Outer Stress Relief - How to manage your environment

Just for a moment "STOP" and think about your home, your office, your environment that you spend so much time in.

How does it feel to you?

Does it fill you with happiness, joy and peace, or is it chaotic, confused and cluttered?

Your external environment plays a significant role in your internal environment and your thoughts, your emotions and actions are all influenced by it.

With today’s fast paced world, we excel at being busy, and sometimes our environment is not a priority to us.

Also we are turning into a nation of shop-a-holics and hoarders and soon every available space is stuffed full of "possessions" and all this stuff literally wears us down, as we need to take care of it all.

So make a decision to take control of your environment.

Simplify - Simplify - Simplify is the motto!

Start with the front door / your home or office entrance, and take a look at what story it is telling to the world.

The beautiful energy of the universe enters into your space through this door, so make a point of welcoming it with appreciation and love.

5 TOP TIPS:

1. Clear away any clutter that block the energy entering into your home (both inside and outside the main door).
2. Ensure all plants are healthy, vibrant and alive.
3. Spruce up the paintwork and make the door welcoming.
4. Clean the space – a sparkling clean door and entrance is so welcoming.
5. Make it bright and attractive.

Once you do this, notice the difference.

Change will happen within a few days.

Don’t believe me? Then try it … it's amazing and it works.

What is Mindfulness Meditation?

A lot of confusion exists about what meditation and mindfulness really are, is there a difference between them, and what’s their purpose and benefits. So let me take a few minutes of your time and bring some clarity.

Meditation is an ancient path that consists of wisdom, techniques and practice, and allows you to manifest the life that you choose. It also empowers you to create a life full of happiness, inner freedom, fulfilment and purpose.

Meditation is thousands of years old, predates the world’s major religions, is scientific and systematic, and has been used by people and cultures across the ages. Unfortunately, as religions become embedded in local populations, this ancient path of living your highest life came to develop a strong religious flavour. The non-religious masters retreated into the background and the religious teachers took centre stage.

Many great individuals used this wisdom, including the young prince Siddhartha Gautama, who later went on to be known as the Buddha, the Awakened one. In his years of teaching, he selected and used a few techniques from this vast science, which continued even after his passing under the label of ‘Buddhist Meditation’. These include vipasana, ana-pana-sati, and more, all of which existed before Buddha, but now came to be packaged differently.

Buddhism spread across the world and eventually found root in the fertile soil of young American minds. A minute number of Americans were eager to try it, but the large population stayed away from participating, because of the strong religious packaging these techniques were presented in.

In 1979, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn secularized one particular type of Buddhist meditation and renamed it mindfulness. Over the next 30 years, that simple act successfully spread a small part of meditation to thousands of individuals from all fields of life, and into hundreds of hospitals and other medical facilities worldwide.

To summarize, meditation is the whole book on how to live your intended life, with many chapters, and mindfulness is one of the chapters in the book of meditation.

A little more on Mindfulness –

In essence, mindfulness is about paying total attention and awareness to something, without judgement. These can include our experience of the present moment, our own bodies, our thoughts and emotions, our unseen assumptions and our conditioned habits of mind and behaviour.

With the hectic lives we lead today, when was the last time you were able to slow down and breathe, much less pay attention to the present moment? I bet it’s been awhile. In fact, on most days you’re probably feeling so overwhelmed, worried and stressed that you’re happy just to make it through another day.

In the past 35 years, meditation in various forms (including mindfulness) has found its way into the mainstream of medicine, health care, and psychology, where it has been broadly applied and continues to be studied through clinical research and neuroscience.

In fact, in recent years, meditation and mindfulness have also begun to move into business environments, sports performance, the armed forces and even astronauts.

Mindfulness is being conscious of what you’re feeling, more intentional about your behaviors, and more attentive to the impact you have on others. Start using mindfulness meditation and you will see benefits such as improved focus, greater control over stress, balanced emotions, stronger immune system, a clear mind and many more…

But don’t just take my word for it. There’s plenty of scientific research that backs up what I am saying, and I am happy to show you how to make the benefits real in your life too!

SoulCentre is Asia’s Premier Personal Development Centre for meditation, mindfulness and stress management.

Attend our popular ‘Meditation Made Simple’ program and understand how meditation and mindfulness can benefit your life tremendously.

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How to be truly happy - 5 Essential Secrets

Do you ever feel caught up in all the mundane things of life while happiness seems to elude you? Do you feel like life is just passing you by? Do you sometimes feel that you are doing so much but that you are not truly happy?

Life is too short to postpone happiness until the conditions are right. So if we are waiting for something is our world to be just right before we become happy, then we are keeping ourselves in an endless cycle of waiting!

Everywhere around, people are trying desperately to find their happiness in relationships, in expensive cars, mansions, overseas holidays, money, the perfect place or the perfect job – and yet after they have experienced some or all of the above, they are still not happy.

Happiness is the special sauce that makes everything else in life worthwhile. And if happiness is missing, then even a life full of wealth and health is not meaningful.

"If a person is happy, life is worthwhile" - Vikas

So how can one become truly happy?

What are the essentials to happiness?

Let me guide you to the 5 essential secrets that will create real happiness for you.

SECRET NO: 1 – START YOUR DAY WITH GRATITUDE

All of us have so much to be grateful for; it’s just that most times, we don’t realize it.

Gratitude helps to cultivate a positive mindset, which will help you to accept yourself for who you really are. Remember, as your day begins, you don’t know what the day will bring to you, but you can decide what you will bring to this day! So choose to bring a grateful and happy ‘you’ to your day and see the benefits happen.

Start your day with a positive attitude and a positive mind-set. Spend 3 minutes before you get active in the morning reminding yourself what is great in your life.

Start your day on a positive note, because a spiritual law is that whatever is inside you is what comes out of you. So if you create happiness inside by being grateful, you will ooze happiness all day, which in turn will make your day a happy one!

SECRET NO: 2 – DURING THE DAY, STRENGHTEN YOUR POSITIVE MUSCLES

As your day begins to unfold, many types of things, results and people will be encountered.

No matter what comes your way, choosing to be positive will help you to stay strong within the challenge and handle it in a peaceful and powerful manner. Even when things are difficult, try being positive and strive to make the best of whatever situation you’re in. It will help make even the most challenging situations easier to bear.

So as you live your life during the day, look for the positive not for the negative.

Often, during the day, repeat positive affirmations about what you want. Do so with faith, feelings, intention and focus. Your mind is the filter for this world around you, so look for the good in every situation, and you are sure to see it.

“Don’t gain all the wealth and lose your soul” - Vikas

SECRET NO: 3 – JUST FOR TODAY, ACCEPT IMPERFECTION

It’s a fact that we all have imperfections. When we stop worrying about our imperfections and what others think about us, and just start being what we are, then we can truly offer the world the best we have. For as long as we are living a life of pretense, we are sure to be tense, and real happiness will elude us.

Moreover, you can’t expect people to be perfect all the time. Perfection comes when you’re ok with imperfection.

Our ideas about the way the world works are based, in part, upon our expectations. Those expectations color our experience, good or bad and influence our reactions and responses to just about everything and everyone that we encounter.

Expectations help us form a world view, but they can also skew that world view in unexpected and sometimes unwanted ways. The more the expectations, the more the disappointment.

Being a perfectionist will not make you happy, I promise. So ease up a little bit, check the expectations you carry and lower them if necessary, and see how much more you can enjoy life.

You will be happily surprised.

SECRET NO: 4 - TRAVEL LIGHT

Keep your mind light. Carry the good experiences with you, and the lessons from the bad experiences. Both will help you and make you a better person. But carrying negative memories will only take your happiness away.

The best short-cut to happiness is meditation, which teaches you to train your mind to be calm and happy. Never put the key of your happiness in anyone else’s hands.

“Life is not a race, don’t make it so” - Vikas

SECRET NO: 5 – HUG TODAY. IT WON’T COME BACK.

So many people keep themselves constantly busy, but spend their whole life waiting to start living. And in the meantime, this beautiful gift from life called ‘today ‘is passing by forever!

Give your attention to the value of today. This day is your life, and you are alive only today! So value it, cherish it and live it fully while it is here. Because it’s soon going to be gone forever.

Take action in your life on the problems you face, if any. Any action is better than burying your head in the sand, hiding from the world, and more importantly yourself. But at the same time, don’t let your pains and problems define your experience; you also have a lot of blessings in your life, so let that be the flavor of the day!

"Create happiness, don’t wait for it!" – Vikas

Quit waiting for life to work out. Make a change and take control. You control your own happiness; don’t waste any more time waiting for it to come find you.

So embrace and HUG your life today. Bring some happiness, understanding and gratitude to your life today!

“H – Happiness; U – Understanding; G – Gratitude” - Vikas

There is always a lot in life to be happy and grateful for. Start living in the only moment that matters, right now. The more you are focused on the past or the future, the more you are missing out on happiness right now.

Pay attention to this day and make yourself truly happy, no matter what!

Meditation Class - The importance of a teacher

With the introduction of Google, we spend many hours researching and reading "stuff" on the web. We soon become an expert on any and every topic by reading second hand information in huge amounts.

So can we learn mediation on the web, and do we really need a teacher?

The simple answer is "Yes" you can learn meditation (to a certain extent) on the web and "Yes" you do need a teacher if you are serious about Meditation.

So why do I say you need a teacher?

First, the mind is a tricky little devil, and over 60,000 thoughts are whizzing through in any one-day. So you sit to meditate and some of the first thoughts that come in are;

• “ Am I doing this right?”

• “ What should I be thinking?”

• “ How do I stop thinking and have no thoughts “

This is natural and most of us start out like this on our journey with meditation. Having a teacher with you allows you the confidence and freedom to ask these questions and to be guided on correct answers.

Having no thoughts is one of the many myths of meditation; it's a little bit like expecting the heart to stop beating once you tell it to.

So a teacher also dispels these myths.

Having sat through 12 years of meditation classes I have heard so many myths ...

•  You have to sit cross legged to meditate

•  You have to shower before you meditate

•  You have to place your palms on your knees and make a lotus shape with your fingers to meditate

•  You have to meditate for over an hour to benefit

•  Meditation is religious

•  You cannot meditate during your menstrual period

These myths, and many more, are easily dispelled by a teacher and thus put the mind at peace.

A teacher will explain clearly what meditation is and what it is not.

A teacher will also listen to what you are saying and be able to guide you as an individual to experience the technique that is best for you.

After all there are thousands of techniques in meditation and it’s not a "cookie cutter" experience where everyone is precisely the same.

A teacher will also see your habits and challenge you a little to see them for yourself. After all meditation is all about getting to know yourself and to see how your own thinking and actions bring results in your life.

So sign up for a class today!

SoulCentre is Asia’s Premier Centre for Meditation

Our next program is on 16/17/23/24 August

We have 10 am and 7 pm classes

Reiki Healing – How to develop a healing touch

Reiki is a gentle, hands on healing practice that brings so many benefits to the body. It is easy to learn and remains with you for life.

Reiki allows the body to move into a state of balance and this means that the body is better equipped to heal itself.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you are completely absorbed or lost in nature? Maybe you are sitting on the beach and watching a sunset, or, you have just climbed to the top of a mountain and are admiring the view.

In that moment everything else is forgotten; your aches and pains, your stresses and worries of life…in fact you are so completely absorbed in the moment that you feel so alive and in bliss. This is what I call the "Reiki feeling", and once you learn Reiki you simply put your hands on your own body and the "Reiki feeling" results.

Anyone and everyone can learn Reiki and at SoulCentre we have taught children from the age of 6 all the way to adults of 86.

So how do you develop the Reiki healing touch?

You need to attend a basic level Reiki class and during the class you will learn all about the hand positions on the body and how emotions are stored in certain areas of the body.

By simply putting your hands in certain positions on your body, the Reiki flows into the body and can have significant benefits not only to physical healing, but also to emotional and mental issues.

For example if you suffer from migraines, once you start to learn Reiki you may realise that you are being too hard on yourself, or expecting too much from others and by using Reiki your body starts to adjust. In addition, emotionally you feel happier and more stable and and you start to let go of things you cannot control.

The result is a healthier you and the migraines improve.

At SoulCentre we have taught thousands of students, many with healing needs. Reiki works on everything! It is also a great first aid kit to have in your hands for any and every occasion.

Reiki really is easy to learn and in 2 days you become so enthusiastic you cannot wait to get started on your own body and also your friends and family.

As Sally says "Keep those hot hands working and there is never an excuse to have lazy hands."

The next Reiki Level 1 will be held at SoulCentre on Saturday 20/Sunday 21 August.

We teach all the way from beginner to Reiki Master level.

www.soulcentre.org