3 Benefits of Slowing Down
Taking things slow does not come naturally to me. I am one of those people who is constantly multi-tasking; usually in the process of reading three to five books at a time, and can often be found on the phone, while blogging, baking, and getting ready for the gym. Sound familiar?
1. Slow Down and Connect to Strength
Over the last little while, I have really made a point to take things slow…er, and it has changed my life. I have been starting with simple things like my abs routine. Have you ever tried to do 20 very, very slow v-ups? Let me tell you, it gives a whole new meaning to core strength, but what is incredible about it is that I actually feel every muscle, and am learning to work through the discomfort as opposed to rushing through it, jaw clenched and only partially strengthening my core muscles.
2. Slow Down and Find Focus
Another area of my life that I have been taking slowly, is accomplishing tasks in the day. Rather than accomplishing fifty things partially spirited, I am focusing on one, two, or ten really key things, and bringing my all to them. Since I started this practice, I have noticed the quality of my work has improved tenfold, and I feel much more confident about what I am sharing energetically with the world.
3. Slow Down and Create Tranquility
More recently, I have been enjoying the art of spiritual bathing. Bathing is amazing, and I always admire people who take the time to soak in the tub. My best friend turned me onto spiritual bathing and it has helped me fall deeper in love with my spirit. My spiritual baths consist of putting things like tea bags, clay, seaweed, lavender, flower petals, crystal salt and even rocks in my bath, as well as some scented essential oils. This ritual – which I try to talk myself out of to save time – always brings me right to my center of peace and tranquility, so I have made it a necessary part of my day.
So, for those of you who are working toward self-love, compassion, tolerance, acceptance and true strength, perhaps taking things a little slower may be just what your intuition has been asking for.
About the Author
Study Finds Significant PTSD Relief Through Lucid Dreaming
A groundbreaking new study of lucid dreaming suggests that people can heal psychological trauma while they’re asleep, and may even show potential for healing on the physical level.
A lucid dream is one in which you’re actively aware that you’re dreaming and may even have some control over what happens. While scientists have been studying this fascinating phenomenon for decades, recent research focus has shifted to the potential for healing within this state.
Charlie Morley has taught thousands of people worldwide how to lucid dream and was involved in the most recent study of lucid dream healing conducted by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS).
“Lucid dreaming is like being conscious within the unconscious mind, so there’s a whole host of healing benefits that we can gain from lucid dreaming,” Morley said. “In fact, many of the things you can treat through hypnotherapy, you can also treat through lucid dreaming. Now, there are some very interesting studies and preliminary research that points to lucid dreaming being one of the most powerful interventions for people with nightmares and especially PTSD-triggered nightmares.”
In the IONS study, a group of 49 people with diagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder were given instruction by Charlie into lucid dreaming. Over the course of one week, they were taught various induction techniques with a specific emphasis on making a dream plan for healing.
“So the techniques that we used for this study started with the basics — keeping a dream diary, learning to check dreams signs, reality checking during the day, all of your classic lucid dreaming techniques — but what we placed a lot of emphasis on was the dream plan; planning what you want to do in your first or next dream,” Morley said.
“If I were to become lucid within those recurring nightmares, what could I actually do to help affect healing? What we discovered was that simply by becoming lucid in a recurring PTSD nightmare, that already had a healing response, because it’s like ‘Oh, wow, I’m not really back in Iraq, I’m simply dreaming I’m back in Iraq.’ But once we trained people, not only to get lucid and know that they’re dreaming but to then intentionally interact with the source of their fear, or the source of their trauma, or the thing that they’ve been running from in their nightmares, to actually turn and face it had a really powerful healing response. We had some really good data that we gathered from that.”
