Practical Meditation

It is theorized that time is relative. Certainly, our perception of time is relative. We sometimes listen to music while we walk, run, perform aerobic exercises or lift weights to stay in shape. The music helps to take our mind off the monotony of the routine. This is a subtle form of hypnosis we utilize to influence our perception of time.

For writers, the act of mentally composing an article topic or even a scene in a book works especially well in this task. Often, my hour-long walk each day seems over before it began as I play over each sentence of my topic in my head. Also, the clock can seem to come to a dead stop during jobs that require little brain stimulation. Mentally detailing every aspect of a hobby or personal project can help make the time fly by.

Listening to binaural beats before sleep is a relatively new technique I have adopted. Often while lying in bed, I find that my mind is racing. Although I am physically exhausted, I cannot seem to settle my mind to drift off into sleep. Listening to binaural beats for 30 minutes before sleep helps to provide a gentle distraction to quiet my mind.

When I feel myself getting drowsy I simply remove my ear buds and roll over. Moments later, I am fast asleep. Some very effective audio tracks of binaural beats can be found online. Visual projection is a somewhat advanced technique in meditation. It involves seeing what you want on the blank canvas of your mind. I frequently do this while listening to binaural beats.

It takes practice, but given time, you can paint a living portrait of your goal. This only serves as a means to strengthen your resolve toward that goal. Coincidentally, visual projection also leads us into our next technique of directed dreaming. Some of us have developed a mental block in which we cannot remember our dreams. It is said that, although we all dream, we may not always be able to remember our dreams.

Visual projection evolves into directed dreaming by playing out a scene of your goals in your mind like a movie. It is more like day dreaming, except you do this just before sleep while lying down with your eyes closed. Often, you will find that your movie will become a recurring dream reinforcing your goal on a subconscious level. Whether you remember it or not makes no difference, the positive effect is the same.

Perhaps you may scoff at the effectiveness of these techniques and the value of your dreams. But keep in mind, everything we have created around us as a civilization began as a dream that evolved into a visionary idea. We become better at performing new tasks by doing them repeatedly.

In these techniques, you are merely mentally going through the motions of making your dreams come true each night. Just like the ways we learn to more efficiently perform the routine tasks in our day-to-day lives, through the repetition of practical meditation, we find more efficient ways to accomplish our goals.

Image Credit:

Pagan_meditation2-Wikimedia-Commons-CC-BY-3.0-Dedda71-Own-work.jpg

Melodies of the Mind

For those suffering from deep emotional pain, expressing that pain can be difficult. A unique meditation technique is to imagine the sound of your emotions. When we are distressed, depressed or emotionally drained, meditation can help. But perhaps you have not thought to imagine a melody to describe the way you are feeling at the moment.

With practice this is a relatively easy trick to perform. Maybe you already know a song that makes you feel better when you are feeling down. Rather than literally listening to this song, try imagining it with mediation. Feel how it plays in your mind and how your emotions are affected by it.

Don’t be surprised when the song evolves into something completely original. In this act you have composed an original piece of music in your mind. Knowing how to read sheet music is central to getting this composition out of your head and into the real world. Do not take this lightly. This composition is a real representation of the emotion you were feeling. Name the composition according to the emotion you were feeling and keep it in a safe place.

Music is a powerful expression of emotion. Knowing how to write and play music is an effective way to overcome emotional issues. Some believe that within every person is a specific sound. Knowing the instrument that produces that sound is key to selecting which instrument we should learn to play. The sound of the emotions you hear in your mind may be that of a piano, a guitar, a horn or even a drum.

There is an inherent peace that comes with striking the emotional chords of the mind. The music you create is a unique expression of you. Mentally playing out the music of how you are feeling can have a calming effect even if you do not consider yourself a musically inclined person.

Learning to play your chosen instrument can also have a calming effect. Expressing that music physically, even if all you can do is hum the notes, can be a rare gift to yourself.

Reference:

readsheetmusic.info

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 This is a written sketch for “Radio Noise 24″, by PolyNeon. All rights belong to Dywane Thomas Jr.

Detachment Parenting

I have been seeing a lot of literature on a relatively new trend in parenting with an emphasis on what is called detachment parenting. Generally speaking, detachment parenting only warns against parents becoming overly obsessive in the lives of their children. In its intended purpose, detachment parenting is a healthy and positive approach to parenting which addresses the issues of the parent more so than the child.

It does not condone willful emotional neglect as a parenting strategy. Detachment parenting is a sound approach to parenting, but has inadvertently, shed light on some questionable established parenting strategies. There are many books written on various strategies to help guide parents in the sometimes trying task of raising an emotionally healthy child.

The obvious problem with all of these strategies is that every child is unique and one strategy may not be ideal for every child. Controversial examples include allowing an infant child to cry rather than pick it up. Although children do learn to experiment with power plays at a young age, it is not known if infants have developed the scruples to use their screams and howls as a tool to manipulate their parents. Infants can only cry to convey their pain, sickness or fear.

In this regard, parents read the strategy and acknowledge the PhD of the source, but responsible parents would rather be safe than sorry with crying infants. Other published parenting strategies would seem to suggest that children are simply small adults. Disciplinary methods, developing a rapport, even the topic of sex and drug education have admittedly, acknowledged shortcomings. The problem suggests that child brain development is a factor in the effectiveness of raising a child.

Responsible parents acknowledge the PhD of the sources and address these methods, rapport and the topics of sex and drugs by focusing on the well developed aspects of the child’s brain. These include, competition, peer recognition and consequence association. An emphasis on teaching general responsibility and leadership encompasses many of the lessons we wish to teach our children.

Without flying in the face of the entire body of established parental research by accredited and noted child psychologists, we have simply suggested a few objective considerations. As a general rule, responsible parents acknowledge the sources of suggested parenting strategies, but also acknowledge there is no child in the world like theirs.

Reference: 

Benign Neglect - An anthropologist looks at contemporary parenting, by David F. Lancy, Ph.D.

Image Credit: Creative-Commons-Attribution-2.0-Generic-license – Attribution: “Mike” Michael L. Baird

Planning for College

Education in our society is highly structured and controlled. In many ways it can be described as a train taking a select few bright young minds to a predefined destination. For those fortunate to have access to the best education our society can offer, the destination may not necessarily be where you want or need to go.

For the rest of you with your whole life ahead of you, you must seek to gain the knowledge on your own. What do you want to be when you grow up? Are your goals for your future realistic? Are you prepared for the reality of the career of your dreams? These are perhaps the most important questions associated with your hopes and dreams for the future.

The time to answer these questions begins long before you start sending in applications for college. In today’s world, the appropriate time is to address these questions in Jr. High. Ideally, you should have at least three options for your chosen future dream career. After school and summer should be your time to get a feel for the reality of what it will be like to work in these fields.

Volunteering your time as an intern in your perspective career field gives you valuable insight to separate the dreaminess from the reality of the field. Often, your high school counselor and principal can help set up your internship with local agencies.

You may not be able to intern as a potential fighter pilot or astronaut. However, you can apply for the special programs offered by aerospace agencies for students interested in these career fields. Aptitude tests can be a daunting first glimpse into your chances for testing high enough to meet the educational challenges required to pursue your dream career. Don’t let aptitude tests dissuade you from your goals. Use those scores as markers in the areas you need to improve.

If you are really serious about your future, your aptitude and placement scores can be a valuable tool in helping you realize that goal. Unfortunately, even in a nation that prides itself upon the principles of freedom and equality, the wealth of human knowledge remains inaccessible to the majority of us who cannot afford it. There are opportunities for scholarships, but these are competitive.

There simply are not enough scholarships available for every qualified student. Access to an education is arguably the biggest obstacle between you and your dreams. Fortunately, the advent of the Internet is changing that as well for those tenacious enough to search for the knowledge.

Reference:

U.S. Department of Education

Image Credit: Alumni_Hall_1889_Sun Alumni Hall 1889 Sun Public Domain Author Ericci8996

Loss and the Mourning After

The emotions we feel at the loss of a friendship are not unlike those we feel when mourning a death. This is especially true when the circumstances deem no possibility of reconciliation. These situations present a unique emotional dilemma. The identity of the victim is not clear. The one ending the relationship may consider themselves the victim. The one who must accept the end may consider themselves the victim.

Ties are severed and rapport is denied. Often, this results in the denial of closure for one or both parties. In this, perhaps it can be said the ending of a cherished friendship is worse than the death of a loved one. This would explain why the mourning of a lost friendship can last longer than the death of a loved one.

We can understand death, it is the true finality. We may not always be able to understand the reasoning of our friend’s decision to sever us from their lives. Perhaps our actions merited the verdict of a life long sentence. This does not preclude us as the accused from suffering the sentence. We become imprisoned by the memory of it.

We cannot hope the friend will pardon us; they have often tossed away the key and moved on. We can, however, pardon ourselves. If we do not deserve a pardon based upon rehabilitation, we can at least merit an early release on good behavior.

It can be argued that we as the accused, bear the weight of our nature as sociopaths. I purposely use this term sociopath because it is largely rejected by the psychiatric community as being too broad in its descriptive of the human condition. We tend to label others too broadly, as well.

Can one who mourns the loss of a friend over the course of a lifetime be considered maleficent? Or is one who can so easily sever a friendship with little or no regard for the suffering of the other more accurately diagnosed a psychopath?

So often, articles are written from the high road perspective of the one who should end a relationship. We often recommend that a healthy decision would be to sever ties with the accused and move on for the sake of our own sanctity. How wonderful our world would be if there were in fact, so many of you sanctified as opposed to us very few maleficent sociopaths. In that near perfect world would be fewer wars, crimes, and atrocities.

 Reference:

PsychCentral.com – “8 Steps to Closure When a Friendship Ends,” By THERESE J. BORCHARD  Associate Editor

Image Credit: Best_Friends!_(7573267890) Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license Author Paul Lucas UK

The Irresponsible Me

Growing up, it seemed every family discussion was about money or religion. Saving money, spending money or wasting money, was our father’s favorite topic of discussion. I have said before, that given three minutes our mother would change any topic to religion. Well, my father would change that topic to money within one minute following. As we grew into adulthood, our wasteful spending of his money evolved into our irresponsible spending of our own money.

What should be noted here is that my father was born in the latter depression era. His father experienced the depression first hand and raised a family through it. They existed in dire poverty which was considered fortunate for them during that time.

For my father, matters of finance are intimately tied to his sense of safety and security. It never seemed to matter if we were doing well or struggling, my father’s outlook was that one could never have enough financial security. He also firmly believed that no man could ever achieve financial security working for another. “You have to make your own mark in this world. Let that man make his own.”

So, my brothers and I walked a narrow path of approval in our father’s eyes. If we were employed, we should have been working toward self employment. When we were self employed, we should have been saving our money. What I know now is that caring about money was how my father cared about everything else.

This concern for our financial security was how he showed he cared about us. It mattered deeply to him that we take matters of personal finance to heart. Often our parents will nag us about money. We come into a small windfall and perhaps, we splurge a little. We treat ourselves for a job well done. Our parents may frown on this. But we should remember this is how they show they love us.

How will we show our children we love them when they are out into the world? Perhaps you sometimes find yourself nagging your own grown children over matters of finance. You may want to include that you only do so because you care deeply for their security and that you love them.

Image Credit: Wikimedia-Commons-Creative-Commons-Attribution-2.0-Generic-license  Author Flick user Jacob Botter

Prisons of Ourselves

Many of us suffer from generalized anxiety, myself included. This anxiety can manifest itself as fear, guilt, worry or sadness depending on the situation. The trigger can be nondescript and the onset can be quite severe. 

Our initial knee-jerk response is a sort of forcible deniability. The result is the emotional equivalent to forcibly holding in a sneeze. The overwhelming feelings of anxiety disburse throughout and leave us feeling emotionally spent and defeated. Medication helps, but does not address the underlying condition.

We may not be able to overcome the fear that we experience in social settings. It is said that we are all mere products of our own combined neuroses. If this is true, we do not need to fear the judgment of others because they are just as emotionally vulnerable as we are. We can make room for the fear rather than become forced out by it.

We acknowledge it, but need not react to it. Our social anxiety is performance based and we need not perform for anyone. Should we have to perform, such as public speaking, this is an act we perform for ourselves rather than for the scrutiny of others.

People in potentially hazardous professions often confront fear and anxiety, but most persevere with a resolve of knowing what is right. Our anxiety does not render us incapable of knowing right from wrong. Making ourselves prisoners of our own anxiety is self destructive and wrong.

Don’t wait for a safe time to act on your goals. Keep in mind that every act may be defined by some degree of fear and anxiety. So in this, there will be no safe time to begin. We may not be able to control our feelings, but we are in control of our behavior to some degree.

Quite often it is easier to reign in how we react to anxiety than to the anxiety itself. Goal oriented thinking allows us the ability to become autonomous. Counseling, and in some cases medication, can be beneficial in assisting us to overcome generalized anxiety. But perhaps, the best therapy lies in our willingness to learn from our feelings rather than being bullied by them.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons CC ASA 2.0 Author Liam Quinn from Canada