X-Raying Your Life

Ever felt like you're living in a fog? You know something's off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

That's where the concept of X-raying your life comes in. Imagine yourself as a medical professional, examining your own internal world for issues.

Start with your relationships. Are they healthy, supportive connections? Or are there shadows lurking beneath the surface?

Next, delve into your career. Do you experience satisfaction through your work or is it a source of stress?

Your physical and mental health are also crucial areas to examine. Are you properly nourishing your body and mind?

Because of my own experience, how is your spiritual life? There is the saying that we are souls that are experiencing the physical world and not the other way around, but are you really living like that? Are you nourishing and enriching the soul you are?

Is there any other area to examine? Whatever creates an impact on you and makes you take a decision is worth to check.

Remember, this isn't about judgment, but self-awareness. It is about identifying areas that need attention and taking steps to improve them. It is preventative care for your life as, by regularly "X-raying" yourself, you can avoid bigger problems down the road.

So, roll up your sleeves and start exploring your inner world.

Solitude… the power of being by yourself

What is that thing, which is so good and yet, it causes so much sorrow?

 

I am an introvert and so, to be by myself looks quite good, actually. But I am not a perfect introvert… Many years ago, I was about to have my first Christmas by myself and it really touched me in a bad way that I didn’t have anyone else around me at that time of the year.

I was living in Santiago, Chile, and most of the people I knew, travelled. I was just there by myself.

Alone.

Almost lonely; I worked until a few days before, so I was still surrounded by other people. In that situation, I decided to call a few people I’ve met as a yoga teacher and I invited them for lunch, after my holidays started. It was wonderful, a really beautiful experience and I never forget it!

 

Solitude.

 

To be alone is not a bad thing in itself, but it can be according to the circumstances and situations.

After that Christmas, I did spend next Christmas by myself and it was OK, because I didn’t feel lonely.

It was then that the idea emerged: there is a difference between being lonely and being in solitude.

To not have people to whom to talk, to feel their presence and to share accomplishments… that is loneliness. It is considered by many as the door to several illnesses, besides I think we all agree it is not good…

To not have people to whom to talk, to feel their presence and to share accomplishments because you chose that moment to be by yourself is called solitude. It is considered by many as the door to healing the self.

Solitude brings about inner powers, so that we can sort things out, solve situations or accept whatever is taking place in our lives. Solitude is the perfect environment for meditation, personal growth and contemplation.

Next time you are by yourself and loneliness is filling your mind with too many thoughts, change your attitude, meditate and transform being lonely into the gift of solitude.

For the New Year, these are my resolutions

I will keep living, even though my health is not so good. Life for me is more than breathing; it is creating, reflecting, helping others and building something.

I will keep my honesty, no matter what. It is too easy to lie, but I know its price; maybe it is difficult to be truthful, but I know its value.

I am doing exercises, every day. In my mind, I train my thoughts. In my body, I train my breath. In my wealth, I try my self-control. In my relationships, I train my eyes to wear “seeing-good-things glasses”.

I will keep meditating, deeply or in a light way. It is part of my routine and I keep it in my awareness.

I am serving… Service is my life; service is the most important thing in my mind, and service fills my mind with enthusiasm.

 

What are your resolutions this time?

An unplugged life

Disconnect yourself.

Not now, you are reading this! Plan a time for that and live an unplugged life even for a few hours. Or minutes, if you are too busy.

The benefits are enormous, it is called tech detox and it can give you another perspective for life.

Before disconnecting yourself and therefore, stopping to read this, a few points to take into account:

1. Some of the things to which you are connected are under your responsibility. Before unplugging yourself, start a backup plan for them.
2. Tell other people who should know you won’t be available for a while, but don’t brag about it. In fact, just tell them you are not going to be available; if you start to explain yourself, they may argue and you will be involved in trying to justify what you are doing. And of course, you will need to be connected for that…
3. Have something to do during that time: cleaning, sorting your clothes, donating your clothes, reading a wonderful (paper) book, talking with that special person (in person), enjoying life.
4. After you come back from this detox, understand what happened to you, check about what you got for doing that. Tell others and inspire people to disconnect themselves too.

Enjoy it! I am sure it will improve your health, if you do that a few times during the week.

When your health makes you anxious

Some time ago, I posted about anxiety and someone sent me an interesting article*; even though it is some type of publicity, and I don’t do publicity, it was a different dimension of anxiety that I didn’t know: when you have a health problem and you are waiting for a diagnostic.

Many years ago, I had a friend how was diagnosed with cancer, which he beat. He was so happy, he called me from the other side of the world to tell me the good news. And then, he started to have some problems again and I remember his anxiety, waiting for the response from doctors. It was not good news, but maybe the anxiety itself was the worst.

In his very influential book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman talks about his own experience when he was sent for a lab to do a test. Because of his background, he knew it could mean cancer… He analysed about the emotions he felt.

A study of patients in physicians' waiting rooms found that each had an average of three or more questions in mind to ask the physician they were about to see. But when the patients left the physician's office, an average of only one and a half of those questions had been answered. This finding speaks to one of the many ways patients' emotional needs are unmet by today's medicine. Unanswered questions feed uncertainty, fear, catastrophizing.

The focus of Daniel Goleman was about a change in the medical people’s attitude, but I think there are a few things we could do to minimize the anxiety that comes when there is something wrong with our body or mind, but there is no clarity about a diagnosis.

1. The first thing is to keep calm. Easy said than done, but meditation and other practices can help.
2. Stick to the facts, don’t overthink or try to be your own clairvoyant. Just wait and see what happens.
3. Talk to very good POSITIVE friends. They will surround you with their positive aura and that will be healing. I had that experience with a lady, a friend’s sister, while she waited for her diagnosis; about 10 people were there in the room with her sharing nice stories and just giving her good company.
4. Read and feed yourself with positive information. Avoid a reading about your current problem as much as possible.
5. At the day of your diagnosis, act normally. Routine has power in these cases and it will help you to focus your mind on the present.

If you or other people have anxiety before a diagnosis, I hope this may help.

 

* About scanxiety - https://www.asbestos.com/blog/2021/07/29/mesothelioma-scans-scanxiety/

Undergoing the surgery of the self

Just think of yourself as something more than your body… Can you see which sicknesses affect the soul, for using a word?

Many years ago, I listened to someone who referred the crisis on values as one of those illnesses and it is clear the pandemic of loneliness also comes from within, as a virus that is affecting the self.

The present war, the greed that is eating the world, the lack of trust on institutions and many other things are visible symptoms that indicate something is not right – and if they are not right in the macro level, we should think things are not right in the micro level.

Comparing with a body, we think of it as sick when organs are not working as they should and, by understanding the symptoms, we can find out the sickness and look for a cure.

My question is: what to do in relation to a sick soul?

That means ME, YOU, that micro level that sums and interacts with others generating a definite impact on the macro.

Because of too many factors, it is not possible to correct the macro level, even though we have been trying for ages. But to reach the micro level is EXTREMELY possible as it is under our power and control. And if we change the self, the world will be changed too at some point.

So, a point for reflection: what is the surgery we should undergo, in terms of the soul? By fixing the illnesses of the self, the world will heal.

 

Taking care of our health…

It is an important element of these days and everybody seems to be thinking about their health. But one day this shall pass and then we shall go back to our old ways… I hope not.

Health is wealth as it enables you to do as many things as possible and obtain resources. If you have health, but no wealth, you can at least generate the minimum resources for your life, but if you have wealth without health is like having feet but not shoes…

And health is a very complex topic as our bodies are complex. But we need to not only take care of it during the crisis, but learn to take care of it at all times.

Let’s not forget our mental health as we fight against being in enclosed spaces or living with other people in ways we were not ready for that.

I am not from healthcare, but I would like to suggest you to take care of your health in three different ways, based on my many experiences of dealing with my own body:

Let’s keep on checking with doctors. Although this present crisis has shown us that we must learn how to research on health topics and we shouldn’t be depending only on doctors, it is important to insert them to our life, and according to our lifestyle, since there are many avenues of medicine.

We take care of our lifestyle. A good diet, a powerful routine of exercises and many habits will help us to improve our capacity and immune system. It is time to invest time and energy developing all of those.

Spirituality also helps. It is a very wrongful myth that spiritual people don’t take care of their health, but even many spiritual people also believed it. In fact, by developing spirituality we will naturally take care of our body, as we will understand the importance of health in our lives. Practices as meditation or prayers have a wonderful effect in health too.

This is the first of a series of articles on self-care.

There is no self-care without the self

We take care of our body a lot in terms of health or esthetics, but how much do we take care of the soul within the body?

That is an approach we all have to reflect upon, particularly when there is the fear of death or some spiritual struggle.

Another approach is to take care of the awareness of being; to be soul conscious means more than a religious or spiritual phrase: it means to be connected with who I really am.

By being merged into the intense daily routine, a ferocious career, a health crisis or very unhealthy relationships, it is easy to just disconnect with that being and just react to whatever is happening around.

The problem is one day you will be living through a sweet easy routine, your career will be over, your health will be fine again and you will be ok with your relationships; but if you don’t take care, you will be something else, different than what you really are.

And that duality is not good for the soul’s health…

So, the best way of caring about the true self is:

• Follow your religious tradition. Time may be an issue, so find some time you can spare to take care of your own self.
• Meditate or contemplate. Get in connection with your true self.
• Reflect deeply. Don’t let things just pass; talk or write about them, or just sit down and think of what is going on.
• Change your lifestyle, so that it is aligned to who you really are.
• Look for a change of perspective by talking with different people or by reflecting in different ways.

This is part of a series of posts on self-care.

PS: If you are interested in meditation, I would like to recommend you to brahmakumaris.org; that’s where I meditate.

Keeping healthy

No, I am trying to not talk about the… virus… After all, as a blog, it is possible someone uses it later and maybe – hopefully – nobody would remember what it is. What it was.

But it is always relevant to talk about keeping healthy and even though times change, that need won’t change.

In my experience, health starts in the awareness and attitude as that was my weak point. It took time for me to understand the importance of self-care.

So, the next posts will be on this deeply important theme: SELF-CARE.

For now, could you tell me: Do you want to know anything about it? Or do you want to comment on this and contribute with this topic?

When being healthy is being a magician

For many years, one disease or another made me company. Being sick, especially as a child, meant that I was deprived of the joy and lightness typical of that time, of the many friends and too many games... It affected even my school performance - Physical Education is a subject - and it marked me a lot.

For several reasons, I decided to enter a military school, more specifically the Air Force. Although I had to study hard for the examination, in parallel to a normal school, I managed to pass with a good number. During the preparation time, the most important thing for me was the work on my physical body, since my fear was not passing the physical tests.

I’ve passed. Suddenly I was living with more than 200 boys in a huge dormitory. While in an environment like this my illness should grow, but it was quite the opposite. The contact with nature, exercises and marches did their job on me and I was only in the hospital once in three years of study.

This was the beginning of a fundamental change, because health is not only important; being healthy is MAGICAL.

The departure of the Air Force coincided with the beginning of the practice of meditation, which involved changing my diet and schedules. For decades, I have been able to observe how health was influenced by my mind and spiritual endeavor, a dimension different from that of the Air Force.

Today, despite continuing to have health problems, I experience magic in relation to being productive and maintaining normal relationships with other people. Even when the body's energy seems to be depleting, the soul gives it one last push...

This is a series of posts on MAGIC…

PS I suggest you go to my channel, I have a playlist dedicated to good health. #GoodHealth

Meditation changes your reality

In 2015, Indian Prime Minister Modi persuaded United Nations to declare June 21^st as the International Day of Yoga. Since then, important celebrations are held worldwide.

I practice yoga since I was 18, but… there is a but here. Almost all the times we talk about yoga, the image in people’s minds is of crossing legs or doing impossible poses. That is not my type of yoga.

Yoga is not only physical; its area is broad and wide. Its practice will depend on what you really want to do with your body, mind and spirit.

For the body, yoga gives a self-control that it is almost impossible to get from anywhere else. It is healthy, but it is not only healthy, it is a healing process. I know many people who practice a physical type of yoga and I tell you, it is wonderful, and even though I don’t, raja yoga also works for my body and I have experience healing many times.

For the mind, the best part of any yoga practice would be the meditation – would be as many people don’t meditate, they just jump into the exercise. That is the reason all great masters of yoga went to very isolated places for their practice, as meditation is revered as key to their success; the first stage of yoga is meditation – and that is what changes reality, as perceptions shift and the person experiences a renew in their lives.

For the soul, meditation reconnects you, after all so much is happening at present and although we are fully connected to the world, very often we find ourselves zero connected to the inner core: what do I really want? Ikigai, other philosophies and techniques try to make people stop and reflect, going back to their source, and so they act as a type of yoga.

When yoga helps you to connect with your own self, reality changes… well, reality will probably be the same, however as you are connected to the purest energy that exists within you, that energy pours through your life, changing your reaction to situations and helping you to focus on the good side of circumstances.

A yogi will look at reality with love, determination and courage, even though reality looks at them in a frightening way…

On this special day, and as much as you can during the year, spend some time in yoga and meditation…

Health does not start with the doctor

One of the big changes in our civilization that very few would foresee is the importance given to health and health care nowadays. In fact, in 2014, it is calculated every American citizen spent about US$ 9,500 and the general expenses for the country was up to three trillions dollars.

However, the roots of health are in more soft grounds than what we see today. The Greeks gave high importance to dreams in the healing process and Indians have their healing medicine – the Ayurveda – registered in old scriptures.

There has been an emergence of those types of medicine because it is time we give our ancestors some credit. Yes, they didn’t have the science behind, but here and there we hear about people getting healed without the use of allopathic medicine. We are still in the process of recovering that wisdom and a general advice for people is to follow their doctor, but to look for complementary treatment in other branches at the same time.

But, even that maybe won’t heal the person. I have seen two people I know and I watched their personal fight against cancer. Although they had different ages and different types of cancer, the initial effects were quite similar for both of them, and they even decided to follow similar procedures. With all of that, still just one survived and she is around to tell her tale.

Because there are things we don’t control and sometimes, our body is one of these things. Health starts from within, from a different perception of the world around you and how that world will affect your of will be affected by you.

That perception will give you the necessary guidelines you need to follow a healthy lifestyle and promote your health before a sickness emerges. That same insight will help you to accept that sometimes your body won’t be able to survive the time you wanted and you just have to rethink your aims and objectives in life, and keep living as worse than dying is to live with its fear.

Forgiveness as a key to a healthy life

Being healthy nowadays is a kind of a fashion, and it shouldn't be like that: health makes life much more pleasant and productive. It should be one of our first priorities.

Let’s understand that health is not restricted to the body though; it also implies a life with no diseases in mind, relationships and even finances. After all, we have experienced how much a lack of money at a moment of need affects the will to live.

So, being healthy cannot be guaranteed by going to gym or having a special diet. You do need more things to add and among them the cultivation of positive emotions.

Emotions can make us live life in a cheerful mood, enjoying every moment, or cursing everything that happens around, affecting our health in a way not even a virus could do.

Among positive emotions, there are those that generated a relief and help with healing. Forgiveness, although it is not strictly an emotion, creates that healing feeling too.

Forgiving someone or a situation changes you and it helps you to get some closure, speeding up your own moving on. But although it is so gratifying, it is not often used.

I feel the difficulty with forgiveness comes from several wrong perspectives.

• The victim forgives the attacker. That means, by forgiving I admit I was defeated. This first assumption comes from the idea of victory as the one smashing the other and because we live in a society where wars are not at all desirable, that idea is conflicting with our reality. In the day-to-day life, there are no real battles. There are some conflicts and problems, things that help us to refine our character, and forgiveness strengthen that part of our personality that is able to make us to move on, no matter what happens.
• Only the weak ones have to forgive, the strong ones win. So, forgiveness is even more attached to the concept of defeat. In fact, it is all the opposite. Anyone who has seen somebody forgiving another person is able to discern who is the strongest and, really, it is always on the side of the forgiver.
• By forgiving, I will forget the problems and they won't be solved. Forgiveness is often linked to the idea of a sort of amnesia. If something really bad happened, forgiveness helps you to heal your emotions and mind, but you would probably still need to see aspects of justice that is usually required. In fact, forgiveness will let you have a clear mind and a light conscience to rebuild your life.

By forgiving, you are clearing your own path and open yourself for new experiences, a better life and more opportunities.

Time for resting

Part of the reason people is getting stressed is that we are really not made for continuous work. Most cultures have had an old custom of napping in the middle of the day, to recharge energy and keep on working.

Very few people I know try to rest nowadays. Mostly, people just relax a bit or talk a lot with other people, and then they wonder why they are so tired...

Look at holidays: lots of stress to leave cities, to get a room, to enjoy a day on the beach...

Rest. People need to learn how to rest. Again.

Perhaps, relaxation - real relaxation, not only "relaxing" - can help with that. After all, you don't need to sleep for relaxing...

• First, check your timetable and fix sometime for your rest, or relaxation. The busier you are, more you need to FIX a time for that.
• Start relaxation in the realms of your mind. Take your mind to positive soft thoughts... Connect to your inner tranquility using words or images.
• If you feel some emotions are out there, enjoy a time connecting to better positive emotions, like tenderness or peace.
• Only then, relax your body by breathing deeply and doing some exercises with it.

If you can do at least fifteen minutes of relaxation everyday, that will help your health and performance, and you will feel rested. In this way, you can manage stress much better.

Improving the health in relationships

Something I've learned from spirituality is that we are complete beings originally, that is, you really do not need anything from anyone. I'm not talking physically, where we need to eat, sleep and keep the body's biological system working. What I mean is the spiritual, emotional and mental points of view - we are complete beings with an inner source of peace, love, happiness, power and purity.

However, many have taught us otherwise. They even told us to look for a companion and business focus went from the cult of personality to promoting teamwork.

Apparently the two ideas are contradictory, but I've learned many years ago that contradiction is something that does not exist in spirituality. The development of the self has a lot to do with the stage and the time the person is living, and the consciousness with which he or she does things.

From a spiritual point of view, relationships with others do not provide anything extra. What they do is ENCOURAGE something we already have internally. For example, through unconditional love, our mothers encouraged the love that we had internally; perhaps, without a loving mother, that love we already have would not emerge, and other behaviors will replace it, like conditional love or selfishness.

That means your interaction with others is essential. It is like certain elements that are in the body, but for its process, the body requires sunlight or some kind of external stimulant.

And it is in this awareness that relationships' health is based. If my consciousness is that I will be supplemented, or I have to give something to someone, at some point I will be let down when that person does not use what I gave her or him, or when I get less than I expected. If my consciousness is that my relationships are all the stimuli I need, I will accept whatever I receive with pleasure and love.

When relationships are healthy, they will teach and enrich. If relationships are healthy, other people will feel it is an honor to be with you, they will feel richer for being there.

If relationships are unhealthy, it's time to find a "vitamin", even an "operation" that heal it. Cutting a relationship is like cutting off an arm; it is the last resort.

I hope that you can always have healthy relationships.

When science fails

Nowadays you can have all you want, and talk to anyone you want. However, the big tendency nowadays is to live alone. Also, you have medicine in its state of art. And never before we had that many sicknesses.

Somehow, humans have tried to replace whatever they lack with science and its children, like technology. But it is not working. Yes, it gives you a temporary feeling that you are getting what you want, but then, after a while, you realise you still don't have it. And you cannot get anything only using science.

You can talk to people using science, but you cannot communicate with them only relying on science. You need to trust them too, you need patience, perseverance and a bunch of other values which will enable you to really forge a relationship.

You can use medicine - by the way, you should! - but you won't be healthier because of that. Real health starts from lifestyle, from the way you think and see the world, and your own relationship with your body and other people's bodies.

Science is good, and I use lots of it in my day-to-day life. But I am aware it can't replace reality. Reality is still outside this blog, this connection and this computer.

As an author, I like to provide new perspective.