Network Healing Centre

October 2007

Newsletter

Important Dates to Remember!

Friday, October 5 – Dr. Michael will be seeing patients from 10am – 12:30pm

Monday, October 8 – Thanksgiving, Clinic will be closed.

Friday, October 12 – Dr. Michael will be seeing patients from 7:30am – 8:30am

Thursday, October 25 – The Dark Side of the Moon – the clinic will be providing trick- or-treats for the celebration of the full moon this day and the upcoming Halloween festivities

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Network Healing Centre warmly Welcomes the following new patients to our clinic:

Practicing Thankfulness

Contributed by Rosemary Brown-Tucker, RMT.

In the push and pull of life we seldom realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is with gratitude that life becomes rich. Gratitude may be an essential attitude to cultivate for peace of mind and spiritual progress. It can be helpful to keep a gratitude journal in which one notes occurrences or people for which one is grateful that day – while remembering to include the so-called simple things, those we so easily take for granted. Gratitude is one of the attitudes to nurture that contribute to keeping one’s mind and health on a positive track. The following quotes I have found to be helpful in cultivating gratitude.

“Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value in your life.”

Christine Northrup

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and cultivates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie

“Have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy.” A.H. Maslow

“There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.” Ralph H. Blum Robert

Emmons, PH.D. wrote on how to cultivate gratitude:

“I think practices that people have known about for a long time are the ones that are going to work. Like being a role model, expressing gratefulness oneself as a parent, writing thank you letters to relatives, teachers and those who have provided benefits. Very concrete things, like gratitude prayers within one’s tradition at mealtime and bedtime – very concrete.”

Releasing Stress with Expressive Writing

Contributed by Dr. Michael Tucker, DC.

According to dozens of studies, expressive writing can help release stuck painful emotions that interfere with our wellbeing. In one study psychologist James Pennebaker recruited a significant number of participants that had been suddenly laid off in a Dallas computer company. He asked all of them to spend 20 minutes per day for a week writing in a diary. Some were instructed to write about how they spent their day. A second group was instructed to write about their deepest feelings about losing their jobs, and the third group was given no instruction.

The people in the second group who wrote about their anger and disappointment experienced a dramatic advantage over their peers in finding new work. Even though participants in the other groups spent equal time writing and got about the same number of interviews, a highly significant number of the second group found work.

Dozens of studies have shown expressive writing to be healing for body and soul. Some research even shows writing about our ‘negative’ emtions to be as useful as psychological intervention. Some other studies show expressive writing to have long term benefits to blood pressure and immune enhancement.

According to Ratja Gaschler’s article in Scientific American Mind, there is a right way to maximize mental, emotional and physical benefits of writing:

1) Writing about negative, more challenging emotions seems most effective. Perhaps this releases or unblocks our more stuck emotions, allowing the energy to move. Emotions can be thought of as energy in motion.

2) We need to spend at least 15 minutes per session. Different studies have different sessions per week, however, they all agree we get to our deeper emotions the longer one spends writing.

3) Focus on our deepest feelings. From my perspective we often have access to our deeper more embodied emotions by being sensitive to our body; from experiencing our felt sense, by directly experiencing our body.

4) Let the words flow. It is best not to judge our spelling, grammar, sentence structure, repetition or messy writing.

5) Try not to force yourself to find meaning in our suffering. If a meaningful resolution comes, it is a bonus.

Many alternative, complementary therapies as well as meditation help build a part of us that we can self-observe. In my opinion, expressive writing is a useful method to self-observe and enhance wellness.

On Being Thankful

Contributed by Erin Whyte, R.M.T.

The theme of this month’s newsletter is in respect to the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend so in order to keep in line with this subject I’d like to look at gratitude and thankfulness.

It is important to reflect on the positive aspects of our life by showing gratitude. All too often we can get caught up in all the things that are going wrong in our day, week, month, year. By doing this we only perpetuate those negative feelings, and block out awareness of the positive aspects of our lives. In other terms, if we become too focused on the negative events that occur in our lives there is a good possibility we are missing out on some opportunity, the chance of a positive event, to unfold and launch us in a new direction.

Despite what you might be going through whether it be a loss (job, pet, close friend or relation), recovering from an accident, dealing with pain, or any other hardship try to stop for a moment and consider even one positive thing that happened to you today. Maybe you got the parking spot right in front of the building where your meeting was. Maybe you bumped into someone you haven’t seen in a while that put a smile on your face. Perhaps you got a glimpse of the full moon in all its glory and you thought how beautiful it was. Or could it be that today was the day you had your first massage?! As a bit of a side note: I have sometimes thought what people would think if after their first massage treatment they received a little note in the mail that said “Your body thanks you!”. It thanks you for taking time out for yourself, for caring for it, for listening to it, for nurturing it, for giving it the attention it needs. I’m sure it thanks you for so many things and perhaps in different ways. Maybe it gave you a night of sleep without waking up. Maybe it let you pick up your child for them to give you BIG hug and nothing hurt in the process.

Whatever that incidence was be grateful for it. It may not have affected your entire day but by reflecting on it and being thankful for it you start to attract more positive energy into your life. And if you had a great day then your list will only be longer!

On a personal note, I would like to thank all my clients for the opportunity to meet and treat them. I am blessed and grateful for all that you bring into my life. You bring wisdom from experience. You share gems of insight. You trust in my support. It is an honour to know you and to be part of the healing path that you are on.

Thought of the Month:

The Secret is –

There is nothing wrong with

How you are

Or

Who you are

Or

Where you are,

Just be as you are!