Category: Healing

How to heal with gratitude
Healing · Spiritual

How to heal with gratitude

radhikab

Gratitude is an alchemic emotion. When a person is experiencing gratitude i.e., feeling thankful for something; it is impossible for the person to be angry or bitter at the same time. Usually, a human’s emotional body is quite complex and many emotions can exist side-by-side. But, when a human charges their emotional body with gratitude – no negative emotions can exist along with gratitude for the time being. Fear can soon come in after a human is done feeling gratitude, but not along side it. To make sure that ‘fear’ doesn’t come after gratitude, the other emotion needed is ‘faith’ – but that’s a whole different story.

Healing with gratitude is a very ‘feminine energy’ way of healing. It does not specifically look at a wound or hurt, try to analyse it and then try to find ways of healing the issue – this process is very ‘masculine energy’ based – logical, analytical. Healing with gratitude, does not go into the depth of a particular issue, it is more holistic. It is healing by surrender and alchemy – very magical, just like the feminine energies. For a person like me, and I think most of us nowadays – who are used to being more in their masculine energy of  being logical, analytical and deep diving into issues – it requires some patience and practice to cultivate the act of being grateful. Because masculine energy is always out to fix problems and issues, it becomes a natural habit for people in this energy to always strive to improve – which in turn means looking at short-comings and trying to overcome them.

This itself is against the emotion of gratitude in which there is an inherent element of being content in the current condition. The true emotion actually even goes beyond being content – it goes to the extent of bowing your head to the event/person/entity which is causing this feeling of being thankful. The very moment a person experiences this, the ego dissolves for how many ever moments gratitude is experienced and with this ego dissolution – all the ego-based emotions (coming from the Manipur chakra i.e., Solar plexus chakra) disappear. In Buddhism this can be described as when the cause is removed, it’s effect gets removed too. That is why, the emotions of fear, hatred, jealousy, envy, anger, bitterness, etc. which are ego-based cannot exist along with gratitude. Gratitude alchemizes these lower vibration emotions and converts them to love. Love toward the event/person/entity that we feel grateful for. This love also is an ego-free love, a devotional love.

How then can one cultivate gratitude? Here are some ways :

  1. Make a list of things you are grateful for. Keep it with you in your phone. Read it multiple times in a day.
  2. Doing something that ignites your passion. This will make you a magnet for gratitude.
  3. Helping those less fortunate than you are.
  4. Being open about asking for help and making it a point to thank whoever helped you.
  5. Make a list of the tough situations in your life and list all the people who helped you out from it. If something else helped you come out of it – music, books, spirituality, exercise, art, adventure – you can make a list of these. Thank each of them again, if you haven’t already.
  6. Go out in nature and admire whichever aspect of nature you like.
  7. Look at a thing of beauty – this maybe a person, a mountain, a tree, anything – and try to get lost in it’s details. The moment you are completely lost in its beauty is the the moment gratitude will automatically flood your heart.
  8. Say ‘thank you’ whenever you get the chance to.

Once you start magnetizing your being with gratitude, you will start attracting more things to be grateful for. Little by little, your life will start moving from a materialistic realm to a more spiritual realm – where magical synchronicities will fill your life – giving you more and more events/persons/entities to be thankful for.

Here are some songs which I think are the same frequency as gratitude. They talk of different religions, but I find their vibrations to be very similar (P.S.: Not my intention to endorse any of these religions)

  • My everything – Owl City
  • Aaqa – Abida Parveen, Ali Sethi
  • Bolava Vitthal – Mahesh Kale
How to heal the ‘mother’ wound?
Healing

How to heal the ‘mother’ wound?

radhikab1 Comment

Most of us suffer from a ‘mother wound’. In quite simple words – this is a wound that a child feels when their mother makes them feel – ‘You are not good enough’. This feeling can happen when a child is a baby, toddler, teen or even as an adult. This wound however, doesn’t show up overtly in most people but mostly covertly, in the behaviors described below. If you recognize it yourself, then perhaps you do need to do some ancestral healing.

The cause of this feeling is co-dependency. This co-dependency certainly makes sense as an infant – because an infant is completely dependent on it’s mother for survival. But even as a child grows, parents are the main and most important mirrors for a child. Mirrors meaning they show the child his/her worth, build their ego/identity and bolster them. They are the obvious safe space for the child. This role is mostly fulfilled by a mom as stereotypically, men have not been as involved in child raising (not true in all cases, of course).

Described above is the ideal case, however, most of the time we find ourselves in not so ideal situations 🙂 A mother is often stressed, oppressed and quite frankly, totally oblivious to her internal state most of the time. She might be emotionally abusive or absent, overbearing, completely self-sacrificing with zero boundaries, projecting a lot of her fears, anxieties and complexes over her child/children, overly demanding, overly victim mindset oriented, pitting one child against another or narcissistic. Another common pattern is the mother handling down to a child, all the toxic emotion that her husband might have given her. Making the child almost like a substitute for the detached husband. Again, I would like to emphasize that not all of this happens in the real world by spoken words or actions – but energetically, and a child can sense it out – at a conscious or at a subconscious level.

In which case would a mother wound not occur? It would not occur if the mother is a completely healed and a whole human in herself, who is capable of giving real ‘unconditional love’, if not always – then most of the time. This is obviously a tall order for any human.

This ‘mother wound’ can show itself in one or more of the following ways in the child’s life :

  1. Co-dependency, excessive neediness or excessive detachment in relationships.
  2. Lack of self-worth.
  3. Poor boundaries.
  4. Self-sabotaging tendencies when meeting success in life, core negative outlook (with the internal feeling that ‘I don’t deserve this’).
  5. People pleasing tendencies.
  6. Problems with accepting love. (with the internal feeling of ‘I don’t deserve this love’).
  7. Problems trusting others who show them love (with the internal feeling that ‘What do they want from me?’).
  8. Weird sexual fantasies and fetishes (especially for male child).
  9. Fear of abandonment and intimacy issues (with the internal feeling that ‘I don’t want to depend on anyone’) This is actually repression of feminine energies in oneself – as the feminine energies remind the adult of their mother.
  10. Constant comparison with others to seek validation for ourself.
  11. Feeling of betrayal if someone we love does something against our wishes.

How then can one heal this ‘mother’ wound? I am listing some techniques below.

  1. Realize that your mother was just a human – the idea of a ‘perfect mother’ is a complete oversell by society.
  2. Realize that your mother (who might be at least 20+ years older than you) grew up in times where she was probably not shown this unditional love as well. She might not have been shown any love actually. She is probably passing on this ‘mother’ wound – of feeling worthless or not good enough to you.
  3. Realize that your mother must have been fighting her own battles in a male dominated society without the proper means to get emotional help, understanding or education. She must not have any time to heal from all the emotional wounds that she had.
  4. Start a practice of self-love. If your mother did or does not love you unconditionally – then you do it. Love yourself unconditionally. If you have a mother who points out all of your so-called ‘flaws’ (physical or personality based), then realize that you have the power to LOVE your so-called ‘flaws’ and own them completely as a part of yourself.
  5. Energetic cord cutting and aura cleansing might also help.
  6. Hypnotherapy and childhood regression might also be helpful.
  7. Psychotherapy is also helpful.
  8. Chakras affected by this are – root chakra (Muladhar chakra), sacral chakra (Svadhishtan chakra), solar plexus chakra (Manipur chakra) and heart chakra (Anahata chakra). Work on healing these chakras.
  9. Get comfortable with your feminine energies of ‘being’, loving, kindness, waiting, praying, etc.

Hope this helps! Wish you all a lot of love and light 🙂

How to heal the heart chakra with music
Healing

How to heal the heart chakra with music

radhikab

Heart chakra (Anahata chakra) is a very important energy center of a human. It is a decision point – a conditional, which if solved correctly takes a human to the higher energies of the throat chakra (Vishuddha chakra) onwards towards a subtler existence that is closer to divinity; or if solved in another way, can take a human back to cruder energies of the solar plexus chakra (Manipur chakra) towards a more mundane existence and animalistic tendencies.

Here are the vrittis (propensities, tendencies) of the heart chakra:

The aim is always to balance these tendencies. An overflow or underflow of them causes unfavorable emotions.

1. Asha: Over-optimism (overflow) / practical hope combined with effort (balance) / hopelessness (underflow)

2. Chinta:  Anxiety, over-worrying nature (overflow) / caring nature (balance) / non-caring, hardened nature (underflow)

3. Chestha: Stubbornness, non-relenting (overflow) / effort (balance) / not making any effort (underflow)

4. Mamta: Possessiveness (overflow) / fondness (balance) / non-loving (underflow)

5. Dhamba: Arrogance, vanity (overflow)  / necessary vanity  (balance) /  not caring at all about vanity (underflow)

6. Vivek: Judgements, overly critical (overflow) / discrimination (balance) / lack of discrimination (underflow)

7. Vikalata: Choosiness, high maintenance (overflow) / discomfort (balance) / depression (overflow)

8. Ahamkara: Ego (overflow) / pride, self-worth (balance) / no boundaries (underflow)

9. Lolata: Covetousness, avarice. greed (overflow) / practical earning for survival (balance) / giving away everything (underflow)

10. Kapatata: Duplicity, hypocrisy, manipulation (overflow) / diplomacy (balance) / blurting out hurtful words (underflow)

11. Vitarka: Indecision, argumentativeness (overflow) /  sharing ideas, innovation (balance) / talkativeness backed with no action (underflow)

12. Antuptata: Regret, burning misery (overflow) / feeling remorse then forgiveness, letting go, learning and moving on (balance) / not feeling remorse, regret for wrongdoings (underflow)

There is a raag called ‘raag Bihag’ in Hindustani classical music, which works wonders for healing the heart chakra. A raag is like a template of a musical composition over which various lyrics can be set. Every raag is supposed to invoke certain energies, emotions and feelings in the listener. With raag Bihag, the heart chakra can be healed i.e., balanced. You can hear it as much as you feel like or can even keep it playing in a low volume while not actively listening to it. The vibrations themselves can cause healing. The lyrics do not matter so much, but are definitely a cherry atop the icing in most of the good raags, but for purposes of healing – they do not matter as vibrations are much subtler than lyrical meaning which is of a logical construct.

Here are some songs based on raag Bihag :

1. Laal Ishq :

2. Mama Atma :

3.  Tere Sur Aur Mere Geet : Old song, instrumental version of same song

Listening to these balances the heart center, is what I have myself experienced. It is indeed very true that music touches the heart and sometimes even heals it 🙂

How women store stress and trauma in their body
Healing

How women store stress and trauma in their body

radhikab

Disclaimer: All of these views are my own from my own experiences. I am not a woman hater & what I have observed may not apply to all women.

Before we start talking about stress and trauma in women, I think we need to mention feminine and masculine energy. These are super broad topics in themselves, but for the purpose of this article, all we need to know is that – every woman has both masculine as well as feminine energy inside her (all humans do). Masculine energy is the forward moving, ‘doing’, controlling energy – it’s actually much more but for this article, this will suffice. Similarly, feminine energy is the waiting and watching, ‘being’, letting it go energy (+ a lot more!). Both energies are present in every human being and they are not in competition with one another, they should actually complement each other.

Now the women who deal with stress, tend to be more in their masculine energies – i.e., they are more in the doing mode, they want to get things done quickly and in their way. In short these women are task masters and therefore they have a higher need of control than the average woman. If you work in corporate culture, you might have seen such women somewhere in the management chain. For such women, stress often shows up in the same places as that in a man. Stress in women can also be held in the head, near the third-eye chakra (Ajna chakra) and in the neck.

Now the other kind of women, who are usually balanced in their masculine and feminine energies or the ones who are more in their feminine energies – of letting it go, relaxing, being – such women usually don’t experience much stress – but they experience trauma. This is because they might not be trying to control a situation but might be trying to get a particular outcome they wished out of the situation. If the outcome does not match the expectation – women might experience feelings of sadness, despair, grief, helplessness and heartbreak. These are feelings from the women’s heart chakra (Anahata chakra). We can categorize this as trauma when it occurs in a prolonged or frequent fashion,

A woman who has experienced considerable trauma, can also store this trauma in her hips. Hips relate to the root and sacral chakra (Muladhar chakra and Svadhishtan chakra). This can manifest as a woman who gets petrified under a situation which is considered threatening by her. It can cause her to freeze up. Most women also carry an abandonment wound – which has been carried over for multiple lifetimes – which does show up in the hips and sexual organs. Sexual trauma is held in the heart and in the sexual organs.

So if you are a woman or if you are reading this for the special woman in your life. Here is how you can help them.

Stress: For stress you can do similar things as mentioned in men’s stress blog post. For stress stored in neck or head – neck massages and standing in your power and speaking your truth is key.

Trauma: For heart  – mantra meditation does wonders for a broken heart. Please see link to a beautiful heart healing mantra below. For trauma stored in hips, moving the hips, playing, dancing, swimming, activities in water, etc. can help transmute it. There are many hip opening exercises explained online.  Sexual trauma healing needs more time and professional guidance. Talk therapy with a licensed therapist is also wonderful for any type of trauma described above.

So women, who are reading this blog – the ultimate purpose of any human being is to find the right balance, get union within themselves of their masculine as well as feminine energies. The core wound of ‘abandonment’ keeps surfacing for most women, but every time it does – we are challenged again to be whole within ourself (by building the masculine energies). When a woman gets stressed because things are not in her control, it’s a clue that it’s time to let go of expectations (from a man, a job, society or anything else) and go within to align with the flow of the Universe. You are all Goddesses in disguise, all you need to do is realize your true self! <3

Mantra for heart meditation. This mantra will definitely make you cry, once you are a bit advanced with it. Doing a meditation with it for 40 days without a break  is helpful:

Image credit : https://www.covenofthegoddess.com/goddess-asherah/

How men store stress in their body
Healing

How men store stress in their body

radhikab

Disclaimer: All of these views are my own from my own experiences. I am not a man hater & what I have observed may not apply to all men.

Stress was a very important emotion which kept humans and many other living beings alive through the ages. The ages where the world was savage and all about survival. But fortunately for most of us, stress is not a primary emotion anymore. Nowadays, usually it is an emotion which gets created when a human is storing many other repressed emotions inside their body-mind complex. It’s very interesting how men and women store stress differently in their bodies.

So how do men store stress? They usually store it in 4 places : Jaw, Shoulders, Lower back and Feet.

Jaw and Shoulders: Have you seen a man clenching his jaw? There might be a big chance that this man is not speaking his truth, and usually it is not because he is scared or inauthentic – but because he has a lot of responsibilities  to fulfill which he thinks might get jeopardized if he expresses himself in his most authentic form. This is related to the throat chakra (Vishuddha Chakra). Also, check if the guy always keeps his shoulders slightly raised up instead of keeping them relaxed – another sign that he is stressed.

Lower back and Feet: Let me tell you a secret, men get hurt too. I frankly feel most men have fooled themselves into thinking that ‘they don’t feel hurt – because they are a man’. This is not their fault though, evolutionarily men were the hunters, the gatherers, the protectors, the warriors, the soldiers and therefore, it was indispensable for them to be a bit unemotional, a bit indifferent to hurt. Again, fortunately most men in the world today might not have to physically endanger their life to provide for others. However, different feelings come up in life, but men seem to have lost a way to express it over the ages and due to societal conditioning.

The primary feelings that come up in men (or boys) are usually heart based feelings – feeling of hurt, being abandoned, feeling betrayed, feeling taken advantage of – but they try not to feel these, deny them and repress them. This results in a blockage to the energy flow from their heart chakra (Anahata Chakra) and due to repression this energy usually goes back to the solar plexus chakra (Manipur Chakra). Here it expresses itself as anger.

Now, anger is an emotion that most men seem to be ok with. They are able to express it, but expressing anger incorrectly can do irreparable damage. So overtime, they start suppressing this anger too.  This is the time when any emotion that is too heavy to handle will quickly turn into stress. This results in lower back pain.

Feet get affected too because in all of these repressions – a man is still trying hard to be a solid foundation, appearing cool, collected and be grounded in the midst of this chaos that keeps brewing inside of him.

 

If you have a male in your life who maybe in a stressful work environment or any other stressful environment and you want to try reducing their stress – I highly recommend giving them massages in the following areas :

Problem Area : Clenched Jaw and non-relaxed shoulders. Give him an upper body massage. Maybe shoulders, back, hands, jaw and forehead.

Problem Area : Lower back and feet. Give him a full shoulders and back massage, followed by a foot massage.

 

 

And if you are a man reading this, please notice these signs in yourself and please go easy on yourself. Lifting crazy weights and pushing your body endlessly might transmute some of your anger but it is going to leave your body sore and agitated. So it has to be done only in moderation.

Take care of your inner world and don’t worry about always trying to be ‘strong and silent’. If you are acting from your awoken part – you are going to be our hero, always!  <3

 Image credit : Warner Bros.

DIY feet massage for stress relief
Healing

DIY feet massage for stress relief

radhikab

This is my technique for a gentle feet massage which almost always puts my spouse in a deep meditative state. By the end of this massage he has dozed off to wake up only next morning. So try to relieve some stress off a special one or you can do it for yourself as well. In all healing techniques setting intentions is important, also it is important to not simply rush through the massage but give each and every rub a lot of love <3

Time: Approx. 30mins.

Setting: I highly recommend getting a Himalayan salt lamp and a peacock feather for the area where you plan to do the massage. Something as simple as the picture below is good. I will make another post explaining why I think these are helpful. Even if you don’t have this, it’s not a deal breaker 🙂  Make the person comfortable with a blanket, pillow, etc.

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Music: Mul Mantra from Kundalini Yoga is best to support the root chakra (Muladhar chakra). Feet are related to root chakra. If you plan to chant the mantra, it is recommended to cover your head. Please find the two links to Mul Mantra below the post.

Lotion: I use ‘Stress Relief’ by ‘Bath and Body Works’ Aromatherapy line of products. Picture below.

Process: 

1. Apply one-by-one on both feet.

2. Place one foot in position and apply lotion.

3. Fingers and thumbs: Start massaging the thumb – especially the back of the thumb – this is the brain point in Chinese reflexology and puts the brain in a relaxed state. After that hold the thumb in your fingers and move it in circles ~10 times anti-clockwise and then ~10 times clockwise. You might hear some crackling type of sounds because the thumb muscle are loosening. Next rub all the fingers and similarly start circling the fingers clockwise and anti-clockwise. There could be more crackling sounds. Give a good rub to the fingers one last time.

4. Middle of the foot: Trace and rub the area just below the fingers horizontally while applying some pressure. Rub the foot from below the fingers to above the heel. Continue this for sometime. You can use all your fingers. This feels extremely relaxing – you can do this horizontally first, then increase pressure and do it vertically.

5. Heels: Hold the foot in your hand below the heel. Then with both the hands massage the heel with a lot of pressure. This area also feels wonderful to be massaged – stay here for a good amount of time. This has pressure points for the lower back, knee, ankle, gonads, insomnia point and sciatic nerve. No wonder it feels so good 🙂

5. Stretch: Hold the foot in both your hands. Now turn the whole foot in clockwise circles, then anti-clockwise circles. Then stretch the foot from left to right and then right to left. This can be done 5+ times.

6. Same thing for other foot.

This is the process I follow. I hope this helps you in some way to relieve someone’s stress.

Wishing everyone lot of love and light!

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