Negative overload

Hanging on to anger, resentment, fear, guilt and regret can actually cause us to be physically ill. When we hold ourselves in these feelings we are pretty much asking our bodies to function normally in a state of constant negativity. How well do you think this works out for us?

Think about this, I am in a store and I suddenly feel ill. I think, "Wow I feel sick." Now what is your reaction to this? Do you focus on being sick, or do you acknowledge that you feel sick and then try to focus on something else. I can almost guarantee you if you continue allowing your thoughts to focus on how sick you feel, you will feel worse and worse as time goes on. Wouldn't it make more sense instead of focusing on how bad you feel to focus on some type of breathing technique to relax your body or focusing on anything other than the pain or discomfort you feel?

Wouldn't it seem that if this works with feeling sick, it would also work with anger, fear, guilt and regret? What do you think it does to our body when we hold ourselves in the pattern of feeling angry, fearful, guilty or regretful. As I write this I find myself wondering if any doctors or scientist have done any types of studies as to how focusing on these emotions effect our brainwaves, heart rate, blood pressure and such. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a study on that?

What I know from my own personal experience in this body is that when I am feeling those emotions my whole body reacts. When I am in these emotional states, my heart rate increases, my muscles tense up, everything seems to go into hyper sensitive overload. It's difficult to focus, concentrate, think, sometimes it difficult to breath or even move. When we hold ourselves in this state that has to have a huge effect on our whole system. I also know that if we are willing to do the work, we can train our mind and body to function in a different, more positive way.

This is why it is so important to find a relaxation technique that works for us. We have to find ways to relax our bodies as well as our minds, the two are connected and if we can keep them both from going into overload, the health benefits will be amazing! If we aren't able to train our mind to relax and focus on positive thoughts, it will be difficult to allow our bodies to relax and if we can't get our muscles to relax it may be very difficult to keep our minds from focusing on how over stressed and painful our bodies feel.

In the very first installments in this blog I gave several suggestions for relaxation techniques you could try. There is no set technique that you have to use, you need to find what will work for you and your body. For me music is always very helpful as well as soaks in warm tubs and especially gentle yoga. Meditation can be extremely beneficial. I know when you think of meditation you think of sitting quietly and focusing within, but yoga is a form of mediation in action. Any kind of mind lulling activity can be considered meditative, such as mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, driving down the road. Add some relaxing music to those activities and they can be even more relaxing and mind calming if you allow them to be. These are just a few examples. You will know what works for you and if you don't experiment and try a few different things. As long as you are able let go of negative thoughts and focus on something else you will feel some positive benefits.