Happy Healthy YOU
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Kelly Spencer - Happy Healthy YOU
(A wellness column by Kelly Spencer: writer, life coach, yoga & meditation teacher, holistic healer and a mindful life enthusiast!)
Last week’s article explored the concept of our own personal growth and cultivating patience. As we release what doesn’t enhance our growth and enrich our beings with patience and trust of what it is we wish to manifest, there are some other variables that we can look at to advance and develop the outcome to align with our personal growth, vision, goals and dreams.
It starts with our thoughts. If you think of anything you have ever done, it started with a thought: applying for a job, buying a car, going on a date. We start with the cerebral and the idea first. We develop an attitude for example, “I want to change my job.”
When we set out goals and create a vision for our own personal development, we start with a day dream, so to speak. This is an idea which we dream about and we can envision. If we stop here, then this is where we stay. We continue to stay in our head with the dream or new attitude. Sometimes this can stunt our personal growth if we don’t keep reaching.
The next stage is what I call the “heart stage.” This is about aligning with your new attitude or dream. In the first stage, which I will call the “head-stage,” where we dream and envision, we then move to the heart-centred energy of it. Can we see it? Can we see and believe the dreams we have developed as a reality? When we can see the dreams as a reality, we have entered the heart and the belief system and we begin to align with our dream more.
Many people can get blocked in this areas depending on defence mechanism, confidence levels, self-efficacy and belief systems that they have acquired about themselves or life in general.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.” – Henry Ford
Although visualization has been regarded as new age hype for many years, research has shown that there is a strong scientific basis for how and why visualization works. It is now a well-known scientific fact that we stimulate the same brain regions when we visualize an action and when we actually perform that same action.
For instance, when you visualize lifting your right hand, it stimulates the same part of the brain that is activated when you actually lift your right hand.
So how can we use visualization for personal growth?
In 2007, in my personal journal, I wrote that I wanted to open an inspirational coffee house that offered inspirational books, CDs, wellness products as well as an organic coffee or tea. My vision continued to grow as I fed and cultivated it though trust, patience, vision and heart.
In 2009, while meditating on a large boulder in the Caribbean Sea, my inner spirit told me in this still and open-hearted moment, be a yoga teacher. I followed that voice, and I love being a teacher.
In 2010, my journal is filled with what I call “vision-pages.” I would write down my dreams with clarity and detail and imagine them as if they were true. Whenever I had a self-defeating thought I would weed it out and bring it back to my heart-centred desire. In this journal from 2010, I wrote “open a wellness centre.” It had clear details about a studio with yoga, meditation and fitness classes. It had clarity of holistic healing opportunities for people. On another page I listed the menu items I wanted to have at the Organic Café & Eatery that I would attach to the centre.
In 2011, I open Indigo Lounge wellness centre. In 2012, attached to my current business, I opened the Organic Café and Eatery.
Guang Yue, an exercise psychologist from Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio, studied people who went to the gym compared to people who carried out virtual workouts in their heads. He found a 30 per cent muscle increase in the group who went to the gym. However, the group of participants who conducted mental weight training exercise only, increased muscle strength by almost half as much (13.5 per cent).
When we visualize what it is we desire we affect our brain and our outcome before even setting ourselves into action.
The next part of the journey is walking the talk. You can develop the idea and attitude that you want to be a marathon runner. You can be heart-centred and know that you can do it. You can visualize training for it and participating in it. But if you allow doubt, fear, worry or lack of action to dominate, you would only ever become a visual marathon runner. Live the experience!
Sometimes we can get blocked by fear or worries about any goal and its possibility of reality. When we do this we are blocking ourselves from moving forward. Weed out the fears. Get out of your head and ego and back into your heart as soon as you can. I do this by getting grounded, walking outside, yoga and spending time with my family. To get aligned with my vision again, I meditate and imagine it as wish it to be. It is from the heart-centred aligned place my inner spirit speaks loudest and clearest to me.
This Saturday my business is celebrating its 5th anniversary festival open house. I am content, blessed and forever reaching for my next vision.
Dream it. See it. Live it.
(If you would like to see an article on a specific topic, please email kelly@indigolounge.ca)