Tips for releasing Anger.....

Blessings and welcome to my latest blog.

It seems to me that out of all the emotions; anger is one of the ones that has carried a bad reputation. Many people feel more comfortable expressing any other emotion rather than expressing their anger. Why is that you may ask? I would say that a lot of one’s beliefs and reactions to anger come from their childhood experiences.

Anger was much more covert in my family. No one admitted or acknowledged they were angry although you could feel it a mile away. This was much more confusing to me than if it had just been opening expressed in a responsible manner (not hurting another). The other side of anger is the overt or violent side. This is a hard one to deal with and to overcome. For those people who grew up with violence or overt anger, either end up being afraid of confrontation, not wanting to express it or have trouble keeping their anger from being aggressive.

So how can we understand and look at anger in a whole new healthy way?

You will find that the more you learn to express your anger in a positive manner, the more passion you will feel in your life. I would like to give you some helpful steps for dealing with anger.

Step 1  Become more aware of your anger and what you are really upset about. It is important to look at what was triggered for you and if it brought up any old memories.

Step 2  Write it out.  Sometimes it is hard to know when we are angry because we have become used to pushing it down and ignoring those feelings. To help you understand yourself better, start writing down whatever you may be feeling and even start with writing down all the things that make you angry without judging your self for it.

Step 3  Take responsibility for your anger. Learn how to express it without hurting yourself or taking it out on someone else. Some of the ways I suggest include:

• Talking it out with a neutral party, which can be a colleague, friend or therapist.
• Exercise it out in whatever way works for you. Do something physical like yoga, walking, jogging, swimming, doing weights, aerobics etc.
• Get a punching bag, if you feel you need to hit something.
• Sing it, dance it out and as 2 year olds do, tantrum it out.
• Be as creative as you can with expressing your anger.

Step 4  FORGIVE yourself and others for the times that anger was expressed in a non-productive way. We are doing the best we can and this is how we can learn what works for us and what does not. When we do not forgive ourselves and others for the past, it is hard to take steps forward and these feelings are carried into the future and can affect all aspects of our life.It is hard to move on and have a positive life if we are holding on to past hurts and events....

Step 5  Be gentle, loving and patient with yourself and know that there is a lot to learn and understand about yourself and about the emotion of anger and the more aware you are, the more you will learn and grow passionately. Find more things to laugh about and start to simplify your life....

 It is important to acknowledge how we are feeling and to be still and look at what is underneath the feeling.

Do not make your self wrong for how you are feeling....Emotions are energy that needs to move. When it does not move, we get sick..

See my book, Spiritual Medicine for more tips and info. Kundalini yoga has certainly helped me to be more balanced emotionally. It is good to have a daily physical and spiritual practice.

My healing sessions also help to move the energy out of the body and help you to be more balanced

Remember to Breath deeply....I would love to hear from you.

Peace and blessings, Laurie

http://www.laurielevine.com/

Maintaining Health and Wellbeing

Hi and welcome to this next blog...

Would love to hear from you and find out what you would like info. on or to read about...

In this very busy life that we are living, it is no wonder that we feel tired and out of balance some of the time. 

The question is, How can we get everything done we want to and still feel energised and healthy?

One of the first steps is to become more aware of how we breathe and to find ways to get more balance into our hectic lives.

How are you breathing right now?

As a healer and holistic therapist, I have noticed over the years how shallow most of us breathe and how breathing this way can affect our health, vitality and emotional balance.  I can say that I have had to really work on improving my breathing over the years and to change such an unconscious pattern, I had to write reminder notes to myself in order to focus my attention on  my breathing and to practice different types of breathing exercises on a daily basis.

About 5 years ago I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had my thyroid removed, due to chronic stress and not taking good enough care of myself. Getting cancer was quite a shock at first and was definitely a wake up call for me to stop, listen and fill myself up again. After this experience, I decided to become a kundalini yoga teacher so I could not only continue to improve my health and wellbeing but to help other women and men as well to do the same. This certainly has changed and improved my life along with my daily spiritual practices.

Chronic stress plays a big part in affecting our health and wellbeing on all levels including our glands and other systems.  Our glands are the guardians of our health. We age much faster when our glandular system is affected.  It gets affected by all that we do and not having enough balance in our lives.

Where is your life out of balance?

Who we are, what we think about and feel about and the way we breathe all affects our endocrine glands.

I would like to share with you some pranayam exercises from Yogi Bhajan you can practice on a daily basis to give yourself an energy lift as well as help you to feel calmer, have better concentration and cope more easily with stresses of daily life.

To Energise Yourself: sit with a straight spine either in a chair or on the floor. Block your left nostril with your left thumb. Keep the other fingers straight up like an antennae. Take 26 long, deep breathes; breathing into your belly, bring the breath up to your solar plexus and then up to your collar bone through your right nostril. Then inhale through both nostrils and relax for 1-2 minutes or longer if you can.

To Feel More Calm: When you are feeling overanxious. stressed and nervous and want to feel more calm and balanced, sit with a straight spine and block off your right nostril with your right thumb and keep the other fingers straight up. Take 26 long, deep and complete breaths through your left nostril. Then inhale through both nostrils and relax for a few minutes

Practice long deep yogic breathing every day for at least 3-5 minutes and then increase the time as you are able. Imagine you are breathing into 3 balloons.  Breathe deeply into your navel centre and then bring your breathe up to your diaphragm and then up to your collarbone and then exhale all the way out. This will get much more oxygen into your blood cells and body. Imagine breathing out all of your stress and tension with your exhale and breathing in energy, light and peace with each inhale. This will begin to not only improve your energy levels but your health and wellbeing as well.

Kundalini Yoga was brought to the west in the 1960s by Yogi Bhajan from India. Each class combines postures, breath, chanting, meditation and relaxation to give the student a full experience of healing and rejuvenation for body, mind and spirit.  It is a non-stressful way to promote flexibility, cardiovascular capability, and to cultivate energy, serenity, personal power and spiritual awakening.

No matter how stressed or tired you are feeling when you come into the class; afterwards you will feel much more peaceful and re-energised. This yoga brings you back to a deeper place within yourself. 

There are teachers world wide. For Australia/New Zealand, visit: kundalini yoga association - KYTANZ

You can find out more at:  www.laurielevine.com  & http://www.positivelivingspiritualcentre.com/

Laurie is also on facebook 

SAT NAM - Truth is my identity
Peace and blessings, Laurie

Love the Skin your in....

Happy Valentines Day...
This is a great opportunity to become more loving and forgiving of ourselves...Start now as this is the only moment. Begin to be open and willing with each breath you take to send love and light into your being!
We as human beings seem to be so hard on ourselves, don't we?
We are our worst critics and enemies. Boy if we treated others like we treat ourselves we would not have many friends or people wanting to be with us...
In order to have loving and healthy relationships with others we must first have it with ourselves.
Our human journey is to love the skin we are in or at least start by learning how to accept ourselves for the good and so called bad bits...
Stop in this moment and I invite you to make an agreement with your self to be much more aware and conscious of your beliefs and thoughts about YOU....If you catch yourself thinking of doing an action that is not loving and supportive of you, then stop and ask yourself
"WHAT CAN I DO OR SAY IN THIS MOMENT THAT IS MORE LOVING?"
Look at the areas that you can be more accepting of your self. Maybe you dont like a part of your body or how your hair looks or that your nose is too big or you are not smart enough...
We are the only one's who can change how we see ourselves....Put on some new glasses today and start to affirm a new positive way to accept, see and love yourself.
Buy your self a chocolate or rose or a love card; something you would like to receive....it starts with YOU.
Take several deep breaths and daily affirm:
I am open and willing to seeing myself in a brand new loving way and
I love myself just the way I am !!!!

For more ways to love yourself see my book, Spiritual Medicine
Peace and blessings, Laurie

living with pain - living through pain

Namaste and Divine Blessings to you,
I wanted to go to a deeper more personal level with this blog. I have always felt that as a Spiritual Healer & Teacher it is important and my duty to share personal things as to beable to relate to the journey we are all on....We are all connected and can all help each other grow and know we are not alone by sharing our experiences and ourpain....
Things happen to all of us and it is how we deal with those things that makes all the difference.
Everything that happens is an opportunity to grow and learn more about ourselves.

Pain is an interesting topic. We all have experienced pain in one sort or another. It might be physical pain, or mental pain, emotional pain or even spiritual pain. For some reason there seems to be shame around sometimes expressing our pain.
As a healer and intuitive I always felt that pain was our bodys way of communicating with us by getting our attention and letting us know something is out of balance and needs our attention.
I have had vaginal pain for most of my adult life and mixed with that has been shame around it. I am sure it is a mixture of my muscles tightening or what the Medical community call vaganismus along with emotional blockages from past sexual trauma. I know for many of us there is shame or embarrassment around discussing sexual matters. I believe  that as we do we begin to free ourselves from those old patterns. The truth for me is that having intercourse has mostly been a painful experience and much worse since I have been going through menopause. It is freeing to talk about it now as I see this as an opportunity to heal at such a deeper level and to be more patient and loving with myself. 
I would like to hear from others experiencing similar situations. This is a subject that is not so easy to speak about but is happening to many women. We might be able to help support eachother with sharing our experiences and things that have helped us...
I know that the more I can lighten up and relax around this, the easier it becomes.

In my healing sessions and workshops I have taught people that the answers are always inside of us. One way to find out what is happening is to sit still, close your eyes and tune into the pain area in your body and ask what it needs from you. What message does it have for you?
You may not hear it right away, but be patient and be open to get a message which you might think your mind is making up...Send loving energy and light into the area that is painful and most importantly breathe deeply into that area.

Till next time
Peace and blessings, Laurie
http://www.laurielevine.com/
Visit me on facebook under laurie levine
and positive living spiritual centre...