Heart and emotions

May

19

What is Trauma-Aware Acupuncture?

In this video, I explain what it means when you visit a Trauma-Aware Acupuncturist.

Offering a Trauma-Aware approach benefits everyone, because it’s about creating a warm and welcoming space for all people.

Contact my admin team to ask a question or book your appointment.

May

07

Being a salmon

chronic / energy / Heart and emotions / mindfulness / mood eg anxiety or depression Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

Sometimes life needs us to be a little different.

When everyone else is “going with the flow”, sometimes you need to swim upstream.

When everyone else is taking it easy, sometimes you need to be putting in the effort. Even if it means you miss out on the fun.

When other people are believing what they see and hear, doing things without thinking, maybe you know that you need to be learning things more deeply. This might be the time for you to really question things.

If it looks like the whole world can just do what they like without ramifications, while you need to take extra care with every step just to keep on an even keel, then maybe you’re feeling a little lonely about that.

The journey to health can be a long, twisting path. Some of that time you might feel like the only person on the planet who’s saying no, slowing down, lightening your load or listening to your body.

You’ve been tuning in for a little while now, and you know that your life depends on it. Your health, wellbeing and sense of stability is calling you to be super mindful and conscious about your choices.

And it looks like maybe you’re the only one?

Until…

One day you look to the left…

or you look to the right…

then you realise that you’re not alone.

There are other salmon out here! Swimming upstream, putting in the work, listening to the call of the wild, heading for the source.

There’s no Salmon Club. There’s no hashtag or Youtube channel or box to tick on a form that says you’re one of us.

But if you’re reading this, and it resonates, then you’re a salmon too.

The more you honour yourself, the more you swim, the more you’ll find your fellow salmon. Then the journey to the source will be shared among likeminded travellers. The journey home.

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

Mar

06

Menopause, mid-life and meaning

acupuncture / Heart and emotions / hormones / hot flushes / Hunyuan / menopause / mood eg anxiety or depression / stress / women / Yang / Yin Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

Are you approaching menopause? Already there?

In our culture – in the developed, English-speaking world – menopause is becoming increasingly medicalised… symptoms and hormones and treatments.

The medical narrative around menopause has become so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that we don’t even see it, like a fish not seeing the water it’s swimming in.

There’s a different way of seeing this phase of life.

In other places in the world, menopause is experienced as simply a time of change, or freedom, a phase of self-reflection and evolving self-esteem, a phase of life marked by being respected due to attaining wisdom, a feeling of cleanliness and attaining maturity, a time to experience fulfilment or success (1).

Turning the corner

According to Chinese medicine, and Hunyuan medicine in particular, menopause is a turning point.

Nature creates in cycles. From small cycles such as the heartbeat or breath, through ever larger of day and night, seasons, lifetimes, to cycles beyond the human experience such as geological epochs – the way that something opens out, and then closes back in, is a common pattern.

Beginnings

From resting quietly at night, you dream before dawn and then awaken and move into the world in the morning.

From the fallow and stillness of winter, seedlings and buds appear and grow.

From the secluded mystery of the womb, babies are born, emerging into the world.

From the hidden, something becomes revealed. This is the beginning of the visible part of the creation cycle.

Full expression

In the middle of the day, you are active and engaged with the outside world, eating and drinking to bring energy in from “the outside”.

In the summer, the leaves on the trees are fully open and engaging with the sunlight “outside” to create energy for the tree.

From childhood and teen years, marked by the “Yang” expression of growth and differentiation, a person reaches their reproductive capacity in adulthood. Their life cycle can exchange with the “outside” by participating in the creation of new life.

This phase is maximally engaged and exchanging with the “outside”.

The return

Then we come to the afternoon, closing in to the evening. You return home from the day, you shed your “mask” of your work life or other roles in society, and you nurture yourself and settle down in preparation for the recharging and replenishment of the night phase.

For the tree, it now divests it’s energy from the leaves. That exchange with the “outside” has run its course. The sap turns inwards, flowing down towards the root. It’s a reversal of direction.

After the child-bearing years, this “Yang” impetus for growth and connecting “outside” has similarly run its course. Now the “Yin” phase begins. Moving towards the root, towards the source…

The hidden

Going into sleep, your idea of “action in the world” must become very small. You must let go. Let go and yield into the mystery, where there is no “I”, there is no “this” and “that”. When you wake in the morning, you will feel refreshed. Where did this energy come from? If you try to watch, you’ll miss it! You can only gain this energy by “not being there”. By allowing the movement of the Heart-mind, the sense of “I”, to become very small. The energy comes from what we call the “internal connection”. The very nature of this connection is hidden.

For the tree, bare branches on the outside, snow on the ground, energy underground, hidden in the root.

For the human, the mystery of old age.

This “hidden” phase of nature is a part of all the cycles. It is the source, the root, the beginning and end and continuation.

Our culture

Our science is explicity based on the “visible”, the “seen”, the “knowable”. Our science hasn’t yet included this hidden phase into a cyclical understanding of nature.

Perhaps linked with this, our culture venerates youth and achievement and growth and productivity. The “Yang” phase.

We lack a view, a language, a love and appreciation of the whole other side of the cycle. From the top-most point of exchange with the “outside”, the return to the root is often expressed as a decline, a decay, somewhat almost as a failure.

Do you feel this?

It’s time for a new narrative. More accurately, it’s time to reclaim an old narrative, an ancient story.

Here’s the question to contemplate – at “midday” you are giving to the world in terms of your speech and actions. You are also bringing in something – external energy in the form of food and drink. Combined with the external energy from breath and then from the “internal connection” of sleep, you can have another day, another cycle. Bringing in from nature, connecting, replenishing, then expressing your form outwardly. The same cycle repeats, again and again.

So in terms of the cycle of your whole lifespan, at menopause you are in autumn. No longer growing towards the outside, now changing course, energy heading within.

What is coming along with that movement, from the outside?

The tree has generated energy through photosynthesis, bringing this back to nourish the root.

What are you bringing back?

Knowledge? Experience? Wisdom? Self-awareness? Appreciation?

The “Sandwich Generation”

Maybe at this time of your life you’ve got teenagers to care for, or grandchildren, alongside working and ensuring your nest egg will see you through retirement, alongside caring for ageing parents… a lot of energy being used on the “outside”.

This is the challenge for women in our culture who are in the menopause phase of life. More people to care for now than ever before, or more intense caring, coupled with an ancient biological imperative to turn inwards.

Could this be the start of some of these “symptoms” that we pathologise as an inevitable part of the menopause experience?

And if so, then how to reframe, so that the challenges of this phase of life do not overwhelm you?

The jigsaw puzzle

Each one of us is a jigsaw puzzle. There’s no simple answer to these kinds of questions.

However, the questions are important.

If these questions resonate with you, and you would like to explore a more wholesome, nurturing journey through your menopause years, then I’d be delighted to talk to you and let you know what I can offer.

You can request a 15-minute free consultation or contact me to book an initial consultation and treatment.

Reference

(1) Doubova, SV, C. Infante-Castañeda, C, Martinez-Vega, I, Pérez-Cuevas, R. Toward healthy aging through empowering self-care during the climacteric stage. Climeractic. 2012;15:563-572.

Other resources

Rita Charon, MD. Narrative Medicine: A Model for Empathy, Reflection, Profession, and Trust. JAMA. 2001;286(15):1897-1902.

Befus D, Coeytaux RR, Goldstein KM, McDuffie JR, Shepherd-Banigan M, Goode AP, Kosinski A, Van Noord MG, Adam SS, Masilamani V, Nagi A, Williams JW Jr. Management of menopause symptoms with acupuncture: An umbrella systematic review and meta-analysis. J Altern Complement Med. 2018 Jan 3. [Epub ahead of print]

Image credit: Antonio Grosz on Unsplash

Jan

27

The deep practice of parenting

baby / children / Heart and emotions / meditation / mindfulness / parenting Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

Several hundred years ago, Liu Yuan taught “first cultivate oneself, then go about cultivating others.” In his teaching for the everyday person, Customary Words, he explains why this is the only way it works.

According to the teaching of Sydney Banks, we experience our life from the “inside out”, so our state of mind in the present moment is creating the way we experience those around us.

Here, Dr Laura Markham teaches this essential truth in the practice of parenting – the only way a parent can change their child’s behaviour is to change their own perspective first. Then healing and connection can naturally spread outwards.

The following article has been reproduced in full with permission from Dr Laura Markham (see original article here)

Want To Change Your Child? Start By Regulating Your Own Emotions

Sounds familiar, right? Regulating our emotions is at the heart of our ability to parent the way we’d like. In fact, it’s at the heart of most of the ways we trip ourselves up, from over-eating to procrastinating to fighting with our partner. It’s just so easy to get hijacked by our emotions and find ourselves already ten steps down the low road.

We often hear that good parents love their children unconditionally, but we all know that no parent always feels loving. So we’re left on our own to figure out how we can restore ourselves to a state of love during the inevitable ups and downs of daily parenting.

This very challenging task — regulating our own emotions so that we can guide our child lovingly rather than indulging in our own tantrum — is fundamental to good parenting. But it’s not just good for our kids. This inner work also helps us to grow into happier people.

Is it hard? Yes. I think it’s the hardest work any of us will ever do. But it’s completely possible. Here’s the secret.

When you let yourself experience your emotions, they begin to evaporate. So by simply sitting with your upsets — breathing and feeling BUT resisting the urge to act, holding yourself with compassion — you clear out your own unfinished business, whether fear, hurt or grief. Love rushes in.

What about anger? That’s just a defensive reaction to fear, pain and grief. Once you let yourself feel the more vulnerable emotions under your anger, they’ll evaporate — and so will your anger.

You might even say this process transmutes fear, pain and grief into love, because we’re creating love where there wasn’t love before. Our hearts stretch, and we grow as people, as well as parents.

But what about when your child is misbehaving? Are you supposed to just ignore his bad behavior and go meditate? No, of course not! Children need parental guidance. But you can’t control or change another person. You can only change yourself, which changes how the other person responds to you. So as you change, your child changes. As we de-excavate our old emotional triggers, we become more effective in guiding our child so that he WANTS to cooperate.

That isn’t just a fancy way of saying that we become willing to tolerate something that we may have yelled about before, although that may be true. For instance, we may realize that it’s okay for our child to feel angry, and stop reprimanding him for that, even as we teach respectful interaction. Or we may realize that her jacket on the floor isn’t nearly as important as how she treats her sister. Or we may begin to see our child’s strong will as a positive trait, and find better ways to partner with her. None of these positive responses is possible if we don’t start by managing our own emotions.

But what if your child is stuck in a counter-productive pattern and really does need to change? Your own emotional self-regulation is also the key to helping him.

Here’s why:

1. Children learn emotional regulation from us. Kids won’t always do what we say, but they will always, eventually, do what we do. If parents indulge in throwing things, slamming doors, and yelling, so will they. If we can stay calm, they learn that it’s not actually an emergency when they get upset, and they learn to calm themselves.

2. The emotional safety we create for our children is exactly what allows them to heal, grow and thrive. Like us, children WANT to feel happy and connected, but sometimes their fear or anger overwhelms them. Our calm gives them a path back to loving connection. When they feel better, they do better.

3. When we provide a calm “holding environment” for our children, they feel safe enough to experience their emotions, which is what allows those big feelings to evaporate. Kids learn that feelings are just part of being human, and they don’t have to fear them — OR act on them.

4. When children respect us and feel understood by us, they want to follow our lead. They learn that they don’t always get what they want, but they get something better — a parent who understands, even when they say no. So the child becomes more open to our guidance, more likely to follow our rules.

5. Children are sensitive barometers of our moods and tensions. If we have an unresolved issue, we can count on them to subconsciously pick up on it and act out. So very often, when we work on our own issues, we find that our child’s behavior changes–even without our directly addressing it!

6. When we respond differently, so does our child. Remember, it’s always your child’s action + your response that = the outcome. When we get triggered and react without thinking, we escalate the storm. When we respond more mindfully, we settle the storm, and create more connection. Less drama, more love.

The good news is, even if our children have learned some counter-productive habits, it’s never too late for them to learn to manage themselves emotionally. The key is our role-modeling.

Learning to regulate emotions is a lifelong journey. For today, just start by noticing your own moods and feelings. When you get upset, resist acting until you’re calm. Just breathe, and shower yourself with compassion, so you can calm down before you act.

Hard? YES! But every time you do this, you’re actually rewiring your brain…and strengthening your ability to stay calmer in the future.

I guarantee you’ll see your child change, too.

by Dr. Laura Markham, founder of AhaParenting.com and author of
Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How To Stop Yelling and Start Connecting and Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life

Jan

22

Finding the extraordinary within the ordinary

Chinese medicine / Heart and emotions / Hunyuan / meditation / mindfulness / parenting Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

See article “in-shine” for introduction to Liu Yuan

Dr Seidman, founder of Hunyuan Research Institute, has released the first in a series of translations of Liu Yuan’s teachings on the heart method and heaven nature.

Su Yan (Customary Words) is a teaching for the everyday person. Liu Yuan teaches through examples that are familar to people in their daily lives – relationships with parents, studying, loyalty to leadership, raising well-adjusted children and so on. These are issues that we all encounter and, by finding the proper measure in each situation in our daily life, we discover the path to becoming fully human – engaged, connected, committed and supported by the deeper principle – “heaven nature”.

While loyalty to the monarch may have been relevant to the common person several hundred years ago, nowadays we can apply this same principle to our relationship with any authority figures to help us to tune in to the deeper principle and ask ourselves what is the most beneficial action. Other examples in this book are more timeless in nature – how to maintain the right relationship with our parents, children, siblings and peers so that the “kind heart of heaven nature” flows through and supports our daily activities and nutures those around us, including ourselves.

With commentary by Dr Seidman to help the modern reader make the most of the text, this text is a treasure to read and re-read, to contemplate and discover.

E-book available from Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/l/cwords#

Jan

17

The new year – Southern hemisphere style

Christmas / Heart and emotions / Hunyuan / mindfulness / season / Summer Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

The Northern hemisphere new year is in the middle of darkness, stillness and cold – candles are lit, warm food and drinks are taken, and from this introspective setting, people can imagine the emerging of new beginnings in spring.

In Australia? Long warm days, markets bursting with seasonal fruit, social gatherings that linger into the evenings, summer holidays of unwinding and restoring energy, celebrating the good life.

Whereas new year in the Northern hemisphere is about dreaming the new beginnings of things, or starting over, in the South it is more about seeing what we have and appreciating it, being grateful for the bountiful harvest.

With gratitude, our hearts naturally desire less. Being grateful for all that we have, we can resolve to cherish our good fortune. With fewer desires and full hearts, we can see just the right move that comes next – and resolve to do that one simple thing.

Jan

12

in-shine

Heart and emotions / Hunyuan / meditation / mindfulness / three principles / Uncategorized Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

We are taught to always aim to out-shine others – rated and ranked and praised and awarded throughout childhood and schooling, and into the workplace – getting ahead and rising to the top, keeping up with the Joneses and all the rest. And if we can’t outshine then we are left in the shadows.

Think about it, this naturally leads to a feeling of isolation for anyone playing by such rules.

Human happiness is based on connection and trust.

Does it make sense to try to out-shine?

We can turn this around – and aim to “in-shine”. All of us are formed from the same “heaven principle”. Within each person, completely intact and unable to be harmed, is innate wisdom and universal love – connection is something we can never lose, only lose sight of.

When we change our story about the outside world, that it’s something to fear or conquer, and start to appreciate the natural goodness within ourselves and within others, then the world becomes our garden. Weeding and watering, tending and caring, it is a bountiful place for us all to enjoy.

Liu Yuan, philosopher and physician of the Qing dynasty, taught that the universe’s nature is heaven principle, expressing as both stillness and movement. When combined, all things are formed by this dual nature – stillness is the appearance of form and movement is form’s changing nature. Living things have movement, but even non-living things like rocks will change with time. But even though it has this dual expression, heaven principle itself is one – constant, unchanging.

This heaven principle is at the centre of life and when we experience it, it feels vast and gentle, it is kindness, warmth and generosity. Liu Yuan says, “the kind heart of heaven principle”. Upon conception, we are this pure heaven principle of the universe – pure stillness and pure movement – this is the “true nature” of the human being. Liu Yuan taught that by engaging in daily affairs with the proper measure, we can get closer to this “true nature” that is the basis of human life.

What is the proper measure?

Upon birth, we need to connect to material things like food, water, air and other humans, so that our life in the world is supported. To move us towards material things we have the human heart, with desires and aversions, likes and dislikes. If we take steps to support our life, this is proper – enough food, shelter, sleep and so on. Relationships are also essential to human life. If we respect and care for those around us, especially those closest to us, then this is the proper measure in human relationships. When everyone can respect and care for others, this is a world that functions abundantly well.

However, the only person’s respect and care that we can control is our own. So this is where we look within and ask ourselves in each moment, am I doing my best here to act with respect and care. When we can do it, we notice that this allows goodness in others to naturally take place – the heaven principle within each person fostering goodness in the world. Liu Yuan’s expression for this is “first cultivate oneself, then go about cultivating others”. “Cultivating others”, then, is tending the garden of the world.

Sydney Banks teaches something similar, that the formless principle, basis of all things, is universal – this aspect of human reality he called “mind”. Our capacity to experience this is called “consciousness”. What we experience is called “thought”. Our human reality is one principle with these three aspects – everything that is experienced is done so through mind, consciousness and thought.

Feeling is the way that we can understand what quality of thought we are experiencing in any given moment. If I’m feeling at peace, expansive, generous and loving then this is the universal nature of mind – wisdom – creating my experience. If I’m feeling tense, judgemental, bitter, agitated or any other low state then this is an infallible indicator that I’m caught in a personal reaction, personal thinking about the situation.

Good states and not-so-good states move through us all the time, like the weather. If I hold onto a low state and try to “fix” it, or react to things from that low state, then mostly what will happen is I’ll just prolong it, causing more obstructions. On the other hand if I can accept that there’s a low state moving through, a “low pressure cell”, then of its own accord it will eventually pass.

Without noticing it, in the next moment I may feel a little lighter, or even have a moment of clarity – this is the power of wisdom. It is always operating, at a level deeper than the ups and downs. By letting personal thinking just go up and down, because that’s what it’s going to do anyway, and realising that we all have moments of insight where our innate wisdom shows up, naturally and spontaneously, then we can take our moods – and our judgements of the world through those moods – a little less seriously. When we can do this, wisdom has a greater chance to show up.

This universal wisdom is the very core of our nature, every one of us. When we relax our reactions and judgements, then it can shine – like the sun that’s always there, behind the clouds that come and go.

“Out-shining” others means being separate and distant, failing to “out-shine” means being in shadow. “In-shining” with others means seeking this true nature that is within, acknowledging that it’s within everyone. If I can experience my own wisdom then I have compassion for everyone else who is struggling with their personal thinking too. From this compassion naturally comes respect. Understanding how fallible we all are, the natural response is to care.

In the words of Liu Yuan, first cultivate oneself and then help to cultivate others. In-shining, valuing the wisdom within, we see it in others, and it grows. Water and sunshine, weeding and caring, we all tend the garden of life together.

Dec

09

Earthing – free, feel-good medicine

arthritis / chronic / cold hands and feet / Earthing / energy / exercise / Heart and emotions / hormones / hot flushes / infertility / insomnia / mood eg anxiety or depression / period problems / sleep / stress Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

Being grounded

What do you think of when you hear someone described as being “grounded“? What is that person like?

When you’re feeling grounded, how does it feel?

We would probably answer with something like – feeling calm, able to face difficulties without being overly swayed, having clarity…

We can also talk about being “down to earth“. This quality embodies openness, warmth, honesty, integrity – maybe also an “earthy” sense of humour.

Feeling good

These traits feel good, and people who have these traits are good to be around. While some of them may be traits that are moulded into our character through our life experiences, you may not realise that we can take these phrases really literally, and enjoy some of these feelings immediately.

A simple practice…

“Earthing” refers to the very simple practice of making direct physical contact with the Earth. Walking barefoot on the beach, going for a barefoot run in the park, reading a book with your feet on the grass…

Being in contact with the Earth is how we are made to be. Being insulated from the Earth – by shoes, cars, floors, bitumen, concrete – separates us from an incredibly important source of nourishment.

The Earth is a massive generator of free electrons with a negative charge. These electrons are continuously flowing out of the Earth and – when we make direct contact with it – through us as well. We have evolved to be in direct contact with this source of electrons, and it could be that this is an important way that we can protect ourselves from the charged particles that are created when cells generate energy.

Nature’s free, feel-good, always-available medicine

The beautiful side effect of taking our “Vitamin G” – for Ground – is that we actually can feel more calm, centred, clear and joyful after a session of going barefoot. Try it for 30 mintutes and see for yourself!

If you have pain such as fibromyalgia, arthritis, endometriosis or tension headaches then try a session of Earthing every day for a couple of weeks and see how you feel at the end of it. If you feel some benefit, and it’s not doing you harm, then why not add some Vitamin G to your self-care regime.

More information

To learn the quirky story of how the Earthing idea started, go to www.earthing.com

Nothing to lose!

The beautiful thing about Earthing is that there’s nothing to lose, and potentially lots to gain.

A barefoot beach walk? Sounds like good medicine!

Jun

17

Meditation for natural fertility, IVF and pregnancy

fertility / Heart and emotions / infertility / insomnia / meditation / mindfulness / mood eg anxiety or depression / pregnancy / stress Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

Head to the Be Fertile website for meditations to support you on your baby-making journey.

CDs or downloads are available to purchase and there are sample free meditations too.

We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from women who’ve found these tracks very supportive and nurturing throughout the stress of conceiving and the anxiety of early pregnancy.

BeFertile CD

Jun

16

Pregnancy meditation and mindfulness: free app

baby / birth / breast-feeding / children / Heart and emotions / meditation / mindfulness / mood eg anxiety or depression / parenting / pre-birth / pregnancy / stress Posted by Lois Nethery / 0 comments

Visit Mind the Bump for a comprehensive free app to support you and your partner from day 1 of pregnancy all the way through the first 24 months after birth.

With information about mindfulness, child development and mindful parenting, as well as many guided meditations on various themes such as acceptance and connecting with the baby, this is a wonderful resource for all expectant parents.

http://www.mindthebump.org.au/