Be the Harmony

What Do the Adolescent Brain, the Number 25 and the Soul Have in Common?

Science continues to shed ever more light upon the magnificence of the human body and its constant interactions with Creative Intelligence. It seems humans have a built-in “fail safe” mode when our conscious spiritual nature switches on, somewhere around age 25. Even when the soul is remembered from birth, the physical body may not be ready to fully engage in soul’s agenda until the age of 25 or later because some of the connective tissue doesn't mature until then.

Today, conscious parenting is a growing trend. Conscious parenting being an awareness of both parents beginning pre-conception that says each parent’s thoughts and feelings are intently influential upon the cells and genetic potentials of their offspring, and thus requiring parents’ nurturance of the highest budding possibilities. With such an understanding, the human species may be moving into an era whereby the divine self having been supported and encouraged from prebirth, birth and through the first 25 to 30 years, will cause the physical body to evolve to advanced levels of capabilities and health. Either way, conscious or unconscious, the connective tissue of the body and the fascial web, appear to play an essential role in our physiology eventually “turning on” to Spirit.

First, let’s define connective tissue so we have a good visual. According to About.com Biology, connective tissue serves a "connecting" function. It supports and binds other tissues. Unlike epithelial tissue, which covers the outside of the body and lines organs and cavities and the cells of which are very closely packed together and joined with little space between them, connective tissue typically has cells loosely scattered throughout the body matrix. For example, in an epithelium, which also connects, the free surface is usually exposed to fluid or the air (like skin) while the bottom surface is attached to a basement membrane. This is different than loose connective tissue, which in vertebrates, is the most common type of connective tissue. Loose connective tissue holds organs in place and attaches epithelial tissue to other underlying tissues.

Loose connective tissue is named based on its characteristic "weave" and is made up of collagenous (cartilage is made up of collagens), elastic, reticular, or fibrous types of fibers. Fibrous connective tissue, which is found in tendons and ligaments, is composed of large amounts of closely packed collagenous fibers.  Cartilage, for example, is avascular, meaning that it is not supplied by blood vessels; instead, nutrients diffuse rather like osmosis through the matrix of tissue.

It is true that some cultural traditions speak of humans as being a complex egg-like form of fibrous interwoven energy pathways. Anyway, the main flow of thought here is connections, and science is informing us that our connective tissues, including those of our brain as well as the lower half of the body may not be fully developed until we reach the age of 25 or older.

From the study of embryology for example, we discover that when we are born the upper half of our body’s structure and musculature is more developed than our hips, legs and feet. In some philosophies, the upper half of the body is considered heaven and the lower half of the body relates to earth, with the waistline relating to the mind and being a bridge between heaven and earth. The pelvis at birth is largely made up of cartilage (connective tissue). That makes sense since we have to be fairly sturdy with heart and essential organs for life well protected, as well as really malleable to move through the tunnel into the world. The squeezing through the canal may actually make us stronger for living outside of the womb because of the relationship between pressure, weight-bearing and bone density. We are told our fontanel (the soft spot opening at the top center of the skull) takes about 18 months or longer to fully solidify. In contrast, our pelvic, hip and leg connective tissues and muscles are not fully developed until we reach about the age 25.

From the ages of 0 to 3, children respond to the world and their surroundings as though everything is energy. This means children do not differentiate life experiences with individual senses like sight, sound or hearing and so forth. They process their environment through their whole being and feel it as “This feels good, nurturing and makes me happy,” or “This feels threatening and scary, and makes me feel unhappy.” At this age of sensitivity, children require a great deal of protection, security and comfort.

Interestingly, at the end of life, a person also experiences everything as energy with whole body responses to its circumstances (what feels loving and what feels discomforting). One age group is entering from a holistic environment, and the elders’ age group exiting to a more holistic realm. At this age of sensitivity, elders require a great deal of protection, security and comfort.

What is even more fascinating is that in between those two age groups, humans spend their lives yearning for the knowing of wholeness again, ergo, what does meditation and yoga do for you?

Now getting back to the idea of connective tissue and its importance in supporting our spiritual nature, in the December 16, 2010 Newsweek Magazine article entitled, The Adolescent Brain -The Kids Can’t Help It - What new research reveals about the adolescent brain—from why kids bully to how the teen years shape the rest of your life by Russ Juskalian, science tells us that the adolescent brain is only 80% developed and the connective areas of the brain, the white matter areas, do not completely mature until age 25 or later.

Connective tissue mentioned again, and age 25 again. 25 is the magic number, a magic number for what? The brain is good to go and the whole physical body is strong and structurally sound. What’s next? Spirit is ready to take charge.  

I remember when I was writing my 1998 autobiographical book, Soul Aerobics – Conscious Movement of a Soul into Wholeness, I unconsciously said more than once that I reached a point after about 25 years of age, when I felt life was no longer “happening to me.” Rather it seemed to me that age 25 was about the time the soul became the pilot of my life, or at least I had become aware that something had shifted.   

Is 25 an age of activation or an age of participation, or both?

To recap so far, science and physiology mention that by the age 25 or so, some of our essential connective tissue webbings have finally matured. This improved phase of physical prowess seems to be some sort of turning point in our human development. The brain is good to go and the whole physical body is strong and structurally sound including the earth part or lower half of the body. Spirit is ready to take charge, to become fully engaged in life in a body.

I see a perfect relationship with the connective tissue of the body supporting a closer partnership with the soul via energy healing. Applying regular energy self-healing in the form of Healing Touch Quick Steps has been proven to help the body rid itself of accumulations in the tissue. In fact, the sooner you apply self-induced healing quick steps after a discomfort or trauma occurs, the less likely it will settle in your tissue. Remember, the varying depths of your biological tissue are all made up of cells. If the tissue is not bogged down with disturbances from conception, in utero and on through adulthood, especially connective tissue that is an intelligent mechanism for experiencing wholeness, how much easier can it be to always be in a conscious state of wholeness? Science validates that our biology speaks volumes.

In the book, The Endless Web: Fascial Anatomy and Physical Reality, Drs. R. Louis Schultz and Rosemary Feitis suggest the importance of looking at the body as a whole when looking at the muscle-bone concept of movement.  Key word: Movement. “When one part moves, the whole body responds, and the only tissue that can mediate such responsiveness is the connective tissue.” There are those words again:  connective tissue.

Drs. Feitus and Schultz also inform us that from birth onward “increased demand for movement furthers the maturation of the connective tissue. As we use a part, it becomes more capable, more skilled. In turn, as we become more skilled, we explore a wider range of movement.”

“In addition, the physical response to emotion is through the soft tissue. The fascia is the emotional body,” say Feitus and Schultz. The more we move, the more the connective tissue refines and the greater our ability to experience life holistically.

From the perspective of physical anatomy, we begin to see a relationship between our connective tissue, our emotions and living life in a state of wholeness. Our body in its natural state is a vehicle of wholeness. The fascial web is connective tissue. Our emotions and feelings are a link to the higher energies that are experienced through feelings.

Remember author Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor mentioning in her book, Stroke of Insight when the rational, logical part of her brain, went off line with a stroke, she felt a sense of wholeness, non-duality, and oneness. Ideally, feelings are felt in the whole body, flowing through that fascial web and our connective tissues (those loosely scattered cells full of potential), and from that web of sensation we are able to know and identify the feelings of fear, anger, joy, love, or whatever, and consciously and immediately respond. In addition, the goodness of our thoughts and feelings may be considered nutrients for the loosely scattered cellular wellness

Of course in my personal story of earlier childhood, all of those discomforting feelings were settling in and influencing my tissue, my underdeveloped connective tissues.  Similar to the way an infant lying in his crib can help or hinder his developing structure because of the more cartilaginous nature of his pelvis and fascial web connectivity, the still developing brain tissue until age 25 or later is being influenced by physical, mental and emotional circumstances as well.

So our physical connective tissue plays a crucial role in our knowing a holistic, benevolent world as well as our expressing as spirit in matter - Spirit being synonymous with non-duality; matter, earthbound physical body, for example. The body and spirit are intrinsically linked; one part moves and the whole being responds.

Now what about the pivotal age of 25? Dr. Thomas Armstrong, author of The Human Odyssey: Navigating the Twelve Stages of Life, says a person who is 25 years old is in the stage of life he calls early adulthood. In fact he calls this age (20 to 35) “The Lost Generation” because there is the least amount of research devoted to this stage than any other phase of human development. This age also is the time of best health, prime physical abilities, and the least amount of colds and physical difficulties. The prime directive of Early Adulthood is to leave the familiar, parents, community and school, and go off and make something of oneself. You are finally ready to begin life on your own.

In Stefanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga movie Eclipse, valedictorian, Jessica, encourages her fellow graduating classmates "to go out into the world and make mistakes, try a lot of things, date one person and then another, and then when we are asked what we want to be when we grow up, we will know."

Next month we’ll explore more of the spiritual nature that is being “switched on” from about age 25, and what this may mean for so many baby boomers, who beginning January 1, 2011 will be retiring at a rate of 10,000 per day.  Is there another wave of something mobilizing here?

In the meantime, take care, take great self-care.

Many blessings,

Barbara J. Semple

Self-Healing Activist and Best Selling Author, Instant Healing - Accessing Creative Intelligence for Healing Body and Soul

(c) Copyright 2010. Barbara J. Semple. Please request permission from the author if you wish to reprint this article, reprinting of which should be in its entirety without changes and with full authorship given to Barbara J. Semple, including her website: www.healingtouchquicksteps.com. Thanks.

“Disaster Proof” Your Emotions: 5 Ways to Survive Life’s Big Slaps with Energy Medicine

 “If people are part of the environment, as we profess, then our first opportunity to treat the environment in a sustainable way, or even to understand what sustainability is, is in our relationship with ourselves, and each other.” John Francis – the Planetwalker, from “Oil on the Water” National Geographic post May 4, 2010

Coping with one disaster after another - how much more can we take? Our world is experiencing perilous disasters these days that seem to be happening on the heels of the previous one, with more devastation than the last catastrophe. Bigger than usual magnitude earthquakes, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, Greece revolting, people dying, riots in the streets. Are we going to be okay? Yes.  

A few weeks ago, my father passed away. Experiencing the death of a loved one is right up there with losing a job, divorce, or losing everything in a fire, volcano, war zone, earthquake or other disaster. And, my energy medicine self-healing practice helped sustain me.

I was not prepared for the jilting chaos that occurred as I converged with my family in our individual and collective grief. Regaining vitality and a sense of wholeness from the sudden tsunami of my whole childhood, my life and past “doo doo” with these people all wrapped up in one energy field of pain and sadness in close proximity with everyone involved was a huge shock for me. Abrupt distresses that jolt the whole mental, emotional and physical system may turn on an unconscious survival mechanism.  

You are surprised that you are crying so much, your feelings are volatile, you bite your sibling’s head off with an angry look that could kill and you think to yourself, “Where did that come from?” You feel like you are a deer caught in headlights, walking around in a daze, stuck in a bad dream from which you cannot escape. Where is the love? Where is your support, your life preserver? How do you make it through? It is the strength of your spirit that carries you through every time.

For two months I followed my father’s intensive metamorphosis out of his body. One day while exercising, I was conscientious of enjoying my physical workout at the same time I was also crying with deep sadness at losing my father. Suddenly my heart felt like it was breaking from the center outward in all directions simultaneously. I had a fleeting thought that I might die. I didn’t. Today my heart feels less rigid, more flexible.

As funny as this may sound, what curiously seeps into mind from my heart breaking to becoming more flexible memory is the stories in the Stefanie Meyers’ Twilight Saga books about the phasing of werewolves and alterations from human to immortals. Some kind of transformation occurred for me on a holistic level as I observed my father’s shifting into eternity. It is the strength of your spirit that carries you through every time.  However it turns out, your spirit takes care of you.

The world is transforming whether you and I come along or not. Harmony and chaos are partners. When I first became aware that my father was dying, it was the biggest challenge of his life (and mine too as his witness). I remember saying to my friends that I would look for the Grace throughout the journey. And I found it.  Right there along side some of the largest “doo doos” standing like a bright beacon in the darkness, was Grace and compassionate understanding.  It is the strength of your spirit that carries you through every time.

You can connect with that strength of spirit, infinite life force, supreme unconditional love that carries you through every life disturbance, by holding each of your fingers. This is effortless energy medicine self-help. Your fingers link together all of the subtle energy pathways of your body. Hold each of your fingers for emotional support. Doing so does not mean you are negating feelings. It means that you bring a higher perspective, the perspective of spirit to your emotional experience. "Doo doo" still happens only now your response is unburdening and uplifting.

1. Harmonizing Worry – Hold your thumb every day, every time you think of it to help recover your emotional balance when worry causes your energies to feel sticky and stagnant (the opposite of healthy flow). Wrap your thumb and fingers around one thumb at a time, drop your shoulders, breathe comfortably and simply be with your body’s natural system of healing for up to 5 minutes or longer.
2. Harmonizing Fear – Hold your index finger every day, every time you think of it to help recover your vitality when standing in fear and shock steals it away from you. Wrap your thumb and fingers around one index finger at a time, drop your shoulders, breathe comfortably, and simply be with your body’s natural system of healing for up to 5 minutes.  
3. Harmonizing Anger – Hold your middle finger every day, every time you think of it to help your hot, explosive feelings recover calm and compassionate understanding for yourself and other. Wrap your thumb and fingers around one  middle finger, drop your shoulders, breathe comfortably and simply be with your body’s natural system of healing for up to 5 minutes.
4. Harmonizing Sadness - Hold your ring finger every day, every time you think of it to help recover your balance when sadness has depleted your energies. Wrap your thumb and fingers around one ring finger, drop your shoulders, breathe comfortably and simply be with your body’s natural system of healing for up to 5 minutes or longer if you like.
5. Harmonizing Trying to Do and Be Too Much – Hold your little finger every day, every time you think of it to help shift into balance when you feel, scattered, chaotic and overwhelmed by the world. Wrap your thumb and fingers around one little finger, drop your shoulder, breathe comfortably, and simply be with your body’s natural system of healing for up to 5 minutes.

Come back to neutral often. Hold each of your fingers regularly to interact with Big Picture, Source-sized serenity, neutrality, and balance when the world around you becomes more than you can bear. It is that strength that is your spirit. Many blessings for your health and wholeness.

Barbara

Copyright 2010 Barbara J. Semple

Emotional Boo Boos and the Shadow Effect: Self-Induced Healing to the Rescue!

Unresolved emotions you have pushed away over time or judged as bad are injurious to your health. Stuffed feelings move deeper into your cells and tissues and become the causes of such things as digestive, elimination, organ function disturbances, and very scary medical diagnoses. Consider loving those emotional boo boos into wholeness the next time they show up for you. Offer your cells and tissues large doses of loving kindness. It’s easier than you think.

You can tell when you’ve been holding on to or brewing an emotion. When it finally does come up it’s explosive like a volcanic rage, or you cry for half an hour or all day about some little thing, or you’ve been worrying about the same seemingly trivial thing for years.

Old school for healing emotions was years of sitting with a counselor or therapist remembering and facing every crappy experience. Catharsis was big. Newer, less traumatic options besides screaming and yelling can encourage your release from emotional boo boo bondage. No matter what you choose, energy healing self-help is a valuable complement.

Start right where you are in this moment. Imagine loving every part of your self, the good stuff and the bad.

When you judge your feelings as harmful, bad, and shameful, you disassociate or separate parts of your self (shadow side). Today we know that your cells respond in a nano-second to your thoughts and feelings. That can be harmful or harmonizing. Every one of those feelings you push away or deny, suppress or judge to be not good, or someone else judges for you to be not good are pieces of you that you can bring into wholeness with love.  

Years ago a spiritual teacher talked about the importance of healing your emotions.  He said you could know God best through your feelings. My teacher gave this analogy.

If you fall down and severely cut your elbow so blood and bone are exposed, your immediate, innate response is to pull your elbow close to you and do whatever it takes to bring the elbow back to full health and usefulness. You go to the hospital. You might even kiss it like your grandmother used to do for you as a child. You will surely hold it to your body to stop the bleeding while you get more help. You baby your healing elbow, protect it from bumps, and keep it clean. Eventually nurturing it back to full health because you need to be able to use your elbow, right?

Do the same for your emotions and feelings: nurture them back to full usefulness. You need emotional balance more than you require your elbow. This is important because healthy emotions are a doorway to a sensitive awareness of things that are not physical and cannot be seen with physical eyes.

Parts of you, sticky thoughts and feeling pieces, sometimes called the shadow side, may be returned to wholeness, neutral; that place of being without any emotional “charge” good or bad. Consider lovingly drawing closer to you like an injured elbow, your emotional “elbows” or boo boos. Raising your feelings and emotions to a compassionate level of understanding connects you to a Force that is felt like Grace is felt.

How do you actually do this loving into wholeness thing? Begin by observing, being present with a feeling. When you find yourself judging or self-loathing or hating yourself or another person, shift the disturbance this way. Catch yourself when something is bad, shameful, obnoxious, rude, resentful, ridiculous, and say to yourself, preferably out loud: “I love the part of myself that is rude,” or “I love the part of myself that is mean,” or “I love the part of myself that I see reflected in that person who is being disrespectful to Mother Earth.”  

This might be a stretch, I know, I’ve been there. It really tests your mettle. Do you really mean it? And it gets easier. Love when you recognize judging. Love when you recognize hating. Love when you recognize shaming or belittling.

Can you imagine, for example, how loving the parts of yourself that you judge as ugly might have something to do with whatever parts of you want to continue to attack yourself as in an auto-immune disease? It is the same for any disease: cancer, AIDS, diabetes, heart disease. You may have to repeat self-love and healing your emotional elbows or boo boos a number of times to have a physical impact, especially deep-seated issues. Or, will you?

This is where the Instant Healing Zone comes in. One of the most exciting benefits of applying regular Healing Touch Quick Steps self-induced healing is that calling on additional Source energy to unburden and uplift your energies, frees up stuck energy. It doesn’t matter how long energy has been stuck. It is simply stuck energy that needs to be flowing cleanly. The fact is Source – Creative Intelligence, Big Picture energy, The Force that Edgar Cayce used to call it, is bigger than any earthly disturbance, faster than the speed of light. It is unconditional love.  You access this for healing.

Right now you can apply a Healing Touch Quick Step called Love Your Self; the perfect one to give yourself when an emotional boo boo or shadow begins ruling your present moment.

Cross your hands in front of you and gently grab your opposite mid-upper arms (thumb on inside of arm, the rest of your fingers on the outside of the arm). Relax your shoulders, arms, hands and fingers and simply be with your body’s natural system of healing for a minute or so. Then wrap your thumb and fingers around your left INDEX finger. Again, relax your shoulders, hands, arms and fingers. Comfortably breathe for a minute or so. Then switch hands and wrap your thumb and fingers around your right INDEX finger for another minute or so, breathing normally all the while. Then wrap your thumb and fingers around your left LITTLE finger and simply be in the hold for a minute or so. Then finally switch sides and wrap your thumb and fingers around your right LITTLE finger for the same amount of time.

Supporting your shadow effect healing, bringing your emotional elbows or boo boos into wholeness may be that simple. Actively love your separated parts as they show up, and nourish your body-mind-spirit energies with Healing Touch Quick Steps. Drawing your emotional elbows into yourself with compassion expands your connection with Source-Creative Intelligence. Starting with yourself, healing your own emotional boo boos makes it easier for you to feel kindness for others.

Many blessings for your health and wholeness,

Barbara J. Semple

Copyright (c) 2010 Barbara J. Semple. Entire contents.

What is Harmony?

What is harmony and what are you doing when you harmonize something like an emotion, for example, fear?

Well, first let’s look at the word ‘harmony.” Even if you are not sure what harmony is, you have a sense of what it is NOT. Layoffs, can't afford health care, can't pay mortgage, lost house, homeless, lost savings - These are plenty of deep survival issues about which you can feel fearful, and they say that something is out of balance. Feeling out of balance is NOT harmony.

What if you look at world events, fear or anything - anything at all - as simply energy? What if your pain or discomfort is a stuck or wacky energy response experience? Certainly recovering from a bout of fear seems more attainable than fixing the world economy. Energies of fear, loss, sadness, hopelessness, frustration and anger may very well be encouraged into a sense of order and comfort with energy healing self-help. This is important because in spite of all the disturbances occurring in and around your world, harmony is occurring all over the place too! We exist in an ocean of harmony. Yes, "doo doo" happens, AND there is mostly harmony. Harmony you have some control over invoking.

Define harmony: ‘an agreement; accord; a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts.’ In other words, harmony can mean that various parts, relationships, and interactions are all getting along well together. Thus, harmonizing is an activity or movement of energy that causes harmony or accordance or a pleasing arrangement of parts to exist.

Consider this. You have billions of interactions and relationships taking place within your body as well as your outer world every second; yes every second. For instance relationships with family, friends, pets, co-workers, at church, as well as your thoughts, feelings and actions all need to comfortably “get along with one another” for you to experience a sense of balance or stability in any given moment. Your body, for example, has hundreds of millions of cells, thousands and thousands of special body tasks and unique organ function details that are all interconnected and basically do relate pretty well together. This is important because paying some attention to your personal harmony will most certainly influence subtle and not so subtle occurrences in your life. When you feel peace and tranquility, everything and everyone around you may know it too.

Harmony is unique to you. To you it may mean stress relieved, immune system boosted, muscles toned, elimination and digestion improved, circulation increased, or that often debilitating emotion called fear disarmed. Harmony is also less specific. For me it is a state of being in an effortless ease, grace and joy; an uplifting flow my body and soul rhythms synchronized with Nature’s rhythms.

“Why synchronize with Nature with all of the changing weather patterns, tsunamis, hurricanes, wildness and unpredictability?” you might ask. Well the fact is you cannot separate yourself from Nature. Your body is an exquisite articulation of Nature. You are part of a Unified Field of Consciousness or Web of Life with a Source, Creative Intelligence energy in action, continuously animating and creating life. You always get to choose participating with instead of against your natural state of being. Healing Touch Quick Steps energy healing self-help is one way to support your alignment with Nature. It doesn’t mean “doo doo” will never happen. “Doo doo” still happens only now you handle it gracefully because you’re connected with “Big Picture” harmony. Ah.

What is fear doing to your body? When you stand in fear, your energy descends and cannot rise. Have you ever been so scared that you felt you might poop your pants? That is what fear does in an extreme case in the body of energy descending. This is important because it is your universal life force energy freely rising up the back of the body that brings in vitality. Harmonizing fear then has something to do with urging your body’s natural system of healing to rise up the back. Energy not rising = no vitality. No vitality = Destruction of health. This is important because when fear is harmonized, you are able to relax and receive nourishing life force to live your life well. Ah.

Harmonize fear now. Hold your index finger. Wrap your thumb and fingers around your index finger and gently, I do mean gently, be with your body's natural system of healing. Relax your arms, fingers and hands. Holding your index finger is tapping into Source energy. How great is that?

What this all means for you is that you have options in addition to conventional medical care to help your self align with harmonious forces of Nature by applying Healing Touch Quick Steps. Paying attention is where it all begins to change.

When you do not feel strong enough or healthy enough and fear overwhelms you, take it easy for the moment. Even when you are perfectly healthy, fear still creeps in. Whatever is going on, whenever fear comes forth, disarm it as smoothly as water sliding off a duck’s back by gently holding your index finger for a while and then hold the other index finger too. Hold it all day long if you need to. Sit in your rocking chair and hold your index finger. You are actively choosing to regain harmony. Watch your energy shift. Think about that ocean of harmony that is occurring all around you right now. Your natural state of being is peace and harmony. Ah.

Take care. Take great self care.Many blessings,

Barbara

(c) Copyright 2009. Barbara J. Semple. Entire contents. All rights reserved.

Secret Way to Harmonize Fear

It's time to weigh in on the subject of fear. And give you a little secret way to harmonize it.

Layoffs, can't afford health care, can't pay mortgage, lost house, homeless, lost savings - There are plenty of very deep survival issues to feel fearful about these days. As usual I am looking at the world events as energy as if it were my client. What energies are going on here and is there anything positive? Yes, harmony is all over the place! Yes, "doo doo" is still happening, AND there is harmony too - Harmony you have some control over invoking. 

Currently there are major Cosmic Forces at work in the night's sky to temper so to speak all of the fear "doo doo" that is currently right at the surface of collective consciousness (meaning a lot of people are dealing with this)  to be released, dissolved and let go of. My suggestion for my self is to keep letting it go. Keep raising my vibrations by being in Nature, the part that is not connected to the lowly mind (god bless it), and applying my energy healing self-help.

If you look in the night sky right after sunset, you will be seeing since November 1, a great influential movement of Jupiter and Venus and then a triangulation with the Moon. Jupiter is all about soul movement, expansion, transformation. In the physio (body)-philosophy of Jin Shin Jyutsu® healing art, Jupiter rules the Liver-Gall Bladder forces, the Key/Quintessence element. It is the Divine Intelligence that binds the soul to the body. That's how big Jupiter's influence is in the body. And Venus, is all about the breath, order, beauty, love, relationship, harmony. In our body, Venus rules the Lung-Large Intestine processes (receiving and letting go, inhaling and exhaling). Another very big influence going on now with Venus having just risen from the underworld last month victorious. And, enter the Moon, waxing Moon, all about feelings, emotions. Big.

What does this all mean to you? It means that your Soul, Higher Power, Spirit, godself - whatever name you choose - is being supported in a Cosmic way right now and so is your body with the support from Venus - Breath being foundational to all of life in a body. You can easily help your self align with these positive forces of Nature by applying Healing Touch Quick Steps. Live in accordance with Nature.

Recently I saw the movie about the life of spiritual teacher Gurdjief, which is called Meetings with Remarkable Men. One of the bits of wisdom I gleaned was: "The body and the soul depend on each other."  We have to take care of both. Sometimes subdue one and uplift the other as the case may be. In any event, body and soul work together as are Jupiter and Venus celestially now.

Now when a person stands in fear, your energy descends and cannot rise. (Have you ever been so scared that you felt you might poop your pants? That is what fear does in an extreme case in the body.) It is your energy rising up the back of the body that is your vitality. Energy can't rise, no vitality. No vitality? Destruction of health.  This is important because When fear is harmonized, you are able to relax and receive nourishing life force to live your life well. Ah. To help harmonize fear, hold your index finger. Wrap your thumb and fingers around your index finger and gently, I mean gently, be with your body's natural system of healing. Holding your index finger is tapping into Source energy. THERE'S a big influence.

Everyone is at varying stages of this emotional cleansing "project." I remind myself to remember my "godself" or as the Ancient Egyptians call it, "the godling" self. If you do not feel good, strong enough, healthy enough and the fear overwhelms you, take it easy for the moment. Even when you are perfectly healthy, fear still creeps in. Whatever is going on, whenever fear comes forth, you can hold your index finger. Hold it all day long if you need to. Be your own testimonial for harmony. Watch the energy shift. Remember what you think about you bring about. Maybe thinking about harmony is a good idea. Ah.

Take care. Take good self-care.

Many blessings,

Barbara J. Semple

Self-Care Expert
www.healingtouchquicksteps.com
www.BeTheHarmony.com
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Copyright (c) 2008. Barbara J. Semple. Entire contents. All rights reserved.

Oprah and Eckhart have catapulted a momentum!

I am feeling a profound energy occurring as we are in the cusp of the Vernal Equinox and Aries Full Moon [Aries - Think strong, forceful enough to spring tulips up from their winter sleep.] I think I have never before felt the magnitude of such unconditional love energy surrounding me, and so I write. 

The thing I love most about my Healing Touch Quick Steps self-help practice (which is a direct off-shoot from my studies of Jin Shin Jyutsu® self-help) is that when I place my hands on my body, or when I give someone an energy healing session applying the art of Jin Shin Jyutsu®, I am touching Source energy, or Universal Consciousness. This is as Big Picture as it gets – Source, the Source of All Life. And the world is becoming aware of this very same Source in a new way.

On the Monday, March 17^th telecast with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle, someone asked “Who are we beyond the mind?” Eckhart responded that no conceptualization is correct. “Here is a hint,” he said. “We are the formless consciousness behind all that.”

I have been participating in the phenomenal 10 week telecast with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle and I am loving knowing that there are 2 million plus people who are focusing at the same time on allowing more and more of their “Big Picture” [my words] Consciousness to be the “Big Doer” [my words] in their lives. I think it was Oprah who said that night that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. Eckhart said he feels it is, “I am the consciousness inhabiting this body.”

Recently, our much beloved Mary Burmeister, Founder of Jin Shin Jyutsu® of the West, returned to the Creator, the Eternal Formless. A student wrote a remembrance of her first class experience with Mary in about 1983. She said, “Mary walked into the room, sat down, put her hands in her armpits and said, “I’m giving my best friend a hug.”  Wow! Ponder that. Was she speaking of her "best friend" as the "consciousness inhabiting her body"? Those of you who have already discovered Healing Touch Quick Steps know that what Mary Burmeister was doing when she crossed her arms and placed her fingers in her opposite armpits is called “The Complete Breath Hug.” Thank you Mary.

Being a long-time and now life-long student and practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu, I learn that we are all alive because the Formless becomes Form AS us. Knowing the formless, that “consciousness that inhabits this body” as Eckhart calls it, could be a really cumbersome thing to do, requiring more of your sometimes limited time and energy, you might think. "It will take me too long to get there," you might think.

Reconsider. Where does one begin? You’ve already begun by reading this blog, by engaging your mind in thoughts of healing and Oneness; reading Eckhart’s book, participating in the telecast, and by including a daily self-help routine of Healing Touch Quick Steps. This is important because when I place my hands on my body and feel the pulsing of energies flowing, moving, changing in the moment, and my body responding in the movement, surface to deep and deep to surface, I am truly having an effortless (key word, effortless) personal experience of a Formless/Impersonal Source. And, I didn’t know that’s what was going on when I first began doing it 17 years ago. Especially tuning in to Oprah and Eckhart, I'm having my own Aha! moments about healing touch self-help. You have access to the very same Source when you apply your hands with Healing Touch Quick Steps self-help, as simply as placing your fingers in your armpits. Try it.

With the magnificent momentum of unconditional love and Cosmic forces that are surrounding all of us and everything on this planet during this particular Vernal Equinox, and your thoughts of the vastness of  the Formless part of yourself, consider this. The generations being born now will reap the benefits of awakened collective consciousness that were started in the 60's and 70's and 80's and so on. They won't need to go through the challenges many of us have already journeyed. That's effortless for the newcomers.

Author Greg Braden says we only need 8,244 people for a critical mass to cause collective shifts in awareness to occur. Translation: A momentum is with you and everyone in the world right now. Think of the Oprah programming, millions of people engaged [a lot more than 8,244], and, the ever-expanding peace movement, and, the increasing global stewarding movement. Like a rocket shot up into space, there is lift in its tail that carries what is behind it upward too. A lot of fabulous vertical energy moving is going on! Think of all of the people who are awakening every moment to the whole body realization of choosing life and harmony among all species. Ah.

Yes, there is chaos with this huge movement of energy, humanity in great flux, and, there certainly is a marvelous movement of goodness “afoot!” No matter what chaos and goodness are going on in the Universe, Cosmos, Gaia, and your own body and little every day world, remember adding Healing Touch Quick Steps is one of the easiest, most effortless ways for you to connect with Source, the Formless consciousness that is inhabiting your body, anytime, anywhere, in a very palpable, ever-expanding way. How great is that? Feel it pulsing. Listen for your harmony. It’s waiting to be heard!

Many blessings,

Barbara

Copyright © 2008 Barbara J. Semple. Entire contents. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

Take Time Out from the Burdens of Your Life

This refreshing story came to me in an email. I do not know who the lecturer is. Here is bright, clean wisdom about the burdens in life. Part of the grace of Healing Touch Quick Steps therapeutic self-healing touch is that when you place your hands on your body and tap into your body's natural system of healing, you can easily unburden and support your whole being without even knowing what all of the burdens are. I encourage you to take time - a minute or 5 for your personal wholeness. Enjoy!

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "how heavy is this glass of water? "

Answers called out ranged from 8oz. to 20oz. 

The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it.  If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all  the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on."

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.  So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can.  Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short.  Enjoy it!"

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

· Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

· Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. 

· Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker. 

· If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

· If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

· It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

·  Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

· Nobody cares if you can't dance well.  Just get up and dance.

· The second mouse gets the cheese.

· Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

· You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

· Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

· A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Take care, take good self-care. Many blessings,

Barbara

Copyright (c) 2007 Barbara J. Semple. All rights reserved.

Exercising Your Unconditional Love Muscle

I believe a loving relationship with a pet can actually improve a person's health and wholeness. When you tap into your body's natural system of healing, you are tapping into the same kind of unconditional, neutral, never ceasing energy that you can experience from a beloved pet or an infant child. What I'm about to share with you is a gift I received from our cat. I didn't learn this from any published scientific journal, though I've read somewhere how a beloved cat or dog in one's life can help balance the human's high blood pressure. My discovery comes from my own sensations after having lost our precious cat a year and a half ago.

Two days before Christmas our dear cat of 11 years passed away. I had never had a pet before, and I had never had the experience of a loved one who lived with me, die. Her passing caused me to realize my "Unconditional Love" muscle. You might recognize this muscle as your compassionate Heart. Yes, the Heart is a fabulous, expanding and contracting "Unconditional Love" muscle. I feel tremendous gratitude to our cat though I didn't recognize viscerally what she really did for me until after her passing. Her presence in my life was unconditional, never ceasing, neutral, without a hidden agenda. My wise friend says that cats come into this world pure and that under normal, healthy conditions (meaning no abuse or meanness), they can remain content in their natural state of purity for a good long life. Cats do need to be supported with food, nurturing and shelter their entire lives, unlike a human infant that eventually grows up to take good care of herself.

Here is how I found my "Unconditional Love" muscle. Each time I remembered my cat, talked about her, smiled about something she used to do, and any memory of her, I felt pleasurable waves of energy radiate out in all directions from the center of my heart in the center of my chest cavity. I felt a palpable radiating movement in and out (that I later would realize was actually love flowing in and out of my heart center), which is very different from placing your hand on your chest and feeling your heartbeat. I never really noticed such a visceral expansion when our cat was alive. It was only when she wasn't there anymore that I recognized that my physical heart space and chest area felt less alive, less active.  It actually felt tight and stagnant, and hurt a little bit.

Logically, my husband and I had no intention of replacing our beloved cat. We didn't want to just get another cat for the sake of having a cat, and we didn't know if we'd be lucky enough to find another that we could love and be as compatible with as we were with our first cat.  Then exactly 49 days after the death of our little sweetheart, we adopted a small abandoned cat from the humane society and dove into a brand new relationship with a totally different and unpredictable little being. We knew that for our health and wellbeing we wanted the multiple times a day, every day of the week, joyful, enlivening expansive waves of radiating movement of our "Unconditional Love" muscles.  We consciously chose wholeness. I am delighted to share, from our own scientific study of reproducing the same effect over and over, that my husband and I are enjoying harmonious rhythm and movement of our "Unconditional Love" muscles - more than we ever thought possible - with our new, very loved cat. We have our first cat to thank for this special gift of awareness her passing brought to us.

When you tap into your body's natural system of healing, you are tapping into the same kind of unconditional, neutral, never ceasing energy that you can experience from a beloved pet or an infant child. I encourage you to experience as many times a day as possible, the graceful, very nurturing active radiating of your "Unconditional Love" muscle especially in a combination of a beloved pet or infant relationship, as well as daily practicing of your Healing Touch Quick Steps hand placements, for a deeply enriching whole being cumulative effect. To love is to heal. To heal is to love. Take care. Take great self-care. Many blessings,
Barbara

Copyright (c) 2007 Barbara J. Semple. Entire contents. All rights reserved.
 

Not Everyone Can Heal

Every human being has the same "built-in" natural system of healing, and yet, some people don't heal. On a spiritual level we are all perfect health, there is no imperfection. And, eating right, thinking and acting right, exercising right, right livelihood and such are no guarantee for anyone that illness will pass us by. With energy healing everyday, a person can still get sick and die. Why such things happen are unknown. It just is what it is. What is thought-provoking is that some people are very good at struggle and strife. People who have a vested interest in being sick and miserable could very well have a difficult time holding on to their suffering when they begin a daily routine of therapeutic self-healing touch of Healing Touch Quick Steps.

Some of the emotional advantages of illness are that you become the center of attention. People help you and give you their time and energy, and they support you when maybe no one ever paid attention to you as a child, or pays attention to you now. Going to physical therapy and doctors might be the only time someone feels cared for or physically touched or special in the world. Maybe you know someone who burns the candle at both ends with work, play and relationships and getting sick or hurt every once in a while is the only way to stop the chaos, to retreat and get some rest. And, it all happens subconsciously. Is it the person's default mechanism for getting through life with a little love and attention, or peace and quiet? Quite possibly.

Of course not every person who gets sick or hurt has a vested interest in being sick. Even if someone's behavior pattern does hold on to illness as a valuable asset, a slight "tweak" to the system (with Healing Touch Quick Steps, for example) may be all that is needed to reinstate harmony for the rest of his or her life. Ever-growing numbers of folks do recognize the messages, learning and (sometimes terrible) gifts from an illness. These people tend to be happily motivated to live and enjoy life to the fullest and they actively participate in their health creation and recovery. If you are a healthy, thriving life "activist," you are the kind of person who may really enjoy the unburdening and uplifting energies that can be felt from regular Healing Touch Quick Steps. You not only acknowledge when you might be in your own way and quickly get out of it, you also encourage, welcome and nurture your wholeness.

Consider this. No matter the size or shape or personality of sickness, when you can know a deep peace and harmony that comes through the repetitive involvement in your body's natural system of healing, and ease, grace and joy are a visceral part of who you are in the world, your personal energy enlivens and harmonizes everything around you. Since human beings learn from experience then, as Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Take care. Take great self-care.

Blessings,
Barbara

Copyright (c) 2007 Barbara J. Semple. Entire contents. All rights reserved.
 

Love Your Self with Therapeutic Self-Healing Touch

Knowing how to help your Self is the ultimate knowing of your Self, loving of your Self. It's about the feeling. Knowing isn't a mental thing, it is a whole body-mind-spirit sense. To get to that place of knowing within your Self can take some time, reinforcing the feelings, the understanding, the fulfillment. Someone recently asked me how she could tell if she was coming into harmony. How did she know healing energy was actually happening from the Healing Touch Quick Steps hand placements she was doing for herself? My answer to her explains a little about the 'Knowing of Your Self' through Healing Touch Quick Steps - Powerful Things You Can Do Instantly to Bring Your Body into Harmony®.  

Look, listen, see, hear and feel for your body’s harmony. Sighing and exhaling are simple ways the body releases. Consider looking in the mirror before you begin your daily self-healing touch routine. Then after you’ve completed your “healing energy maintenance” for the day, look in the mirror again. Do your eyes have more sparkle? Is your skin more toned, less puffy or wrinkled? Look for that - sparkle, tone, wrinkle- and puffy-free - harmony.

Some people may not feel anything or notice anything at the moment they are doing self-healing touch. They’ll simply discover later that the symptom or “body message” just isn’t there anymore. When you focus on looking for your body-mind-spirit harmony and you do hear, see and feel a harmonious sensation (the body responding), you are building a relationship and a communication with your body the same way you might continue to refine and improve your communication and language skills with your pet, or life partner - a loved one. The understanding and knowing of the body’s response may take some time, just like love. Continue to apply therapeutic self-healing touch (love?) anyway. Each person’s energy harmony is unique to the individual. Knowing how to help your Self is the ultimate knowing of your Self. What a truly precious gift!

I feel quite surely that regular therapeutic self-healing touch satisfies a basic human need. The founder of the Non-Violent Communication Movement (NVC), Marshall B. Rosenberg, says: "We are all created from the same energy. We all have the same needs." He says that who we are in any moment can be observed at the common denominator level in each of us. What is alive in us in any moment is what 'I'm feeling and needing' in that moment. We all want and need to feel loved and we need to receive feedback from another that we are special, precious and lovable. Here again it's about the feelings.

With daily, dedicated time (before you go to sleep at night or before you get out of bed in the morning, for example) for your own Healing Touch Quick Steps - Powerful Things You Can Do Instantly to Bring Your Body into Harmony®, you give to your Self what millions want someone else to give them - love and respect.  Being with your Self, paying attention, devoted to your wholeness, feeling the pulsing of your life force flowing through your body, exhaling, sighing, inhaling, feeling unburdened, enlivened, uplifted, strengthened, peaceful - this practice can only lead to self-love, self-knowing, self-appreciation - the very things we all want and need. And, YOU are the catalyst for this deep peace and joy in your own life. 

Consider learning to love your Self through therapeutic self-healing touch. Start with 5 minutes a day and work your way up to an hour a day - just for your Self. Experience for your Self the feeling of being well-loved. What will the Law of Attraction bring into your life from that place of love and respect for your Self? Certainly something harmonious! Take care. Take great self-care.

Blessings, Barbara J. Semple

Copyright (c) 2007 Barbara J. Semple. Entire contents. All rights reserved.