thinking

Experiencing Our Experience

"If the only thing people learned, was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world." - Sydney Banks

Many teachers talk about the need to be present with our experience of the world or our experience of our body.

The way you think of your body has a big effect on the actual health of your body. An uncomfortable sensation can turn into lasting chronic pain if you add a lot of negative emotion to it or continuously tell yourself that it shouldn't feel that way.

More than half of the experience of pain is from heightened emotions. If you can be present with your experience of your painful body part without any emotion or story about how it ought to be different or what it means, the actual sensation is much different and lessened in severity.

The same is true of how we talk about our bodies. One often hears people talking about their bad back or "oh, that's just my bum knee". It seems mild however we are dismissing our own bodies as bad and ignoring the message for change within the actual pain or sensation. Practice listening to your own language to see if you have body parts you don't value.

But what message is there in the pain or dysfunction? It just hurts and I don't like it.

When we can be fully present in a state of no thought with our body the sensation or pain transmutes. It can move to another spot. It can reduce or go away. It can change into pure emotion that you weren't allowing space for. It can intensify and then turn into joy or certainty. It can be the messenger for an insight about something in your life.

The wisdom of an insight can be literally anything. For example, it might be as simple as "oh wow, I need to stretch my arm" "Strengthening my body might help this, I wonder if there are any videos on YouTube" or so-called bigger things like "I need to quit my job". One of the most common things I hear from people is "well I know I should do..." We often know.

We suffer when we’re feeling powerless or helpless. Not from pain itself.

What do we do when we feel helpless or powerless? We may freeze up, withdraw or roll up into a ball. We may try to self-talk our way through it: “it’s gonna be alright, you’re going to get through this”. We may get angry or upset and lash out. We may develop a neurotic habit like an obsessive compulsion. This list is not exhaustive by any means.

When we suffer, we may actively deny/ignore/disconnect from the feeling of helplessness. Over time, this can become an unconscious habit or M.O. Which can further evolve into a part of our personality. This in turn can create more pain. So, while we suffer, we try to avoid feeling helpless.

The remedy for suffering is to acknowledge and accept in the moment that we are feeling helpless and that nothing is working. The more fully we can accept this, feeling it with our bodies, a transformation occurs. It’s as if a vortex opens up, our defences soften, energy can flow once again which leads us to our inner resourcefulness.

The antidote to feeling helpless is to reconnect to our inner resources such as peace, strength, patience, love and flow.

Listening to Our Deeper Self

There are many ways or pathways to listening to ourselves

People talk about their own sense of themselves quite differently. Different types of spiritual teachers or mental health practitioners have different words and definitions for following your own wisdom.

I hear about listening to your heart, not your head. Listen to your gut. Sometimes these 3 different intelligences we have within us may be telling us 3 different things. Head, heart or gut? Who to listen to? What do I do? What choice do I make?

Our thoughts are very powerful in that they can take control of our neurology. Our brain and nervous system can’t tell the difference between the thought of a future negative event or the actual event itself. Both create stress. We are wired up to create emotions based on our thoughts. Your feelings in any given moment are a clue to your predominant thoughts. If you are scared; you are thinking scary thoughts. If you are angry; you are thinking angry thoughts.

Being aware of how thoughts and feelings or emotions work in our body is one step towards one type of listening. Practice this without judgement. Ok, I feel frustrated. I’m thinking frustrated thoughts. We then see pretty quick that we then have a choice. Do you want to feel frustrated? The answer might be yes. Maybe no. The one answering this is the deeper part of ourselves that is always at peace.

Then people often want to control their thoughts “Well I will only think joyful thoughts because I want to feel joyful.” Ok. This will work for a while. Then life happens and we might feel sad or angry or happy or whatever.

When we realize that we live in the feeling of our thoughts a magical space can open up. Things don’t look quite so solid anymore. It’s just a thought and I can turn around and think again, and again, and again as many times as I want. It’s like having a bright orange crayon and a blank sheet of paper to create over and over and over again.

And underneath it all, is who we really are, peaceful, loving, at rest. This is the part of you to listen to. It speaks most often when we feel good. You know it’s the ruth you are hearing when there is a beautiful feeling alongside. Some describe this as just knowing, feeling spaciousness, expansiveness, joy, calmness, or clarity. It might be an uncomfortable knowing but you are calm and you know what to do or what you want.

Entrainments help to clear your nervous system of built-up stress and the effects of our thinking so you can connect more easily with your own clarity and knowing. With who you really are.

If You Do Anything Do These 3 Things

I had the amazing opportunity to be a guest on Susan Rosin’s “Healthy Tips After 50 Podcast”. Susan is a coach helping professional women optimize their busy work and family lives and she has a passion for living to her fullest. In her podcast, she shares the best of what she has learned over the years and has interesting guests.

Here is the link to listen in with Susan and I in conversation about World Class Wellness and aging with optimum vitality.

In talking with Susan, I realized that in my twenty years of practice there are 3 main areas that if you pay attention to these things as you age, you will have huge benefits in overall health and vitality.

If you consider how you Eat

How you Move

And how you Think


It is impossible to overstate the beneficial effects of optimizing these 3 areas as you age. It’s also never too early to start and never too late to get going. Think of it as an investment in your life.

A big reason for why these 3 things has to do with the effects of Toxins (what goes you’re your body hint: what you eat), Trauma (physical injury and how you move) and Thoughts (how thoughts affect your emotions and thereby your spine and thereby your whole being). These 3 areas are the main causes of unnecessary inflammation in the body.

In future articles, I will focus on each of the three areas of Eat, Move and Think and how we can optimize our vitality at any age.

Embracing the Unexpected

As we head into fall it is with a renewed sense of optimism. Life is returning to some of the daily routines that we are used to. Yes! The kids are going back to school. What exactly might that look like? Well, I’d say it remains to be seen. This is where there is a usefulness in expecting or embracing the unexpected. No one likes the unknown. If we are honest with ourselves though, most of life is unknown. Until it happens.


Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon when you buy a new car, maybe a great new Honda Civic in black, and while you’d never really noticed black 2019 Honda Civics before all of a sudden you see them everywhere! Everybody is driving your new car!

This happens because of the way our brains sort reality and pay attention to what we expect. There is too much data coming into your brain’s awareness in each moment for you to notice all of it. So our brain consults with the spine and says “Ok, you are expecting black 2019 Honda Civics, sports edition” here you go. Now it’s all you see.

The logical follow up to this example is to choose what you expect. What would you like your brain to sort for? What do you want to see more of? This is what you will notice around you. If you choose optimism, then you will perceive events more optimistically. And the opposite is also true. If you choose pessimism, this is what your brain and spine will sort for you. It is your choice. You get to make it up.

Wait! Dr. Sara you mentioned the brain and spinal cord do this sorting function! Yes! This means that the better your spine is operating, the better your system will be at sorting and perceiving what you choose to expect. More spinal flexibility equals a clearer perception of the world around you based on your chosen expectations. Which equals more happiness.