EXERCISES
For Use With the IIOC Deck as well as with other Intuitive Modalities and for general Self-Awareness pursuits.
Explore exercises to enhance your deck experience. These activities provide structure and can deepen self-awareness or situational guidance. Some exercises focus on preparing to draw from the deck, while others support debriefing. All exercises can be used independently of the deck.
Click the Exercise buttons below to navigate to each activity.
Quick & Clean Energy Tuning Before Using the Cards
I think we can be a bit more explicit than I was on the Guide Card in preparing to choose your cards and lay a spread. “Breath, settle into the space around you. Ask for guidance…”
Drink some water, it’s grounding. Then breathe. Yes, it's always good to breathe. Gentle breathing, nothing forceful. If breathing deeply feels comfortable then do that. If it's a struggle, then just appreciate the in and out of whatever feels good.
Give yourself the time to be fully present while you do this. Eliminate distractions. CHOOSE not to answer your phone or have a conversation about something else while you’re setting your intention, shuffling, and selecting.
Settle into the space around you. Yes, settle into the moment. Feel where your body is located in time and space. On the couch? What is your body touching as you sit or stand? What are your senses picking up in the room around you? The light? The temperature? The smell? The taste in your mouth? The feel of the cards in your hands?
If you have a belief in your higher conscious mind, your soul, your Guardian Angel, Spirit Guide, God, Goddess, Gods, or Sacred Beings of some kind, now is the time to remind yourself of their presence and invite them if you so choose. Yes, remind yourself that there is more than just what you see around you.
Set your intention for the vibe you want for the spread. Yes, be deliberately intentional. Whether or not you invite help or company (as mentioned above), you can state clearly to yourself that “I am doing this reading with the best of intentions to grow me in the ways that are for my highest good. I trust, or choose to trust, that the awareness which is best for me will come to me in the right way and at the right time.” You can model your intention according to what works for you but generally include trust, faith, and good intention. ONLY those things and spirits (if welcomed) who come in with the highest good for you!
Decide if it’s setting you up for a general self-awareness experiment or if you’re looking for guidance and self-awareness around your place in a situation/ relationship/pattern of behavior/troublesome emotional theme. Yes, choose.
If it’s for a general self-awareness experiment: What is going to be beneficial for me to play with today?
If it’s for a specific situation etc. here are some example statements to guide the cards:
What’s going to help me move through my procrastination around ___________?
What’s going to help me understand and shift my pattern around ____________?
What will help me move more completely into my ability to love myself?
What is the best thing for me to understand today for my highest good?
Show me how I can become more forgiving.
What’s keeping me stuck in___________and what will help me move out of it?
I’d like to be more self-aware when in situations of conflict.
How can I more directly experience my higher conscious self?
What is going to help me be more permanently in touch with the sacred nature of life?
What will help me enjoy life more?
Tips for Grounding
Please note: Before doing any of the suggested physical exercises, it’s recommended that you check with your physician to make sure there are no contraindications. If at any time you find yourself experiencing physical pain or emotional distress, please stop and seek the appropriate medical help.
1. Drink water.
2. Urinate.
3. Walk barefoot on wood or earth or grass.
4. Wet your feet, run them under water, or have a foot bath. Adding some salt is good. Walking in the ocean is, naturally, ideal.
5. Place the palms of your hands together and walk on the spot in bare feet.
6. Imagine that you are a tree and that your legs are turning into roots that are growing into the earth, getting stronger and bigger as they grow deeper.
7. Imagine walking in the forest with bare feet or being on a beach.
8. Work with modeling clay, plasticine, or paper mache.
9. Dance. Shake your hips.
10. Sit in a chair with your feet on the ground or on something so that your feet are flat. Now imagine that you’re a dog with a tail and you’re wagging it.
11. Chant or sing in a very low tone, as low as you can comfortably reach and feel the vibrations through your body.
12. Beat on a drum or something that makes a percussive sound. Plastic containers, pots, pans, your kitchen table. Just get into a rhythm.
13. Listen to music that is rhythmic, Latin, disco, African, Arabic
14. Wear or carry a stone that has grounding properties. There are many to choose from such as red jasper, garnet, black tourmaline, and obsidian.
15. Pick up any old rock that looks and feels good. Remember that it is of the earth and remember that you are too. You’re made of the same elements, just take a minute to honor that fact.
16. Tend to your plants if you have any.
17. Dust your furniture, slowly and/or wash your dishes slowly, noticing your movements as you do so.
18. Check out your diet. If your glycemic index is on the high side (irregular meals, lots of carbs, sugar, processed food, etc., or lack of protein, not enough water, too much caffeine at the wrong time) this can seriously ‘unground you’. Consider making the changes you can within the context of what’s best for your particular health situation.
19. Go for a walk, preferably in a green space or at least where you can see trees.
20. Meditate.
21. Do some conscious breathing (yes, could be fancy yoga breathing but it CAN also be just being conscious of how you’re breathing and seeing if that can work.
22. Online Chi Gong. I like the 8 brocades, but there are many free options.
23. Tap your legs and arms with a soft fist, moving up and down the outside and inside of each limb. Pay attention to your hips and make sure you also do the buttocks area.
24. Place one hand over the other, resting gently on your lower abdomen (thumbs at navel level) and gently rock forward and back to center, with small movements. Repeat as many times as is comfortable.
25. In a seated position, gently tap your feet on the ground and notice how it makes them feel.
26. Rub your neck. Run your fingertips down from the top of your skull down the length of your neck.
27. Grab the muscles that run along the top of your shoulder and connect to the neck (your superior trapezius). Squeeze them between your fingers and the heel of your hand.
28. Massage your ears. You can find sensitive points in the ear and use your thumb and forefinger to make little circles, first counterclockwise and then clockwise. You can also just stretch and unfold them, starting nearest the hole and extending out to the edge.
29. Sing something, with as much volume as is comfortable for you (and your cat).
30. Pet your cat. Or dog, Or other furry, feathery or scaly friend. Be with an animal or watch a documentary or video clip of one, something uplifting and funny.
31. Laugh. Really laugh.
32. Gently rest your hands so that the palms of your hands are resting gently along the side of your throat from the bottom of your ear, down to your collarbone. In case you want to investigate it, that is a calming move for the vagus nerve which is very linked to the relaxing response in the nervous system.
33. Stop and notice what your physical senses are picking up. What is standing out visually? How are you positioned in time and space (day, location, furniture)? Is your skin feeling a draft? What do you smell? Is there a taste in your mouth?
Quick Pick Questions & Guiding Statements List
Here is a list of sample questions for a quick pick. You can of course come up with your own questions/guiding statements, in fact I encourage it. My suggestion is this. Make it as concise as possible. Make it one that you can feel. It’s going to give you a clearer outcome if, when you speak it, it resonates with something inside of you, and touches your heart or emotions in some way. If you’re using the cards on behalf of someone else, you can offer suggestions and get their input if they feel it needs to change. It might be TOTALLY different than what you think it should be. And when you’re shuffling for a reading for someone else, hold them in mind while you shuffle (if they’re not physically present, otherwise, get them to choose and talk them through the process.
I don’t use these cards for predictions, but if you do please follow all of the ethical procedures you’d normally use with other predictive techniques. Remember always for anything, set good intentions and ground your energy, and ask for guidance only for the highest good of all concerned.
What’s the best, most helpful thing for me today?
What’s going to help me move through my procrastination around ___________?
What’s going to help me understand and shift my pattern around ____________?
What will help me move more completely into my ability to love myself?
What is the best thing for me to understand today for my highest good?
Show me how I can become more forgiving.
What’s keeping me stuck in___________and what will help me move out of it?
I’d like to be more self-aware when in situations of conflict.
How can I more directly experience my higher conscious self?
What is going to help me be more permanently in touch with the sacred nature of life?
What will help me enjoy life more?
What will help me access my creative flow?
What will help me define and move more organically into my most fulfilling life-path?
What’s the best way to stay in alignment with my own innate wisdom?
Resistance As Resource
Resistance to something is a sign that what’s being heard or experienced conflicts with a thought or belief you have. It may be conscious, deeply unconscious, or just below the surface of your awareness. It can express itself as a desire to pull away or push away. It’s ultimately about boundaries that are being ‘tested’. Resistance is giving you information about something, or it has the potential to if you choose to investigate. If you choose not to investigate that's okay too because it’s your choice to do/not do, in your own time at your own pace. If you’re experiencing resistance to a card in the IIOC deck, or indeed to any situation, content, or thought, just take note that there is resistance there and use the A/A/A process outlined in the exercise section and follow the steps in phase B. If it’s resistance to a card within the deck, alternatively you can follow through with the 3-card spread which will most likely clarify what the resistance is fueled by, or you can step back and use that one card with the A/A/A process.
A. First, take a minute to consider what resistance looks or feels like. Are you experiencing any of these?
1. You get irritated when you read it.
2. You begin an argument with it or the author, in your mind, and possibly find yourself starting to defend an opposite view.
3. You can't seem to remember the content of the card (conversation, article…) and have to keep reviewing it because it’s just not ‘sinking in’.
4. You have a strong physiological reaction such as a change in breath, change in body temperature - either hot or cold, blushing, needing to go to the bathroom suddenly, nausea, a sensation of wanting to cringe away and contract in on yourself, dizziness, or slightly faint.
5. Immediate dismissal without any consideration for the content of the card.
B. What can you do when you find yourself experiencing resistance to something on the card (conversation, article…) and you desire to use it as a focus for exploration? Follow these steps until/unless you reach a point of ‘enough is enough, for now’.
1. First acknowledge that you're in a state of resistance. Now, get curious about it.
2. Let yourself focus on that awareness with your breathing, slowing your mind down and grounding you. Breathing creates space around the feelings and the thoughts allowing for a wider perception of possible meaning.
3. Ask yourself a question. Consider some of these as options:
- What am I feeling in my body as I respond to this card?
- Are there memories or images that surface as I read the card?
- How do I feel as I acknowledge these recurring memories?
- Is there a theme in my life that in some way links to something on this card?
- Is this something that I have already dealt with and resolved in my life?
- Can I identify anything on this card as something that has held me back in my life or the absence of which has held me back?
- Does this remind me of anybody else in my life who might be experiencing this as a theme or even a current event?
If you follow the Triple A (Ask/Allow/Acknowledge) exercise it will allow you the opportunity to deepen your exploration around a particular resistance and perhaps discover some core beliefs or outdated patterns that no longer serve you in a particular incident - or anytime.
TIP: Ask the questions out loud. Answer them out loud. You can use this as a journal prompt. If you don’t feel like writing, or the thoughts are coming too quickly, you can record your voice so you can let the thoughts flow faster.
For more exploration into the topic of resistance, see the blog post “Resistance: A Flashlight into Your Shadowy Places.”
Energy-Up Words
Click on this image above to download and print it. You can use this as a starting point and add more words as you do this exercise.
Several years ago I was lucky enough to attend a Ki and Heart workshop at the Tao Sangha in Montreal. It took place over several weeks and one of the exercises that stood out the most profoundly was one in which we learned, at a practical and kinesthetic level, how deeply the words being heard or spoken (by ourselves or to us) affect the quality of energy running through our bodies and determine actual muscular strength. It's an exercise I've repeated many times with my clients and students and it never fails to be accurate. By using muscle testing we could determine what a baseline strength was for a person. The easiest form of muscle testing, the one modeled to us, was placing a hand on the upper chest and applying a moderate push. This provided us with a baseline by determining how well they were able to maintain their balance after a gentle push. This was done neutrally, with no words being said...
For the next step, we’d simply ask them to listen while we repeated words that generally carried positive meaning. We repeated words such as cooperation, kindness, love, honesty, faith, and fun, and then we would recheck their muscle strength by using the push method. With the same amount of force, they became unmovable or at least far more balanced and solid. Then we’d repeat the exercise replacing the ‘positive’ words with words that were associated with negative things such as war, violence, betrayal, and hatred. After doing the muscle test again they were considerably weaker and often could not hold their footing, even with the same amount of pressure being applied. Of course, we ended on the positive again.
You can do this for yourself by using a technique called the sway test. One simple demonstration can be found on YouTube by a chiropractor named Dr. Jim Claussen. There are more complex versions of this, showing slightly different applications. Dr. David Hawkins (Power vs. Force) explains the energetics of muscle testing in general and Dr. Bradley Nelson (Emotion Code) gives a more complete exercise to walk you through details that might come up. If you don’t find personal results obvious, you can do the above-mentioned exercise on a friend or family member. Just seeing their responses to your words will give you enough proof that saying them yourself to yourself, will be having the same effect on your own energy. BIG SURPRISE. IT WORKS EVEN IF YOU SAY THE WORDS SILENTLY…IF YOU JUST THINK THEM!
Doing this is valuable for a whole bunch of reasons. The biggest one is that you’re having thoughts run through your mind all day. What words are they and what concepts are they reinforcing? Notice if they are positive or negative. Your body is feeling the effect of those words energetically. And remember we are energy and we are run by energy and the quality of energy we put through our system is going to determine the chemicals that run through our system and it's going to affect the attraction field through which we interact with the world. There are just so many ways in which the power of the words we speak and think affects our well-being and our experience in our bodies and the world around us.
Running this simple little exercise also gives you the tool to carry with you on a day when you are feeling down or you are feeling negative or you are feeling tired or sick. Take the time to run through some of those words quietly and let yourself register the energy of those words. Whether you feel it or not when you're saying them, the more you repeat this exercise, the more you'll feel the change in your energy by doing it. Sometimes we don't even realize we are not focusing on positive things. We may not even be focusing on the negative but if we can focus on the positive in a way that is going to enhance our well-being, this would be a worthy exercise to do daily. The more ‘up’ your energy is (higher frequency), the more inclined it is to stay up. The more deliberately you bring positive words and positive energy into your life the more your system wishes to move towards it. Nature is always looking to improve itself, and evolve to a higher level of organization. The more we give our systems (which are simply expressions of nature), the opportunity to do that, the more they're going to want to lean into that and the more we will instinctively be led to make the choices that resonate with it. Good, breeds good.
I’ve provided you with the basic chart that you can print (image shown above). There’s space left between the words so that you can add your own. Look for words that create a sense of feeling open, easy, and warm in a good way. Notice anything that creates a sense of space in your body or around you, anything that makes you want to take a full breath, a good sigh. This is just a quick option for you so feel free to personalize it however you want. I have a 3D paper mache project I’m thinking of with snippets of favorite quotes making their way subtly into the landscape…
Just one more reminder, for those who are interested in how they can use their state of mind to help the world. Dr. Hawkins reminds us that by choosing to look at someone or something, with love, kindness, forgiveness or simply goodwill, we automatically raise their frequency too. Imagine what happens when we choose to look at ourselves that way. And remember, good breeds good and the nervous system will move toward that state, the more we deliberately choose those thoughts and words.
Here is a list for you (see above!). It’s great as a quick reset before any intuitive or therapeutic work, or just when you are low on energy and can’t manage to DO anything to get yourself out of a funk. Just thinking the words (but saying or singing them is great) will start lifting your energy and shifting the chemicals. Sometimes you just need a little nudge to get you moving in the right direction.
Kindness, Joy, Fun, Laughter, Angels, Kittens, Puppies, Trees, The Beach, Abundance, Gratitude, Openness, Willingness, Openness, Ease, Flow
Nature, Freedom, Sunshine, Blue skies, Play, Cooperation, Peace, Divinity, Wonderful, Honesty, Self-love, Faith, Happy, Space, Thank You
Debriefing
“Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind,
the light of your consciousness grows stronger.”
—Eckhart Tolle, (The Power of Now: A guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
The Intuitive Insight Oracle Cards offer a fine opportunity to create that gap by deliberately setting up your personalized framework for self-awareness. When using them to formulate a 3-card spread to engage them as a unit for experimentation with the purpose of intentional self-awareness, learning to ask questions as part of the process becomes a key resource for deepening your self-understanding and taking it to the next level. Experiencing the integration of the 3 cards and noticing how it’s affecting your experience of the world as you do it, is amazing and totally worthwhile. Doing a ‘debrief’ at the end of the day (or prescribed time frame as determined by you) is where much of the underlying wisdom comes to light and often where the unconscious mind kicks up its previously hidden agendas. Being curious about your thoughts is a simple and effective way to create a gap between the thought, and the YOU who is thinking the thought. I suggest these as a starting point. You can ask all of them or some of them. You can journal or talk out loud. Just let yourself explore in a way that is the most interesting and engaging for YOU.
How easy did I find it to follow the guidance of the cards today? Why?
Where did I lose track? Did I just get busy or did I remember but just ‘put it off’ and find myself avoiding it?
Did the theme from the contemplation card show up today and how? (Events in your life, memories, media)
Did my ideas around the theme on the contemplation card change at all, and if so what was the turning point?
How did I feel when I embodied the energy of the Intentional Attitude card and did it shift my mood and my feeling? Was it easy to maintain or easy to remember to return to?
What patterns did I become aware of?
What parts of me showed up in a way I did/didn’t like?
Where were the points of discomfort in applying the attitude and the action?
Did this feel like play or work?
If I were to do this again, what would I change?
Is there one thing that stands out as a discovery today, either about myself or my relationships?
Has this highlighted any aspect of my life that I feel would benefit from change? If so, am I aware of what the change is now?
If I see areas where some change would be good for me, AM I READY TO CONSIDER changing something (even if I’m not sure what that would be at this point in time)?
What parts of this have brought up self-compassion or self-criticism? If it’s self-criticism, instead of deepening that, can I stop and offer myself some congratulations for taking the step to be aware?
What ‘Old Stories’ came up today and did they serve a purpose or was it just a habit to think or talk about it? Did it energize me or tire me?
Has this prompted me to think of new possibilities for myself and how I experience myself in the world?
Can I see where my ability to choose has been engaged and does that feel empowering in any way?
What can you say about being in the role of Observer over your experiment?
Being in ‘Observer mode’ places you in higher centers of the brain and allows you to see into the experience rather than being inside the experience. It opens you to intuition and into ‘feeling perceptions’ that enrich the logical thought process. From that vantage point, you’re less likely to be reactive (triggered) and be more detached, and therefore be more responsive. In this case, responsive means that you can choose what you’d like to do with this experience and how you can interpret the information it offers you. You’re not its victim, you’re both a student and a teacher.
You can use these questions to explore the deeper meaning of the experiences you’ve had while using the self-awareness application in your 3-card spread. You can use them at any time, even at the beginning when you first consider why your intuitive self has guided you to these particular cards. The real juice comes, after having given yourself time to apply it to real-life activity, by setting yourself into curiosity mode and asking about how this experiment has shaped your day, changed your perception, offered you epiphanies, or even just ticked you off. Hopefully, it's not the ticked-off option on that list, but if it did it’s still provided you with information and a potential direction to explore.
If you would like to have a printed version of this exercise to refer to, I have created a PDF for you to view, print and/or download here.
Expanding Intuition, Claiming Insight
“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
—Alan Alda
As you develop your self-awareness, you naturally develop what can be called an expanded consciousness and with that, the ability to observe, and to perceive more subtle things as well. The clarity of mind and calming of emotion that comes with grounded, self-loving expanded consciousness naturally lends itself to a deeper connection to the Unified field of consciousness from which all wisdom, creativity, and intuition come. The cool thing is that by deliberately developing your intuition, you also work the process in reverse, becoming more self-aware and more aware of your deeper connection to (embodiment of) the Universal energy. It’s a beautifully natural process. So, let’s add to the other goodies since it’s the way to work both ends and look at how to play with developing intuition.
Developing intuition is far easier than most people realize. The fact is, we are all having intuitive hunches regularly. We're often unaware of them because they're so normal they become integrated into what appears to be our other five senses. There are many tools and techniques people can use to develop intuition. When teaching this, I start with some basic common techniques and then expand into personalized techniques depending on the nature and needs of the individual student. Many excellent books and teachers are offering online courses specifically to develop intuition in various forms (including mediumship). That’s not my focus for the website, but intuition does tend to ‘show up’ when we start becoming more self-aware (let me stress, self-aware and not self-obsessed…). So to help you identify and expand on what’s already there, here are a few tips you can use before any courses you might be guided to.
Step 1. Learning to be more intuitive begins with understanding what your particular style of intuition is. Usually, we tend to have one sense that leads. We may be more of one than the other; visual, auditory, kinesthetic, auditory digital. Chances are we are some combination of all four. The intuitive hunches will often present themselves more obviously in the predominant sense, so the first thing is to identify which one it is by noticing which sense you favor. As you expand your awareness and practice techniques to heighten your intuitive abilities you can actually choose to focus on developing the other less dominant senses, incorporating them in the process, but to start with, determine your particular style by asking yourself a series of questions:
When I imagine where I'm going on vacation or where I've been on vacation: what pictures do I see in my head? (visual)
What do the fabrics of the clothes feel like, or the sand on my feet, the sun, and the wind on my skin? (kinesthetic)
Do I hear the local music or the waves on a beach? (auditory)
Do I see the brochure in my mind? (auditory digital)
Auditory digital is an interesting sense that's been explored within the framework of neurolinguistic programming (NLP). Simply put, some people will see but it will be lists, words, and letters. They might also hear but they'll hear sentences, instructions, and words rather than ambient sounds. This is linked to the auditory digital sense. Notice as you ask yourself these questions which is the sense with which it’s easiest to imagine and which one feels more real to you. That is probably your lead sense.
Step 2. After you've discovered your lead sense, begin actively using it in some test situations that don’t carry an emotional charge. In other words, the test is best to be one where the outcome has no serious impact on your life. When developing intuition, the misses are every bit as important as the hits. Or as they say in NLP, there is no failure, only feedback. This is key to developing. We must be willing to be wrong to learn how to be right so run experiments. This helps us to develop a ‘felt sense’ or ‘body awareness’ of what it feels like to be accurate in your psychic/intuitive perception. Pay attention to things such as; your posture, your breathing, your vision (peripheral or focused), warmth or tingling in your back, a sense, of warmth in your hands, and pressure or sensation of energy at the top of your head. These are just examples of a few and they can vary greatly from person to person. The cool thing is that when you do identify what the ‘right intuitive hit’ is in association with a body sense you can deliberately replicate the body sense to deliberately increase your intuitive state at will (see ATTITUDE/INTENTION guide card and page for further assistance in this).
Step 3. Is to decide on what experiments you’ll run and then apply step 2. Some simple experiments might be:
I wonder how many emails will be in my inbox today?
I wonder who will be the first person to phone me?
I wonder how _____________ is feeling today?
I wonder what the top three headlines will be?
Notice that I start every question with the phrase ‘I wonder’. This gets the imagination starting to work and intuition communicates us to us through imagination. Notice when you ask these questions and you just allow any answer to come up. Do you see it or hear it and HOW? Is it a headline in print or is it a picture (a cow, maybe something about dairy farmers…)? Do you feel something…is it stressful or comforting?
Step 4. To keep a record. This may seem irrelevant but it's very important. When we decide to do something with our conscious mind and make it a priority, our unconscious mind desires to cooperate with us. The reticular activating system of the brain will also filter the information we perceive to highlight that which the conscious mind has been concentrating on. By keeping a record we make sure that we keep it at a priority status. What we focus on WE magnify so focus on what you want more of. Keeping a written record is a great way to do that.
One question we definitely explore as part of developing our intuition is to ask yourself this: if you could make decisions more easily and make the optimal ones more often would your life be better? Would you be more productive at work? If you had a more organic understanding of how people are thinking and feeling, would you be a more effective manager, parent, and partner? Could you imagine your relationships being more productive and cooperative? In my observations, it seems generally that people who are more successful in any area of life are those who have a more developed sense of intuition. Since we all have it, why not develop it, as we would any other skill that can enrich and expand our lives?
What I've given you in steps 1 and 3 are just a few ideas of how to explore these inherent abilities. As I mentioned, there are many books on the market and many courses available online to assist you in this pursuit, should you decide to continue. I heartily encourage you to investigate it. You might just find that by developing your intuition you open up your life to a richness you have never even dreamed possible. One of the great benefits of developing intuition is that it tends to make you more aware of your surroundings and how you are responding to them. Within this, it also makes you more aware of your feelings and therefore aware of yourself.
The Three A's of Self-Awareness
The 3 interlaced circles represent 3 of the key concepts of self-awareness: ASK, the willingness to be curious and observe; ALLOW, the intention to feel rather than just analyze; ACKNOWLEDGE, the act of bringing that to cognitive awareness by naming the experience.
The overlapping signifies that there is no specific place to start. Sometimes we know we’re feeling cranky so we can acknowledge that, allow ourselves to sit with that feeling, and then ask ourselves why. Then we allow ourselves to feel what’s beneath ‘the cranky’, acknowledge what comes to conscious awareness, and then ask why, or what else? Likewise, we can start with asking 'What's going on with me around (a certain issue)?’. We can acknowledge resistance and allow ourselves to feel that resistance and then swing back to asking why. The movement continues from one circle to another, in the greater circle of the combined 3.
The overlapping spaces are filled with BREATH. Conscious breathing helps to ground us into awareness of the moment and those feelings and thoughts that have been just below the surface. The breath slows things down, allowing us to both feel and be aware of feelings. It deepens the experience and it will guide us to the next appropriate ‘circle’. This process can stay focused on the exploration of a current event or move into deeper and perhaps older energies/memories. It’s up to you how far you wish to take it.
Word Fasting
Inspired by the Action card #A-40 prompt.
We know that words trigger thoughts, unconscious belief systems, and emotions. Even at an unconscious level, these in turn have a huge influence on the functioning of the chakras, also known as energy centers, that regulate different energetic frequencies made available to the body (for more information I recommend Anodea Judith’s work ‘Eastern Body Western Mind’ or other related works). Key chakras are located along the spinal column, over and through the major endocrine glands and nerve plexuses, and will stimulate or depress the endocrine glands which will be directed to release hormones into the body according to how the emotions affect the expansion or contraction of the chakras. The endocrine system is what determines the ‘chemical soup’ of our bodies, and ultimately the health of our systems, regulating all aspects from circulatory to digestive and everything in between.
Think about that for a moment. Your words affect how your heart is pumping the blood and how that flows through your veins. Your language affects how you digest your meal and how you deal with a stressful situation. Dr. Paul Pearsall discusses the connection in his book called ‘Super Joy’. He explains that negative thoughts are associated with overstimulation of the adrenal cortex, which in a prolonged state, is destructive to the immune system. Luckily emotions that are associated with positive thoughts are linked to pituitary functions and enhance the immune system. He goes even further, explaining the chemical influence on the body, describing it as an addiction to whatever chemical we are most consistently stimulating via our thoughts. When we need a ‘fix’ we'll do whatever we need to do to activate the production of that chemical in our system. Emotions such as fear, anger, anxiety, jealousy, etc. create stress in the nervous system and will activate the adrenal cortex. When we become ‘addicted’ to cortisol (natural adrenalin), we tend to unwittingly provoke interactions that will activate those emotions and stimulate the ‘hit’ of that chemical. If we have no situation that can satisfy this requirement our system will pull up memories linked to those emotions. This provides the same stimulus to the adrenal cortex as if we had just experienced them in real-time. The brain doesn't know the difference between a real-time event and a memory. Your subconscious mind is just being hijacked by the survival part of your brain which is doing what it has interpreted as necessary for survival.
Dr. Pearsall was one of the earliest neurophysiologists to discuss the mind/body connection and the concept of psychoneuroimmunology. Candice Pert (Molecules of Emotion) and many others after her have deepened the understanding of this science. People like Dr. Norman Doidge and Dr. Rick Hanson have worked with the understanding of neuroplasticity and the ability to change the structure of the neurons that support one way of thinking versus another. In this case, we’re looking at the ones that stimulate the adrenal cortex versus the more positive ones that stimulate the pituitary line of chemicals.
While certain words will be specific to each individual in stimulating either positive or negative emotion, there are some words used generally that tend to create contraction and restrictions in thinking and therefore energy and subsequently healthy physiology (remember the thought- chakra energy - endocrine system - chemical soup connection). It's excellent practice to become aware of what these words are and how we are speaking since they tend to frame how we perceive, create, and deal with our reality. One of the easiest ways to understand is to go on a word fast and notice how it changes your ability to communicate and how you think for the duration of the fast.
Just as you avoid certain foods during a food fast, so do you avoid certain words and patterns of speech when doing a word fast. While I recommend doing it for an entire day you may want to do it only for an hour or half a day to start with. You'll see how challenging it can be. Not on the actual list, but something also to pay attention to if it crops up during conversation is something called vocal padding. You’ll notice a kind of ‘forced laughter’ or giggle. You might also notice deliberate sighs, sometimes with sound, or lip ‘smacking’ and other ‘mouth gymnastics’ or whistling. If you find yourself tending towards any of those, do your best to refrain from those as well.
For now, here is your list:
can’t;
shouldn't;
impossible;
try;
limitation;
but;
however;
difficult;
ought to;
should;
doubt;
any words putting you or someone else into a category;
words that measure or evaluate you or someone else;
words that judge or condemn you or someone else;
words that praise you or someone else.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to play with this list. Give yourself a time frame such as a day or even one hour and notice how your speech and thought process changes when you don’t have access to your habitual vocabulary. Pay attention to the patterns you notice in how you communicate. You might find that you have a lot less to say to certain people when you're not actively generating negative, critical, and limiting dialogue.
When you’re not using it but hear it around you, you are more inclined to feel the impact on your energy and body. It's similar to a recently established non-smoker coming into contact with secondhand smoke. They’re so much more sensitive than an average person who’s never smoked. It's also a similar effect as when a person is coming off a cleansing fast and exposes themselves to junk food. The reaction is always much more obvious because the system is more sensitized to the effect. This Word Fast gives you the space to feel the power and impact of words.
Caution: While doing your word fast one common reaction is to use a word on the list and then immediately judge or condemn yourself for having fallen off the fast. When this happens simply notice it. Acknowledge that you have, catch yourself in the loop whenever you are. Be gentle with yourself, laugh at what your mind is doing and simply proceed along the line of your intention.
Have fun!
Oh, and one more thing! You can do this without talking to anyone else. We are all having thoughts run through our minds all day. PAY ATTENTION and apply the word fast to your own mind chatter!
