healing | Ascension Lifestyle

25 Dec 2021
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Distant Healing — The Heart-Opening Technique

Many meditators, healers and people of goodwill are attracted to the idea of distant healing — that in meditation, contemplation and prayer we can help relieve suffering and pain at a distance.

But how exactly do we do this? I will share with you one golden rule, briefly list the most well-known techniques and then describe the strategy that I prefer.

First, The Golden Rule

This is simple: Distant healing must always be done in a relaxed, calm and loving way. Otherwise, you may be sending agitated vibrations and energies. In particular, you need to monitor that you do not have any neediness that there be a healing.

If we are needy for healing, then we radiate neediness. Not useful. So stay calm. The keynote is compassionate equanimity.

The most well-known distant healing strategies are:

Kind thoughts
Sending healing energy (keep to the golden rule above and check you are not interfering)
Praying for help and intercessions from whichever tradition, gods, spirits, angels, saints, gurus, etc., who are in your culture.

Then there is the heart-opening strategy that I prefer to use.

I like it because it is relevant to both suffering and the causes of suffering. It is also realistic about the fact that some illnesses and distress are chronic and long term, and that death is an inevitability.

This strategy is simple. It is in a sense, a visualization, a calm expectation that the hearts open of those who are suffering.

In the same way, the hearts open of those who create suffering.

In a calm state of compassionate contemplation, bring any person or situation of suffering into your loving awareness.

May your heart be open. May your heart be open. May your heart be open.

When someone’s heart opens, they move into a different mood. They connect with the benevolent flow of the universe. Their emotions and minds become more accepting and kinder. Healing at all levels becomes more accessible. Space is created for waves of grace.

There are other ways of practicing this that may better suit you.

If for example you have a Christian background, then you may prefer some wording like this, which has the same effect: May the Christ within you awaken. Or May the Christ consciousness in you be fully awake.

From a Buddhist background, you might feel more at home with: May the Buddha within you awaken. Or May the Buddha consciousness in you be fully awake.

Of course, you are free to adapt the wording in whatever way works best for you.

Within the Buddhist tradition there is also the foundation prayer of Om Mani Padme Hum often translated as “the Jewel in the Lotus.” In many respects, this is a heart awakening mantra. Each of us is a lotus, a beautiful flower with stems beneath the water and roots deep into the earth. And within us is a jewel. Perceive it. Let it be fully present.

Again, this is congruent with the Hindu greeting of Namaste. I greet the soul within you. I greet your soul. I greet the Christ within you. The Buddha within you. The Goddess within you. All of these facilitate heart-opening.

Some people may prefer to work with the chakra system. You can sense-visualize-imagine the love petals of someone’s heart chakra opening with compassion and wisdom.

I use this heart-opening approach when, in meditation, I send healing to the dictators and politicians who are oppressing their peoples. I sense their hearts opening. May your heart be open. I greet your soul.

Similarly, I use this strategy when contemplating those who are suffering with pain and fear.

May your hearts be open. I greet your soul. Om mani padme hum.

Softly, gently, empathically, connect with suffering and sense heart-opening.

As always, you as an individual practitioner can explore and feel your way into the approach that is authentic for you.

Remember, too, to practice basic health and safety. Your fuel, inspiration and safety come from your connection with spirit, by whatever name you call it. At the end of any healing, bring your focus fully home to your own body and close your energy field like a flower at night closing its petals.

I honor and respect activists who work on the front lines to relieve suffering and create safe space for all life to grow and fulfill.

I also honor and support the meditators, contemplatives and prayer-workers who work with distant healing.

About the Author:

William Bloom is Britain’s leading author and educator in the mind-body-spirit field with over thirty years of practical experience, research and teaching in modern spirituality. He is founder and co-director of The Foundation for Holistic Spirituality and the Spiritual Companions project. Visit www.williambloom.com

Original article here

20 Dec 2021
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Why You Need to Protect Your Sense of Wonder — Especially Now

We may be slowly returning to our offices (more or less), but the strains of the pandemic are hardly over. As we enter a transitional stage after almost two years of trauma and strain, more than ever we need ways to refresh our energies, calm our anxieties, and nurse our well-being. One potentially powerful intervention is rarely talked about in the workplace: The cultivation of experiences of awe. Like gratitude and curiosity, awe can leave us feeling inspired and energized. It’s another tool in your toolkit and it’s now attracting increased attention due to more rigorous research.

As a physician and a psychologist, we have facilitated hundreds of resilience and well-being workshops both before and during Covid for the military, physicians, educators, law enforcement, and in the business world. Helping participants to explore, experience, and recall moments of awe is one of the key scientifically supported strategies we engage in during our workshops and it’s been rewarding to see our participants benefit and bring what they’ve learned to their own organizations.

Awe and Its Benefits

University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross defines awe as “the wonder we feel when we encounter something powerful that we can’t easily explain.” Often the things which bring us awe have an element of vastness and complexity. Think of a starry night sky, an act of great kindness, or the beauty of something small and intricate. During your workday the colors of the leaves outside your office or an act of sacrifice by a colleague could prompt a similar feeling — especially if you are attuned to it. In the United States and China especially, experiences of awe are frequently related to the virtuous behavior of others: an act of dedication, skill, or courage.

Cultivating experiences of awe is especially important and helpful now as we renew our energy and make plans for a more hopeful future. That’s because beyond physical effects like tingling and goosebumps and a lowered heart rate under stress, awe also affects us emotionally. One experimental group, when asked to draw pictures of themselves, literally drew themselves smaller in size after having an awe experience. Such an effect has been termed “unselfing.” This shift has big benefits: As you tap into something larger and your sense of self shrinks, so too do your mental chatter and your worries. At the same time, your desire to connect with and help others increases. People who experience awe also report higher levels of overall life satisfaction and well-being.

Let’s look more closely at the effects on stress and resilience. Experiences of awe are associated with lowered levels of reported stress and recent experimental research suggests that this may be a causal relationship: That awe can actively help reduce stress. Recent research using fMRI has also shown that experiences of awe, such as watching awe-inspiring videos (compared to neutral or pleasant videos) decreases activity in the brain’s default mode network (DMN), which is associated with self-focus and rumination. The result is decreased mental chatter.

Awe’s benefits extend beyond stress relief, however. Research has shown that experiencing something bigger than us helps us transcend our frame of reference by expanding our mental models and stimulating new ways of thinking. This can increase creativity and innovation, and facilitate scientific thinking and ethical decision-making.

It also helps us build relationships. Though feeling awe frequently happens in solitude, it draws us out of ourselves and toward others and inspires pro-social behavior like generosity and compassion. Some scientists theorize that it has evolved to aid group cohesion and provide survival advantages. For work groups experiences of awe can lead to increased collaboration, team building, and social connection.

There are many ways you can cultivate experiences of awe during the course of your workday.

For Individuals

A simple and powerful way to experience awe if you can step away from your desk is to take an “awe walk.” Take twenty minutes to wander and be curious and observe the everyday beauty around you, even in a familiar place like your yard or neighborhood. In our workshops, this instruction helps people to notice others, as well as places and things they might typically rush past — a bee flitting from flower to flower, for example. Afterwards our participants report feeling inspired, calmer, and better able to focus.

Even better, take an awe-seeking walk in a natural landscape. Research shows that walks in nature, compared to urban environments, have a greater positive effect on our mood and well-being. Nature is an immersive experience of growth and resilience; it can be a powerful source of wonder and awe. Nature’s rhythms also remind us that we are a part of the natural world, and we too are enduring. A CEO of a Michigan technology company one of us (David) has collaborated with schedules frequent bike rides through a landscape of trees and water. Doing so, he feels a part of something larger than himself as well as a boost to his energy and resilience.

If you can’t step away from your desk, take advantage of the wonders at your fingertips on the web. Several studies have shown that videos can stimulate awe. Perhaps you’re inspired by award-winning documentaries such as Free Solo, Planet Earth, or the recent Oscar winner My Octopus Teacher. Let Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb” give you goosebumps. The harmony and complexity of music can also elevate and inspire awe. Create your own personal “awe playlist” of videos or music and when you’re feeling stuck spend a few minutes being drawn into what you’re seeing and hearing. You can also invite moments of awe by asking the simple question “What’s beautiful here?”

Another option is to tune into news sites that spread good news — acts of kindness, generosity, and perseverance. Keep a file on your computer of stories of the goodness, benevolence, and decency of the human race. Tap it when you are feeling overwhelmed or depleted and want to be elevated. A simple story of one person making a difference can inspire others around the world.

For Managers and Teams

If you’re a manager, you can leverage the power of awe to help your team with its energy and resilience and to provide empathy and emotional support. Encourage your team members to share their awe playlists and create opportunities to share experiences of awe by starting meetings with questions like “What took your breath away this week?” or “What made you glad you’re on this planet?” (Contribute your own stories too, and share their impact on you.) In work one of us (Karen) has done with The Oklahoma City Thunder, leaders asked teams to bring personal photos that sparked awe and gratitude. At a team meeting, the photos were projected, and each person spoke about their photo and experience. Meanwhile the health system where David works offers voluntary noontime resilience webinars featuring awe. Individuals from disparate departments who’ve never met come together and share stories of awe in small group zoom rooms. The positive energy after each of these events is evident and elevating.

Managers should watch out for several potential missteps when creating awe experiences for their teams, however. First, what stimulates awe in one person can stimulate feelings of threat or danger in another — if someone with a fear of heights is forced to look at a vertiginous view, for example. Know your team well enough to understand where to draw the line. Secondly, as you encourage your teams to experience awe, keep in mind that it’s an addition and not a subtraction: Adding experiences of awe does not eliminate grief or anxiety; nor does it mitigate the need for teams to talk openly about the challenges they face and the support they need from leadership. It’s normal and healthy to experience a full range of emotions, especially in highly challenging times. It’s imperative that managers offer as much compassion and understanding as they can muster. Finally, don’t mistake intimidation for awe: We’re not talking about developing a cult of power around yourself as a leader — a very different approach which can do more harm than good.

We spend much of our time at work trying to stake our claim and make our voices heard. It can feel counterintuitive to engage in something that might stimulate feelings of “smallness.” But doing so through a positive experience of awe can, in the end, bring us that sense of grounding we’re searching for, along with a multitude of benefits — such as energy, inspiration, and resilience — for ourselves and for our teams.

About the Authors:

David P. Fessell is an executive coach, faculty associate at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and a retired University of Michigan professor of radiology. He writes and speaks on positive psychology and emotional intelligence and is a graduate of the Second City Improv Conservatory.

Karen Reivich is the Director of Resilience and Positive Psychology Training Programs at the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center. She is the co-author of the books The Resilience Factor and The Optimistic Child.

Original article here

14 Dec 2021
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9 Habits That The World’s Healthiest & Longest-Lived People Share

About 20 years ago, working for National Geographic, and with a grant from the National Institute on Aging, I started identifying and studying the longest-lived people, those who are in what we called the world’s Blue Zones. These are people who have eluded heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and several types of cancer.

My goal, in a sense, was to reverse-engineer longevity. Since only about 20% of the average person’s life span is dictated by genes, I reasoned that if I could find the common denominators among people who’ve achieved the health outcomes we want, I might distill some pretty good lessons for the rest of us to follow. I discovered nine powerful lessons—the power nine—that underpin all five Blue Zones. Here they are:

1. Move naturally.

The world’s longest-lived people don’t pump iron, run marathons, or join gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it. They grow gardens and don’t have mechanical conveniences for house and yard work.

2. Find purpose.

The Okinawans call it ikigai and the Nicoyans call it plan de vida; for both it translates to “why I wake up in the morning.” Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy.

3. Downshift.

Even people in the Blue Zones experience stress. Stress leads to chronic inflammation, associated with every major age-related disease. What the world’s longest-lived people have that we don’t are routines to shed that stress. Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors, Adventists pray, Ikarians take a nap, and Sardinians do happy hour.

4. Follow the 80% rule.

Hara hachi bu, the Okinawan, 2,500-year-old Confucian mantra said before meals, reminds them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full. The 20% gap between not being hungry and feeling full could be the difference between losing weight and gaining it. People in the Blue Zones eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening, and then they don’t eat any more for the rest of the day.

5. Eat mostly plants.

Beans, including fava, black, soy, and lentils, are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets. Meat—mostly pork—is eaten on average only five times per month. Serving sizes are 3 to 4 ounces, about the size of a deck of cards.

6. Drink wine at 5.

People in all Blue Zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive non-drinkers. The trick is to drink one to two glasses per day (preferably Sardinian Cannonau wine) with friends and/or with food. And no, you can’t save up all week and have 14 drinks on Saturday.

7. Find belonging.

All but five of the 263 centenarians we interviewed belonged to some faith-based community. Denomination doesn’t seem to matter. Research shows that attending faith-based services four times per month will add four to 14 years of life expectancy.

8. Put loved ones first.

Successful centenarians in the Blue Zones put their families first. This means keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home. (It lowers disease and mortality rates of children in the home too.) They commit to a life partner (which can add up to three years of life expectancy) and invest in their children with time and love (and they’ll be more likely to care for you when the time comes).

9. Find the right community.

The world’s longest-lived people chose—or were born into—social circles that support healthy behaviors. For example, Okinawans created moais—groups of five friends that committed to each other for life. Research from the Framingham Studies shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness are contagious. So the social networks of long-lived people have favorably shaped their health behaviors.

To make it to age 100, you have to have won the genetic lottery. But most of us have the capacity to make it well into our early 90s and largely without chronic disease. As the Adventists demonstrate, the average person’s life expectancy could increase by 10 to 12 years by adopting a Blue Zones lifestyle.

Adapted from The Blue Zones Challenge: A 4-Week Plan for a Longer, Better Life (National Geographic/ Dan Buettner/ Pub: 12/7/21).

Original article here

08 Dec 2021
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Feel Lonely? There Are 4 Types of Loneliness. Here’s How to Beat Them

Have you ever gotten into bed at the end of the day and realised that you haven’t spoken out loud to anyone since the day before? Or simply found yourself feeling completely and utterly alone?

We live in a hyper-connected world, and yet we’re lonelier than ever before, a situation that is certainly not helped by the COVID lockdown. We have more social media followers than real-life friends, and it’s easier to swap digital messages with strangers on the other side of the planet than it is to sit down for a chat with an actual person – especially now that we’re social distancing and putting ourselves in isolation.

Despite being traditionally viewed as an affliction that’s limited to the elderly, it’s now 16-24 year olds who make up the loneliest age group of all, a finding confirmed in the UK’s largest study on the subject, The Loneliness Experiment by BBC Radio 4. The study included over 55,000 people and found that 34% of 25-34 year olds are lonely ‘often or very often’ while 36% of 34-44 year olds felt the same.

Now, scientists are warning of the damaging effects of a ‘loneliness epidemic’, with loneliness even being equated to the health equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

As many of us will know, we don’t need to be physically alone to feel lonely. A toxic friendship or relationship can be incredibly isolating, for example, while spending too much time with people we don’t feel close to can have damaging effects on our psyche, even if we’re only interacting with them through our phones. Loneliness affects people in different ways, and for this reason there are four distinct types of loneliness identified by psychologists: emotional, social, situational and chronic.

But how do we know what type of loneliness we’re experiencing and, more importantly, how can we tackle it? Here, Stylist talks to registered psychologist Dr. Becky Spelman, and hears from women who have experienced loneliness – and managed to keep it at bay.

Emotional Loneliness

“Those who are emotionally lonely will find it difficult to improve things without tackling the root of the problem,” says Dr. Spelman. “Emotional loneliness is not circumstantial but, rather, comes from within.”

Dr. Spelman recommends therapy to help tackle the root cause of these feelings of emotional loneliness. “Working with a therapist, possibly with a technique such as behavioural cognitive therapy, or attending group therapy, is likely to lead to the best possible outcome,” she says.

“The person in question can start to understand why they are lonely, how their background and experiences have contributed to behaviours that make things worse, and how they can develop a new, and more useful, set of behaviours.”

Situational Loneliness

Many Millennials choose to work abroad for a few years in their 20s and 30s, and the rise in solo travel means a great number of us are planning to jet off on solo adventures once the coronavirus pandemic has passed.

While these plans are undoubtedly exciting, it can also be a period of adjustment as we try to make new friends while simultaneously getting to grips with a new culture and way of life — potentially leading to situational loneliness, says Dr. Spelman.

“Situational loneliness can result from being in circumstances that make developing friendships difficult,” she says. “Examples include those living abroad, perhaps in a place where they do not speak the language perfectly, stay-at-home mothers (or fathers) with young children, or those with a physical or intellectual disability that makes it difficult to get out and about.”

Situational loneliness is something that digital writer Susan experienced when she moved to Dubai for two and a half years in 2013.

“When I first moved to the Middle East, I was completely alone,” she says. “I didn’t have a friend or a family member I could call when the going got tough, or even just someone to have a cup of tea with. It was my choice to move there for work. And it was my choice to move there as a single woman. But that doesn’t mean it was easy.

“The first month was particularly difficult as I spent two weeks in a hotel on my own, surrounded by a completely different culture, customs and language. I felt the sting of loneliness as I dined on my own every evening and looked for a flat share — going from one viewing to the next without understanding a word of Arabic. But after I found somewhere to call home, I made friends with my housemates by putting myself out there and never turning down an invitation to do something new. Thankfully, I pushed myself to get to know them and my new country of residence, too.”

But situational loneliness doesn’t just arise in those who relocate alone, as social media editor Sarah discovered when she moved countries with her partner. Sarah left her Sydney home in March 2017 to join her partner in London, where he had arrived a month earlier to start a new job and find the pair a home to live in — although she admits that “didn’t mean it was smooth sailing”.

“On my first night an emotional (jetlagged) me fell asleep whimpering into my partner’s shoulder, ‘I had to give up a lot to be here’. Although very dramatic, I was more right than wrong. I knew making friends as an adult, outside of freshers’ week or a friend-of-a-friend introduction, would be preceded by a stint of loneliness – something I dreaded.

“The reality of that fear set in a week later. Without a job, I had less interaction with people and felt starved of company. I took to being overly chatty to baristas and the person on the till at Sainsbury’s. Each day I would surf LinkedIn and talk about the weather with anyone mildly inclined to respond. I would look forward to my partner coming home after work for the sheer joy of talking to someone who knew me beyond what groceries I was buying that day.”

Sarah did make friends in the city but she is also aware that “having a partner at home slowed my efforts”.

“There would be times I would crave going out with a friend rather than my partner. But the reality was that in those initial weeks he was my only friend in London. And that made me feel tied to him in a way that we never were in our hometown of Sydney.

“It did take a considerable amount of effort to form friendships outside of his friendship circle (formed from his middle-school years in south London). Eighteen months on, I keep working on those friendships outside of my relationship – because I now know how very valuable they are.”

Pushing yourself to make new friends – and crucially, maintain those friendships – is exactly what Dr. Spelman recommends for someone who is grappling with situational loneliness. And while we can’t currently make an active effort to meet new people in person due to coronavirus, there are alternative solutions.

“The best approach here is a proactive one,” she says. Once we are out of lockdown and able to socialise in person again, she suggests “joining a language class or a hobby group or getting in touch with like-minded people and actively courting friendships, to help overcome loneliness in these circumstances.

“The internet can help. While socialising online is not the same as meeting up with friends for coffee or a drink, establishing a support network online can help to maintain a sense of being liked and wanted, and keep social skills alive.”

Social Loneliness

“Social loneliness is typically experienced by those who have problems in social situations because of shyness, social awkwardness, or a sense of low self-esteem that makes them doubt their capacity to be competent and entertaining in social circumstances,” Dr. Spelman explains.

“Different approaches can help. For example, if the root issue is one of low self-esteem, tackling this first should make a positive difference. Trying a structured approach to socialising, such as joining an online or virtual group that gets together to discuss or engage in a particular hobby, can be a good way to start to end a vicious circle.”

Chronic Loneliness

“Chronic loneliness is the term used to describe those who have been lonely for so long that it has become a way of life to them,” explains Dr. Spelman. “If solitude has become part of their nature, it can be tricky to break the cycle.”

Chronic loneliness is something that Lyla, now 26, experienced when she moved to London to start university at the age of 18. Lyla had previously lived in Nottingham where she had a solid group of friends who all lived nearby, and spent a lot of time together. Moving to a new city triggered feelings of loneliness for her, which became entrenched over her first two and a half years in the city.

“It was a really bewildering, lonely time,” she says. “The jump of being plonked into a huge arts school, in just one of hundreds of halls of residence in a sprawling city I didn’t understand, made me retreat into myself and I struggled to make friends in the face of it all.

“I spent a lot of time in my tiny room making my mum talk to me for hours and hours on the phone, while I slowly found my footing and met people I connected with. It took me about two and a half years to learn not to hate London, but sticking it out meant it slowly got better, and nine years later nowhere has ever felt more like home.”

Dr. Spelman notes that chronic loneliness is often a by-product of circumstance, such as self-isolation, although unlike situational loneliness, it can go on for so long that it almost becomes a way of life.

“Examples include the elderly whose friends have largely passed away or moved into nursing care, while adult children live far away, or those who are inhibited from socialising by a controlling partner or other circumstances that feel out of their control,” she says. “It is important to remember that we all deserve friends and a social life and that there is nothing wrong with asking for help or making the first step.”

About the Author:

Sarah Biddlecombe is an award-winning journalist and Digital Commissioning Editor at Stylist.

Original article here

04 Dec 2021
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Want to Boost Your Creativity and Be a Better Collaborator? Think About Why the Sky Is Blue

It’s probably been a long time since you lay on your back in the grass, looked up and wondered, Why is the sky blue? Or since you took the time to consider a question as difficult as, Where does the universe begin, and where does it end?

In 2013, education innovator Sugata Mitra received the million-dollar TED Prize to develop an online learning platform for schoolkids, based around big questions like these. But the big secret is: It’s actually fun for adults. By tweaking Mitra’s idea, you can get in touch with your inner child — while building important skills. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Set aside an hour to recharge your curiosity.

At the heart of Mitra’s School in the Cloud is a simple method known as a SOLE session. SOLE stands for Self-Organized Learning Environment, and it capitalizes on two incredibly abundant commodities: curiosity, and information on the Internet. A session begins with an open-ended, thought-provoking question — for example, What would happen if insects disappeared? or, Why do languages die out? Kids spend 40 minutes doing online research in groups of four or five, sharing one computer and jotting down their findings. Then all the groups come together for 20 minutes and discuss their discoveries.

Why should a busy adult take the time to pursue a blue-sky question like this? Because most of us spend our days living in our own information silos, and it’s good to step outside of them. In pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake, you’ll undoubtedly learn something new — or maybe you’ll revisit a subject you’ve avoided since high school (hello calculus!) and shake the cobwebs off your old learning, or reignite a passion you’d forgotten about. In doing research for the session, you’ll be forced to consult multiple sources and quickly find credible information — skills that are essential for critical thinking. And in the process of working with others, you could pick up tips, whether it’s a keyboard shortcut you never knew existed or a great YouTube channel to follow.

Step 2: To come up with a question, think big — really big.

By the time we’ve reached adulthood, we’ve long since stopped posing knotty, complicated queries — there are just so many more pressing professional and personal questions to answer. “Adults are more curious about the practical aspects of life,” says Mitra. “If somebody says, ‘Here’s a cheaper way to buy a house,’ we’re interested. But if the same person asks, ‘Why do we live in houses? What made us move out of caves?’ that isn’t as intriguing.”

So how can you find your own meaty questions to unpack and explore? The easiest way: Ask a kid, or think of the last stumper — Why do we hiccup? How does a car work? — that a child threw at you. What’s essential is to use a question that no one in the group can answer easily. It’s OK to pick one that’s related to your work, just as long as it’s not one that goes through your mind on any given day. For example, Mitra recently ran a SOLE for school principals in Hong Kong and their question was, What is the future of exams?

Step 3: Agree to disagree.

A SOLE is a safe space to practice what management expert Margaret Heffernan calls “constructive conflict.” Disagreement and friction, far from being forces to avoid, can fuel learning and innovation by making you consider alternate opinions and approaches. Before beginning a SOLE, participants should be reminded to speak their minds and not worry about butting heads, Mitra says. This prompting can help us adults transcend standard politeness, and get us over another potent fear: looking dumb in front of others. “With adults, there’s often an initial period where everybody’s stiff. Someone will say, ‘I’m not very tech-savvy’ or ‘I don’t know anything about this’ and takes a back seat,” Mitra says. Assure people that any and all answers are welcome.

Step 4: Draw on the wisdom of the crowd.

One other major obstacle you may encounter: competition. Many adults are simply accustomed to working solo — to us, working together often means doing our own tasks while colleagues focus on theirs — not, usually, all of us doing the same thing together. If we have the same duties, we tend to compete, consciously or subconsciously. A SOLE, on the other hand, is about discovering and deploying the expertise of the entire group of people. “When ants build a bridge, it’s not each ant working alone,” Mitra says. “It’s a thousand of them building it together.”

In a session that Mitra ran with a group of 15 professors at the UK’s Newcastle University (where he is a professor of educational technology), he spotted a problem right away: “After getting their question, they each took out their computer and started working alone.” His quick fix: He restricted the group to a single computer per small group — the same setup as in the eight School in the Cloud learning labs in India, the UK and the US — and the dynamic changed. “They appreciated the fact that in a group, they could get to a more nuanced answer more quickly,” says Mitra.

Step 5: Repeat as needed.

Besides using SOLE as a team-building exercise at work, you could focus a session on brainstorming potential uses for a new piece of software, device or tool, says Mitra. Another potential application that he is exploring: SOLE in senior centers. At a nursing home in the UK, the participants in a session impressed him with how adeptly they drew on each other’s strengths while researching the question, What will be the effects of Brexit? “In one group, there was one woman and three men. The woman had Parkinson’s and said, ‘My hand shakes too much to use the mouse, but I can read very well,’” recalls Mitra. “So one of the men operated the mouse, and she read out loud.” The group ended up having a lively discussion that pushed far beyond standard answers.

“It’s a strange thing, how our minds change over time,” says Mitra. “Life seems to take away that wild curiosity we have as kids.” This, he says, is a shame. “I’d rather hold on to the big questions.” Wouldn’t you?

Original article here

01 Dec 2021
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December Artist of the Month: Theresa Fitton

Artist Statement:

I live in Kent and my art is inspired by Nature. I paint in most mediums, and you can find me on Twitter @FittonTheresa and Instagram: @fittontheresart

27 Nov 2021
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The seven types of rest: I spent a week trying them all. Could they help end my exhaustion?

“Are you the most tired you can ever remember being?” asks a friend. Well, yes. I have it easy – my caring responsibilities are limited and my work is physically undemanding and very low stakes – but I am wrecked. The brain fog, tearful confusion and deep lethargy I feel seems near universal. A viral tweet from February asked: “Just to confirm … everyone feels tired ALL the time no matter how much sleep they get or caffeine they consume?” The 71,000-plus retweets seemed to confirm it’s the case.

But when we say we are exhausted, or Google “Why am I tired all the time?” (searches were reportedly at an all-time high between July and September this year), what do we mean? Yes, pandemic living is, objectively, exhausting. Existing on high alert is physically and mentally depleting; our sleep has suffered and many of us have lost a sense of basic safety, affecting our capacity to relax. But the circumstances and stresses we face are individual, which means the remedy is probably also individual.

The need for a more granular, analytical approach to fatigue is partly what prompted Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith, a physician and the author of Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, to start researching and writing. “I wanted people to take a more diagnostic approach to their fatigue. When someone comes in and they say they’re hurt, I can’t treat that without having more details: what hurts, where does it hurt, when does it hurt?”

Sacred Rest dates from before the pandemic, when Dalton-Smith’s practice was already full of tired patients. “People would come in saying: ‘I’m tired all the time’, ‘I don’t have energy’ … lots of non-specific complaints. Nothing where you could give them a pill; things that needed lifestyle changes.” Simultaneously, Dalton-Smith was struggling to combine intense career pressure with parenting two toddlers. “I was experiencing some burnout-type symptoms,” she says. The book starts with an extremely relatable account of her lying on the floor, her kids snacking in front of the TV. “I never knew how hauntingly healing cold wooden planks could be,” she writes.

Her fatigue prescription is to incorporate seven types of rest into your life: physical, mental, emotional, social, sensory, creative and spiritual. I am dubious. Sacred Rest has a classic off-putting self-help book cover (a jetty shrouded in mist), talks about the “bread of self-disclosure and the wine of community”, and focuses heavily on God (there’s a clue in the title). Then there is the fact that any attempt to take a break over the past 18 overloaded months has left me feeling miserable and unmoored. I confess this when I speak to Dalton-Smith over Zoom.

“I don’t like resting,” I tell her. “I get listless and sad and feel a failure.” She is not surprised. “For some people, rest is almost uncomfortable. It’s almost as if their psyche fights back against it because of the new sensation.” She would never, she says, recommend a three-day silent retreat to a completely frazzled patient. “For someone who is actively burned out, that’s almost traumatic.”

The book is not, in fact, about that kind of complete withdrawal; it is about incorporating enough moments of rest to stay functional. That may be a depressing indictment of end-stage capitalism: Dalton-Smith is thoughtfully critical of society’s inability to take a preventive approach to its “burnout culture”, commoditising sleep (“It’s a billion-dollar industry, we have speciality pillows, weighted blankets, all of this stuff”) rather than focusing on the root problem. It is, however, refreshingly realistic. I gave the seven types of rest a whirl over a week, to see whether I would feel less tired – whatever that actually means – afterwards.

Physical

As a lazy, desk-based homeworker, I am rarely physically tired. I do, however, get stiff and achy, sit for far too long and pretzel my body into terrible shapes. Dalton-Smith advises incorporating “body fluidity” into my day with hourly small movements. It’s easy and rewarding to set a phone reminder to roll my neck, clench and unclench my hands, or stand up and rock on my heels. Even better is the advice to “choose to be still on purpose for five minutes while lying down.” I do this on the sofa, under a blanket; the hardest part is getting up after five minutes.

I am a poor sleeper, so Dalton-Smith’s “bedroom routine” advice (the usual: dim lights, comfy clothes and no bedtime screens) is mainly stuff I do already. I follow her recommendation to add some stretches before bed; I sleep well the first night but after that I am back to my usual tossing and turning.

Mental

Mental fatigue – that befuddled, nervy, brain-fog feeling; forgetting what I was doing, and missing important things because my concentration is shot – is my constant companion. “Brain like damp Weetabix,” a friend calls it, which feels about right.

It is chastening how easy it is to improve my focus with a basic technique: time spent blocking out “low-yield activities”, such as email and social media, and periods of concentration. It dovetails well with the hourly movement breaks from physical rest, too. I am quickly conscious of how instinctively reactive I am to the most recent – not the most urgent, or the most important – demand; how the chime of a WhatsApp message chips 10 minutes off my concentration, leaving me foggier. I feel idiotic not to have realised this before. Usually when I try something for an article, however beneficial, I abandon it instantly once I finish, but the 25-minute focus, five-minute distraction timers on my phone have become a permanent fixture.

Emotional

Dalton-Smith has an online “rest quiz” to work out your rest deficits; by far my worst score is for emotional rest. It also turns out to be the area I find hardest to address. One suggestion is to identify people who “drain” you; as an introvert, I fear that’s everyone. Another tip is to “risk vulnerability”, against which I have an almost physical reaction: my mask is there for a reason! The third is to “cease comparison”, but comparing myself unfavourably to others is my main hobby. None of these are exactly quick fixes. I probably need therapy, but failing that, I ask Dalton-Smith for help.

She suggests writing down what I am feeling, if confiding in others feels too exposed. I sit in a cafe and write down everything I can think of that makes me feel angry, scared, ashamed and sad. It takes a while and I really hate it: it feels as if I have forced all my worst thoughts to the surface without any plan for what to do with them. Maybe it doesn’t have to feel good to do me good, and maybe if I sustain it for a while, I’ll feel the benefit? I am reserving judgment.

Social

I assumed “social rest” would mean opting out of socialising for a while, but Dalton-Smith’s social rest means spending time with people with whom you can be your unvarnished self.

Thankfully I am seeing my hairdresser this week (as a wig wearer, this is a very rare treat). We have known each other for 25 years and he sees me at my most vulnerable: bald and scared of what he’s about to do with his scissors. He is also wonderful company. Punctuated by the totally misused phrase “long story short, Em”, he treats me to a two-hour monologue on a variety of feuds, scandals and gossip so entertaining I leave feeling more energised than if I had had a transfusion of something unethical in a Swiss clinic.

After that, I have a leisurely lunch with my best friend, the woman who knows my worst qualities and nastiest thoughts. We eat like pigs, lapse frequently into silence, and discuss both really important stuff and the rising tide of water in the bottom of our fridges. It’s deeply restorative. She’s my emotional rest too, I realise.

Sensory

I know exactly what sensory input exhausts me: sound. Almost any noise – the battery bleep from a neighbour’s fire alarm, a distant engine, the bathroom fan – can obliterate my focus (while writing that sentence, I told the dog off for licking himself too loudly). My husband has been a brilliant WFH pandemic colleague, but the man is loud: a volcanic sneezing, expansive yawning, loudspeaker telephoning one-man band. It has been challenging.

This is no surprise to Dalton-Smith. Analysing data from her quiz during the pandemic, she saw “a huge uptick in the number of people who were experiencing sensory rest deficits”. People confined to the house with small children in particular, she says, were exposed to constant noise and even some adults “irritated each other to death. That non-stop hum of somebody talking in the background causes you to get agitated. That’s what sensory overload does to us.”

I am pretty much on top of my noise sensitivity: this article comes courtesy of a “peaceful piano” playlist that masks my least favourite noises without commanding my attention. But this week, I also try to ensure I appreciate the moments of silence when they happen, and to be conscious that when I feel depleted and stressed, noise is often the reason.

Creative

I haven’t had a decent idea for at least two years, so I think it’s fair to say I am creatively burnt out. I instantly love Dalton-Smith’s advice to “build sabbaticals into your life”. That’s not a month-long writer’s retreat; it can be as little as 30 minutes, doing something you choose, away from the grind.

I decide on lunch at my favourite cafe, then a gallery trip. After checking my email on the bus – a mistake – my lunch becomes a working one, as I do an urgent job. But after that the fun starts. I wander slowly around a ceramics exhibition, which is both transporting and inspiring. Afterwards, I drink a hot chocolate as the late autumn light fades, looking at people and shop windows and even having a conversation with a man about his dog. I feel like a different person for a while, as if there is more space in my head. I still have no good ideas, but looking beyond my usual environment and doing something I have chosen feels wonderful.

Spiritual

Dalton-Smith is clear that you don’t need to share her – or any – faith to incorporate “spiritual” rest into your life. “At the core of spiritual rest is that feeling that we all have of needing to be really seen, of feeling that we belong, that we’re accepted, that our life has meaning.” That might come through voluntary work, or other activities.

I have no faith, and finding what gives me those feelings seems a longer-term undertaking. Instead, I turn to the only spiritual thing I know well: a Quaker silent meeting. I was educated by the Quakers, a faith group whose conception of God is simultaneously so expansive and so minimalist (they believe there is “that of God in everyone”), it’s hard to feel uncomfortable about it. Silent meeting – an hour of silence, interrupted occasionally by anyone who feels moved to speak – is the only kind of meditation I can manage. I turn up, get a warm, no-fuss welcome, sit down, and enjoy the silence. Sometimes I examine my thoughts; sometimes I look at people’s jumpers. I can see the blue sky out of a window; mainly I look at that. It’s the deepest peace I feel all week.

Do I feel more rested? I am not miraculously restored and razor-sharp, but that’s not a realistic goal, or even the aim of the book. It is another week of poor sleep, but I feel as if I have a bit more in the tank than usual, which is pleasant. I find it useful, too, to analyse what sort of tired I am, and to have a toolkit to address at least some kinds of fatigue.

Of course, there is an unavoidable flaw in this experiment: I am resting for work purposes. That gives me sort of “permission” to rest, while still, actually, working. Could I embrace rest purely for myself? I should: this is basic maintenance, not self-indulgence. We can’t function forever fuelled by adrenalin and caffeine, fogged brains scrabbling to function, nerves frayed like a cheap phone cable. Sure, we can sleep when we’re dead, but a little rest before that would be nice.

Original article here

21 Nov 2021
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What We Get Wrong About Conversations

Can you chat your way to greater social connection? Five useful steps can help us strengthen ties and avoid mistakes.

“There is no such thing as conversation,” the novelist and literary critic Rebecca West famously wrote in her collection of stories, The Harsh Voice. “It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.” In her opinion, our own words simply pass over the words of others without any profound communication taking place.

Who has not been able to empathise with this sentiment at some point in their life? Whether we’re making small talk with a barista, or meeting up with a close friend, we may hope to make a connection, only to leave the conversation feeling that our minds have failed to meet.

The pandemic has surely heightened our awareness of these sensations. After long periods of isolation, our hunger for social contact is greater than ever – and it is even more disappointing to feel that a void remains between ourselves and others, even when rules of physical distancing have been lifted.

If this rings true for you, help may be at hand. During the past few years, psychologists studying the art of conversation have identified many of the barriers that stand in the way of a deeper connection, and the ways to remove them. Read on for the top five steps to better conversation.

Ask questions

The first step might seem obvious, yet it is often forgotten: if you want to have a meaningful dialogue with someone – rather than two “intersecting monologues” – then you should make the effort to ask some questions.

Consider the research of Karen Huang, an assistant professor at Georgetown University, US. While studying for a PhD in organisational behaviour at Harvard University, Huang invited more than 130 participants into her laboratory and asked them to converse in pairs for 15 minutes through an online instant messenger. She found that, even in this short period of time, people’s rates of question-asking varied widely, from around four or fewer at the low end to nine or more at the high end.

Throughout a series of follow-up studies, Huang found question-asking made a significant difference to people’s likeability. Analysing the conversations at a speed-dating event, for example, she found that the number of questions asked by a participant could predict their chance of securing another meeting.

Not all questions are equally charming: a follow-up that requires more information about a previous point is more appealing than a ‘switch’ that changes topic, or a ‘mirror’ that simply copies what someone has already asked you. Importantly, Huang’s findings suggested that most people did not anticipate the effects of question asking. We enjoy talking about ourselves, but we underestimate the benefits of letting others do the same – to the detriment of our relationships.

Beware empathy

We are often told to place ourselves in other people’s shoes – but our empathy is rarely as accurate as we think it is.

One reason for this is egocentrism. “It’s when I’m using my own experience, my own mental states, as a proxy for yours,” says Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioural science at the University of Chicago. “And we fail to differentiate sufficiently between the two.”

In its most basic guise, this egocentrism can be seen when we point to something in our physical surroundings and fail to recognise that it is out of the other person’s line of view, or when we overestimate someone’s knowledge on a topic that is familiar to us and fail to explain ourselves properly. It may also lead us to think that someone else is feeling the same mood as us, or that they hold the same opinions – whether a preference for a particular restaurant or their views on a controversial topic.

Interestingly, Epley’s research has shown that our egocentrism is worse when we are with an acquaintance, rather than a stranger – a phenomenon called the “closeness-communication bias”. “We often perceive close friends and partners to be similar to us, so we assume that they know what we know,” Epley explains. With strangers, we may be a bit more cautious about making those assumptions.

You might hope to solve this problem with some conscious “perspective taking”, in which you deliberately imagine what the other person is thinking and feeling, based on your existing knowledge of them. Yet Epley’s studies show that in many cases, this practice decreases the accuracy of our social perception, since it still relies on us making assumptions that may not be true. In general, it’s far better to ask someone what they actually think and feel, he says, than trying to divine it.

Favour familiarity over originality

How about our choices for the topic of conversation?

It’s natural to assume that people favour originality; we should always attempt to convey something new and exciting, rather than telling someone something they already know. But these intuitions are off kilter. According to research by Gus Cooney, a social psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, US, we suffer a “novelty penalty” when we discuss something new, compared to a subject that is already familiar to the listener.

During one experiment, participants were placed into groups of three. While alone, each member watched one of two short videos, which either described the intelligence of crows or the creation of specialist soda pops. The trio then met in their group, and one member – the speaker – was asked to describe the video he or she had seen, while the others listened for two minutes.

Surprisingly, the listeners preferred to hear the speaker describing the video they had already seen, while they remained distinctly underwhelmed if he spoke about the unfamiliar clip – despite the fact it was providing fresh information that they had not heard before.

Cooney argues that the novelty penalty arises from the “informational gaps” in our conversation. If we are talking about something completely new, our audience may not have enough knowledge to understand everything that we are saying. If we are talking about something already familiar to our audience, however, the listeners can fill in those gaps themselves.

The novelty penalty might explain why a description of an exotic holiday can often fall flat with your colleagues unless they have been to that location themselves. “When the experience is so vibrant in your head, and you can smell it and taste it and see all the colours, you just assume other people can do it too,” says Cooney.

Cooney suggests you might be able to overcome the novelty penalty with finely-tuned storytelling that helps to create a vivid impression of the events you’re describing. “When you are aware of this, you might try a little harder to bring that experience alive,” he says. Until you’ve perfected your patter, however, it may be safer to pick topics of conversation that lean on shared experiences.

Don’t be afraid to go deep

This need for common ground should not limit our conversation to mundane small talk. On the contrary, many shared human experiences can be incredibly profound, and Epley’s recent research shows that most people appreciate the chance to explore their innermost thoughts and feelings, even if they are talking to perfect strangers.

Epley’s team asked pairs of participants, who had not met previously, to discuss questions such as, “If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, your future or anything else, what would you want to know?”.

Beforehand, most participants feared the exchanges would be painfully awkward – yet the conversation flowed far more smoothly than they had predicted. They also felt a greater sense of connection with their conversation partners than they had thought possible, and this was also accompanied by a happier mood following the exchange. In general, the participants were much more interested in their conversation partners’ innermost thoughts and feelings than each had initially imagined.

“In these deep conversations you get access to the mind of another person, and you get to recognise that the other person actually cares about you,” says Epley. And that can make for a touching exchange of words, even if you will never encounter that person again.

Value tactful honesty over mindless kindness

Imagine, for a moment, you were compelled to talk with complete honesty during every social interaction. How would your relationships fare?

A few years ago, Emma Levine, an associate professor of behavioural science at the University of Chicago, and Taya Cohen, an associate professor of organisational behaviour at Carnegie Mellon University, decided to turn this thought experiment into reality. They recruited 150 participants, who were divided into three groups. The first set were asked to be “absolutely honest” in every conversation, at home and at work, for the next three days; the second set were told to be kind, caring and considerate for the same period, while the final third were encouraged to behave normally.

Most people predict the kind group would have the best experience – while the honest group would struggle to keep their friendships. Yet the honest participants scored just as highly on measures of pleasure and social connection throughout the three days as those who were told to be kind, and often found a lot of meaning in the exchanges.

“It seems like it would be awful,” says Cohen. “But the participants reported being happy to have had the honest conversations, even if they were hard.”

In follow-up experiments, Cohen asked pairs of friends, colleagues or spouses to open up about personal issues – such as the last time they cried or the issues with their current relationship. In each case, the honest communication proved to be far more constructive than people predicted – and the benefits of the candid disclosure on their overall wellbeing continued for at least a week afterwards. “These conversations were having downstream positive effects on the relationships,” Cohen says. “It was a valuable experience.”

It should go without saying that honesty is best served with a healthy dose of diplomacy. Cohen says that you should think carefully about the timing of your comments, the way they are phrased and whether the person will have the opportunity to make use of the information. “Five minutes before the wedding, you don’t need to tell the bride that she looks terrible, right?” There’s no excuse for being a bully, even if you think your insults convey the truth.

When practicing each of these five steps, you should always remain conscious of the other person’s mood and comfort, and be prepared to step away when your conversational gambits are not welcome. But with a little tact, sensitivity and a genuine interest in the people around you, you may often find that greater social connection is easily within your reach.

About the Author:

David Robson is a science writer and author based in London.

Original article here

16 Nov 2021
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How To Start Connecting With Your Higher Self

All over the world, people are awakening to the fact that we are more than bones and flesh. We sense that there is more to life than what we see. The word “consciousness” is losing its unreachable meaning, and we look for ways to go inside ourselves and find inner peace.

How do I connect with my higher self, you may be asking? There are different ways, I will tell you about a few here.

Practicing yoga is very good for your physical body, but also for your soul. There are different types of yoga; all work, and their benefits are widely known and studied by science. If yoga is not for you, practicing Pilates is an excellent alternative. It has helped me with my body and my soul.

Meditation is one of the most powerful tools that exists to connect us with our higher self, with divinity or God, if you want to call it that. I will teach you a very simple way to start meditating:

Sit comfortably, preferably on a chair
Close your eyes and start counting your exhalations every time you breathe
Breathe normally, count to ten and start again
If you lose count, start over
Let thoughts pass and keep counting
Do this for at least 10 minutes a day.

You will see that each time, your attention and concentration improve, and a sense of peace and calm comes over you.

Praying is another way to connect with the divine. Repeating a prayer every day will have the same results as a meditation. It does not have to be a formal prayer; it can be a deep conversation with the divinity. This is also a way of praying.

Mantras are words or phrases that are repeated as litanies to support meditation or to connect with the higher realms. They are used in Hinduism and Buddhism. One of the best-known mantras used by many spiritual leaders, who attribute numerous spiritual benefits to reciting it, is “Om Mani Padme Hum”.

Do you like to sing? Music is a powerful way of connecting with your soul. Of course I mean calm, joyful and restorative music. I know people who go around humming a tune all day, and coincidentally they are always optimistic people.

Activate your inner powers by learning different activation methods, like pineal gland activation and heart activation and breathing techniques. One good and simple breathing technique to start with is to sit down and inhale through your nose in a deep and slow way and exhale slowly through your mouth, relax your shoulders and expand your chest. Do this for 3 to 5 minutes.

What is most important with all of these tools is to stop in your daily life and reflect on where and what we pay our attention to. The important things are within us. We are energy beings, and it is from this knowing that we create our world. Becoming aware of it will necessarily lead us to correct mistakes and create a better world for ourselves.

Take that step ahead. The time is always now.

About the Author:

Veronica Sanchez De Darivas is Chilean-Australian, now living in the UK and a proud mother of teenage twins. A spiritual awakening teacher, bestselling author, pineal gland (third eye) activator and Certified Instructor for the Cyclopea Method, Veronica is currently the only instructor in the world teaching the Cyclopea Method in English.

13 Nov 2021
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Steadfast

There is so much angst in the air these days that we may all be feeling more sensitive, exhausted or even more despondent than usual. So much so, that I feel a lot of folks are at the end of their tether, overwhelmed by the vast onslaught of confusing emotions and free-floating anxiety in the telluric atmosphere.

Steady, folks! Simply ignoring what is unfolding isn’t optional. However, grounding and staying centered in our core Being is a choice we do have, hour by hour, and day by day.

This past Wednesday there was an unusual astrological alignment. At the same time our planet has been undergoing a mid-level geomagnetic storm from more solar flares that erupted last weekend. On Wednesday Saturn and the Moon met up at 7 degrees of Aquarius, and Mars and Mercury joined up at 7 degrees of Scorpio. The Mars-Mercury gang was also opposed by Uranus retrograde at 12 Taurus. This configuration is as rare astronomically as it is astrologically. The message in it is this: “…when push comes to shove”, or “enough is enough”, or “I am tired of this s**t”, or even “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

The manifestations of this seemed to erupt in synchronous fashion globally, but were more focused in the USA, UK and Europe. In the days leading up to this strange square in the sky between Mars in Scorpio (“I’m going to get to the bottom of things, and you can’t make me do what I don’t want to do!”) and Saturn in Aquarius (“You must submit to the mandates or lose your job.”) various unions representing the police, firemen, teachers and health care professionals in the United States started court actions against forced inoculations. Of course, to suddenly try to force anything on these folks, after they’ve been on the front lines for 16 months without the need for such an experimental medical intervention does not make much sense. Nor does it make any sense to risk losing these dedicated people by coercing them into having to choose between their ethics (and perhaps medical or scientific knowledge) and their livelihoods. The video below is about an RN in British Columbia, Canada who is going through this exact scenario.

Here in the U.K., on the very morning of said weird astrological event, the government announced that all NHS and care home employees would have to be vaccinated or be let go. By yesterday morning 60,000 care home staff had been let go, and the care homes informed the National Health Service that they would be unable to accept any patient transfers from NHS facilities. That was standard practice during the early months of lockdown in 2020. Now it is the turn of the NHS frontline staff to choose where they stand. I have spoken privately with some nurses from our local NHS Trust hospital, and they feel it is simply wrong-footed to make the jabs mandatory.

Of course, there are other aspects to these developments, and I although I would like to address them here like bullet points in a lecture, I won’t do that. I’m not here to lecture anyone or tell them what I think they should do, or not do.

After a relatively quiet weekend and beginning to next week, we have a few more rings of fire to leap through. Next Wednesday Mars in Scorpio comes into an exact opposition with Uranus in Taurus retrograde. This occurs at 12 degrees of each sign. The energy of any Mars-Uranus aspect is volatile, unpredictable and intense. I know because I live every day with Uranus square Mars in my natal blueprint. Saturn is also in an applying square to Uranus, which will be exact on December 24th, 2021, the last square between these behemoths in those signs for quite some time to come.

On Friday, November 19th, there will be a partial Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio-Taurus.

This lunar eclipse event may further galvanize and embolden those questioning the official narratives and mandates. The confrontation between Mars and Uranus squaring Saturn will alert those in charge that their tactics are having less of an effect than desired. This may result in further and perhaps more draconian restrictions in December, especially after the Total Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius (self-righteousness). I am still taking the long view and holding zero expectations as we move from now to the first exact Pluto Return station to the USA Natal Chart Pluto in February 2022. Now that will be a subject of deeper delving in January 2022!

The upshot of all of this from my perspective is that this is a time for steadfast resoluteness and preparedness. Lots of folks I know are “prepping”, something I’ve been meaning to do for a few months now since supply chains have been disrupted and fuel has gotten scarcer. However, the spiritual and soul-base perspectives are of primary importance in these challenging and confusing times.

Ever since Halloween and the November 4th New Moon I’ve detected an uptick in psychic interference and fatigue. Some of that is due to the fluctuations in the planet’s magnetic fields, but hey, the veils are still very thin now. People energy, including thoughts and emotions, seem to be bleeding through boundaries much easier than before. This is creating some personal friction that is straining working or friend relationships. Very touchy when it is someone close to you that you feel you need some space from. By extension I am also picking up on a lot of astral interference and other static. Clearing oneself daily is a useful activity, and only takes a few ticks to accomplish. Some symptoms to be alert for are undefined irritability, low-grade depression, self-talk, blaming, complaining, dissociative or addictive behaviours, a longing to be somewhere else, and general doubt or fear.

Although lower emotions like fear, guilt, shame and anger are generally to be eschewed, anger can be a creative energy when approached in the correct attitude. Anger is one of the most misunderstood and avoided emotions on the planet, or conversely, one that is over-indulged in far too often.

The one message anger can have for us is that our Soul Core is alerting us to some person, situation or thing that violates our sense of Self, or our core values. As such, anger is then your friend, and an ally in helping you in choosing and activating healthy boundaries. In a climate such as we have now, people’s right to say “NO!” is even being taken away. To someone experiencing physical, mental or sexual abuse, we would be appalled if someone were denied the inherent right to say “NO!, that is does not feel good and I will resist!” This is when anger can give us the courage to stand up for ourselves and by saying “no” we are saying “yes” to what feels right and good for us.

It will be increasingly essential to observe what is going down without it dragging you down with it. It is also becoming apparent that we may have to act in a firm and steadfast way to preserve the life we have chosen to live, and not acquiesce quite so easily to what others tell us to do. This Saturn in Aquarius cycle will be with us until March 2023, so we’ve still going to see this type of attrition carrying on for a while yet. By that time Pluto will be done with the transit to the USA chart and will be about ready to head into Aquarius itself. That should be of larger concern than what we currently are experiencing. Even so, it is vital that we look to staying as much in the now as possible.

There are many things to be currently thankful for, and to celebrate. If you have your health, good food, shelter and loving family and friends, then appreciate that…deeply. Hold fast to the vision you have for your life and choose the path that brings the most peace to you, not the most material gain or comforts. The pressures we are seeing have been designed by us, and for us, to awaken and galvanize us to take full responsibility for our happiness right now, and for the future.

This is also the Planet’s shaking and waking us out of the nightmare that is capitalism and consumerism. I recall when I was channeling Archangel Ariel that she’d remind folks that moving into 5D would mean no more Wal-Mart’s or McDonalds. We cannot blend our current culture or beliefs with a higher order society. Our technology is owning us, and we are slowing realizing that that is now so. We also can feel how dehumanizing our institutions have become (humans are NOT a resource). The good news is that we are at choice, and in fact that is where our true power resides.

Choice.

Don’t leave home without it, and refuse to submit your power of choice to another.

About the Author

Isaac George is an internationally recognized intuitive mentor/coach, evolutionary astrologer, conscious channel, self-published author and musician. After a life-altering spontaneous kundalini awakening in 1994 he explored various healing modalities, including hypnotherapy and Reiki. In 1998 he began spontaneously channeling Archangel Ariel and other dimensional intelligences.

Originally from the United States, Isaac currently resides in the UK and offers Spiritual Mentoring sessions and programs and Evolutionary Astrology consultations.