Smartphones : With The Gift Comes The Curse

Well gee, no surprise last week to hear Australian media reporting that the top reason for GP visits in this country is now Depression and anxiety, replacing coughs, colds and back-pain as the most common reasons for people to consult their doctor. I`ve long wondered whether excessive smartphone usage would eventually tip people into a funk and lead to extensive malaise and poor mental and spiritual health. As the old adage goes, with the gift comes the curse and smartphones are probably no exception.

The central tenet of mindfulness and spiritual well-being is being present. Buddhists, Taoists, yogis, the ancient and indigenous cultures and all the great and wise spiritual teachers universally extol the benefits of staying present to the now moment. They emphasize that this simple practice of mindfulness – conscious awareness – underpins the robustness of our spiritual and mental health yet when I see people all around me buried in their tiny screens they seem anything but present.

Reflexively checking your smartphone is just more distraction and diversion. Each time you check your messages, your newsfeed, your Apps you are no longer in stillness, no longer in a space of neutrality and peacefulness, no longer in a state of BEING. The compulsion to pursue data (of any kind) keeps you absent from your immediate physical experience and leads to a sense of being ungrounded. Anything that actively separates you from the present moment could be described as an energy leak. Any activity, noise or mind-state that you unconsciously use as a buffer from existential angst represents a split away from the flow of the now moment and causes life-force energy or prana to seep out from the lower Chakras while mental over-stimulation can close or cloud the beautiful Third Eye Chakra.

Spiritual teacher and author Eckhart Tolle says the greatest addiction of mankind is the human mind and compulsive thinking. According to Tolle all humans are addicts to their unconscious, excessive, superfluous thinking which then defines their identity. It could well be argued that smartphones enable this addiction because data overload stimulates excessive thought activity so there is no ability and no space to access deeper moments.

I`ve heard it said that social media is to blame for the widespread angst in society today because it feeds the syndrome of Compare And Despair. Maybe that`s true but I can`t help feeling that it is the action of gazing intently into that little five inch screen that is way more damaging. Each time you peer into your smartphone you`re being pulled into a state of sensory contraction, contracting your field and closing you down because you are no longer available to the here and now. The Phone People (those constantly immersed in their screens especially while walking or when sitting in a restaurant or cafe) appear to be in a compressed state of consciousness and quite separate from the physical world. They seem to be in a state of lack because clearly the here and now is not enough for them. Ironically they seem detached, incomplete and somehow impoverished because they`re missing all the detail, the richness, the minutiae and all the creative potential of the real, material world in this very moment.

When you are present you`re able to access the frequencies of the Sixth Dimension and the magic of synchronicity and grace. You gain a sense of the strand of interconnectedness that links us all, and the matrix of connection and benevolent support of the Higher realms. When you are fully present and available to the here and now you`re able to deeply appreciate the perfection of this moment. Conversely, excessive smartphone usage is like a trapping mechanism that keeps the Phone People separate from Universal connective flow and the sense of spiritual connection.

It`s a healthy choice to limit your time on your smartphone. Seriously, do you really need to be that available, that connected? And does the prevalence of social media and the Apps represent real connection or is it all delusion? It feels to me like we’ve all been sold a great big digital illusion of faux-connection.

Take the smartphone challenge and leave the thing at home today. Can you do it? Can you leave home without your phone? Reclaim your time, assert your boundaries and feel the liberation.

Healing Sessions – Double Bay Sydney – 0408 420211

Book a session with Margot and experience the amplitude, efficacy and integrity of her Healing work. Her modality is swift, comprehensive and expansive, delivering verifiable benefits and conclusive healing outcomes for all forms of physical dis-ease, mental disorders and emotional imbalance. Her sessions also work to rapidly clear away all subconscious limitation, blocks and self-sabotage. DISTANCE HEALING available. For more information visit http://www.sydneyhealer.com.au

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Bogart & Bacall`s Healing Effect

This shot holds me spellbound, I love it so. I`m currently having a large print framed for my new home and someone recently asked me what it was about this image that I found so arresting. Where do I begin? If Healing is equilibrium, inner harmony and coherence then I am Healing whenever I linger over this photograph. To me, it has everything.

VARIOUS — Mandatory Credit: Photo by SNAP/Rex/REX USA (792986fu) FILM STILLS OF ‘TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT’

The therapeutic effect of this image lies in its ability to pull me right into the present moment and because of the wash of peace that envelopes me as I gaze at it, as though I`m vicariously experiencing their rapture. Beyond the palpable heat and urgency radiating off this pair this picture speaks to me of absolute presence. There`s a timelessness to it because linear time does not exist within the frame – for these two right at this moment there`s no past and no future. To my eyes and my heart-mind both she and he are in an expansive space of total availability to the now moment and all its vulnerability, creativity and unlimited potential. This image could well be a pictorial representation of Eckhart Tolle`s `The Power Of Now`. Looking at this pair I see heart energy clearly leading. I see a deep knowing. I see complete and unquestioning trust and a total absence of fear and doubt. I see absolute surrender. I see the remembrance of wholeness. I see pure truth and it is sublime.

The gorgeous bit and the thing most special as I savour this shot is that we are privy to Bogart and Bacall`s fledgling love affair, one that would become a great Hollywood love story. They famously fell in love on the set of this movie, 1944`s `To Have and Have Not`. They aren`t feigning attraction for this photo – this is no masquerade for the camera. The blazing passion of their embrace, their swoon of bliss – we know it is authentic. Both she and he are home.

I also love the perpendicular line of her thick tresses, as though grounding the pair and somehow anchoring them in the physical plane, drawing them back down to earth from their lofty, loved-up limerence.

In this picture I`m seeing the representation of balanced creation. I see symmetry in this sexy pair – a divine union of the demonstrated energetics of Masculine and Feminine, the contrary yet complementary and interconnected characteristics of yin and yang. I`m witnessing a unity between the paradoxical. The divine Feminine aspect within each calls to the sacred Masculine within the other so that there is no separation, instead a merge into unified wholeness. The slow, deliberate, singular focus of the Masculine blends with the energized, brisk complexity of the Feminine. His action meets her passivity, a fusing of intent with openness. His divine Will, his commanding focus and drive toward manifestation mingles and melds with her flowing receptivity, creativity, understanding and ease. She values and nurtures him and he supports her, giving her structure and stability. It is an organic completion and deeply healing.

To me, this shot symbolizes the sheer beauty of truth and the curative power of Love.

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Passion`s Passenger

image credit (above) : extendmystaff.com

Underwhelmed. I`d be willing to bet that`s how you`re feeling right now, having just read the title of this piece. Passion. Hmmm… I must admit, it was with great reluctance that I used that word in the heading because it just feels so hackneyed and threadbare nowadays, as though it has been everybody`s go-to word du jour over the past decade, sadly rendering it ineffective. My sympathies go out to all the HR recruiters who, with glazed eyes and feigned interest no doubt, have had to listen to the word “passion” being churned out ad nauseam in every single interview by every last wide-eyed candidate.

But for all that, this piece is a nod to passion and a recent experience I had of its fabulous power to elevate an otherwise humdrum enquiry to a place without limits. It was a typical Friday afternoon with the usual palpable, lighthearted buzz building in the air ahead of knock off time. I`d decided to drop into the Telstra shop at Telstra House in the CBD and my very ordinary run-of-the-mill question about my Broadband dongle was about to take me somewhere extraordinary. So I`m directed to the young guy at the Tech Bar and what a rare gem he was, providing expansive, verbose explanations and generous answers to even just my basic questions. He was a total tech fanatic, this guy, and his clear love of that world swept me along on an eye-popping ride because his enthusiasm was my passport – his obsession gave me entreé into the super-cool wonderland of IT. Suddenly I had vicarious access! For a brief moment I was privy to his big wide world of knowledge and expertise, a field that has always felt intimidating and foreign to me, and most unwelcoming. But with his every sentence I was catching a free ride on derivative experience, albeit fleetingly and how exhilarating it was. I`ve never before felt like I belonged in the tech realm because when it comes to electronic technology I`m afraid I sit just a hair`s breadth outside illiteracy, somehow muddling through and sort of figuring things out as I go. But that Friday afternoon in the Telstra shop I was taken somewhere and what an educational ride it was!

Fascinating insights and morsels of information were dished up to me as I was taken on the scenic route, skirting round operating systems, cruising past 4G firewall bubbles, zipping into internet security and anti-virus protection, passing by Norton and Bit Defender and anti-virus performance rankings, turning briefly into gaming, accelerating down payment portals and finally coasting round the sweeping bend of 5G. How enlightening it all was and for a short time afterwards I romanced myself with thoughts of what might have been, pondering possibilities of computer science studies and whether I should have, and if I still could, venture down the path of the computer geek. Enthusiasm is a transmissible energy and the fire of his fervour had warmed me right through on a cold August day. It felt as though my interaction with this guy had given me wings because it was based in total presence and mindfulness and it was creative.

Passion is intentional and deliberate. It is purpose and focus. It is love and joy and pleasure. This young guy did the very special thing of taking the ho-hum everyday and lifting it to a magical, stratospheric place. Imagine what our world might look like if more zest imbued the ordinary.

To Scott, the Tech Specialist at Telstra, Elizabeth Street, Sydney …thank you for a fun and really cool exchange.

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Plug That Energy Leak

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Yep, we leak energy just like that pesky dripping tap. A constant bleed of spiritual energy – your vital Life Force – can pretty much be ascribed to one solitary cause : the repression of truth. The concept of leaking energy may sound relatively innocuous however it is anything but. Your emotions and thoughtforms are your link to the subtle realm of energy and all its grace and wisdom so it follows that any smothering of your emotional reality will have a destructive affect on all levels of your Being.

Could any of these apply to you? If so then right now you are seeping precious Prana :

there is a conversation you need to have but feel unable to initiate
there is a decision you need to make but cannot because it will cause pain
you feel unable to communicate your needs effectively
you feel anger and resentment yet cannot give voice to it
you feel you are not being heard or understood
you hide your feelings
you feel controlled, manipulated or trapped in a mentally constructed story
those old and convenient lies you had settled into no longer feel so comfortable
you feel exhausted, over-loaded and burdened
weak and wobbly boundaries means you say yes to things you don`t want to do or to things that do not serve your highest good
you feel you must lose or deny an aspect of yourself to gain or guarantee the love of another
ungroundedness manifesting as excessive emotional reactivity
addictions and habitual, compulsive behaviours
physical dis-ease
rigidly-held beliefs, inflexibility, talking and thinking in absolutes
getting lost in imagined realities through fear, anxiety, fantasy
dwelling in regret, guilt or shame
seeking and focussing on data (of any kind) as a means of distraction

These life-situations and patterns serve only to dilute your wholeness, diminish your personal power and deplete your vibrational system. You are literally squandering your pranic energy and your essence yet your body`s wisdom will do all it can to capture your attention and communicate this truth to you. Any people including family, any circumstances and habits that reduce you and weaken your glorious Light, that generate emotional discord, conflict and cause energetic contraction are an energy drain that will eventually manifest as a loss of vitality.

Further, anything that actively separates you from the present moment could be described as an energy leak. Any activity, noise or mind-state that you unconsciously use as a buffer from existential angst represents a split away from the flow of the now moment and amounts to a bleed of energy.

Speaking from experience….

My own experience of suffering a chronic energy drain occurred some years ago and all came down to my being in a job that was totally wrong for me. Every day the noxious politics, bullying by a senior staff member and opaque manoeuvring by colleagues not to mention the work itself which required a lot of speaking and reciting of exhaustive sales scripts resulted in the haemorrhage of essential life-giving Chi from my system (note : excessive speech or the compulsion to speak constitutes a significant energy drain, whether it be a necessity of your job or just plain gossip). Unsurprisingly, the wisdom of my physical body conveyed all this toxicity to me in no uncertain terms : I was always wiped out at the end of the working day, I`d gained two kilograms in weight as my energy system hunkered down in protection/survival mode, and I had developed a troublesome lower back due to the seepage of prana from my Sacral Chakra (from where we connect outward to the external world, also the seat of our deepest vulnerabilities). Energy leaks often morph into financial challenges too and this is another Sacral Chakra issue. Even though I had several income streams at the time, I was not managing my money very effectively through that period.

I remember being on Annual Leave when I made the decision not to return to that work environment and incredibly my lumbar spine stabilised and healed overnight. Overnight! My lethargy immediately disappeared and those extra couple of kilos fell off my frame in just a few days. I was back, baby. The speed with which my system positively responded to my life-changing decision and recalibrated itself proves the sheer power and influence that our mind and emotions have on our systemic health. My body`s wisdom had been desperately trying to get my attention, to lead me to the realisation of the truth of my circumstances. All up, it was a woeful couple of years.

Emotion`s barb

Emotion has an edge to it. If I reflect honestly on that wretched period the dominant emotions for me at the time were resentment and bitterness at having to tolerate that situation. The jarring vibration of the emotion is destructive as it descends into the physical body and is held in the immune system and the endocrine system, taxing the thymus, the thyroid and the adrenal glands, eroding the body`s immunity.

Emotion is magnetic and so a mind-state of anger, fear, judgment, jealousy and rage will attract and magnetically bind the same vibrational matches so that over time the disharmony becomes layered and complex.

Why Healing can help

Very simply, Healing is purification and the return to an optimal state of balance and harmony. Healing can be defined as self-renewal on every level however a default setting of disempowerment may limit Healing outcomes in the short-term and thwart the replenishment of your energetic tank. For example, if you have ever had Reiki or any kind of Healing work and felt fantastic for a few days afterwards only to find a week later that you have slumped back into a hole, it is likely attributable to a chronic energy drain.

The good news here is that the Healing work always finds its way through the density in order to initiate change.

The grace and higher intelligence in play during and after a Healing session propels the causal factors upwards to the surface, giving them a new urgency as the Light of truth permeates every layer. Interdimensional energy (or higher-dimensional spiritual Light) such as Reiki or Reconnective Healing works to bring illumination to the dark, bringing awareness to anything that is not love and aligning you with your truest self and your highest path. Typically this begins with an internal process of questioning and enquiry, leading to clarity and eventually the courage to voice your truth from a platform of neutrality, transmuting disharmony so that you are able to hold more Light, love, joy and compassion.

Your yield to the discomfort of the truth and its many lessons is the strength which forms the basis for healthier connection. The Healing invites a shift in your perspective and even just a tiny change in the way you perceive a situation/person/event can radically alter your moment-to-moment experience. Honour yourself and the process because it can and does take time to address these energy leaks but the pay off is liberation, empowerment and an overall buoyancy and robustness in your physical, mental and emotional health.

To my clairsentience at least the seepage of energy seems to occur mainly through the lower three Chakras ie the Base, Sacral and Solar Plexus which is unsurprising when you consider that it is through these three Chakras that we are grounded to Earth and connected to the external, physical world in a practical, linear way. These three Chakras govern our material experience of life and connection in the 3D-5D Earth. The trickling away of Light, spiritual energy and essence through the lower Chakras compromises the Etheric body which is the subtle layer sitting just outside the physical body and extending about an inch out. The Etheric body comprises the Chakras, the many meridians (energy channels) in the physical body and the aura and it is the energy system for the physical body, delivering Prana or Life Force from the sun and the cosmos to sustain us. The subtle bodies are interactively linked to the physical, providing a framework of formative energetic support.

Healing modalities such as Reiki and Reconnective Healing help stem the energy loss as they go to work on the Chakras, their interdimensional Light, energy and information feeding on through to the emotional and mental bodies. As an example, Healing work done on the Solar Plexus Chakra which governs self-esteem and personal power, helps you find the courage to speak your truth and re-draw and hold loving, healthy boundaries. The Base Chakra governs our overall vitality and also correlates to tribal consciousness, family, survival and our connection to the groups that support our life here in the material plane. Healing modalities also work to open and expand the Heart Chakra, transmuting sadness and resentment and ushering in the momentum to move into a space of compassion, empathy and forgiveness. Importantly, there is no end point to our Healing process – it is continuous and limitless.

Find an outlet for creative expression

We are creative essence at our core and creative expression replenishes our energetic tank, in turn holistically reorganising the system back into equilibrium. Creative pursuits not only anchor us back in the present moment they also nourish the Sacral Chakra which is our center of creativity and the Chakra from where we choose to live either in faith or in fear. From this energy center we form connection and relationship to power structures such as money, beauty, authority, social currency, sex, sensuality and the management of sexual energy.

You always have a choice

Working with the power of intentionality is highly effective. Do not underestimate its potential to seed positive and swift change. Intend to retrieve the lost pieces and depleted aspects of your spirit with an affirmation similar to this one (it is best to choose your own words) :

“I AM calling my spirit back. I AM divinely supported and guided toward my highest good on all levels of my Being and consciousness. Divine love now transmutes all that no longer serves my highest good and most benevolent outcome”.

Discern your truth and allow it to voice for it is sitting within you right now, then give yourself permission to feel good and flourish.

Healing Sessions – Double Bay Sydney – 0408 420211

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Embracing My Un-Cool

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OBLIVION (noun) : the state of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening around one (ref : Oxford Dictionaries)

I was never cool. Not even back in the supposed heyday of my 20s and 30s. Nope, not even close. To qualify as cool you need to be unimpressed by pretty much everything and that was never me. Ebullient types like me – the eager ones – were decidedly un-cool. And so it is today I find myself still inhabiting the domain of the un-cool, well outside the desired circle of hipness, resolutely marching to the beat of my own drum out on the periphery and this is never more evident than when I visit my morning coffee haunt. That`s because every single person there, whether they are seated at a table or standing on the footpath waiting to grab their takeaway brew, is buried in their phone. Except me. I must seem like a curious oddity to the others, a quaint anachronism. Oh wait! Nobody is noticing my phonelessness because they are all immersed in their screens. Love it! Invisible in my un-cool, but this preponderance of the Phone People – the cool au courant – is to be seen absolutely everywhere and quite honestly I worry for them because the habit of seeking and focussing intensely on data of any kind actually constitutes an energy drain.

‘au courant’ literally : in the current / meaning : up-to-date

Distraction and diversion : I guess smartphones are the perfect companion for the shy, the introverted and those who are just plain avoidant. I wonder if the cool au courant – the perpetually connected – feel super-relieved to escape reality once they have ordered their coffee because they seem to need to dive straight back into their device, resuming habitation of that limbo state of the cyber non-world. Do the Phone People like being in resistance to their immediate circumstance? Gazing fixedly into their device they lean into another place – any place but right here – hiding in plain sight yet belonging in the right way because everyone else is doing it too. I contemplate whether inside the sphere of the cool au courant they dismiss the concept of staying present to the now moment. They seem not to need it. The Phone People seem somehow to prefer the reductive and depreciative experience of oblivion that is life in cyberspace and the ceaseless cacophony of social media and the apps and the newsfeeds and the blah blah blah. To me, out here on the margin it resembles a state of oblivion because the Phone People are neither one place nor the other.

Savouring the now moment with all its beauty, openness, wisdom, vulnerability and creativity is seemingly not for the cool au courant. The Phone People are missing all the sensory wonder and magic and mystery of the present. Maybe they feel this concept is only suited to the self-indulgent navel-gazers. Staying present to one`s immediate experience – known as mindfulness – is synonymous with being in a state of acceptance, but do the Phone People see this as passive and wimpy, I wonder? Intentionally paying attention, observing the minutiae and noticing the gifts of grace in the actual physical world is perhaps not stimulating enough for the Phone People. Maybe the cool au courant are way more comfortable in sensory contraction, the stupor of the disconnect?

Buddhists, Taoists, yogis, the ancient and indigenous cultures and the great and wise teachers (too many to name here) universally extol the benefits of staying present to the now moment. They all emphasize that this simple practice of mindfulness – conscious awareness – underpins the robustness of our spiritual and mental health. For me, staying present and mindful in the now is the optimal precondition for moving into a space of peace, trust and flow. It is detachment and it is liberation. Relaxing fully into the present moment allows the human energy field to expand, opening up our connection to the subtle realms, in turn allowing access to greater creativity and deeper joy. Mindfulness allows the individual to feel at one with the whole ; it relegates the ego and lulls overthinking. But maybe this is all a bit boring for the Phone People. Phone People appear to me to be immersed in their own little bubble and totally separate yet ironically the chief feature and selling point of the smartphone is connectedness. I`m not sure the Phone People are connected at all. Have we all been conned into a state of faux-connection?

The collective nose-thumb by the Phone People is almost sexy. Who gives a damn about neck problems, premature myopia and disruption to melatonin production caused by the blue light emitting from their screen, right? The cool au courant clearly are not worried about blocked Chakras, digitally-induced anxiety and the obligation to always be connected to their phone. They are more likely to feel stressed-out and uptight but I guess that is scarcely relevant inside the circle of the perpetually connected because the Phone People are probably unconscious of being unconscious. Here in Australia we are seeing a spike in the rate of diagnosis of anxiety, Depression and an increase in youth suicide. I find myself wondering if these statistics are the wretched curse of smartphone addiction.

Personally, out here on the fringe and well removed from the envied circle of cool, I have never really understood tech addiction. The advantages of cell phones are self-evident but I just don`t like taking mine with me everywhere I go. I don`t want the thing running my day and taking over my life. I have found that focussing on that little screen for too long ungrounds me. It makes me feel off balance and out of kilter.

I have heard it said that youngsters today are now conditioned to communicate in a whole different way and that this is positive evolutionary change. Hmmm….I remain skeptical. A survey of 500 university students in the U.S. found that frequent smartphone usage is directly related to anxiety, happiness, and academic performance and all of it negative. Kent State University found that “…high frequency cell phone users tended to have lower Grade Point Average, higher anxiety, and lower satisfaction with life (happiness) relative to their peers who used the cell phone less often. The statistical model illustrating these relationships was highly significant.” (as at January 2015)

Expansive and healing activities such as a short daily practice of meditation and time spent down at the local park or in nature (without their devices!) would be of immense benefit to the Phone People. Simply bringing awareness to the breath swiftly reconnects us to the present moment and our immediate physical experience and anchors us back into our center. Being in nature allows Earth`s nourishing and positive energy to ground us, restoring balance and strengthening our physical connection to Earth`s subtle electrical fields. These are simple remedies and effective antidotes to digital overload, should the Phone People hold that intention.

Healing Sessions – Double Bay Sydney – 0408 420211

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