Healing with warm words, relieving stress

Feeding your mind through your senses

Feeding myself nourishment through my senses

I love the above picture. When I look at it my mood lifts if stressed, my heart slows down when under pressure, and I get a warm feeling inside. Positive neural networks light up in my brain as I start thinking about walking down to the sea on a cosy evening, or calling into a friends place with warmly lit windows, then walking back up the hill to a cosy light-filled home where I will eat the best home-cooked food to the sound of friendly chatter, next to a flickering fire. And before I know it, peace, is all around.

I can play music to nourish my mind through the sense of sound, burn essential oils like geranium, rose or orange to nourish my mind through the sense of smell, and plant out autumn bulbs with hands in the earth to nourish my mind through the sense of touch. All these things help to reduce stress levels and are part of any Ayurvedic healthcare plan, because Ayurveda recognises that we feed ourselves nourishment, or not, through both food (sense of taste) and all our other senses.

Warm words feed us through the senses of eye and ear. They calm the brain. I remember when I was training as a hypnotherapist. We had one of those electrode hats and a fellow student put it on. Their brainwaves were projected onto a wall and we watched the effect of the script that was read out. With eyes wide open their brainwaves dropped down into theta – deeply relaxed. And I’m sure ours did too.

I learnt that day how powerful warm words and joy dots can be.

Photo by Caleb Fisher – unsplash

As we slow down and notice the simple things of life, listen to warm descriptions of ordinary things, or fall asleep listening to a story spoken to a slow rhythm that has no drama in it, our brain rhythms drop down and the brain becomes less stressed. When there is no stress, the nervous system can return to rest and digest, which allows the body to return to balance, the immune system to function well, and the regenerative abilities of your beautiful body, to flow once more.

Fall asleep story continued

You can find the first part here

When the boat came home

When the boat came home the sun was going down, settling across the ocean surface with lavender and apricot lights, that rippled towards the shoreline. That little boat sailed ever so gracefully, into the shore. Above there were mountains, purple and green. The evening night sky, full of pinks and deepening blues, ambers and oranges, stretched out above the mountains, as the little boat sailed through the sunlit waters.

When the boat reached the shore you could hear the water lapping at its wooden edges. A woman with a hurricane lamp stood by the waters edge waving with a grin on her face, and three children jumped up and down giggling. In the distance, you could see a fire on the beach and, ever so slowly, people were making their way from the few white painted houses, down to where the fire warmed the evening sky.

There was a black and white dog sitting on a rock near the woman with the hurricane lamp, each ear lifting slightly as someone on the boat called out and threw a rope. This was caught by the three children who tied it to a wooden post sticking out of the sandy beach.

That little boat bobbed, ever so gently, on the surface of the apricot and lavender ocean, as three people on board stepped into the edges of the sea, and waded through rippling surf onto the beach. They had baskets of fish and seaweed which they carried in their salty hands.

Joy dots

Starlight

Trees, always

Sandy beaches

Soft firelight

Eyes full of diamonds

Noticing

More warm tea

Purple nights

Till Sunday, warmest wishes,

Lucy x