Mental Fitness

As we all strive towards enjoyment of physical health, free of ailments, we also wish to experience a comparable state of mental fitness.

Pride in ourselves comes more easily when we know that our body is in good shape, vital and functioning freely without impediment.

Similarly, our self confidence increases when the same principles are applied to our psychological health, when positive, creative thoughts and ideas govern our emotions.

Mental health is becoming recognized as an issue that threatens to dominate medical issues in the community in the future with serious personal ramifications even more distressing than physical disease.

Prevention is the wisest path to follow. This is a relatively simple matter if each of us chooses to become as focussed on the natural rules that must be followed to establish mental fitness as we do in our disciplines to create physical fitness.

       The rewards are great!

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When we choose to reflect upon ourselves within the vastness of the universe, it would seem as if we are as nothing.

But as a conscious intelligence with Free Will, each of us represents a formidable potential for creativity and for better comprehending the Universe in which we live as well as becoming aware of the ability we have to contribute to it.

Our Free Will is the Power which gives us the gift of Choice and the capacity to create what our minds conceive. Any limitation is only defined by our imagination.

Free Will is an exciting human faculty. It allows us to determine choices and how we wish to enjoy and spend our lifetime and in what direction of creativity we wish to exercise our skills.

The gift of Free Will can also seem daunting when we realise that we can no longer blame anyone or anything for our situations and circumstances, for our thoughts, feelings and actions.  We are all now experiencing the reactions to our past actions and choices.

We must accept with Free Will comes personal responsibility; self-determination, self- consciousness – and the sense of potential self- awareness and self empowerment on every level of our being body and soul. This is when we arrive at our maturity as a human being to herald a time when we know our personal freedom and can determine the application of our personal power.

To succeed in valuing Free Will and employing our inner power constructively, we need the guidance and inner wisdom of our soul that directs us through the confusions of life by the faculty of intuition.

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Union with the Divine ! this is a phrase common to human aspiration and the inherent desire we have to realize truths through our own direct spiritual experience.

All of us long for profound, conscious realisation and confirmation of our beliefs.  It is natural that we seek to have a direct relationship with our Maker. To have an intimate inner knowledge of the Source of our life energy helps us to feel spiritually secure. Without this inner element, life can remain incomplete.

 Most of us seek a degree of spiritual knowledge and understanding and have faith that it is our own spiritual experience that will confirm that knowledge. We have already arrived at some preconception about what constitutes God and Divinity and these are exercised when we start to meditate.

 Our concepts of God and our relationship with the Divine are not all identical.  Some of us see the Divine as the Great Creative Fire and consider ourselves as little sparks of that same element

 “As from a glowing fire, kindred sparkles come forth thousand-fold,

So from the Eternal, manifold beings are born  and return also.” Manduka Upanishad

Others conceive God as the Divine Ocean of Life and themselves as a mere droplet of that same element of water

  “The dewdrop slips into the shining sea….” Buddha

Some people consider themselves as part of the universe and all manifested natural life and may seek to experience that Oneness by achieving harmony of being amongst the outwardly manifested world of supreme Nature.

Some yearn to identify themselves with the great force of Love and seek only to free themselves from the limitations of personal love to find a new identity as part of the eternal heart -beat that radiates Divine and Infinite Love.

There are of course many approaches to this most important and sacred relationship a human being possesses. Whilst determining our approach, we claim privacy and respect the privacy of others.  So our serious thoughts and attitudes to the ultimate Creative Intelligence are rarely expressed to others, until we feel a strong spiritual bond of understanding.

As to our manner of spiritual communing, this is also our private choice. Some of us elect to meditate in solitude, others in groups and formal religious ceremony and church ritual. No matter what way we choose, we find that meditation and prayer are inherent and are required to develop a state of stillness of both body and mind.

Meditation becomes our most vital means of distancing ourselves from worldly matters and identifying ourselves with our higher consciousness.  It provides us with the opportunity to put in perspective lesser issues and to gradually elevate our minds much as the direct upward movement of an elevator lifts us to a higher level.  In order to do this, we must first achieve body comfort and stillness and so rise above the body awareness to our subtler emotional and mental planes and feel in touch with our soul consciousness.

Following some degree of effort in concentration of thought is the receptive or ‘listening’ stage in meditation. This is a state of awaiting response. It is an effortless time where we experience an influx of new thoughts and experiences associated with our spiritual purpose.

There are good times when this process happens smoothly and difficult days when we cannot elevate to the desired mood. Positive experiences become our encouragement. These moments may come through psychic realization, dreams  or times of clear thought and intuition. As with everything else, it becomes easier as we become familiar with our different states of awareness in meditation.

It is through meditation that we arrive at personal experience and absorption in the quality which we seek to strengthen.  We have opportunity to discover a proven reality of the ideas we say we believe in.  We can find proof of our philosophy or sometimes that which confounds it, to cause us to modify our attitudes towards greater issues of life.

More expansive that prayer alone, meditation offers a two way communication between our lesser self and the higher self and between our personal consciousness and God.

We are free to develop our own life link with our Creator. This is usually established best through a simple mental approach and with patience, bearing in mind that it is our breath that provides the most obvious and ever present line of communication between the physical world and the invisible spheres of the Divine. 

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Psychology = “‘The science of the mind, or mental states and processes; the science of human nature…”

WHAT IS HUMAN NATURE?                                           

Western psychology is a relatively recent science which, although valuable in basic matters regarding behaviour, personality and the general function of the mind, in no way claims knowledge of, or allows for the existence, let alone the study of the soul and spirit of the human being. It has made great advances in the study of human behaviour and mental diseases but has not found answers enough to cope with the mental aberrations which torment society and which are on the increase.

Many of these abnormal conditions of mental disease in the community have been created by drugs of all kinds, chemical pollutants, alcohol and unhealthy nutrition to which there is no answer but by rectifying these negative habits and conditions.

In this regard the Yoga approach satisfies this need. It concentrates upon the individual building and maintaining a healthy body and brain through a healthy lifestyle. It also involves establishing emotional stability, development of intellectual skills and talents, right habits of thinking, soul satisfying work and occupation, and a satisfactory spiritual way of life that allows for both duty and pleasure.

If the body is not nourished properly, the brain is not being nourished with an adequate and rich blood supply. It is not possible for the brain to serve as a healthy instrument either for creating or transmitting healthy thoughts. The diet of most westerners is totally unbalanced when ‘fast foods’, white bread, chocolate and coca cola have been monitored as the most popular consumer items in supermarkets.

Not only good food but so many other factors as well as those mentioned are equally important and these are fundamental to the teachings of Hatha Yoga which focuses upon physical health. The value of these teachings is acknowledged with the practice of Hatha Yoga becoming increasingly popular world wide.

But our efforts must include equal attention to emotional control and mental discipline if we are to avoid the complex problems of modern times and enjoy total well being. 

Understanding one’s personality and observing good and bad character traits is important, and most people are aware of the simple basis of psychology and the need to be assertive, to offload ‘baggage’ and to keep a positive attitude to life. Although this work is valuable, there is a need for deeper comprehension and to focus upon the entire human being, beyond the personality.

We need to be true to our own deeper nature – our soul and thence to discover our spiritual being.  Only then are we integrating all the facets of human nature that are required in the study and practise of psychology.

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Do

Relaxation-  Practice lying flat on floor if possible either in quietude or gentle classical music. This requires no thinking but feeling awareness only  – Let nature’s vitality flow through and refresh your psyche

Enjoy a professional relaxation massage – to feel energies renewed

Physical exercise followed by a warm shower or bath with lavender or neroli bath oil

Take a series of slow deeper breaths before you decide to become active again – then deliberately inhale the perfume of one of the natural essential oils that appeals to you

Spend 5 minutes in upright position repeating your personal affirmation that inspires and makes you feel happy and strong

Drink pure water – rainwater if possible or drink a pure fresh fruit juice -sipping a little at a time and consciously drawing vitality

Appreciate being alive – Look around you and focus upon the beautiful forms, plants, sky, trees – to realise afresh how wonderful to be alive to learn and to enjoy nature and participate in the Life Adventure

Finally, promise yourself to remain as long as possible in this pleasant mind set or mood. Let nothing disturb you. Let no one have the power to disturb you. Remain calm in whatever circumstances

Attend classes or participate in sports that are directly helpful in lifting your mood –confiding in your therapist, attending  laughing groups, comedy shows, or, listening to favourite melodic music

Be creative – painting, playing a musical instrument, sewing, crafts, singing or skills in a sport

Seek for a skilled psychologist who will help you without recommendation for prescription drugs, many of which cannot claim to cure and many can prove harmful

Find a healthy natural alternative to The Pill that is one proven cause of depression

Any or all of these are positive self determined ways to overcome depression and you will benefit continuing efforts especially when you find what really works for you personally.

Prayer is the universal ‘advice’ or technique to help lift your mood

Don’t

Drink alcohol – it will not help your depression in the long run

Don’t take antidepressant medications –  many will be detrimental to your mental well being

Don’t remain solitary except to practise your private relaxation but enjoy walks and the company of a friend.

Don’t get in the habit of repeating to yourself or to others “I’m depressed ..” or “I’m feeling bad” – this has a negative effect upon the subconscious mind that relies upon positive thought feed-in.

Don’t continue any old habit – substitute a better one!

Don’t seek solace from food – when depressed is the worst time to digest food and your body will suffer

 Don’t try to focus your mind in reading dutiful learning or study but rather choose to study a subject or hobby of genuine personal interest 

Don’t bombard your brain with heavy rock noises or music that is loud and without melody at this is the cause of much depression.

Don’t burden your love ones or take out your moods upon others if you can confide in a psychologist or counsellor who is trained to be impartial and just listen.

REMEMBER 

You are a special and unique person, created to experience and enjoy life as well as to offer your personal gifts and talents to others. Why waste life time?

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Mind drugs that have been largely experimental over the last decades, are now under severe medical scrutiny by expert psychiatrists.

Having studied the trends, many of these professionals are deeply concerned about the damage that has been done by some drugs – in particular those that are generally prescribed for depression, anxiety and more serious mental diseases.  In fact the evidence leads towards a ban upon many of the psychiatric drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies and still being widely distributed. The special danger to children is of extremely serious nature when psychiatric drugs have now been found to have long term side effects.

Doctors have been willing to take the chemical route in medicating for mental and physical diseases. Consequently most people have a bloodstream consisting of a cocktail of artificially introduced chemicals in addition to the nutrients found in our food.   This factor can add to the complexity of manufactured drugs by making the introduction of every new drug unpredictable.  We have come to a sad impasse if a medicinal drug cannot be trusted to deliver a consistent result. Medical records abound with examples where negative reactions were not anticipated.

Many iatrogenic deaths have occurred through administration of drugs for both physical and mental problems.  In the latter case there are serious reactions that have completely destroyed the quality of life of those who are now disabled in their brain and mental life.

To be aware of the negatives about modern drugs provides us with motivation to seek a better, safer way of health care and alternative methods of treating mental illness that is increasing at such an alarming rate in the community. There are many such avenues being explored by offering less invasive and gentler therapy.

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Although from an early age we are taught to have some control over our emotions and in the expression of our negative feelings, we are not often made equally aware of the value in increasing and cultivating our good ones, such as loving kindness, consideration  and contentment.

To a degree our emotions seem left to develop as we grow up and adolescence years offers a period of acquiring emotional independence, instead of continuing the patterns and values of our family.  We begin to determine emotional expression and choose to adopt desirable or appropriate behaviour for ourselves.  Other people serve us by their example of what we see as positive qualities to develop and also by demonstrating behavior we choose to avoid.

We are not usually aware of the power that emotions have until we are more experienced in life. Then we rather dramatically learn that our feeling can prove stronger than thought and can steer us to future happiness and success or can damage our opportunities in our career and personal relationships.

We are forced to realize that we each must undertake to cultivate our good emotions and to employ our feeling nature appropriately.  Equally we have to discourage our fears and negative feelings that impinge upon our own inner harmony and the comfort of others.

If we fail to initiate our own personal self discipline, external circumstances will force us to become aware of the importance. We may learn that a few moments of uncontrolled emotion can destroy years of previous effort and fortune.

If we wish to freely develop our intellect, we must have our emotions under control and definitely on side so that mind and feelings are co-operative.  If we are not able to rely upon stable and vital emotions, we will never be sure that negative feelings and responses will not rear up to damage our life or enterprises in some way, particularly in regard to relationships.

Our emotions, particularly the finest emotions, also require nourishment in order to grow through the kindness and understanding of others. It is our good fortune to enjoy, or a disappointment, if this situation does not apply.

However, our own self culture is not reliant upon externals but upon our inner ideals and the self image to which we aspire. Most of us will choose to include desirable emotions that will result in peace, love, happiness and the joy in living.. 

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The relaxation experience is beautiful. It is good for us, but also a great pleasure – a rather infrequent coupling!

When we relax we have a chance to offload our tensions, stress, anxieties and our tight and uncomfortable reactions to life, to people, and to happenings or events.

We have the chance to melt away any physical tension to allow nature to send its energies to heal and vitalize every cell of our body as we breathe rhythmically.

We shut our eyes to cut out external distractions and go inward in our awareness after directing our muscles to be still. Only the rhythm of our breath is evidence of muscular activity.

As the body becomes comfortable, we are able to cast off any emotional stress that prevents us feeling totally at peace. This we do by an attitude that admits that we feel best and most loving when we are not trying too hard, or attempting to bargain with our love, or to be selfish. Just feeling that we can let go all our emotional efforts so that our circulation of our feeling nature is restored and nature can energize us as naturally as it does our body.

Then with our minds concerned only to release effort, we can become a little too self conscious when trying to subdue the habit of thinking or even may wonder what we should be thinking about! To help with this, we return to the assistance we have with respiration, and put our thought only into rhythmic and equal inhalation and exhalation to an easy count and sustain this for a few minutes.

Then, ceasing even the thought of respiratory rhythm enjoy again how you feel.

You may feel light, heavy, calm, strong, shapeless, tingling, vital, or on the verge of sleep.

The remaining time in relaxation is individually experienced but you will be likely to feel many new and pleasant experiences as you give your mind a ‘holiday’ and just be free.

Try it…….

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In conjunction with our efforts to lead a practical life and fulfil personal aims and ambitions, we have the accompanying additional shadow that is there to remind us to look after and cultivate our minds so that our thoughts can project a constructive influence.

It is a magic occurrence to experience the difference that a positive tonic thought can have upon your emotions and mental state.  There is no secret about the power of self persuasion. It is only the practical application that can present a difficulty in with-holding benefits. It is offered as a ‘technique’ in many mind-training programmes and cultures including the practices of the yogis. 

As the system of Yoga is one of self culture, all the techniques are basically designed to help the individual help himself. The wonderful thing to realize is the scope for creating our own tonic thoughts. We have freedom to employ conscious concentrated thought to build up our mental strength without any censure or limitation imposed by others.

A basic elementary application is the inward affirmation applied in building up our own self image through focus upon each of the good qualities we wish to express in our personality and being. For instance we may aim to reduce a lack of self confidence by affirming all our  own recognized strengths in which to feel proud.  Another may deliberately work to strengthen in turn all the qualities that serve as their ideal.

The exercise is known as Japa. This is done through silent mental repetition in privacy and ideally in circumstances similar to meditation that requires peace and quiet. 

Additionally we can draw upon the powerful wisdom inherent in the literature of our culture, and the wealth of knowledge we have inherited from others who have experienced similarly and have overcome and prospered.

Some examples of fine ideas are offered in the Page on Quotations on this site, but each must choose for themselves the simple, tonic thoughts that affirm what they seek in self culture and that result in a sense of true well being.

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Thoughts are real energies released by the human brain – energies likened to magnetic and electric impulses. These energies are broadcast into our mental atmosphere and can be ‘picked up’ or ‘tuned in to’ as we do with wireless, although through the medium of our subconscious antennae. There are good quality thoughts and some terrible ones. We must recognize that there are thoughts that vitally nourish our minds and those that are poisonous to our well being.

With disregard or rejection of time honoured values in culture, our mental climate is becoming threatening. Classical values are being replaced by thoughts and attitudes that are damaging. Their acceptance indicates a collapse of our social values and principles. It is only the positive, noble thoughts and aspirations that uphold any civilization. Denial of them limits further progress or heralds the downfall of a people.

That may seem exaggerated statement but just think about it for a moment.

Can you depend upon the powerful media outlets to present you with fine thoughts and reports of noble deeds, examples of high moral behaviour and positive news gathering? All indications are that the contrary is the case.

Deplorable values and violent rather than civilized behaviour is the main tone of daily news reports. We are presented withhappenings that are discouraging rather than nurturing quality social life and positive attitudes. This type of mental programming is the basis of a great degree of mental depression in the community.

In our western countries, the criteria for news ‘content’ is sensationalism. Reports are rated and duly welcomed according to the extent of crime, corruption, rape, murder, and violence from domestic issues to the international front. The bias towards negative subjects seems additionally polluted by the focus upon sex of some kind to appease the current addiction and the degraded appetite for perversions of all kinds including unforgiveable harm to children.

If thoughts and ideas are food for our minds then our libraries are available to offer an alternative abundant and wonderful range for individual choice of nutritious and enriching reading matter. Here we are left free to browse and nourish our minds according to our better values and those of our inherited culture. It would seem that as long as ‘hard copy’ books remain available through publishing houses, we will at least retain our freedom of choice of mental nourishment as we insist upon in selecting our food.

To avoid mental pollution that is even more dangerous an issue than pollution of our physical environment we must be alert to withstand efforts to programme our thoughts negatively. But we must assert our freedom to determine for ourselves the quality of material that we consume in our responsibility to develop and maintain health of mind and body by recognizing and avoiding toxicity in all its forms.

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Anger, whether is ourselves or expressed by others, is a sign of weakness, demonstrating a lack of emotional self control.

Emotional anger when out of control can do harm to ourselves and motivate us to harm or hurt other people or even material things.

Pent up frustration and stress could be readily excused as we try to cope with life and react to our difficulties and problems. However, we all have to find a way to channel this energy in an appropriate and constructive manner – until we find a positive way to act in life.  Then, increasingly, as we find the strength to focus constructively, our reactions are less of a problem.

Most angry people are reacting, often without conscious thought.  The cause is more often than not from emotional rather than rational issues. Someone who is mentally well does not habitually display anger. As we do we like to feel repressed anger in our own  personality, we do not appreciate it in the mood of any companion.

Anger is a recognized symptom of mental illness when it is firmly established as a habit Anger is a condition when emotional energy can well up from the subconscious and is capable of erupting like a volcano with equal potential to harm or hurt.

That hurt begins with the physical and psychic hurt to the one who is feeling anger. It starts with their increased blood pressure, nervous and muscular tension, interference with normal physiological function and by contributing to their totally negative self image. No one reflects with joy upon their past displays of anger or is proud of their demonstrated loss of self control.

So many people who have, in anger, just inflicted pain upon another will say “I didn’t mean to do it!”  But this is not good enough. The act was committed by them, no one else, and it is they who are responsible whether it is a physical action or related to subtler behaviour.

All anger, whether held inside us or expressed towards others is harmful. Anger can lead to broken relationships, poor health, violent behaviour and ‘crimes of passion’ including road rage or murder. And those whose anger has been allowed to grow unchecked are often inclined to suicide.

Unfortunately anger is infectious. When someone displays anger towards us, it is easy to react in defence and respond angrily, even though we were relaxed to begin with. We have to practise resisting such reaction.

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