Let me tell you some fundamentals of how the mind works so this will be more clear to you. The cells of your body are merely following instructions given by the nervous system, by the brain. The nervous system does the interpretation. You can easily see this when you see two people reacting to the same stimulus with very different reactions, one positive and one negative. As your perception changes, you change the message that your nervous system communicates to the cells of your body. Your mind controls your biology. That’s what the placebo effect is about; the mind believes the pill will work and so it does.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

Zoomed Out? How to Create Balance in the Age of Screens

Maharishi Ayurveda Staff

I’m perfecting my yoga these days with a weekly class on Zoom. My professor husband spends hours teaching classes and attending department meetings in front of a screen. And for many people during the Covid-19 crisis, online video chatting has been a lifeline—a way to connect with family and friends.

If there’s one common denominator in the country right now, it’s our new dependence on screens. According to Clockwise, the creator of an online calendar assistant, employees are spending 29 percent more time in online group meetings and 24 percent more time in one-on-one meetings than before the lockdown. And whether you love it or hate it, it’s likely that this trend is not going to go away even after schools and gyms open up and we can travel to see family again.

I personally love it that my favorite yoga teacher now visits me in my living room, even if she’s only on the screen. One of my friends who attended her class reunion online thought it was the best one yet, since every person had a chance to share how they were doing. And one mom wrote that she was thrilled to meet her friends for a Zoom dinner party without having to dress up or hire a babysitter. These are new and creative uses of technology that have changed our lives for the better.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

7 Plant-Based Dinner Recipes That are Easy Enough for Beginners

Ocean Robbins

Since the pandemic hit, the world is facing a very challenging “new normal.” Aside from the disease itself, many of us are struggling to stay positive and productive amid social distancing, masks, food shortages, uncertainty, lost jobs, and health fears. Many restaurants have closed for dine-in service or have significantly reduced their capacity, offering contactless, curbside to-go options instead. Some people are ordering take-out, but many are eating out less entirely, moving meal prep to the safety of their own homes.

On top of that, countless night-time venues and social activities are canceled or closed. Kids are home from school with nowhere else to go. And most of us are traveling less than normal. While that may mean more quality time with those closest to us (whether by choice or necessity), it doesn’t always mean we’re making healthier food choices. Home economics is, for many of us, a lost art that we need to rediscover if we don’t want to depend on DoorDash, Postmates, and Uber Eats for all our food.

While putting together a healthy meal at any time of the day can be a struggle, dinner often suffers the most since it’s at the end of the day. But dinner is also the meal people are most likely to eat together, making it a perfect opportunity to add more whole plant foods. Plus, dinner is a great time to create leftovers. Today’s dinner can be tomorrow’s lunch — and maybe even (if you’re the adventurous type) the following day’s breakfast!

If you don’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen, now’s a great time to learn not just how to cook comforting, filling, and tasty meals, but healthy ones as well. And even if you’re already a cooking whiz, consider expanding your horizons with some plant-based dinner recipes.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

9 Ayurvedic Hacks for Getting Grounded and Relieve Stress

Beth Shaw

You don’t need to practice yoga to bring the healing benefits of Ayurveda into your life. The phenomenon of being grounded involves being centered, focused, embodied, and in better control of all of your faculties. It is a helpful state of being for reducing anxiety, dealing with depression, and addressing trauma. Here are nine things anyone can do today to begin a journey to wellness.

Walk in the Grass in Bare Feet

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

The Alchemy of Tragedy

Arielle Ford

I wasn’t born an optimist.

In fact… quite the opposite.

I was a moody, sullen, often seriously depressed child and young adult.

One night, at age 26, I decided that I was going to find the secret of happiness.

I was at a party in Coconut Grove, Florida, at the waterfront home of a millionaire, surrounded by people seemingly having a great time. I felt like such an outsider amidst the laughing, smiling party-goers. I had never felt so alone.

I wanted to have a great time, I just didn’t know how.

I thought it was something that just “happened” to lucky people.

In that moment, as I stood on the dock overlooking beautiful Biscayne Bay, I promised myself that I would do whatever it took to discover the secret to happiness.

During the next several years I went to therapy, read a lot of books, attended workshops and discovered that most of the time happiness is a choice. Even when really bad stuff is happening!

I found out that I am an HSP – a highly sensitive person and essentially very shy. I had to break through my fear of people and really make an effort to learn how to connect, make small talk, and allow myself to “be seen.”

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

On Suffering, Healing & How to Fit the Entire Human Race into a Single Sugar Cube.

Chris Grosso

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”

– Chuck Palahniuk

In my teenage into early adult years I felt like I deserved to suffer. I’m still not sure of all the ins and outs that caused those feelings, but I would drink myself to the brink of death, complimented by excessive drug use, cutting, empty sex, horrible dietary habits and even a couple of suicide attempts just for good measure.

In my endeavor to understand suffering and its root causes better, I came across a metaphor by spiritual teacher Ram Dass who wrote, “Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us.”

While at first glance that statement may sound simple enough, as I took it into my heart and truly contemplated what exactly it was saying, it began to profoundly affect me. Those simple words helped me to realize that even though I was still yet to understand the psychology of my past actions, at the very least, maybe all of that suffering wasn’t for nothing.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

Coping with Emotions from Pandemic and the Past

Dr. Bradley Nelson

Identify and let go of emotional baggage from difficult times

Life is full of emotional ups and downs. Sometimes the hardships we experience can be so overwhelming that they leave us stuck with feelings that can hamper our happiness or even harm our health and well-being.

The impact of negative emotions from traumatic and difficult events is a growing concern during the challenging times we now face. One new study, for instance, finds the emotional well-being of most American adults has been “broadly and substantially affected by COVID-19 and the related changes in life and society.”

Emotional distress related to COVID-19 is associated with higher frequency of clinical levels of anxiety, depression, and general life stress, along with lower reported levels of overall happiness, according to the U.S. National Pandemic Emotional Impact Report from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard Medical School.

Prolonged and/or intense negative feelings can have effects long after the events that precipitate them. They can take a toll on emotional, mental, and physical health and compel people to behave in ways that damage their relationships or impact their ability to have healthy, long-lasting bonds.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

COVID-19: Are You Trusting Yourself or Trusting Authorities?

Dr. Margaret Paul

We are all blessed with access to an infallible source of truth and guidance. If you tune into your feelings – which is the main way the aspect of your your soul that is within you communicates with you – while listening to or reading the news, you can actually feel what is true and right, and what is false and wrong. The problem is that many people have learned not to trust these feelings – to listen to ‘authorities’ rather than to the truth that comes directly from our soul within.

We also all have our soul that is all around us – our higher self.

Our soul is way too big to fit into our body, so some of our soul is within and some is all around us. We are within our soul and our soul is within us. The part of our soul that is all around us is also an infallible source of truth and guidance, and it pops the truth and the loving actions into our mind when we are open to learning about the truth, and about what is in our highest good.
When I see news (I don’t watch it but I do scan it), I tune into my gut feelings and I also tune into my higher self, asking about what is true and what isn’t, and what is loving to me, and I can feel and hear what is true and right.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

5 Tips to Cope with Grief during Pandemic

Erin Wiley

Permission to Grieve is Granted

This pandemic has stirred up many emotions from hope in seeing our healthcare and essential workers on the front line, to despair for the deaths and rising cases, to fear over loss of employment, to anxiety for handling the daily updates and home situation, to an even more prevalent one – grief.

During the pandemic, I wholeheartedly believe and affirm that grief is a natural emotion people are feeling for various reasons and one that is justified. Right now, the grief I am seeing in my therapy patients ranges from disappointment and sadness to frustration and anger. People are disappointed by having to reschedule events like weddings, sad about not being able to see family members, frustrated by losing out on once-in-a lifetime events, and angry from the lack of control and unfairness of it all.

The biggest grief reactions I am witnessing are connected to the loss of major events, particularly funerals because of the inability for family members to give their loved one the proper goodbye they wanted. While you can hold a memorial at a later date, there are no do-overs for a funeral.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

The Surprising Success of Wholeness

Deepak Chopra

By Deepak Chopra™, MD, Tiffany J Barsotti, MTh, Paul J. Mills, PhD

As the notions of “holistic” and “wholeness” became popular in recent decades, they also turned into a paradox. People who focused on holistic health, diet, and wellness found themselves to be cut off from people who didn’t care about such things (which is the majority). Trying to be holistic wound up making you separate, which is the opposite of being whole. The meditation/wholefoods/yoga people are a splinter group from the McDonald’s/Monday Night Football/TGIF people.

Perhaps a misunderstanding lies at the bottom of this situation. Wholeness people tend to feel that they are waiting for non-wholeness people to catch on, a little like non-smokers and teetotalers waiting for chain-smokers and beer drinkers to catch on. This divide disappears, however, once you realize that you cannot make yourself whole, while on the other side of the coin you cannot make yourself unwhole. Everyone is whole already.

A simple observation is enough to clarify why wholeness is inescapable. Imagine someone sitting at a computer doing a task. You cannot see the monitor, so you don’t know what their task is. The physical body you see is a person; the thinker responding to the computer screen is a person. The two must co-exist, uniting two sides of reality, physical and mental. This union defines everyone’s existence. You were born whole, and the only thing that separates you from a random stranger is what you decide to do with your wholeness.

Here we are looking beyond lifestyle, although that would seem to be the most glaring difference between people. Instead, how you use your wholeness primarily centers on something else: awareness. Someone in the meditation/whole foods/yoga group can be miserable, conflicted, and anxious while someone in the other group is content, loving, and secure. Clearly awareness is involved in this difference, but how?

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

Why Your Crystals and Stones May Not Be Working For You

Durga Magnetta

There is not a metaphysical store that is without a nice supply of stones for healing. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and they all profess to do to help people with different issues.

If you’re energetically sensitive, you probably have several different mala bracelets or other types of jewelry. This is in the hopes of it helping your energetic frequency to improve or to help your life in some way.

To the people who are more worldly grounded, this ritual seems like a hoax or something that makes no sense at all. I’m going to shed light on why this seems to be true.

I’m going to start by saying that I’m a lover of gemstones and I have several bracelets and earrings that I wear regularly. I find them really beautiful. I love them!

The first fact is that gemstones do have a particular frequency. This frequency is usually much higher than the average human being’s frequency. They also have unique properties that could help a person rebalance or raise their frequency and possibly experience a new reality.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

Switching from Lifespan to Healthspan

Deepak Chopra

By Naveen Jain and Deepak Chopra™, MD

Some pessimism has been circulating about lifespan recently. In the modern era lifespan has increased every decade, and dying before you turn seventy would now be considered a premature death. Three score and ten is no longer a destination for a normal life, and average lifespans among people who are not underprivileged could easily top ninety in the near future.

The difference in quality of life is now more important than lifespan on its own, because the health status of two seventy-year-olds can vary wildly. The concept to keep in mind is healthspan, defined as the years you spend without infirmity, chronic disease, and dementia. Right now healthspan is a hit and miss proposition.

While we are told that our genes determine how we age, this needs to be clarified. Research on identical twins reveals that it’s not your genes that determine your healthspan but your lifestyle, nutrition, and gut microbiome that play a much more important role. Identical twins are born with the same genes, a fact that will not change over the decades, but by age seventy, many identical twins are as unalike in their health status as two people chosen at random.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

6 Holistic Practices to Help You Stay Well

Dr. Bradley Nelson

During the pandemic, many people are taking extra care to stay well with measures such as wearing masks in public, maintaining physical distance, and washing their hands frequently. This is also a time when we should be thinking about ways to bolster our immune system to help us fight off not only COVID-19 but also all kinds of illness.

Your immune system protects your body from harmful substances, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and toxins. It is made up of different organs, cells, and proteins that work together.

Without an immune system, you’d likely be sick all the time — if you lived very long!

The immune system consists of two parts: the innate immune system you are born with, and the adaptive immune system the body develops as it is exposed to microbes over time. These two systems are closely related and work together when a germ or other outside substance triggers an immune response.

Your immune system doesn’t protect you perfectly 100% of the time. Most people gets sick once in a while, even if it is just a common cold or stomach bug. But when you think of all the bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens you’re exposed to every day, it’s evident your immune system is working hard 24/7.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

Energy Healing Comes into the Light

Deepak Chopra

When faced with traditional healing systems outside the Western tradition, science looks askance. That was true when traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, and Ayurveda from India began to be known a generation ago. Popular acceptance doesn’t budge these prejudices, but if there’s a crossover with accepted Western concepts, the chances improve.

This is currently happening with energy healing, because it has a crossover with a proven phenomenon, the human body’s faint electrical field, known as the biofield. This field is composed of the emission of electricity and biophotons, which are the light naturally emitted by all living things, and yet no one has scientifically established the use of the biofield. Into this gap steps energy healing, which looks to the body’s subtle energy field as something both crucial and vital for balanced health and wellbeing. At its most basic, the notion behind energy healing is that the biofield of a sick person is out of balance, and balance can be restored by directly treating the biofield.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

A plate full of health

Rebecca Katz

A reader recently asked: what does your plate look like? Great question, and one I can answer in a word — veg-centric.

We could all be eating more vegetables. Tons!

The science is crystal clear that eating MORE vegetables can do each of us a WORLD of good. Increasing the vegetables on our plate points us in the direction of more vibrant health, no matter what our age, gender, ethnicity, or current health conditions.

But isn’t it hard to incorporate more vegetables into your diet?

No! It’s surprisingly easy to fall in love with vegetables and find great ways to use them, because there are a VAST variety of types, colors, textures and flavors to choose from. It becomes more and more exciting the further you explore!

Will I actually feel better if I eat more vegetables?

Yes! And you may be surprised by how fast you actually FEEL better.

At Food As Medicine, where I was Executive Chef for a decade, we offered luncheon buffets full of colorful, organic, largely plant-based dishes. Attendees were often amazed to experience health improvements, some within 24 hours. Elimination might improve dramatically! Focus, mental clarity and overall energy might be discernibly better. Quite impressive results for veg-centric eating in only a few days.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

The Two Main Reasons Why Your Energy Work Doesn’t Seem to Be Working

Durga Magnetta

This monumental time in our history has caused the need for people to seek help with energetic healers to help facilitate these necessary energetic shifts.

During this time the contrast between where we were and where we’re going, there starts to be an apparent need for a deeper change. The good news is that it’s time to let go of the ego structures that no longer serve us. The bad news is that the shifts might take a little more time than we had hoped.

There are two basic reasons for this:

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit

Join Soulspring for conscious insights... ...on all things life, wellness, love, transformation and spirituality...

And receive this very special audio recording from Panache Desai on Breaking Bad Habits.

Twenty Quick and Simple Ways to Get Unstuck

Path to Recovery: How Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness Can Aid in Addiction

Use Guided Meditation to Combat "Stinking Thinking"

A Culture of Care During COVID19

Self Care: The Most Important Thing You Can Do

How to Heal Your Body With Your Mind

Zoomed Out? How to Create Balance in the Age of Screens

7 Plant-Based Dinner Recipes That are Easy Enough for Beginners

9 Ayurvedic Hacks for Getting Grounded and Relieve Stress

The Alchemy of Tragedy

On Suffering, Healing & How to Fit the Entire Human Race into a Single Sugar Cube.

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”

– Chuck Palahniuk

Coping with Emotions from Pandemic and the Past

COVID-19: Are You Trusting Yourself or Trusting Authorities?

We also all have our soul that is all around us – our higher self.

5 Tips to Cope with Grief during Pandemic

The Surprising Success of Wholeness

Why Your Crystals and Stones May Not Be Working For You

Switching from Lifespan to Healthspan

6 Holistic Practices to Help You Stay Well

Energy Healing Comes into the Light

A plate full of health

A reader recently asked: what does your plate look like? Great question, and one I can answer in a word — veg-centric.

We could all be eating more vegetables. Tons!

The Two Main Reasons Why Your Energy Work Doesn’t Seem to Be Working

Daily Personal Support

Popular Wellness Articles

Join Soulspring for conscious insights...

Expanding on the teachings contained in his new book, You Are Enough - Revealing the Soul to Discover Your Power, Panache will meet you where you’re at and show you how to cultivate and illuminate a way forward… into a life filled with meaning, connection and joy.