Author Archives: George Gintilas

When to Practice Mindfulness Meditation

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Mindfulness meditation is a very useful and practical skill to develop. It is a fundamental part of my life. I have been doing this practice for so long now that I forget just how ‘normal’ it is for me.

One way this shows up, is in where I do this practice. The traditional place is in a quiet spot at home for about twenty minutes, preferably in the morning.

But, when do I personally do it?

Yes, normally in the morning (after breakfast,) but also…

1. When I arrive somewhere in my car (and I am alone in the car,) I will park, switch off the engine and stay seated, close my eyes and centre for two/three minutes before exiting the car. (I don’t mind anymore who may be watching. The benefits far outweigh the exposure.) This is mandatory if I have been driving through peak traffic for an hour!

2. When I walk along the beach, I will always stop at a bench or rock and sit. Again, for a few minutes, close my eyes or often leave them open. You don’t need to close your eyes when you have a beautiful ocean expanse to let in!

3. When I first wake up in the morning, if I am not feeling 100% ready to jump out, I will stay in bed, sit up in bed (pillow up behind me for support) and meditate there immediately. I don’t wait for later in the morning.

4. Almost always in between each client – five to fifteen minutes.

5. Regularly if I am in a public toilet at a restaurant or cafe. It’s a great private place to just center a bit more for a few minutes.

6. Almost always in waiting rooms. (Again I don’t mind who might be looking, to me this is very normal now.) In fact it is not normal to not do it.

7. If I have been reading or on the computer for a long time and my brain feels heavy. It’s very easy to close my eyes for a few minutes, seated where I am.

Everyone should do this at work. It should be common acceptable practice. And I believe one day soon it will be. Why? Simply because the benefits are just huge.

There are more times and places, (on buses, on trains, in taxis) but that’s just a few off the top of my head. Basically anytime I have some time alone, I will close my eyes and center. Even a few minutes can do wonders to focusing you into the present moment and clear your excess thinking, as well as other benefits. The smart phone has eaten away at this centering space because we carry it everywhere. So it is even more important today to cultivate this habit.

Relaxation CD

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In the last month I received two great reviews unsolicited from clients on the benefits of my Relaxation CD. One from a long time client and one from a new client of a few months. Both describe how effective the CD has been each and every time they play it. It is different every time and still effective. They put it on when they can’t settle, relax or centre. Or when they can’t get to sleep. One of those clients has been using it now for about three years, and it’s still effective.

So this made me think a little about my humble Relaxation CD. This CD is now eleven years old, and it is still going strong. It was way ahead of its time back then, and still now, to a lesser extent.

I use it myself when I find it hard to centre alone. That’s not too often but it can still happen sometimes. I have it on my iphone and so it’s available anytime I need it.

Does it matter that it’s my voice I’m hearing?
Not in the slightest.
Because it has nothing to do with who is talking but how it’s talking.

I mentioned eleven years ago in the promotional material of this CD on my website (which is still there today)

Quote:
“Remember: For true relaxation – you do not need music, you do not need nice words. If you think it is the music and nice words that does the relaxation then I can almost guarantee you that whatever CDs you have, I bet you will quickly get bored with them and need to change them often. With this CD you do not need to change the words, or change any music. You can play it many, many times. Eventually you will probably not even listen to the words. As I’ve mentioned, the words are not as important.”

So it is nice to know that many people who have purchased the CD over the years, have proven the point, they still use it and it is still effective, not boring. (In fact I’m thinking of doing a survey soon to find out the exact figure from all the people who have purchased the CD.)

Eleven years ago, the term mindfulness was not as commonly used as it is today. Back then the word was ‘relaxation’, and the word ‘meditation’ was just beginning to be used.

Today the word is ‘mindfulness.’ I like this word. It is a far more accurate description as to what is going on or could go on, when you close your eyes.

Even though my relaxation CD is eleven years old now, I am planning to make a follow up to this program. One that goes deeper still, to another level. I will let you know (if you are on my email list) when this becomes available.

SPACE

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I highly recommend doing some mindfulness meditation everyday.

Because I have been doing this process for so long I sometimes forget just how beneficial it is. Earlier this year I went for a short period, without any daily mindfulness meditation. It that period I was very busy and was getting lots done but I began to notice something every interesting – my mind wasn’t thinking as clearly as before, I was more stressed, less intelligent in my decision making. When something went wrong, it took a lot more thoughts, effort and time to sort it out. I was also slightly more reactive to outside circumstances and my mind was beginning to race a little. It wasn’t pleasant.

I was very functional, and from the outside I looked fine to everyone and everything, but from the inside I wasn’t at my best, I wasn’t working from my highest quality of being.

I quickly realised that what I had lost in my mind was SPACE.

Still Space.

Quiet Space.

For in that still quiet space is where your real and best intelligent thinking, healing and decision making gets done.

I quickly returned to daily mindfulness meditation, let go some old thinking (that said I didn’t need it,) and I was back centred again. Back to having that SPACE within me and between my thoughts.

This SPACE should be with you throughout your day. It is a buffer between you, your thoughts and the external environment. Without it, it is very hard to function at your intelligent and satisfying best. It is also harder to heal yourself.

It is a very smart company that would teach this to their employees and allow everyone to practice this everyday at work. The benefits of creating this space to intelligent decision making in business are enormous. Huge.

And it still baffles me why every child isn’t taught this in school.

Healing Trauma Naturally

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One of my specialty areas in my therapeutic work is helping with healing trauma. Traumas that are anxiety and panic creating within you that won’t switch off. Many people have such places within them, reactions that can’t be switched off easily and that can be triggered at the slightest hint of an unsafe situation or reminder of the original cause of the fear.

I attended a seminar recently that updated on the latest neuroscience research. One thing that perked my ears was hearing that scientists are working on discovering what causes this reactive fear in people and finding a way to switch that off. It was labeled as an ‘old brain’ reactive part carried over from our ancestral heritage that isn’t useful to us in this day and age.

My view is a bit different to this. I don’t think this ‘old brain’ piece of programming within us is such a bad thing. What we really should be looking at is why this reaction was created in the first place. And that takes us back to the cause of the problem, an old traumatic event where we couldn’t protect ourselves adequately enough, leaving unfinished the fight/flight response.

So what we should really be looking at is, asking the question – how can we access and complete this flight/fight response in the body and mind? This is the work and research that I do everyday. Finding better ways to access and release this old fear/trauma response in the body. It is done naturally, and in a holistic way. This work fills the missing experience that the person did not have at the time of the trauma.

Once it releases a client will comment, (a real example:)
” I feel I have unlocked some part of me that hasn’t rested in a long time.”

That says it all. Some part has finally rested and relaxed for the first time in a long time. And a big fear and anxiety has just melted away permanently. No need to find a switch and use chemicals/medications to ‘switch it off.’

Anxiety and panic reactions are there for a reason. It is the body saying, ‘HELP! I’m scared!’

It is not advisable to go around switching this alert response off.

This is what medications/drugs do. Numb out a persons feelings so they don’t feel the body’s cry for help. The anxiety is covered over. Unfortunately there are side affects and other feelings get covered over too. Resulting in a lower quality of life and aliveness. This is not a solution – walking around half alive.

When a client releases a trauma naturally, they feel the difference within them, they feel the relief, the freedom, the lightness. They feel more alive, more authentic and more human again.

Working with the body, mindfulness and subconscious carefully enough, creates these types of results regularly.
This is the ‘real thing’.

Dependancy

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I shouldn’t have to be writing about this topic this day and age but sadly I still need to bring some attention to it. I heard again from another client recently how other therapists that she had been to in the past, she felt had tried to ‘milk her’ of her money by making her dependant on coming back for continual sessions. This client said,

“George, you’re not like most of the other therapists out there. You are not trying to milk me for what you can get. You are not trying to make me dependant on you, (coming to see you for years without signs of solid benefit and progress.) I can feel how you really care and are genuinely helping me to change and release the past. I can feel the difference with you. I can feel the progress and the change.”

Sadly many therapists out there are not really interested in you healing yourself. They want to make sure that you keep having your problem so you have to keep going back to them, so they earn an income. How crazy is that? Years ago, I even had one prominent psychiatrist say this exact thing straight in my face, with a smirk. I was appalled. But I kept a straight face and moved on.

How I work? How I imagine any good therapist works.

I want you to get better 100% (or at least feel genuine improvement) in the least amount of sessions possible! Once you feel the benefit and go off to live your life, you would want to recommend others to see me to get help too. This is how I operate. 75% of my client base are now referrals from past satisfied clients. Of course I also recommend some maintenance sessions every year or two if needed. But not full dependency, where you have to keep seeing me for life, just to get by.

As my client said, you can normally feel this attitude in the therapist. Are they really on your side and listening and adapting to your needs and pain? Or are they just going through the motions, relying on their ‘qualifications’ to mesmerise you into believing that they know best and that you will need them forever.

As a rule, if you haven’t felt a genuine benefit within (max) 10 sessions with a therapist – leave! Find someone else. Even if that therapist is subsidised by the government and you don’t have to pay much – leave! Don’t become a dependent victim. Deep down, you are a powerful, loving, joyous, free and alive spirit/human being. If your therapist doesn’t see this when they work with you, my recommendation is to leave.

The ‘Magic’

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I’m continually impressed and satisfied (even after over twenty years) with the results that this work creates for people and the one-on-one clients that I see during the week.

That old habit of analysing things and trying to work it out in the head, once that is put to bed, the real healing begins to take place, or as some clients call it, ‘the magic happens’.

And to the intellect this does some like magic, because ‘it’ isn’t doing the work. It feels automatic and so it is labeled  ‘magic’. But as I mentioned to one client this week, we don’t go around every moment of the day thinking that our heart beating is magic. We forget about it, we take it for granted. We forget just how sophisticated our subconscious bodymind is. Then in sessions when we turn it back onto your inner needs and goals, more of that magic kicks in and it seems amazing.

I’m continually excited when I make more breakthroughs in this method, advance the work further (even more so currently with the research and writing of my first book – to be released soon) and especially when I help people that have ‘tried everything’, as I often hear.

There is a very deep reward in this work, a very deep feeling of being and depth to the soul that opens up that is nourished in sessions, that also beautifully, spills over onto myself. This is such a healing and enlivening state, everyone should be feeling this at least once in their day.

It helps to keep you young, free, happier and healthier in mind, body and spirit. Its a sipping (or even better, drinking) of the life force that permeates you all day and everyday.

It speeds up healing and it works wonders for your health!

Subconscious Conflicts – Road Blocks to your Goals

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Do you have trouble achieving your goals?

Achieving goals is a step at a time process. Making decisions in each moment that are aligned with your aims. However the subconscious within you is also trying to get its needs and aims met. Many of them set a long time ago (from childhood).

So often those aims are in conflict with your present day goals and wishes. So you have road blocks within you. Your subconscious often will not allow you to achieve your aims (whether they are career, financial, relationship or health related) unless its  more urgent needs are met.

This work provides the conditions to help you resolve the subconscious needs within you, helping to heal your subconscious body, freeing the way to achieving your deepest goals and wishes.

This cannot be done consciously. It requires involving your body, emotions and spirit at a deeper level. This deeper level is the mindfulness, alpha/theta frequency level of your mind and body. Working at this level allows for the real changes and releases to occur.

This has been my expertise and specialty for the last 21 years. Helping people access areas deep within their subconscious body where the conflict and forgotten, unmet needs reside.

Fighting with this part doesn’t work.
Drugging it is not the answer either.

It is a real unfinished need, deep within you. And it is waiting to be heard, met and healed.

A little about ‘Acceptance’

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I’d like to say a little about ACCEPTANCE that can be very beneficial to remember.

In the mindfulness classes (as well as the private therapy sessions) I often talk about acceptance. Sometimes people think that by accepting their problem, that it means that they will be stuck with the problem forever. That’s how it feels to the intellect. There is a feeling that you have to keep fighting this disease, ailment, pain or negative behaviour pattern, to get rid of it or else it will never go away, or ever heal.

This is not the case.

If you can stop and feel what the problem is and its location in your body, and actually stay with it, accept that it is there and not try to fight it, it then has the space to release properly. But acceptance is the hard part because it means accepting exactly how it feels in your body right now, and that’s not always pleasant to allow. But if you can take the step to let go judgment and just fully allow the problem to be in your body, then amazing things happen.

In classes and personal sessions, you have the opportunity (for an hour or more) to stay with and accept parts of you that you have denied, hated and avoided for a long time. And when this allowing happens, your body then has the freedom to actual heal the issue in ways that your intellect could never fully understand.

What’s one of the Best Books ever Written?

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I often get asked by people and clients what books to read for personal development and healing. What books do I read? I have hundreds in my library from over 30 years of study, research and interest. I list a few on my main website. But if I had to pick just one book that I consider the best and most worthwhile, that’s quite easy for me to do.

That book is Eckhart Tolle’s THE POWER OF NOW.

That book is by my bedside where ever I travel. I highly recommend it above all other books. If I was stuck on a desert island and could take only one book, that would be the book I’d have with me.

The Power of NOW encapsulates beautifully what all the therapy work is about in the end, if you take it all the way. Some people just want to feel less pain, some just want to stop a bad behaviour, some just want some peace of mind, some want to improve a relationship, some want to feel happy or safe again in the world. When you get all these things, and take it further to its conclusion, you get the power of living in the present. For my mind, no one explains it and lives it better than Tolle.

Stillness

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Who we are I believe, correlates more with the state of stillness than it does with our intellectual thinking. Your ability to feel stillness, to just be with yourself, the world, nature, or with others, is a greater indication of your maturity and level of humanity.

Stillness is not reading a book while lying on a beach or watching TV numbed out on the couch. Stillness is being comfortable with silence and doing seemingly nothing in that moment for a period of time. Whether with yourself alone, or with another.

So in Body Psychotherapy and in fact with all the work done in a session with a client, once the initial talking is done and we move to deepening, there is a lot of stillness time. The stillness can be quiet or active, but there are few words if any, it is simply still. The thinking becomes less important and the attention moves to the body and the inner workings of the subconscious.

Stillness breathes in fresh air to a crowded over thinking, over worked mind and gives the body a chance to speak and heal itself in areas that had been locked and pushed away for far too long.

This is why Mediation is a good practice. To meditate you need to accept stillness.