Gratitude practices for wellness and well-being benefit the integration and embodiment of the effects of positive emotions. Research has shown that when you express or receive gratitude your body-mind system functions better. This happens by moving out of the Fight-Flight or Freeze modes into the Parasympathetic Nervous System. When your body relaxes and moves into safety your cortisol levels decrease, your ability to digest improves, your heartbeat stabilizes, circulation improves, bile is released, and your digestion, inflammatory and excretion functions stabilize. This article will give you gratitude practices for new possibilities in your body and mind.
Healing Your Body-Mind Connection with Gratitude Practices
The Gut-Brain Connection impacts your hormones, neuro-transmtters, and body signals. This connection responds to shifts from anxiety, worry, grief or inability to let go of something, anger or frustration, and/or hate. New messages, memories or life-enhancing thoughts create greater calm and focus which in turn changes your mood and communication between the systems of your body. Over time a focus on gratitude has a positive impact on your physical and mental health through creating greater happiness and longevity.
Gratitude practices have a powerful role in disengaging stress response in your body through the Vagus Nerve. This means that the major organs of your body receive benefit though moving into greater calm and feeling of safety. In Chinese Medicine, each organ has the capacity to nourish or limit energy processes. When the Vagus Nerve is activated, your organs respond in more optimal ways to nourish the specific organs and the overall function of the entire system.
Gratitude Practices with the Chinese Five Elements
Anxiety: In Chinese Medicine your heart is the home of love, joy and connection. When you feel disconnected from others through intolerance or hate or lack of discernment, this impacts your heart. When you feel anxious your heart beats faster. The impact of gratitude on your heart can lower anxiety, and regulate your heart rate, blood pressure and circulation. Gratitude can also improve the quality of your sleep. A Gratitude Practice before going to bed can allow your body-mind system to relax more deeply so your system can cleanse during the night contributing to greater longevity. You can make it a practice to verbalize or write down your gratitude in 3 Directions including toward nature and life, toward others, and toward yourself. Be specific with reasons you feel and experience gratitude for each direction. Example: I feel gratitude toward my partner for cooking dinner tonight because I was tired after a long day at work. Notice how this makes you feel. Stay with the feeling.
Finding gratitude and appreciation in your life builds connection that benefits your wellness and well-being. Whether it be your family or work environment, expressing gratitude creates a greater sense of safety, trust, and warmth between you. A Gratitude Practice with children where the parent tells the child 3 things before going to sleep that they saw, heard, or noticed during the day also creates greater connection, self-esteem and calm which contributes to self regulation and sleep habits.
Worry: In Chinese Medicine, Earth Element is related to Stomach and Spleen with the energy of nurture and support. The primary purpose of Stomach is digestion. Your pancreas is also involved with digestion and chronic stress plays a role in blood sugar regulation. The non-coherent emotion related to this element is worry, This is where a gratitudepractice before a meal and mindful eating can be a way to move out of worry and stress to better be able to digest and integrate optimal energy while letting go of what needs to be excreted to support your body-mind system.
Grief: The Metal Element in Chinese Medicine is the home of the Lungs and Large Intestines. The primary energies of these organs allow you to breathe and take in inspiration. The non-coherent emotion of this element is grief.This happens through partnership with the Large Intestines related to the ability to let go. Expanding your lungs and exhaling fully improves your breathing capacity when you are able to think of something that brings you a sense of gratitude no matter how small. Your inhale can become a a gratitude practice of naming what nourishes your life. Your exhale can release grief, stress or resistance to the letting go process that exists in your life. By doing so, you can let go of critical thoughts, your frustrations, and regrets, and instead become grateful for positive qualities about yourself, others, nature, and what you value about each by connecting to love and life itself. This allows you to Stay Calm and Carry On.
Fear: Water Element in Chinese Medicine refers to your Kidneys and Bladder. Your Adrenal Glands sit on top of the Kidneys so it is important to create calm to affect the body-mind connection through the HPA Axis. When you move into a greater sense of appreciation, you give your kidneys the opportunity to drop resentment and fear. This can bring you back into the flow of life while connecting more fully to your vital energy to support your ability to persevere so you can pace yourself while setting healthy boundaries. This allows you to move forward with a greater capacity to face life with self-care. Practicing Mindfulness through your 5 Senses can calm, ground, and create appreciation for your body-mind system.
Anger: Liver and Gall Bladder are the organs related to the Wood Element. These organs allow your body-mind system to filter and let go of toxins. On the mental level, this has to do with unfinished business. When you feel frustrated or angry, this impacts your ability to see the big picture with a broader perspective. This element allows you to make wise judgments, plan, delegate and create strategies. A Gratitude Practice for this element could be related to work with your breath inhaling unconditional love on the inhale, and on the exhale, release anger and frustration related to a current situation that is causing chronic stress.
“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Because Wood Element is related to vision,journaling for your mental health can become a great way to organize your thoughts, take a closer look at what is frustrating you in your life, and to get in touch with gratitude as to what resources you already have or might tap into to create positive change. Remember to stay with the feeling when you identify gratitude, and name how this supports your life.
Gratitude practices do not need to be formal. You simply stop, reflect on how you are feeling, and activate a gratitude practice in real time anyplace in your life. Your body and mind will appreciate it!
This is your personal invitation to explore how Resonance Repatterning® can create positive change your life. If you have been experiencing chronic stress or feel stuck, this process can get to the root of what you need to activate new patterns in your life to experience greater integrity in your wellness and well-being! Contact Kimberly with thisContact Page for questions and scheduling.
In times of significant change in season, life and world events, this is an invitation to practice self-care while moving though all of these transitions. This article will give you examples of how your body and mind work together, and how this relationship can give you information to create significant change in your resilience through awareness, response and nurture.
Your body-mind-spirit system gives you feedback through your body sensations, mood, and outlook on life. In Resonance Repatterning®works with many holistic disciplines. One of these disciplines is Chinese Medicine. This system honors the body-mind-spirit system for the energetic communication and connection. An acupressure point, meridian or element speaks to the wisdom this relationship gives the whole system. A session can identify where energy is blocked in your system, and how this interruption of energy impacts your wellness and well-being in all aspects of your life
The Need for Support and Nurture in Significant Change
As an example, working with Spleen Meridian is often considered for support and nurture in working with shifts in situations and energy that you experience in your life. At the same time, You might be starting a new project, making a move, entering or completing a phase in your life, having surgery or recovering from illness, experiencing a change in family or relationship dynamics, retiring, or suddenly finding yourself emotionally confused, worried, or distraught about what is happening in the world around you.
“The challenge of recovery is to reestablish ownership of your body and your mind—of your self.” – Bessel van der Kolk
The somatic response to current stress and triggers from past traumas might be represented in your body in some of the following ways:
Trauma Reflex Response where your body continues to carry a pain response that creates asymmetry in how you hold your body. It reflects the remnants of how your body and mind have not released the mobilized energy of a traumatic experience.
The Protective-Startle Response where your body and mind resonate with worry or fear of threat in a way that reflects a protective posture both physically and emotionally toward life.
The Landau Response reflects a body posture of being prepared for action even when no action is needed. Your beliefs, thoughts and attitude reinforce the need for hypervigilance.
The question that Spleen Meridian asks is “Where in your life do you feel like you might collapse or have difficulty getting the support and nurture you need to get you through the changes that are showing up in your life?
You might be experiencing issues that crop up unexpectedly like a project that takes focused attention to complete, a move, job loss or change, financial depletion, a health issue, or family issue that needs support and nurture. This need for nurture and support can show up on a regular basis like taxes, mortgage payments, rent, or business deadlines. In every case, there is a need to experience support on the physical level to have the energy to take next steps, emotional level to give you the information or social support you need to experience safety and security.
Creating Awareness of Your Needs in Significant Change
Basic needs are essential to be able to take next steps. When you feel shut down, unable to make a decision or consider next steps, this is precisely the time to consider taking time to ask yourself the question: “What would make this situation better?” “What would allow me to feel better?”
The moral of the story is that the quality of support and nurture you give yourself and the permission to connect to resources in any challenging situation to navigate change to create positive change throughself-actualization.
This is a good time to journal, rest, meditate, or take a walk in nature. Use your5 senses to you take time to nurture yourself. Notice what your body is telling you. Tune into what new awareness is coming up. Be sure to write it down. It’s okay to brainstorm, draw pictures, write single or groups of words, or let what you feel or write down marinate. Know that when you give yourself the time and space you can access wisdom and grace more easily because you move into the rest, digest, and heal mode of the Parasympathetic Nervous System.
Meridian Session to Build Resilience in Significant Change
This is your personal invitation to receive the nurture and support that can be experienced with a 30-minute Meridian Resonance Repatterning® session.If you are experiencing challenges in your life, here is an opportunity to work with clearing blockages of energy that interrupt your emotional, mental, physical and spirit level aspects of your life. This will allow you to have greater clarity, support and energy for making positive change.
Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist and Personal Wellness and Well-being Coach. Contact Kimberly with your questions and register for your session to experience greater integrity in you wellness and well-being.
Tapping into your emotional intelligence is a process that benefits your self and social awareness, relationship and personal management. While emotions might be considered as only taking place in your mind, science proves that that emotions have a direct impact on your Nervous System that create specific body responses.. The importance of this connection is often automatic especially in stressful situations. However, when the option of choice is considered, you have the opportunity to experience greater authority over your both your mind and body’s responses. This, in turn, allows you to navigate relationships, work, stress management and your well-being more effectively.
Resonance Repatterning® is a multidisciplinary process that builds coherence within your body-mind system. The communication between your mind and your body are directly linked. This connection allows you to create greater meaning to gather from listening, observing and responding to what your emotions, thoughts, body sensations, and beliefs tell you.
Life is energy in motion. You can use your e-motions to give you energetic feedback on what you are paying attention to and the meaning behind what is orchestrating your thoughts, beliefs that can lead to automatic or chosen responses. This gives you the opportunity to create new possibilities by using what you have direct access to within.
Overthinking or being flooded with emotions can lead to greater overwhelm and shut-down. However paying attention to what your emotions are telling you can open the doorway for a shift in perception. This gives you the opportunity to weigh appropriate emotions for where you are, and what you are going through to consider appropriate and life-enhancing thoughts with best timing.
This happens with emotional intelligence. Recognizing what triggers you, and what moves you away or towards something or someone is important. Moving from being overwhelmed or flooded with emotions, or seeing clearly to notice and accept what is happening without any new awareness or feeling of agency is dis-empowering. Becoming more self-aware, making time and space for greater understanding, allows you to better listen to your body. This creates choices to empower your emotional response and actions you consider.
Emotional Intelligence on the Physical Level
Your body responds to your emotions biochemically through your posture, facial expressions, gestures, breath cycles, tone of voice, Nervous System influence of neurotransmitter and hormone production, heart rate, as well as temperature in stress responses. Your emotions impact your attention, how you think and what happens next.. This happens through unconscious material in both your survival and emotional brain. Accessing emotional intelligence activates your thinking brain so you can consider the meaning of your experience. Taking time to develop emotional intelligence skills. Your mind then has the opportunity to begin to identify habitual and automatic reactions, and with greater self-aware, analyze and choose new possibilities.
Emotional Intelligence and Your Attention
Where you put your attention in any given situation sets up how you will respond. If your mind has not let go of old tapes from the past or worry about the future it is difficult to keep your attention in the present. While your survival and emotional brain want to keep you safe based on past experiences, your attention limits you from getting the most out of life currently. Until limiting patterns from the past are made conscious, it is not possible to take the lessons you need so you can pay attention to what is happening in front of you today, Once you have transformed limiting patterns from your past, you can then apply your new awareness to your current situation. This puts you in the position to choose something new or different.
Emotional Intelligence and Language
Your self-talk affects your ability to listen, see or feel what is showing up in front of you. If you react to life from a dis-empowering belief about yourself or another person or group, your body-mind system will communicate this. Your energy level, stress or calm will have an impact on your ability to be present. In fact, your ability to see, feel, or listen to yourself will equal how much you can see, hear or understand what is happening with another person. When you consciously move through different issues in your life you expand your perception and range of vision, change your thoughts, beliefs and posture towards life.
Emotional Intelligence and Meaning
When you have worked through different issues in your life you expand your perception and range of vision. This allows you to consider other viewpoints if you have first considered yourself with greater self-compassion and empathy. It is through this lens that you can discern what feels empowering or dis empowering for your life. Giving meaning to what you are experiencing allows you to take lessons, choose between options while aligning with your values. With coherent new awareness you are better able to have empathy for others. This allows you to give new meaning to what you are experiencing from a broader and more compassionate perspective.
Emotional Intelligence Applications
When you find yourself feeling stuck, you can choose to tune into your breath and then focus on what emotions you are feeling. Notice how you are holding your body. Get in touch with your thoughts and any beliefs that are running through your mind. Acknowledging this can gives you insight into how you are responding to life in the present. Notice the meaning you give this feedback. Altogether, how does this impact your ability to focus or pay attention, get things done, take action with your goals, or make choices in your life?
Take account of timing in response to what you are feeling. Daily journaling is a powerful way to record what is happening. After you journal, ask yourself the question, Is this the best time to take action? Are my choices empowering or dis empowering? Is there someone or something that this is most related? Is this a good time to take extra steps, or do I need to pay more attention to what is happening right now? Both are equally important.
If you are in traffic or at work, consider options that will allow you to shift your mood to practice self-care in the moment as you catch yourself spiraling down. As you go through the day, this can be as simple as remembering an empowering or joyful moment in your life. Is there an empowering belief or thought to consider when you catch yourself in negative self-talk? Notice how these actions change your breath, your mindset and choices.
Use gratitude and appreciation for others, yourself or parts of your life to lift your mood. Create an inventory of favorite stress reduction activities to change things up. Or, if you need to, take a pause on your current situation and the rumble it is causing you until you can give yourself the time and compassion to work out what is going on within. When you do, the biology of your mind and body will change. Over time, new neural pathways and positive habits will become more automatic and beneficial to your health, wellness and well-being.
Resonance Repatterning sessions give you the opportunity to tap into the unconscious material within your body-mind system. If you experience patterns that limit your life related to your physical responses, your attention, your energy levels or dis-empowering thoughts and beliefs, this process gives you the power to step into new possibilities so you can live life with greater awareness and ease. This allows your body-mind-spirit system to create greater integrity in your wellness and well-being.
Find out how Resonance Repatterning benefits your life. Set up a personal session through the Contact Page, or sign up for a free monthly newsletter with articles, natural healing modalities, and exclusive group sessions here.
Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning® practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist, and Wellness and Well-being Life Coach. She works with people all over the world online, by phone, and proxy.
Repattern Your Life Sessions are a way to bring attention and compassion to your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. Stressful times like these create the need to learn how to activate peace and calm with the extraordinary process of Resonance Repatterning.®
Personal and Group Sessions build new neural pathways that allow you to experience a point of choice with your thoughts, beliefs, feeling responses, and actions. This means that you can move from self-limiting to self-caring choices more consistently through working with resonating with creating apoint of choice in your life. Well-being benefits include greater awareness, the ability to self-regulate, the ability to improve your outlook on life, resilience, and choice in where you focus your attention and energy for your positive intentions for life.
Repattern Your Life Personal Sessions are usually an average of 60-minutes. Some sessions can also be as little as 30 minutes or as much as 90 minutes. These sessions begin with an orientation to the process and a focus questionnaire to identify what you’d like to work on in your session. Your session can happen by pbone, Skype or proxy. For more information about the process itself, visit the Frequently Asked Questions here.
Sign up for a free monthly newsletter with articles, natural healing modalities, and exclusive group sessions here.
Repattern Your Life Group Sessions focus on working with your emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual response to life. Each session includes a 60-minute virtual group repatterning process with a confidential focus questionnaire, teleconference and recording including personal growth activities for you to take into your life to build new patterns to create greater integrity in your wellness and well-being. The beauty of this process is that you can take part from anyplace on the planet. Listen to this sample of the Ocean’s Day Group Repatterning session here.
Kimberly Rex, MS is an AdvancedResonance Repatterning practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist and Wellness and Well-being Life Coach. She works with people all over the world by phone, in-person, and proxy to create greater integrity in your wellness and well-being!
Contact Kimberly to ask ask questions or register for sessions here.
This 30-minute Meridian Repatterning will quickly get to the heart of what you need to create calm, ease, and well-being with Resonance Repatterning®. This session gives you a pathway to create greater stability and well-being in your life when you need it most. This session can be especially beneficial when you are going through a transition or feel like you need a tune-up. It works on the emotional, mental, physical, and core essence levels to give you feedback and updates to your bioenergetic system where energy is stuck or blocked.
You are designed for success and self-healing.Your Meridian pathways carry energy to every part of your body-mind system. These channels can create greater harmony and balance when you feel anxiety, fear, worry, anger, frustration, or depression. When you feel overwhelmed and stuck with these negative emotions, optimize the flow of these pathways to restore positive life energy to your thinking, life energy, and sense of well-being.
Meridian System photo from Wikipedia.org
In Chinese Medicine, acupuncture or acupressure works with distinct places on these pathways to energize, purify, or add calm to these life-enhancing pathways. This creates a beneficial flow of energy where your energy has been interrupted or blocked by stress, injury, or life-depleting experiences.
Your body is a map of your life’s experiences. Each session is individualized to your needs. This can be done by phone, Skype, or proxy during this time. Your Nervous System reports through every muscle, tissue, organ, and gland in the body to access information stored within your body-mind system.
How to Experience a 30-Minute Meridian Repatterning
A 30-Minute Meridian RepatterningVirtual Session is a great way to experience a tune-up during this stressful time. Whether you wish to address relationships, wellness, stress, grief, business, or an overall sense of well-being, this Resonance Repatterning® session offers extraordinary outcomes for new possibilities and positive change.
This is your invitation to experience a 30-Minute Meridian RepatterningVirtual Session to restore more optimal energy flow to your Meridian System. This process will work with acupressure points (no needles involved) virtually to allow you to experience a greater sense of ease, balance, and calm.
We’ll set up your appointment by phone, online, or proxy that works based on your time zone. After you register, your session begins with a brief questionnaire to identify your needs and underlying issues to guide the process. After your session, you will receive an email with positive actions to take in your life to create greater integrity in your wellness and well-being. Contact Kimberly here.
Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning®practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist, and Master Wellness and Well-being Life Coach. She works with people all over the world by phone, online, and proxy. If you have questions about this process, please send a message on the Contact page.
