December B Issue
RIANE EISLER
Nurturing our Humanty Log On Our Website and Learn more in how to Live a Conscious Lifestyle: OMTimes.com
CONTENTS HEALTH & HEALING
48
BATTLING INFERTILITY AND INCREASING YOUR CHANCES TO CONCEIVE NATURALLY IN YOUR 40’S
SPIRITUALITY
56
WITNESS THE NEW YEAR WITH A HEART-FILLED MIND
60
MESSAGES THAT ARE HEAVEN SCENT
SPOTLIGHT RIANE EISLER: NURTURING OUR HUMANITY
TRENDS ARE WE BEING REACTIVE OR PROACTIVE?
METAPHYSICS
110
5 WAYS TO FEEL CONNECTED TO THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED ON
OMLIVING
68
HOW TO QUIET THE MIND THROUGH YOGA
72
BENEFITS OF THE SUDARSHAN KRIYA BREATHING
80
12 WAYS TO BOOST MIND, BODY, SPIRIT IN 2020
98
HOST INTERVIEW PERSONAL GROWTH
RELATIONSHIPS YOUR ABUSIVE BOSS WILL NEVER CHANGE
WISE EMOTIONS VERSUS BLIND EMOTIONS
104 6 SECRETS TO EMOTIONAL INTIMACY WORLD VISION
140 THE NEED FOR A GLOBAL PATRIOTISM
WHAT IS DANGEROUS ABOUT BEING BORED? 10 INSIGHTS ABOUT EGO, YOU HAD NO IDEA ABOUT TAMING AND TRAINING THE MONKEY MIND
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DECIDE TO TRANFORM
DECEMBER 2019|Â OMTIMES
RIANE EISLER EXCLUSIVE
NURTURING OUR HUMANITY
By Sandie Sedgbeer
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW | OMTIMES
"In sum, the struggle for our future is . . . the struggle between those who cling to patterns of domination and those working for a more equitable partnership world." Riane Eisler
Everywhere we turn from news to books and movies, we are bombarded with the same hackneyed message: human nature is inherently bad. Looking at the senseless violence, the greed, murder, rape, and war around us, we humans, it seems, are genetically wired for selfish, cruel behavior.
Or are we? Are violence, greed, domination, and control really a fundamental and ineradicable part of human nature? Absolutely not, says cultural historian, social systems scientist, and author, Riane Eisler, whose international bestseller, The Chalice, and the Blade has been hailed as the most important book since Darwin's Origin of Species.
In this interview with Sandie Sedgbeer, Riane Eisler discusses her latest book, Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape our Brains, Lives, and Future, coauthored with anthropologist Douglas P. Fry, in which they both upend age-old assumptions about human nature and provide irrefutable evidence that not only is caring behavior humanity's default tendency but also that we can build more humane and sustainable societies.
Battling Infertility and Increasing Your Chances to Conceive Naturally In your 40’s By Carrie Rutledge
There is nothing more painful than to want a baby and to be told you can’t have one. There are or course, very rare circumstances in which there is a genetic or immune malfunction that may need doctor intervention; however, most infertility diagnoses are “unexplained.” If you fall into the “unexplained” category, I’m here to tell you that you can have a baby without doctor intervention, naturally, on your terms. Whether it’s your age or your partner’s sperm that is playing a role in your inability to conceive, we are given everything we need in nature to reverse infertility and give birth to a healthy baby, until menopause.
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One of the best books on the market discussing infertility is called “It Starts With The Egg,” written by Rebecca Fett. She will tell you to start by throwing the traditional American food pyramid away because not everybody needs two servings of dairy a day or six servings grain. In fact, by eliminating sugar in all forms from your diet, you will see a drastic change in your health. A low glycemic diet is key to lowering inflammation and increasing egg quality. The optimal fertility diet should include high amounts of organic, grass-fed meats, eggs, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. Carbohydrates from sweet potatoes and squash instead of rice or grains will supply you with loads of energy without spiking your blood sugar. The fruit is healthy and delicious but still loaded with fructose, and unfortunately our bodies don’t understand the difference between a piece of fruit or a candy bar. The sugar is processed the same way in our bodies. The goal is to
keep blood sugar from spiking; therefore, if you must eat fruit, stick to organic berries, apples, and pears. Paying attention to eating fruit in combination with quality fat and protein. A wonderful option to zap those sugar and chocolate cravings is through smoothies. A cup of organic berries, a whole avocado, almond butter, and raw cacao is an excellent dessert that you can eat every day for a quick boost. Supplements, in addition to a healthy diet, are crucial to egg and sperm health as well as building your own reserve of nutrients for when you do conceive. During the first few months of pregnancy, the baby will feed on the yolk sack. What you eat before conception is critical for preventing miscarriage and ensuring healthy fetal development. A quality prenatal vitamin containing folate (instead of folic acid) is essential. Thorne is a brand of supplements that come highly recommended by most Naturopathic Doctors and are highly absorbable by the body. Thorne Methyl-Guard is a combination of folate, B-12, and Omtimes.com
As the year comes to a close, we all scurry to welcome the New Year carrying with us the baggage of our past. What if instead we hugged our past goodbye and
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tried something different to find peace in our lives? Witnessing, or Sakshibhav Meditation works with believers and nonbelievers alike. The daily practice of this meditation has empowered many from around the world to step back from an external event, a thought attack from inside, any physical ailment, or psychological imbalance to enter a state of equilibrium; being aware of it all and not getting engaged or identified with it. All our suffering begins the moment we get unconsciously involved with the thought process and emotional patterns and take it personally. This meditation gives us the scope to just witness it happening in the biological or mental screen while not participating. We see it all as if it were colored clouds passing over the inner space of our mind-body, where we are the clear blue sky that remains ever unscathed.
“Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream” –Kahlil Gibran As we approach the New Year 2020, let’s give a big hug goodbye to all the memories of our yesterdays that taught us the transitory nature of our peripheral life and the benefits of our abiding in a soulful life. Let’s live today as if today is the first and the last day of our life so that it releases us from the dream state so we can enter the awakened state, where we witness life in its fullness, in its totality. Witnessing, as an art and practice of awareness, helps us release all that binds and minces us in the very grinder of our own mind, stuck with unresolved problems or hurtful memories of the past. Whatever we resist or react to, that very situation or person keeps robbing us of our inner peace. Even if a million other things go right in our life, time, and again we are drawn into that piercing thought
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Messages That Are Heaven Scent By John Holland
There are many different types of symbols and messages that those in Spirit can send us. One of the more common ways our loved ones
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can communicate with us is through our sense of smell. Scents have an amazing power to vividly bring back memories that we may have long forgotten. When we smell a freshly baked apple pie, it may bring up loving memories of a grandmother, or the smell of the ocean could conjure up memories of happy days spent on your dad’s boat. Stop and think for a minute right now what scents bring back special memories for you. Mine would have to be the aroma of my mom’s Italian cooking, which brings back memories of Mom, giving us samples as she cooked. All too often, these signs are quite subtle. For example, if your dad used to smoke cigars in his lifetime and one day for no reason, you smell cigar smoke, don’t be alarmed. Obviously, check that there’s no one in the house actually smoking a cigar. If
not, then it might be your dad’s way of saying, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m here with you.” During one of my winter lectures about recognizing communications from the Other-Side, a young woman in the audience raised her hand. “My mom passed away a few years ago. She was always working in her garden, and her neighbors all admired her spectacular flowers. In fact, she won several ribbons for her roses.” Then this young woman told us that on the anniversary of her mom’s passing a few days before this event, she woke up to find her entire house filled with the sweet smell of roses. I asked her to come up on stage. As I placed her face in my hands and looked into her tearful eyes, I asked her, “Darling, so what do you think that was?”
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Benefits of the Sudarshan Kriya Breathing Technique by Patti Montella
Have you ever noticed that every emotion has a corresponding rhythm of breath? When you’re nervous or anxious, you tend to hold your breath. When you’re stressed, you might let out a long exhale or sigh. The rhythm of our breath indicates what’s going on in our nervous system. A smooth, light, and fine rhythm of breath means the mind is more at peace. Amid your workday, sometimes stop, Omtimes.com
close your eyes, and notice the rhythm of your breath. A few minutes spent like this can-do wonder for your nervous system. I come from a corporate background that was very demanding. It wasn’t until I started studying the Sudarshan Kriya breathing technique that I noticed how often I was holding my breath. What I learned is that when our negative
emotions—fear, loneliness, anxiety, anger, or shame— don’t have a release valve, it’s like having a kink in the hose. Water can’t flow right, and things can get backed up in a hurry. Daily breathwork, whether it’s Sudarshan Kriya (SKY) or some other practice, has many positive benefits. I’ll share those benefits, along with my story of approaching this practice as a slight skeptic, but let’s first dig deeper into the SKY technique. What is the Sudarshan Kriya breathing technique? Quite simply, the SKY breathing technique involves rhythmic circles of breath that have a positive impact on the body, mind, and spirit. In fact, the translation from Sanskrit makes it obvious the impact of this technique. “Su” means proper, “darshan” means vision, and “Kriya” means purifying action. To put it all together, Sudarshan Kriya provides “a proper vision of one’s self through a purifying action,” which is the breath.
This breathing technique brings harmony and balance between our body, mind, and spirit, while safely releasing those negative emotions discussed earlier. The physical benefits alone are numerous: it lowers the cortisol levels in our brain (the stress hormone), enhances brain activity, lowers blood pressure, and strengthens the immune system. Our breath is our main source of energy. A breathing technique like SKY is designed to increase our prana, or life energy, which can become depleted with chronic stress, too much thinking, unhealthy food, and a lack of sleep. Increasing the prana in our system makes us feel more alive, more energized, healthier, more self-aware, and more connected with ourselves and others. It flushes out the stress and toxins that accumulate and returns us to the natural rhythm of our body, mind, and spirit. Omtimes.com
12 Ways to Boost Mind, Body, Spirit in 2020 By Robyn M Fritz
Why do New Year’s Resolutions fail? They take too long. In our hyper times, we’re constantly in flux, and slowing down for anything is to admit defeat—or die. But what if you could both keep up with your busy life
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and slow down, so it all makes sense? You can, and the holidays are a good time to start. That means skipping one big New Year’s resolution in favor of a monthly mind, body, spirit task that will fine-tune your holistic life by year’s end. The following are suggestions to boost your creativity. Progress doesn’t depend on the order, so listen to your intuition and soul as you go. And get a notebook to keep track of what you learn. January: Be Present. Stop and breathe; notice the moments. Remember, you’re a complete being—body, mind, spirit. Notice how it feels to be balanced and learn to stay that way. February: Understand energy. Yes, everything is energy, including you. Find a simple energy healing technique that you can do morning, night, and
whenever you need help to maintain your holistic focus. Here’s one simple exercise: cross your hands on your heart, imagine you’re breathing energy into your hands, hold your hands to your mouth and breathe on them as if your breath was energy, and put your hands back on your heart. March: Learn how your intuition works. Everyone is innately an intuitive and healer. Now determine whether you’re clairseeing, clair-hearing, clairfeeling, clair-knowing, or a combination of these four main abilities. Then work them: keep a notebook of intuitive experiments; learn to distinguish between beliefs, emotions, facts, and intuition; and apply this practical skill daily. You will be astounded at how wellrounded you become. April: Intention. Decide what you intend: how will you incorporate your intuition and healing skills at home and at work, or react
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Are We Being Reactive or Proactive? by Crystal Presence
Life is filled with a plethora of experiences that can stimulate our reactivity. Moments in response to what someone says are often our most regretted moments. We strive to stay calm and listen to what the other has to say, yet sometimes find ourselves reacting in ways are sorry we did. We can choose to make a defensive comment, hold it back or be proactive with wise choices.
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The world of chemistry tells us that the more stable the reactant, the less reactive it will be. The more stable the reactant, the slower it will react. Interestingly enough this is often a metaphor for many of our own reactions. What if we take full responsibility for calming and taming the ways we react? What if we embrace our reactivity and cultivate a path to emotional sobriety? 8 tips on how to tame our reactivity and maintain our proactivity Cultivate the ability to maintain a state of release. Notice when our breathing is slow and constricted. Bring awareness into any places we are holding back and not fully present in our bodies. Breathe, sing, vibrate, dance, meditate and explore what other ways we can move, circulate and stabilize our energy. Explore that natural place where we are centered, connected and seeing more clearly. Change beliefs about maintaining our ability to be present. For example, the belief that we cannot help
being reactive, we are victims of our own condition. Our new belief can be that we have the power treat our reactivity like any other habit that we want to change. (1) Observe what triggers us. (2) Make a list of detail about the behaviors, thoughts and feelings we have when we react. (3) Follow up by making a detailed list of healthy ways we can respond. Breathe and take time out. Be willing to step out for a moment when we find ourselves becoming reactive. Breathe, relax and let go as we count to ten so we can use better judgement of how to handle the situation. Breathe. Allow better ways of communicating, admit and apologize if needed be and move on. Curiosity rather than quick conclusions. Assume positive intent about the other person. Ask questions to make a reality check on our assumptions. Remember that we can misconstrue another person’s intentions. Ask the other person about their reasoning and listen to what they have to say. Explore the conversation Omtimes.com
Your Abusive Boss Will Never Change So Stop Trying To ChangeThem By Marcia Sirota, MD.
Sometimes, a person inadvertently gets hired by an abusive boss. If this is you, you might not realize it at first, especially if they’re the type of abuser who’s initially very charming, charismatic, attractive, and super-attentive.
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Initially, you might think that you’ve won the workplace lottery, so when the inevitable red flags start waving in your face, you’re more likely to ignore them. You tell yourself that your manager’s unkind, unreasonable, hypercontrolling and critical behaviors are just momentary lapses until they become more and more common and begin to outweigh any moments of kindness or reasonable behavior. Little by little, your boss transforms from an apparently ideal employer into a total nightmare. You start to feel overwhelmed by all the negativity coming at you. And this is where many people make a crucial mistake. They do this by relying more on hope than facing what’s right in front of their eyes. This is how it goes: when your boss ultimately reveals their true, ugly colors, you tell yourself that the original version of this person is the
real one; not this undermining, crazy-making, hyper-critical micro-manager you’re currently dealing with. And you convince yourself that you can get your boss to become the ideal manager again, just by making them happy and giving them what they want So, instead of saying, “I’m out here,” you try to convince your now-abusive boss that you’re not as bad as they’re saying you are. You try to retrieve the reasonable, supportive earlier version of your boss by “proving” to them that you’re worthy of their respect. But here’s the thing. If they’re this hyper-critical and unreasonable, it’s your boss who isn’t worthy of your respect. Any supervisor who constantly complains about you frustrates you, undermines you, and/ or intimidates you is not deserving of your time, energy, or loyalty. Any boss who can’t value your efforts and treat you with basic consideration and respect is not the type of manager you want to work for.
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6 Secrets to Emotional Intimacy The secret to a deep, purposedriven life is not to perceive but to feel. We can see, touch, smell, taste, and hear the world around us, but not until we feel it do we truly sense the Omtimes.com
living spark. When we watch a movie, it’s not the scenes we glimpse but the emotions they evoke that make us laugh or cry. We must feel all that we do—even become intimate with it—to grasp its full meaning. This holds especially true in relationships; we might be physically attracted to someone, but only when we engage our emotions do we really connect with that person. I met my husband a mere days after I landed in America. Whether it was fate, coincidence, or pure luck, I married him in three weeks, and we remained together until he passed away many years later. I believe what kept us together was sharing this extraordinary ability to feel each other at all times: he could detect exactly what was bothering me. Likewise, I knew just what to bring him before he could even ask. We maintained our relationship not by seeing each other day to day or going about the routines of life, but by being emotionally intimate. The magic of intimacy is
that it can be of the soul. Far surpassing physical intimacy, emotional intimacy is the glue of any loving bond. To be emotionally intimate means to be empathetically in tune with your partner, feeling his fears, desires, wishes, and needs as if they were your own. Implement these six keys to deepen the intimacy of your relationship: See it together. Visualization exercises can empower your relationship. You’ve probably already tried this with your partner without even realizing it: imagining what your future together will look like. Take it one step further. Hold your loved one’s hand and close your eyes as you take turns, saying your wishes out loud. Speak in the present tense, as if your dreams were coming true right now. You can say things like, “I see us walking into our new home. It’s a big, brick house with a garden in front,” or whatever it is you both want to achieve. Make this a nightly or weekly habit. Visualizations are profoundly intimate rituals that inspire you to strive towards mutual goals. Omtimes.com
5 Ways to Feel Connected to Those Who Have Passed On By Brooke Chaplan
When a loved one passes on, it can feel as though life will never be the same. You naturally go through a period of grief and loss where you might not be
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able to imagine living without them. While this time is painful, it helps to know that your loved one is still watching over you, and you can use these five strategies to feel connected even though they have passed on to the other side. Continue Your Favorite Rituals You might be tempted to stop going to your weekly lunch date with your loved one or quit watching your favorite show that you used to enjoy together. However, these are special memories that existed between the two of you and continuing to do these activities reminds you of your bond. You may be worried about feeling sad doing these things again, but it tends to have the opposite effect. While you may feel a twinge of grief, you will also feel comforted by knowing that your memories continue on. Talk to Them Out Loud Talking to your loved one
allows you to continue to share your life with them. At first, this may seem silly, but it is a natural thing that many people do when they are grieving. This is especially helpful if you lived with your loved one or talked to them on the phone every day. While they may not be able to answer you back, you can certainly watch for signals that they are listening to. Feeling a sense of comfort or suddenly noticing a reminder of them, such as a scent, lets you know that you are heard. Communicate Through a Medium You can also make talking to your loved one even further by seeking the assistance of a medium that can pick up information from people who have passed on. Seeking a professional’s services through a allows you to hear back from your loved one at any time. A medium can help give you the reassurance that your loved one is fine on the
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Wise Emotions Versus Blind Emotions
Our healthy and mature emotions can guide us in situations that are not clear for our logical minds.
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Emotions accompany us at every turn, as they are the natural responses to the situations that we are confronted with. They alert us to what is going on right now, what matters, whether or not pay special attention to what we hear, see, and experience. Being conscious of our emotions can help us maintain our happiness and prepare us to better deal with all the problems and challenges that we face in our life. Subjectivity of emotions The same event, fact, phenomenon, word, or image can evoke different emotions and reactions in various people. It is because each of us has had a different experience in life, and we have been differently shaped by our environment and background. Learning more about our emotions can help us use them as a tool – the same way we use our five senses and our logical thinking to understand and define our experience.
It is worth it to recognize what they are trying to tell us and use that knowledge to our benefit. Our emotional intelligence could become one of our greatest strengths. Emotional awareness Research shows that people with a high level of emotional intelligence are also the most effective, with their ability to harness emotions and apply them to their thinking and problem-solving. More and more employers recognize that emotional intelligence is just as important to professional success as technical ability and are increasingly paying attention to the candidate’s level of emotional intelligence during the recruitment process. In the area of our private life, it is also much easier to trust someone who understands his/her emotions as well as ours and will not take us on an unnecessary emotional roller coaster.
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What Is Dangerous About Being Bored?
Boredom happens to the best of us, but this seemingly innocuous state of being can be dangerous to our growth. Instead of bemoaning this feeling, we can begin to use it as a signal to get moving. There is a two-step process
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that is simple to use and is a surefire way out of boredom. It involves cultivating gratitude and igniting our curiosity. Once applied, these two things will have us back on track, growing in the direction of our dreams. Wake up, get dressed, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, repeat. Sure, this is a little generalized, but it’s pretty much everyone’s standard routine. Routines are a necessary part of life, a structure that allows us to explore, expand, and build. They’re also boring. Goals get set, and then they’re met, we celebrate, we revel in the joy of success, and then inevitably end up asking, “what’s next?” What fulfilled us last year no longer fulfills us today. This is human nature, we are built to seek and transform, and while boredom happens from time-to-time, it can be treated for what it is: a signal that we are doing neither of those things.
Boredom is a big, red flag. Its presence inhibits us from seeing opportunities, it blinds us to our blessings, and it tricks us into thinking that because we’re comfortable, we’ve arrived. We’re never truly finished, though, which is why when boredom settles in, it’s time to change up that routine. Here are two steps to get you started. Step One: Reignite Gratitude Put simply, boredom is a symptom of lacking appreciation for our inherent potential, our gifts, and our ability to effect change in our lives and in the world. This isn’t about self-judgment or criticism. It’s about having awareness and using that awareness to create a game plan. Start an appreciation practice by spending your morning thinking of at least five things that you appreciate. Your family, your health, your morning coffee, the peaceful walk to work. This simple practice is known as “priming” and can have
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10 Insights about Ego, You have no idea about To Promote Our Human and Spiritual Wellness
Our ego is exerting a profound influence on our human and spiritual wellness—for better or worse. However, its impact is hidden from us by our limited understanding of what it is and its purpose,
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which is ultimately a positive one—our survival. This article seeks to remove the ignorance and darkness about it that empowers unhealthy ego energy to undermine our human and spiritual wellness. And replace it with insights that shine light and truth on this very important part of who we are and our humanity. If you’ve had a psychology class or read a book that touched on ego in the likelihood you got a very limited, very superficial, and very incomplete description that weakens your ability to understand the extremely important influence that ego is having on your life, humanly and spiritually. By the way that’s not the fault of those courses or teachers because they were only intended to give us a basic understanding of ego, not everything. Unfortunately, if we get the impression that we pretty much know everything there is to know about ego, we are missing a great deal about it and
what it’s doing to our life. So, knowing something about ego is as good as knowing nothing about ego, because what we know can be misleading. It can lead us to minimize the effect ego is having on our lives and cause us to miss the destructive impact that ego can be having on it. Weakening our ability to understand ourselves, each other, and God. Even though we are normal, intelligent, and spiritual beings, our ego energy can be leading us towards a lesser version of ourselves and a lesser version of life. Consequently, the more we know about ego and our ego energy, the more we can remove ourselves from the ignorance and darkness that empowers ego and upon which it thrives, to the truth and light upon which we can thrive. 1. Everyone has an Ego There are over 7 billion people on the planet, and every one of us has an ego. Just as we all have a face,
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Taming and Training the Monkey Mind
As we step more and more onto the New Landscape of the New Reality one of the important practices we can install and integrate into our knowledge base is taming or training our money mind.
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Taming That Monkey Mind, Oh boy, some fun, eh?
relentless. I am sure you know what I mean.
Well, we all have one, whether we call it that or not. Yep, we do!
It is amazing to me when I look back on my life before taming my monkey mind, what I used to allow it to do to me. Holy Moly! Well, I assure you I am glad to be passed that
So, what is the monkey mind? It wasn’t until I was writing a chapter about it in my book How to Be the REAL You that I Googled “Monkey Mind.” Well, see me surprised! I found out the concept of the monkey mind goes back to Buddha 2,500 years ago. Buddha said, “The mind is like a bunch of drunken monkeys!” I think we can agree with that, eh. Well, it really is the typical mind chatter: things to do, fears to fear, childhood dramas to relive, judgmental comments about ourselves and others, It’s also our inner critic. It is what tells us that we can’t do anything right. That we don’t think or listen. Or that we are stupid, or useless, or unlovable, or whatever and its commitment to self-pity is
As much as the monkey mind is a pain in the pitute, we do not want to get rid of it. Oh no! It is very useful. I love my monkey mind. In our busy lives, it’s our monkey mind that keeps on top of things. It usually keeps us on time, on schedule. It reminds us what needs to be done, who we need to talk to, what’s next. So, it does have its practical applications. So, what do we do? We tame or train our monkey mind. Can we do it? Yes, we can! So, how do we do that? We need to keep a leash on it. Ok, how do we do that? Well, first, we understand Omtimes.com
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