Our fast paced, high stress life style is leading many people to adrenal burnout.
The adrenal glands have several important functions related to our energy level and our immune system. They are also the first responders when it comes to stress. The hormone adrenaline gets its name from the adrenal glands, which secrete it. They also secrete cortisol, another hormone related to stress.
We experience stress far more often and for longer periods of time than our adrenals were designed for. Eventually they get overworked, and start to shut down, leading to chronic fatigue and lowered immunity.
Meditation in general, and particularly healing meditations, are good for lowering our stress levels and helping the adrenals to recuperate.
The following visualization is a great pick-me-up for the adrenals. Do it for a few minutes, several times a day.
Relax using the five breath relaxation cycle. Then imagine becoming very small and entering your body. Find your way down to the kidneys, and see one adrenal gland sitting on top of each kidney like a pair of pyramids.
Give some loving attention to your adrenals in what ever way you feel comfortable. Let them know that you want to take care of them, and mean it. Consider what you can do to lower their stress.
See the adrenal glands as four sided pyramids and run up one side of one of the adrenal glands and down another, then up the third side and down the fourth. Feel, as you run, that you are stimulating the gland, pumping it full of energy. Then go to the other adrenal gland and do the same thing. Finally, step back and watch your adrenals functioning optimally. See the hormones streaming out of them like a rainbow, flowing to your whole body.
Open your eyes with a smile, and you are done.
This is a meditation I like to use. I first learned it from John Blofeld’s book, Gateway To Wisdom, which is out of print.
This meditation can be used for physical or psychological problems. It is especially effective for stress related symptoms such as a headache or anxiety and with much practice you can get relief from even more chronic issues.
Start by getting into a meditative state, using your favorite technique. You can use the technique I describe in my post about preparing to meditate.
Once your mind is fairly still, contemplate the subtle nature of the body. The ancient Chinese saw the body as primarily chi or energy. The physical aspect of the body is merely a somewhat more dense form of energy. Actually, modern science tells us the same thing. When you get down to the atomic level, you find that there is far more empty space than there is solid matter. And as you get down to the subatomic level, even the solid matter seems to disappear. Sometimes it looks solid, but sometimes it looks like a wave of energy. So contemplate your body as flowing energy and very permeable. Anything could move through it, unimpeded. Continue with the contemplation until you sense your body feeling lighter or tingly. Feel your body as energy.
Next, visualize your problem as a dark cloud. If it is a psychological problem, see the dark cloud in your head, just behind the space between your eyebrows. If it is a physical problem, see it where it is. Then move it to the nearest of three energy centers: The space between the eyebrows, the center of the chest, or half way between the navel and the spine.
Now imagine currents of chi blowing through the cloud, like a soft, fresh breeze. Slowly the cloud begins to dissipate, until it vanishes entirely.
Next, just sit and enjoy the experience, and slowly return to normal waking consciousness.
The more you practice it, the more powerful it becomes. So start with little things and practice it regularly. That way, when you need it for something significant, you will find it very helpful.
I recently heard someone say, “All healing is making friends with the universe.”
That makes complete sense to me. We experience unwellness when we are resisting something in our lives. It’s not always conscious resistance, in fact it rarely is. But it is the resistance that leads to problems in the body.
Take allergies for instance. I often use the metaphor of fearful aggression, when talking to clients about allergies. The body thinks it perceives a dangerous particle and it attacks. if our immune systems could see a benign particle as safe, there would be no allergic reaction.
It is also obvious with stress induced symptoms like headaches. We experience stress when we are not accepting life as it is. We fight our experience, and then our muscles get tense and our blood pressure rises.
I heard a story about a woman who smoked for forty years. Every time she had a cigarette, she said I’m going to have a holy smoke. After forty years her family were worried about the health impact of smoking for so long. They convinced her to have her doctor check her lungs. To everyone’s surprise ( except the woman), her lungs were perfectly healthy.
By changing our attitude we change our experience.
People with chronic pain can have dramatic improvements in their condition by practicing gratitude or forgiveness.
Lots of people have latent viruses in their bodies. Herpes is a great example. The virus is there, why don’t you have herpes right now? Because the body is strong and balanced. Being at odds with your own life is one of the main reasons why our body and mind gets out of balance.
One of my favorite practices for making friends with the universe is inner smile meditation. We practice smiling at ourselves and the world around us. When we smile at the world we bring ourselves into harmony with it, and increase our vitality and well being.
I will be releasing an Inner Smile Meditation Series, shortly. Keep coming back to find out when it’s available. Or subscribe to the newsletter, and you get it at a discounted price.
In the meantime, any meditation practice you choose can help you go with the flow and make friends with the universe.
We hate pain. We do everything we can to avoid it, to numb it, to just get rid of it.
Pain Hurts. It makes us tense up.
The mindfulness approach to pain is different. We learn to be with our pain. We learn to transform our relationship with it, and somehow, it doesn’t bother us so much.
In mindfulness meditation we notice our sensations, moment by moment, without labeling them good or bad. We become curious about the details of our sensations. When we do that, we become detached from them. They don’t impinge on us they use to. We are able to relax.
With mindfulness meditation we may not stop the pain, but we will stop the suffering. And to the extent the pain is stress induced, we will reduce the pain, as we relax and allow it to be there.
Often, as we begin mindfulness meditation, the pain seems to get worse. That is because, perhaps for the first time, we are not running from it. We allow ourselves to experience it fully. Soon, though our experience gets better, and it keeps getting better.
My two favorite teachers of the mindfulness approach to pain are Jon Kabat-Zinn and Shinzen Young.
Shinzen Young has a great article on his site, called Break Through Pain.
One powerful tool I’ve found in doing imagery exercises, is the healing sanctuary. It is an imaginary place you can go for relaxation, rejuvenation and healing.
One reason I think it is so powerful is because every time you go there for healing it becomes more real. And every time you leave there feeling better, you increase the likelihood of feeling better the next time you are there. It is a positive feedback loop.
I encourage people to create a space that feels right for them. However, I do have certain recommendations that are useful for specific imagery exercises I use.
I like to have a warm sunny place to go and relax. Water, which has great healing powers, is important. My sanctuary has a gentle stream, with one deep clear pool that I can immerse my whole body in. Sometimes I go swimming there.
A sacred place and a place to receive healings from imaginary helpers are also important. I have a temple. In the temple is a room for meeting others, a healing room with a massage table, and my private room for prayer and meditation.
If you would like a free mp3 introduction to your healing sanctuary, sign up for my newsletter on the right of this page. You will also receive regular mailings with various instructions for using your sanctuary for healing yourself.
