Good morning! It feels like I’ve been on an 11 day sabbatical, although I’ve never truly been. I’m finishing up taking care pod my son’s four American Bullies. One of them is a puppy born in June, and sold to someone who lives in Ireland. Due to COVID travel restrictions it was taking months getting the puppy to Ireland. My son Andy is due to return from Hawaii tonight. He’s planned this well deserved trip for over a year and recently got the go ahead to fly back to Hawaii where he has a lovely 7 year old daughter.
My primary responsibility while at my son’s home in Las Vegas is taking good care of his precious and very expensive dogs. But, while here I’ve had ample time to reflect, write, and meditate. For me it’s been as close to a retreat as I might possibly ever get. I feel more of a sense of peace and calm than I’ve felt in a long time. At home I have far more distractions because I have my home, my wife, and my three dogs competing for mug time.
So In all honesty I have had a nice break from my own duties and responsibilities back home. Okay, in my last session I mentioned you will have some challenges implementing connecting with your heart on a regular basis. For me it hasn’t always been easy remembering to pause and connect with your heart in the heat of the moment. Our emotions often get the best of us and we over react when we need to be the most calm. I believe this happens to most of us, and to this day it still happens to me. This is I believe is our human nature. We react to worldly situation, instead of pausing and waiting patiently for a better response. This is the challenge we all face. We need to learn too slow everything down.
One of the best ways to slow down and not over think for a moment is to instantly connect with your heart. The quickest and best way to do this is to pause, take a time out for just a few seconds. Visualize the area around your heart, recall a beautiful memory this will instantly calm you and slow everything down. Now your can “entrain” your heart and mind. HeartMath has detected over 40,000 neurons in your heart. That is the equivalent of a small brain. Entrainment is the process of neurologically connecting your hearting and brain through various nerve pathways allowing your brain and heart to become synchronized.
This is a very powerful technique and can be accomplished in a minute or two. The key is of course to remember to do it and the more you practice this technique the better you will get. It works great but like anything else it takes practice. Imagine the peace and calm we could have in this world if more people would use this technique or a similar technique to gain more peace and calm in their lives.
Although a very simple technique I believed the difficulty in taking the time to use it is because we are a very fast pace society wanting instant results. Because I believe this technique will deepen our spiritual insights most of us will not be consistent enough to get proficient on this technique. I hope I’m wrong. I just know from my personal experience that I too have not been consistent enough in the practice of “entrainment”. I know it works. I used it in my “CALM” class when I taught in the prison system, and it can be used as a meditation technique as well.
I encourage you to give it a try. I believes it’s an excellent calming tool and will lower your stress level. The benefit to your body and mind will be unbelievable. May you continue on your spiritual journey. Until the next time. Carbie
The One-Minute Prisoner 