I suppose I could have entitled this blog, “What to do ALL the time” but that sounds a bit too controlling so… let’s roll with it.
I have a friend who has gotten a very hard medical diagnosis. Several other friends shared this news with me. They’re shaken, sad, worried. But what can we do that might help? I say, as I always say, “I send them light and love.” But to many of you, that sound like some woowoo escape hatch and today, I want to take the time to explain what I mean by “light and love” and exactly why that can help.
I’m going to choose a lighter life challenge for us to practice with. Imagine you have a meeting tomorrow at work where you play an important role. As always, we feel that our performance at work affects our future happiness and value in our jobs. So it’s a particularly important day. What can you do to help yourself.?
Well the answer is easy, you visualize the best. When I use the worlds visualize or imagine, I’m not asking you to quickly run an idea thru your mind. I’m suggesting that you immerse yourself in the idea that the day will go well.
Pause with me and breathe in deeply. Exhale when you’re ready then repeat a few times. A deep breath signals your body’s nervous system that all is well, that you are safe. It’s a powerful tool in itself. Now call to mind a moderately challenging event you might have ahead. Paint a picture in your mind that the event is happening and you are doing everything right. Imagine how you feel calm, confident. Sense how you are being received by others in the room. “Hear” the positive comments and compliments from others. Embrace fully how you feel to be successful, well-received, understood, supported… yes, all the warm fuzzy feelings. Feel them as if they’re happening right now. Savor for a few more breathes (or for many minutes) that feeling of doing your best, meeting your expectations, reaching goals, embracing the moment.
Now, notice how you feel in your body, mind and spirit. You feel good. If you were in a science lab, you might be monitored and the instruments could tell you that your respiration is slower, blood pressure a bit lower, your heart rate variability is smooth and steady. Your stress hormones have stopped pumping out, your muscles relax and your mind can see creatively, becoming more widely open to options.
Now, I’m not going to ask you to experience the opposite, the imagining the worst because I know all of us know that feeling. Imagining the worst brings anxiety, increases stress measurably in our bodies. It limits our mind’s ability to see creative solutions, tenses our muscles and floods the body with stress hormones. Yes, all this from what movies you choose to allow to play in your mind.
We do tend to play (and replay) negative scenarios in our minds… it’s called a negativity bias. Our brain processes negative thoughts differently. The mind tends to put more importance on negative thinking. The good news is that this tendency is more of a habit than an absolute. Some of us have the ability to “look on the bright side” more than others. Likely we were raised in an environment where someone modeled this positive thinking for us. Or we’ve practiced seeking the positive slant so long it becomes a skill. Neuroplasticity allows us to reprogram our brains through gentle, repetitive practice. So… a negative bias isn’t an absolute. Just a tendency which you can rise above. There are some articles footnoted at the end of this blog that help explain this further.
Measurable value of this “light and love” message
When you think, feel, imagine, visualize good- a stellar performance in a meeting, an all-clear, all-good test result for a friend, you are helping your own body stay in Rest, Restore and Release Mode as opposed to Fight, Fight or Freeze Mode. However, that positive energy goes well beyond your body.
There is a measurable energy field outside your body that extends much further than you might imagine. The energy generated by our hearts is measurable 3-6ft away from our bodies in 360 degrees around us. Our energy affects those who are near us, so your positive energy can be felt by those around you. Those nearby benefit from your happy musings due to resonance and entrainment- two terms from physics that refer to how vibrations affect objects nearby. Our vibrations affect those around us and there’s more.
Quantum physics has brought us new insights to an ancient concept, the biophoton. Biophotons (from the Greek βίος meaning “life” and φῶς meaning “light”) are photons of light in the ultraviolet and low visible light range that are produced by a biological system. A biological system can be your nervous system but it can also be a community… or a world. Some can see an aura around your body, a physical expression of these biophotons. Light is a particle but also a wave. It isn’t limited by physical distance. Your light, positivity, hopefulness can carry as far as needed. It is also thought that biophotons are a form of communication.
We are not islands. You are an individual but also a part of a community, a nation, a world. The energy you emit affects those nearby but also affects the energy of the world as a whole. So if you’re feeling love in your heart and it radiates out, it adds to the love in our world. When you imagine results of an event outside of yourself or beyond the present time, that energy feeds our global community.
Back to the beginning
So when tough things happen to you or someone you love, when tragedy occurs in another part of the world= what can we do? Our negative bias mind tends to want to ruminate of how awful the sad news is and how awful those involved are feeling. This thinking creates negative energy in you, around you and in our world community.
Try retraining that negative bias by visualizing your sick friend well, free from pain. This isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition, of course. You might want to research the problem that has arisen, you might want to worry some too, however it’s important to add this aspect of visualizing a positive outcome to the mix.
I focus my energy as love, surrounding that person with love, my love, the world’s love. When there’s strife in the world, I send love, I imagine peace. I visualize and immerse myself in the energy that is the opposite of the pain and fear that might be going on. This supports my body, ,mind and spirit but also lifts the energy of the world and I know from quantum physics (and personal experience) that the ones I’m wishing well can feel that energy. This isn’t a magic wand, and on-or-off switch but you can add to positive energy or you can drain it. I vote to add my positive energy, my hope, my vision of all things good to the energy of our world.
Sending light and love to you all.
Have fun
❤️
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“Be More Positive … Fight the Human Tendency to Focus on the Negative”- Brenda R. Smyth, Content Creator at SkillPath, Dec 5, 2017
https://skillpath.com/blog/positive-fight-natural-tendency-focus-negative#:~:text=The%20human%20brain%20has%20a,psychologist%20and%20author%20Rick%20Hanson.
Like all innate biases, it turns out that knowing of our human predilection for negativity might just be part of our ticket to more positive thinking and interactions. Because “the difficulty isn’t that we have negative thoughts. The problem comes when we believe our thoughts are true” Psychologytoday.com- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shyness-is-nice/201305/stop-fighting-your-negative-thoughts
“Making Sense of Medicine: Biophotons: The light of life”, Daily News, Bob Keller Oct 17, 2019
https://www.newburyportnews.com/news/lifestyles/making-sense-of-medicine-biophotons-the-light-of-life/article_3e22dadb-8d40-50de-a226-d91a829444e0.html