After two decades of research focused on natural therapies to treat Parkinson’s symptoms, I have concluded that mindfulness is a tremendous help. This insight inspired me to create two programs which have been meticulously designed to support and enhance a successful practice of mindfulness: The Weekly Mindfulness Challenges and theMindfulness Paperback Series.
The Weekly Mindfulness Challenges are sent to your email address for an entire year with follow-up emails that elaborate on the deeper meaning associated with each challenge respectively.
The Mindfulness Paperback Series consists of seven booklets with different themes that are available as paperbacks. Each booklet features four to six mindfulness challenges to help persons with Parkinson’s disease get a handle on excessive stress that fuels the symptoms.
A description of each program follows.
Weekly Mindfulness Challenges
Stress is reduced by redirecting our attention to the present by becoming more mindful. The transition from stress to serenity is possible when it happens gradually and tenderly by focusing on a new mindfulness challenge every week. We only need to honor the change that is required. It is no small step to jump from harping on the past and fearing the future to enjoying and relishing the present moment.
We cannot change the past – so why spend so much time thinking about it?
We cannot anticipate the future – so why bother worrying about it?
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know you are not on your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That is why it’s your path.”
Joseph Campbell
It takes time, focus and patience to reset our neurological system to a state of oneness, calmness and centeredness. This is just what the weekly mindfulness challenges sent to your email address are designed to accomplish.
The intricate systems of the body do not reset overnight. They were originally forged through years of habit. It will take time for the reorientation to take hold. We can establish a new way of being with ourselves in the world little by little, day by day, moment by moment.
Weekly Mindfulness Challenges offer an invitation each week to become more mindful, centered and balanced so that you can break out of the habits that inflame stress. Long term benefits of a successful mindfulness practice are considerable.
Mindfulness reduces stress.
Reductions in stress lead to reductions in symptoms.
When we willingly accept new challenges that require us to focus attention on the present moment – our habitual infatuations with the horrors of past and the uncertainty of future are gradually transformed. A gentle transformation to be mindful of each and every moment is accompanied by a diffusion of stress and a welcome disappearance of symptoms.
Subscribers to the Weekly Mindfulness Challenges receive two emails each and every week. The first email is sent the first day of enrollment. It introduces the first mindfulness challenge for that week. A follow-up email is forwarded four days later that explains the deeper, underlying meaning of the first challenge. A different mindfulness challenge is sent to your email each and every week thereafter for a full year.
The idea behind each of the challenges is to focus your attention on doing an activity you would never normally engage in or even think about. This forges new neural networks and draws attention to the present moment. Each mindfulness challenge is designed to redirect your attention away from the past or future and onto the present moment. Challenges require only a few minutes of focus and concentration each day.
There will always be a deeper meaning which underpins each of the challenges – however silly or outrageous they may appear at the outset. Subscribers are invited to continue working with the week’s challenge until a new challenge is sent via email the following week.
Each month subscribers receive four unique mindfulness invitations and four explanations of the deeper meaning behind each invitation. The invitations are forwarded to the subscriber in emails.
Each week’s challenge gently nudges you to pay closer attention to the wonders and beauty of being in the presence of a most magnificent world of wonders. As awareness of the moment is enhanced …
Mindfulness soars
Stress is reduced
Symptoms dissolve
Invite others to join along with you as you accept the challenge of the week. Is the mindfulness activity of the week frustrating, challenging, fun, exhilarating, funny, perplexing, difficult ..?
Is it so silly you cannot bring yourself to do it?
Do you find yourself forgetting to pay attention to the challenge of the week?
One purpose of becoming more mindful is to have fun in the most unexpected ways. Each week’s mindfulness activity invites you to be present to the moment in a different way. There is nothing to be “learned” or “practiced.” There are no tests. There are no expectations you have to practice anything or even do it! The ultimate benefit can be compelling. When we become more mindful of each moment, we do reduce stress. Without enduring the strains and demands of stress, our body has enough room to become more balanced and centered.
Can a Mindfulness Practice Really Help Me?
How much time and energy do you spend every day worrying about whether your symptoms will get worse in the future?
Such worries are an impediment to your recovery!
Such worries will not help you feel better in any way, shape or form!
My proposal for you is quite straightforward really. Disable the energy and time you are spending over worries and frets. Instead,
Direct your energy and time to experiencing the wonders of your world in new and unexpected ways.
Have fun with the new mindfulness invitation each week.
Laugh at yourself and others when you accept the mindfulness invitation of the week.
Feel how much lighter you will feel.
Experience stress lift off of your body like a feather floating up to the sky on a warm summer’s day.
Mindfulness Subscriptions
The cost of the weekly emails equals the cost of buying one coffee latte a month. I live in the state of Washington. Most people here purchase at least one coffee drink each and every day of the work week. The ultimate benefit to becoming more mindful is in the long run far greater than drinking one coffee latte a month.
Once you register to receive Weekly Mindfulness Challenges your credit card will be charged $5 on the same day you subscribed and $5 on each subsequent month for 12 months. This is a year long program to reinforce the practice mindfulness. To join the program, click on the subscribe image below.
Mindfulness brings welcome benefits to your health and well being. It forges new neural networks effortlessly. Living in the present moment dissolves worries and anxieties. It is a magical way for symptoms wither away. Becoming more mindful reduces stress and anxiety, both of which excite symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
May becoming mindful extend the support you need to celebrate a successful journey down the road to recovery.
Mindfulness Series
The Mindfulness Series consists of six volumes that span the topics of doing, eating, thinking, feeling, being and intending.
Among all of the factors that are implicated in causing symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease, the most critical is stress. When people experience stress, their symptoms get much worse. When stress levels are under control, symptoms subside. Everyone who currently experiences symptoms of Parkinson’s disease confirms the powerful link between stress and the presentation of their own symptoms.
The idea behind a successful mindfulness practice is to become totally and completely present to each and every moment – to live in the present moment – not in the past or the future. Stress exerts an unrelenting pressure on our bodies when we slip into the past with our thoughts or skip into the future with our worries. If we fixate on rehashing past experiences that were traumatic or hurtful or unpleasant – we will insure that our body continues to release an onslaught of stress hormones. If we worry about what the future holds in store for us, we fixate on events that rarely ever happen.
When thoughts are centered in the past or future the body is suspended in a continual state of stress. Cells are flushed with blasts of adrenaline throughout the day. This leaves little energy for the body to manufacture dopamine. Symptoms flourish under such conditions. They thrive on stress that is fueled by worry, fear, regret, guilt and anger.
What Really Helps Reduce Stress Levels?
Reset our routine way of being in the world.
Reorient our thoughts so that we focus on the present moment.
This is most successfully accomplished through a regular practice of mindfulness exercises where we re-wire our neurological network. A total system reset is required for most of us to become mindful.
Becoming more mindful of each and every moment changes the patterns that have been embedded in the neurological system. High levels of stress is the troublemaker here. It thunders through every cell of our bodies. Nerves are shattered. Other systems of the body are jolted off balance.
Without a conscious mindfulness practice we fall back into the same neurological rut that stimulates the production of stress hormones. Out of habit we continue to access the same neural pathways that trigger the same symptoms. Our neurological system freaks out eventually. Recovery is obstructed. Breaking bad habits is genuinely challenging, but it is worth the effort.
Mindfulness Reduces Stress
Stress is reduced by redirecting our attention to the present through becoming more mindful. It is no small step to jump from harping on the past and fearing the future to enjoying and relishing the present moment. The challenges in the Mindfulness Series were created to strengthen a successful mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is the one sure fire way to reduce stress. Reducing stress is the key to reversing symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Six themes in the Parkinsons Recovery Mindfulness Series focus on places, experiences and events that help release stress trapped at the cellular level. Taken together they offer a variety of experiences that help to shift reactions to daily stresses and release the residue of trauma that is trapped deep inside the delicate tissues of the body.
Once trauma in tissues is released and daily reactions to stress have been shifted, it becomes much easier to achieve balance among the many interrelated hormones in the body. The challenges in each of the six volumes of the Mindfulness Series heighten awareness of how tension is held in the body. Each challenge is accompanied by an explanation of how it helps heal the neurological system as tensions are gently released that assault the body and tug hormones out of whack.
Click on the Image Below to Order a Mindfulness Series Paperback ($9.95)
Paperback of Exercises for Doing Mindfully
Paperback of Exercises for Eating Mindfully
Paperback of Exercises for Thinking Mindfully
Paperback of Exercises for Feeling Mindfully
Paperback of Exercises for Being Mindful
Paperback of Exercises for Intending Mindfully
People with Parkinson’s tell me that focusing on becoming more mindful has a profound impact on their symptoms. The reason is simple. They learn how live in the present moment rather than agonizing over the past or worrying about the future. When our thoughts and feelings are connected to the present moment, the body receives the nurturing support it needs to balance hormones.
Engaging each challenge is not a big deal. It is a little deal. Embracing the challenge of the week reinforces and supports a mindfulness practice which eventually becomes a way of life. When you adjust the thermostat that monitors stress hormones, your body is no longer on overdrive. Over the long run, you will feel better as the readjustment takes effect. Stress is no longer the boss. You are.
P.S. I have been doing the exercises that I have developed and am happy to report that they have made a huge difference in the degree of stress in my life. I am less scattered, more focused and more energetic. The quality of my work has improved. I am having more fun. My body loves me for living in the moment.
