We measure an upbringing by its capacity to generate attachment

There are few things I like talking about more than about reducing stress through the narrative discourse using the first person viewpoint, first, because of the results second, because, once a client has done it, it is almost like starting to write on a clean slate. I would say that doing this work is "a return to life". It is a wonderful way to clean up the past and reach levels of joy and fulfilment never reached before. 

Nature tells us HOW

Two new trees adorn the facade of my house. The instructions given by the horticultural centre included lots of watering, an enriched soil, a suitable environment for the species selected and a zone of protection for winter. As I water them frequently and watch them grow and make leaves, what comes to mind is what all of us need to grow and evolve in this modern day of rapid changes and stressful lives. 

Stress in our lifestyles

The link between the evolution of our industrialized society which has profoundly changed our lifestyles while contributing to rapidly changing our values means we are constantly rushed. The permanent jostling and our propensity to accumulate goods in our quest for happiness are not only unconscious and regretfully insiduous attempts to mask our empty lives, but also contribute to a stress level uncommonly high since the advent of capitalism as an art form in our modern world.

HERE AND NOW

One of the most notable consequences of falling into this trap is to be cut off from our bodies and our capacity to listen to ourselves from within, thereby limiting our ability to be HERE AND NOW (Read the interview "Oprah talks to Deepak Chopra", on the mind-body connection in THE O MAGAZINE, June 2012/vol. 13, number 6).

Questions we should ask ourselves

Here are questions we need to answer for ourselves. Do we ever think to develop quality relationships just as plants need water? Do we offer ourselves quiet spaces free of stress and pressure to give us time for reflexion and inner works? Do we select what gives us pleasure rather than buying various goods for immediate satisfaction? Do we offer ourselves resources such as meditation, writing, psychotherapy to make suitable and lasting changes to promote peace of heart and peace of mind, ensuring that the body is listened to. Do we allow ourselves the possibility of rewriting our life scripts and the patterns that hold us back on our lives?

Our body sends signals

As we go along, bumping along from event to event in our search for fulfilment, our body sends signals, showing various signs of disharmony that we then shut down with a prescription for sleeping pill or antidepressors, failing to perceive the dysfunctions in our lifestyle and thought patterns. Palpitations, heat flushes, muscular tensions, agitation, anxiety, insomnia, inflammation, congestion of the sinuses, fatigue, etc., are all signs of dysharmony and a demand for change.

Attending to our inner needs

Just as we would watch the evolution of a sappling tree and give it all it needs to promotes its growth, we need to attend to our inner needs. To help the body and mind to recover their peace, their vitality and harmony, any method of meditation, of inner work, or writing, journaling, will allow a listening of inner dialogue, a connexion to self, if one wants to avoid the negative consequences of stress. It requires looking at our lives for the long-term rather than reaching out for what is immediate and short-term.

Presence to self and taking root in self

Presence to self and taking root in self rather than dispersing one's energy outside of self gives us mastery for a return to health and enhances our well-being, both physical, mental and emotional.

Thank you for your comments and for offering your reading presence on this blog. I offer autographic writing sessions for people who find it difficult to express their challenges, their emotions and feelings.

Goal: allow daily, family, social and professional tensions to dissolve. Writing does not solve, but it helps to face things and it helps to look at whatever the problem is from a certain distance. 

Message from Lorraine Loranger

Our fast-moving modern lives prevent us from following our natural rhythm. Based on hyperactivity, competition, and will, we hold in contempt our fatigue and stress. As we go beyond, producing efforts upon efforts, we buck up, we hang on, we persist and end up...exhausted.

Let us say that I have a philosophy for doing the work I do and the way I do it. Accounts of significant events in the life of the narrator have a plot, which is less often chronological and more often arranged according to a principle determined by the nature of the help the person needs. It is non-conventional: narration in the sense that it is used here deals with description, time, as well as context. There is a rhythm depending on the underlying emotions which is respected at all times.

Thank you for your continuous support making sure education touches all your contacts.