Dear James Ford:

Can you explain to me what you mean by “The act I put on can be so animated and strong”?

Also, are you now living with your “mentally disabled/drug abuser family”/ what is your relationships with those family members?

anita

Hi James. As I said before, Meditation is a great way to relax. Falling asleep is your bodies natural reaction to relaxing. Maybe try Meditation sitting up or at a different time of the day. There are other types of Meditation you could try also. Waking Meditation is one I really love. You are fully alert when doing this. In fact, it consists of you walking around in an awakened meditative state, with your eyes fully open.

*Plan a time of the day when you have some free time.
*Decide where you want to take a walk. Somewhere in a park, woods anywhere near nature is really nice as it has that peaceful element. But it can be anywhere you feel peaceful that you don’t need to be alert for traffic etc.
*Make the intention to let your thoughts go as soon as you start walking
*Set out for your walk alone
*Take a few deep breaths to centre yourself. Listen to your breathing, how it sounds as you breath in…and how it sounds as you breath out. Feel the rise and fall of your chest and the slight sensation of the beating of your heart. Notice how your body feels as you breathe in….and out..feel your body relaxing with every breath.
*Now take your attention away from your body and take in the colours and sounds around you. Notice how bright they are and how clear the sounds are. Sounds around you that you have not paid attention to before. Feel the breeze or the sun on your face.
*Notice that you are now viewing your walk and nature around you
*Don’t think about what you are seeing and hearing, just be in them, almost if you are part of it all.
*Now focus only and stay aware, all the time of what you can see, hear and feel. Notice how much is happening, all in the same moment.
*Your attention is only in this moment
*When you are ready or finished your walk, notice your thought processes start to return.

The more you do this, the more you will be able to appreciate what you are doing. And the easier it will become to truly be in the moment. Don’t beat yourself up if you find it hard to concentrate or you find it difficult to keep your thoughts away. Just start again if this happens, don’t force you thoughts away, just let them come and go, like clouds, passing through your mind. Keep bringing your focus back onto your breath or the sounds around you. If you find it really difficult, just congratulate yourself for trying and taking the time out to practice this. Make the intention to next time try again, for a little longer. And come back to it at a later day or time.

Meditation will greatly help you become more internal. So will sitting with your feelings and truly feeling them rather than pushing them away and burying them. Every time you feel that you can’t forgive yourself, ask yourself:
*Why you feel this way?
*Were your actions at the time for your higher good ?
*Was it in your control to change it?
*If you could do it differently how would you have done it?
*How can you change it next time?
Then think of something about yourself that you are grateful for. Something that you are proud of yourself for doing. Or something about yourself that makes you smile. Send yourself love and compassion and feel grateful that you are trying to work towards your higher good.
Do one thing every day if you can, that you love to do or that makes you feel good. It can be something as small as just reading a book or writing down your feelings for the day or even watching some comedy clips. Having the intention to be more internal and forgive yourself more is a great start. It is the first step in truly honouring yourself.

Good luck in your journey James and if you have any more questions, please feel free to contact me

Natalie

How do I continue to work with the ego, rather than fighting it?

Great question.
I think to answer that question we need to understanding what the ego is and isn’t.

In the west we tend to over identify with the ego while in the East the ego viewed as something to be nullified. Both ways I think get us into trouble if we are expected to live in the world.

In my opinion the ego is a valid and important part of the whole that is the Self.
The ego is not the self but a part of the Self, A part of the team through which we become aware, we become consciousness of self and set intentions. We work then do not to identify with the ego nor however do we negate it. (Fight it)

Ultimately the ego is the part of ourselves that acts mostly as an observer and means through which we set intention. (The ego consciousness should not to try to control the intention only set it, observe, adjust, repeat…)

Once we stop identifying our sense of Self with our ego consciousness, the ego becomes not the captain of the ship but the navigation and communication system. Communication between the conscious and unconscious, the objective and subjective, the inner and the outer…

It is the ego through which we set our course, retrieve and store our charts/memories and pays attention. Paying attention in a way that is a doing by not doing – not labeling or measuring our thoughts as in I’m a bad person because I am a bad piano player… note the difference between labeling thoughts as bad or good and labeling an experience of some moment of time that we felt as bad or good. When we label our thoughts we have the tendency to label our ego which if identified as the self we become.

By paying attention and observing we learn we are more than the sum of our parts, more than ego consciousness and the labels/measurements we make. We learn to forgive our self’s for our failings and as we forgive ourselves, others.
Life becomes less hectic as we strive and live our truths as we know them to be in the moment, open to learning. We breathe.