Mindfulness Challenges

Notice Sounds

Depending on our physiological make-up, our background and our genes each of us has a preference for how we take in information from the world. Some of us are visual. I’m raising my hands because that’s what I tend to do. We take in information through our eyes, through sights and through images. Whenever we enter into a new space we see what is there primarily. Noises are secondary and touch is tertiary.

Some of us however aren’t seers or visual people. Their nature is to be auditory. They take in information through their ears. They process information through sound. Finally, some people are kinesthetic which means that neither the visual or the auditory tends to have much punch. The primary sensory input for kinesthetic people is through touch. When anybody, any person, any entity, any living creature is touched, a wealth of information is conveyed to the person who is kinesthetic.

The mindfulness challenge today and this week is primarily for individuals who do not typically take information in through sound. Each and every day when you are in a safe space, when you are sitting down, turn off your visual senses and your kinesthetic senses, then activate your hearing senses. Take into your body everything that you hear, however loud or soft; however abrasive or however sweet to the soul and heart. It doesn’t matter what sounds you are hearing. Simply acknowledge them and hear them. Notice that the sounds come from many different places and sources. There are layers and layers on top of sounds once you begin to be attentive to them.

It’s even more complicated however – we don’t just hear sounds that are external to our body. There are also sounds that come deep within our body. Our body actually makes noise continuously. Our body makes noise all the time. Notice what noises your body might be making internally. Simply hear and acknowledge those noises.

Finally, there is a sound that many people also hear; it is almost as though there is a voice outside of them talking with them, consoling them, giving them advice. I have a very well-known songwriter friend who tells that all of her songs are heard by her before she actually writes them. Where does that sound come from? Where does that music come from? She says she has no idea. It simply happens to be a gift that has been given to her from somewhere far, far away.

The invitation however doesn’t have to do with these sounds that come from some place other than physical. Focus your attention on all physical sources of sounds whether they are external to you or internal in the sense of sounds that your body actually emits.

I now have a companion invitation that will fascinate all of you whether you happen to be kinesthetic, visual or auditory. As you are in bed and about ready to go to sleep, I invite you to cup both of your ears with your hands and listen to what you hear – to what sounds your body is making. Do it every night. Do it for at least a couple of minutes and if you are so motivated, keep your hands cupped for at least 10 minutes. Place your hands in a comfortable position so you don’t have to hold them up – literally rest them on the pillow, cup and enjoy.

May you treasure each and every sound bite that you hear continuously throughout the week. Be sure that when you turn your full attention and focus to sounds that you are in a safe place, that you are seated and that you are not required to perform any particular duty or have any particular responsibility. It’s important not to activate those new neural pathways if you are doing driving or operating heavy machinery, or doing anything that might result in injury.

May you delight in listening to sounds all week long. Some of you of course take in sounds as a matter of routine, so this challenge won’t be new to you, but cupping your hands and listening to your body will. Enjoy and we’ll talk more about the deeper meaning of listening to the sounds in a few days.

Robert

Deeper Meaning Behind the Color Red

Before I explain the significance of noticing the color red, I invite you to reflect back on the last four days and ask yourself:

Did you take on the assignment to notice red?
How frequently did you mindfully pay attention to your environment so that you could detect red in every object you encountered?

Did you perhaps get the assignment and although you intended to take it seriously, the task somehow was forgotten. Life got in the way. You never encountered anything red; or if you did, you didn’t notice.

Take notice now of the extent to which you undertook this assignment seriously.

Did you count the number of times every day in your head that you encountered red?
Did you reach the number 100 and quit or did you keep counting?
On some days did you just not want to do it because it was too hard or too mentally challenging even though making a mental count creates new neural networks?

Reflect back on the past 4 days and just acknowledge your approach to the challenge to notice red.

Let me now explain the significance of this challenge. In one way it comes across as a childlike game, something like Waldo. Waldo is an entity that is found in children’s pictures. The child has to look all over the picture before they find Waldo. When they spot him they point and say, “Hooray!.” The parent of course also says “Yes!” But actually, the assignment to find red has far more serious and important implications than simply a child’s game – although we don’t want to underestimate the importance of that as well.

Colors are associated with frequencies. Frequencies are imbedded in our energy field. Individuals with Parkinson’s tend to have energy that surrounds the upper part of their body. This of course is not true for all persons with Parkinson’s but in general individuals who tend to encounter symptoms of Parkinson’s are go getters.

They are focused.
They are accomplished.
They make things happen.
They are the go-to people of the world.

If we didn’t have that kind of energy not much would be accomplished in any country or any culture. It is a wonderful, marvelous, delicious, delightful energy that makes things happen. This also has implications though for how an individual with the go-to energy runs the frequencies around their physical body.

We all have a human energy field – physics has determined this. There is significant body of work making photographs of the energy field around human bodies. This is not mysterious, strange stuff. The existence of the human energy field has been extensively documented by scientists.

The energy then for many persons with Parkinson’s tends to be the colors that you find over on the right-side of a rainbow, perhaps purple, gold or blue; but not the lower frequency colors. The lowest frequency in the human energy field is red. It is associated with the first chakra. That is the energy input to the human body that enters between our two legs. A chakra looks like a funnel of sorts, almost like a tornado. The tip of the cone is nested up against the coccyx or the bottom of the spine. We all have first chakras.

The more we are able to connect with the color red, the more we are able to strengthen, enlarge and broaden that particular chakra so that we are more solidly connected with mother earth. When are first chakras are open and vibrant we centered and balanced.

Connecting with the color red helps mobility problems because it addresses the center of balance. We are connected to the earth when we are solidly receiving and connected to the color red. The color red is not just a cool color that you find in a child’s box of crayons. Red is a very specific frequency. It is the frequency that is associated with allowing us to be physically present to ourselves and to others.

This notion is called “grounding,” for those of you who may have heard of that notion; it means that instead of feeling like we are unstable at the top of our bodies (and in our heads) as we have difficulty walking, we are solid. We are able to step from the right foot to the left foot with assurance and grace and poise. We anchor ourselves into the core of the earth. The is little chance of falling when our first chakras are open and balanced.

How do you then make sure that your first chakra is open, strong and vibrant? One easy way is to connect with the color red. This is not a mental issue however. You literally have to allow the color red to essentially soak into your body. You have to “feel” the color red. Once you do, the first chakra opens up magnificently. You do not have to force it open. It just happens effortlessly.

Continue throughout the rest of the week to notice the color red. Every time you spot red, allow yourself to resonate with that color. When you do, you literally are connecting with that frequency and nourishing your first chakra. The work you are doing this week is obtaining relief from symptoms using your own self administered color therapy treatments. No color therapist is needed this week!

This mindfulness challenge is particularly useful to anyone who might be having mobility challenges or balance challenges. No medications are needed here and this is something you can do for yourself throughout the day. Resonating with the frequency of red means that balance can no longer be a problem because you are anchored to mother earth. The mother will not allow you to fall or stumble or freeze.

Enjoy encountering the color red the rest of the week.

Become red.
Be red.
Feel red.
Resonate with red.

If you are fighting against doing this it probably means that it’s an exercise you need to take quite seriously. As you think back to the question I asked in the very beginning – to what extent did you engage this exercise seriously – if you did not, it may be that now is a good time to hunker down and to take it seriously; to reach that count of 100 and furthermore, each time you encounter anything, whether in nature, the sky, the earth, a person, an object, a food is red, stop and resonate with that color.

When you do encounter red it can have marvelous and magnificent healing consequences. And, by the way, it is a free healing each time. This doesn’t cost anything. You are helping your body to come back into full balance. Isn’t that cool?

Robert

Notice Red

The mindfulness challenge this week is to take noticing the color red very, very seriously. Some mindfulness gurus take students by the hand, blindfolded, into a room they have never seen before. They remove the blindfold, then ask the student to gaze around the room with the expectation that they will be asked to describe what is in the room. They are only given about 15 seconds. The blindfold is re-affixed and the question is asked,

“Now describe what is in this room.”

It’s a particularly challenging task for most people. The task I have this week is nothing as difficult or onerous as that task, but in a way it has the same intent. The task is each day, throughout the entire week, to take notice of everything that has red or is the color red.

This might be red on a billboard, red on the highway, red on a signal light or a traffic sign.
It may be red that you notice in a picture on a wall.
It may be red in a carpet that you are walking on.
It may be the texture of red on the walls of a room that you are entering or red that is worn by people who you encounter.

Of course you might acknowledge red that you may yourself be wearing that day. You will soon know better than most that red is found all over the place.

The task however is to take special notice every time you encounter the color red no matter where you find it. I invite you to let red find you. Consider this to be a serious search everyday as you meticulously search for red everywhere in the environment you find yourself in.

An ancillary assignment that you may want to undertake one or two or all seven days is to keep a mental count of the number of times you spotted the color red. Don’t actually make a record on a piece of paper or a notebook. See if you can remember the last number in the count and then add to that number when you see an object with the color red. Do this until you actually reach the number 100. If you get the end of the day and realize you are only at 64, then do a meticulous search to find more and more objects that have the color red unit you reach the magical number of 100.

There is a final mindfulness invitation. This one is only for situations where you are in a secure, safe place. Do not consider doing this while driving or certainly not while operating heavy equipment machinery. When you are in a safe place and you spot the color red no matter what it happens to be on or where it is coming from – whether from the sky or the earth – something in nature or something man-made – allow yourself to receive and be soaked with the frequency of red. Allow yourself to become red each time that you see it.

This will become more understandable in a few days. Enjoy the next few days as you encounter object after object that contains the color red. Marvel at the redness that you encounter.

Robert