Category Archives: Health and Wellbeing

The two core health essentials during a lockdown for your mental health.

Posted on by
Reply

Exercise (Movement) and Meditation (Stillness)
The two core health essentials during a lockdown for your mental health.

Today’s message is a simple way of maintaining a good habit for your mental health through lockdowns and other trauma effects of Covid19.

Exercise and meditation go together.

If you do one but not the other, you are losing a lot of benefit that you could be receiving for your mental and physical health.

I notice many people often do one of the two really well and neglect the other. There are the people who exercise a lot and are physically fit and energised, but are anxious and cannot sit still in a room. Then there are the people who meditate really well and deep but are depressed and slow moving, finding it hard to act when needed in the world, hiding from the world.

Those who exercise a lot, tend to be the extroverts in the world, and those who meditate a lot, tend to be the introverts in the world. This is their super power.

With Covid right now, both of those super powers are very much needed – together. Doing both is very beneficial and will help greatly in keeping you mentally stable and healthy through these lockdowns and world covid trauma.

So it is good to ask the two most basic questions each day –

Q1. Have I exercised/moved enough?
Q2. Have I meditated/centered myself enough?

Doing both, you are helping reduce any excess anxiety and any excess depression brought on by the ongoing effects of Covid19.

One, helps reduce the trauma effects of the fight/flight response. The other the trauma effects of the freeze response. One connects you to the world, the other, connects you to yourself.
One helps you go in, one helps you come out. Both of the in-and-out movements are necessary for a healthy stable mind in times of trauma, instability and change.

So which one were you missing today?

Always make time for both each day.

Freeing your Covid19 Lockdown Trauma

Posted on by
Reply

The previous post focused with a trauma lens on the effects of a lockdown to your health. It can be very traumatic. In this post we look at what to do to undo those effects, even during a lockdown.

As you feel the stress in your body build, some of it can turn into a traumatic response. Freeing the trauma response as soon as possible is ideal. So what can you do? You can’t think it away, it’s not a prefrontal cortex (cerebrum) problem.

Answer: You have to move and feel it away.

Freeing the Fight response – Boxing bag, Pillow Fights, Weights, Gym, Kicking, Martial arts, Tai Chi, Competitive Sport.

Freeing the Flight response – Walking, Jogging, Running, Trampoline, Rebounder, Up/Down Stairs, Swimming.

Freeing the Freeze response – Meditation, Bubble Bath, Long Shower, More Relationship contact, Animals, Hugs/Cuddles, Heavier blankets, Massage, Play, Dancing. Stretches, Singing, Music. Reading, Gardening, Journaling, Being in Nature, More Sunshine.

Notice there is nothing on this list about watching more TV, playing video games, eating more, drinking more, working more, shopping, drugs, smoking. These are avoidance techniques that create addictions. They provide an initial brief relief, but cause more problems longer term.

Anything that doesn’t acknowledge the trauma in your body and offer a healthy outlet, only builds the pressure inside your body, making it worse later. Keeping your mind and body in limbo, is dangerous to your long term physical and mental health.

In fact it is important to make sure you are covering all these aspects at some point on an ongoing regular basis, Covid or no Covid, and even more so, if you have been traumatised in the past.

So how do you know which activities on the list above to do first? Enter your mindfulness meditation. Close your eyes, go down and connect in, wait and your body will tell you what it needs to do next.

The more you can let go (of that thinking brain), the more you will know (from your body.)

Corona Virus – Will it traumatise you?

Posted on by
Reply

“Research shows that whether or not a person develops PTSD has more to do with the person’s ability to cope with stress than the event itself.”

Susanne Babbel, Phd – Heal the Body, Heal the Mind (2018)

What the world is experiencing right now with this virus spreading is a very heavy traumatic experience for many people.

How do you stop from going nutty over the next few months? How do you stop from breaking down, or getting PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) symptoms after the event?

This has been my specialty for 30 years in private practice. Helping people resolve underlying trauma that affects and limits their lives, sometimes for a lifetime (if not addressed).

How are you coping so far? What emotions are bubbling up in you that you are aware of? And what about the ones just under the surface? Stressful situations help to bring out what is already there that has probably been laying dormant within you for a long time.

This Corona Virus event doesn’t have to be traumatic – before, during or after the event is over.

Just because others are freaking or stressing out, doesn’t mean that you have to do the same. Sometimes the extra stress you feel is only because you feel you have to feel this way too, that this must be normal behaviour. It doesn’t have to be that way.

I will be offering (all free) mindful suggestions and meditations each week. And I’ll be posting them all with a short video. Video will convey the message much better. You will be receiving the benefit and experience of 30 years of deep trauma coping, releasing and healing tips, advice, techniques, tools and expertise. The Virus Buster will be the first, coming soon this week.

The limit of each mindfulness class this week will be four, to allow safe enough room between participants. (Half the participants showed up last week and that was completely understandable.)

At some point soon (highly likely next week) the classes will go online. You will be able to attend from anywhere in the world and the classes can be much bigger. I will be using the Zoom meeting software. It is free for you to use and fairly easy to run, once you learn. Youtube has a lot of instructional videos on how to use it. I am happy to help anyone where possible, that might need some help.

Zoom, Skype, Facetime, Messenger, WhatsApp and others will all become very important for continual social interaction during the Corona virus period.

The free instructional video for the Virus Buster mindfulness technique that I’ve been talking about, will be ready this week. I will follow this up with a free guided meditation to help you actually do it.

Conviction and Repetition – The keys to greater health.

Posted on by
Reply

“There are no incurable diseases. Only incurable people.”
Bernie Siegel MD.

With the escalating Corona virus at the moment, this is good to remember.

Dr Bernie Siegel is a surgeon who over twenty five years ago noticed how some of his patients healed in remarkable ways that were not expected. Looking at these exceptional cases he realised how the patient’s self healing ability came from their attitude, beliefs and emotional expression to name just a few.

Diseases that should have killed some patient’s didn’t. These patient’s found a way to self heal themselves.

It is good to read and hear about these well respected doctors. They confirm that we as humans have better healing abilities than we ever realised before.

Spending regular time to go within your body and spending deep meditative mindful time, giving your body and it’s 50 trillion cells more love and attention, is very powerful.

But to do this exercise/practice regularly, you have to believe that such ability is there within you.

Know that it is.

Hopefully you can feel the benefits of the reduction in body stress and allow that to spur you on to regular practice. This regularity and depth of focus (that only closing your eyes can do) accumulates to produce a much stronger immune system and a healthier freer functioning body.

If you find it difficult to get that depth of focus, coming to a few of Mindfulness classes in a group can really help reset your connection deeper. Even if you have to travel a fair way (if you live in Melbourne) to get here, it is worth doing every now and then. If you live a fair way away, you don’t have to attend every week.

It can be once a month, or for a few consecutive weeks once every three to four months. The period doesn’t matter. Maintaining the conviction and depth does.

YouTube
My recent appearances on the Channel 31 TV show Health, Wellbeing and Lifestyle have concluded. All five interviews (each 8 mins long) are now permanently available on YouTube for viewing. Or you can click on each one below.

You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel (George Gintilas). There are many more videos to come.

I appear in the following episodes (and the topic):
Episode 5 – How we Heal
Episode 6 – Trauma (Biggest block to healing)
Episode 8 – Anxiety (Hyper Arousal)
Episode 11 – Depression (Hypo Arousal)
Episode 12 – Presence and Spirituality

Body Mindfulness – Your Everyday Active State

Posted on by
Reply

“Mindfulness in Action – This is something to be practiced throughout the day, rather than just for 10 minutes.”

Leah Weiss – Stanford University’s Compassion Cultivation Program

Mindfulness in action. This is a good term. When you do a mindfulness meditation practice regularly, eventually what begins to happen, is that the inner focus you have while your eyes are closed transfers to your waking active state and for longer and longer periods, before the day and your intellect take over once again.

The ultimate aim of meditation is to have that inner calm connected aware state throughout your day. No matter what you are doing – doing it, in a mindful present state is much more productive and enriching than rushing through and/or over thinking everything.

It is not very enjoyable to live the moment in a rushed over thinking state. It is probably why people are doing whatever it is quickly, in order to get to that state that they long for, all the while missing it, in this present moment now.

As I emphasis in every mindfulness class – you are already perfect inside. That perfection, still, alive, loving, free self is already there within you. Closing our eyes and focusing within for long periods, help to get glimpses of this and helps to have those glimpses shine throughout your day in your daily actions.

The balance your body needs in a revved up world

Posted on by
Reply

“in 1990, 49 per cent of Europeans felt their work schedule was too strenuous. By 2000, that had increased to 60 per cent – and those who felt themselves to be rushed were almost twice as likely to complain of classic stress disorders, such as back pain, or tight shoulders and necks.”

Robert Colvile, The Great Acceleration – How the World is Getting Faster, Faster, (2016)

A study was conducted in the early 1990s of 31 countries and then repeated again with the same countries in 2006 to measure the pace of life. What psychologists found was that the pace in 2006 had gone up by 10%. World wide, people were covering the same stretch of ground on the street in 10% less time.

So you are not imagining it when you feel like people are running around faster than ever before. It is actually happening. And more so in the more advanced and industrialised countries.

This type of speed is often good if it helps us get more done in less time, and it is tied into technology advancements. But when we get caught up in it and cannot switch off regularly, is when the body begins to feel the type of stress that can lead to problems. Problems personally and problems with others.

Psychologist Stephanie Brown says ‘for many people, their relationship to technology and speed has become more important than, or even replaced, human relationships.’

A body mindfulness practice can help bring our stress levels back into balance. So you can enjoy the benefits of the speed, (getting more done in less time,) but also enjoy the ability to switch off by choice without getting trapped in that high revved up state.

The Stress and Trauma of Modern Times

Posted on by
Reply

“Mindfulness involves paying attention to something, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally….You actually have to tell your brain that is your intention. It won’t know what you’re doing, and it will priorities its activities based on your emotions or your mental energy or your physical needs.”

Stan Rodski, The Neuroscience of Mindfulness, (2019)

Another good book released earlier this year on mindfulness. A psychologist/cognitive neuroscientist, talks about the basics of mindfulness.

Unless you take control of your thinking mind, it will run you. Your conscious awareness needs to direct your thinking mind to stop. It doesn’t need to stop for long to de stress your over cluttered thinking thoughts. But stop it must.

Without conscious attention to stopping, your brain will run on auto-pilot and continue to rehash all the unresolved traumatic events of your past.

This fast paced period of time in our history is stressing your fight/flight emergency system out. Most of our stress is from past traumas where our nervous system has not fully come down from the high alert state, created by one event or the high level of continued pressure from many events, in our current environment.

TV news is traumatic to your body. Video and satellite crosses and instant transfer of bad news from any part of the globe was never there one hundred years ago. Now it is on tap, through TV, social media, radio, newspapers etc. And your body responds as if it is a secondary traumatic event happening to you now.

Witnessing a traumatic event can be just as traumatic to your body as actually being in the event.

So it is very important to consciously each day have the awareness to switch off and stop at some point, or at a number of points.

De stressing daily is vital to your health.

Taking real control of your health

Posted on by
Reply

“In a meditative state of mind, we can become aware that we are not a body, but rather limitless, non-local awareness animating or residing as a body. Resting in the spacious flow of loving awareness – which some call God – we discover that we already have, right now within us, everything we could possibly be looking for.”

Russell Targ, Limitless Mind, (2004)

How is it that you can be deeply aware of your body in a meditative mindful state? What part of you is watching the different parts of your body? How is it that you can focus on a big toe and feel it from the inside and then easily switch to another part of your body, say a shoulder and, accurately feel what is happening in there?

You can say the brain is receiving signals through the nervous system which the brain then interprets as a sensation. But who receives that information? Where are you in the physical body? Where is this awareness that knows the sensations?

This is the age old question. You’ve probably heard it before, that no surgeon when cutting open a body and looking inside, has yet to find the seat of awareness. And that’s because it isn’t material matter. It is another form of matter, one which (compared to physical matter) is invisible and formless.

How can something be invisible and formless? Microwaves are, X-rays are, Radio waves are, TV broadcasts are, Wifi signals are, sun rays are, electromagnetic waves are, and on the list goes.

We use different machines to receive and read those invisible waves. We use a body mindfulness meditation practice to contact and feel your real invisible aware self, throughout your body and even beyond, outside of your body.

This invisible awareness – the real deeper you – has access to your whole body. So you can visit any part, diseased or healthy and work on repairing it. Work on healing the trauma that damaged the part. You are that powerful. That ability is already there within you.

How much of this real aware you you have access to, shows up in the history and health of your body. Your body is always a walking history of how conscious you are. How embodied and at home the real you is in your body. The more ‘ín’ your body you are, the healthier and more vibrant it will look, feel and be.

One of the most healthy beneficial practices you can do each morning (or any time during the day) is to stop, close your eyes and check in with yourself, and ask the question – how much of me is in my body now? 10%?, 40%?, 60%?

The higher the percentage, the more effective you will be and the more healthier your body will function. There will be fewer parts out lost on their own without proper direction. Fewer parts clashing with one another and fewer parts accumulating more damage.

So scan your body with this non-local, non-material awareness and find areas that you have neglected, breathe into them, reclaim them and allow them to reconnect to your entire body. If there is a lot to clean up, this won’t always initially be a pleasant experience. But it will be worth it.

This to me is the real meaning of the term ‘ taking control of your health.’

HEAL Documentary

Posted on by
Reply

“Your body loves you, it loves you unconditionally, and it’s not letting you down. Have patience and have compassion. Take one day at a time, you’re going to get there. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been sick, you can heal, and always remember that, and never forget it.”

Anthony Williams from the movie documentary, HEAL (2017)

I just finished watching a very good documentary on alternative health titled HEAL. It was released in 2017 and can be currently viewed on Netflix or Youtube (for a fee).

This documentary is very aligned with my experience in my 30 years of private practice with how we heal and why that is. It is an exciting time to be in the health industry as more and more people begin to discover how to really heal themselves.

Doing a mindfulness practice is one of the central components to deep permanent healing of issues and diseases that we once thought needed constant medication (with side effects) just to keep in check.

The power of your (1) inner belief system and (2) your past traumas, are affecting your health way much more than you probably ever realised. By deeply facing past physical trauma and past emotional trauma you can heal a whole battery of illnesses that before were confined to the medical doctors office, medications and hospitals.

Learning to go deeper within your body and mind is one of the biggest roads to better health. Take time to continually learn the language of your body and mind. You have the ability to access it more than ever before. The medical model teaches you to keep it separate from you. But it is not separate from you, unless you deliberately ignore it, which most people have done in the past.

Connecting back with your body gives you aces to deep power to transform and heal any illness. The HEAL documentary is a great step forward in opening up to a deeper real long lasting healthier life.

View the HEAL trailer here:

Healing and Preventing Diseases

Posted on by
Reply

In Radical Remission – Surviving Cancer Against all Odds (2014), Dr Kelly A.Turner found that there are thousands of cases published in medical journals of people who had healed their cancer after doctors had decided that they were not expected to live.

She decided to interview over one hundred of such cases and analyse over one thousand written cases, to find the factors that led to the ‘miracle’ cure. Those factors were many, about 75, but there were 9 that kept showing up consistently.

So here are the 9 things that you can be doing to radically help reverse cancer or, if you don’t have cancer, to do anyway to prevent it and other diseases in future.

  1. Radically change your diet
  2. Take active control of your health
  3. Follow your intuition
  4. Take herbs and supplements
  5. Release suppressed emotions
  6. Increase positive emotions
  7. Reach out for more social support
  8. Deepen your spiritual connection
  9. Have strong reasons to live

Looking at that list, a body mindfulness practice can help and enhance about 7 of those factors.

That’s one powerful practice.

A quick snapshot of each factor:

  1. To change your diet – cut out sugars, dairy and reduce meat.
  2. Be actively involved in your health (don’t just sit around wishing), be willing to make changes, face your fears and don’t automatically do everything a doctor says you must do.
  3. Your body wisdom knows what’s best for you, listen to it.
  4. Strengthen your immune system with supplements.
  5. Blocked emotions and trauma seriously affect the immune systems ability to heal disease. This factor is massive and often overlooked.
  6. Increase the fun, joy and love in your life. Deepen your inner connection.
  7. Receiving love from others helps the body to heal. Family and friends can provide the love that boosts the body’s healing ability. Doing anything that stops you from feeling alone is what helps.
  8. Connect to the unconditional universal love that we are all part of. Merging with the peace of everything, where you are not separate from the whole. This spiritual energy can significantly help the body to heal. Pray and/or meditate to help quiet the mind noise.
  9. Expand your creativity, believe you will live, that you have a greater purpose and deserve to be fully alive.