Shift the Holiday Part 2: 20 Tips for Self Care & Meditation

The holidays is not always a joyous one for many. Thinking about all of those individuals.

Let us be mindful of our friends, family members, or neighbors who may be suffering in silence and may we all lend a hand for a shoulder for them to lean on during these difficult times.

This video was inspired by personal and professional experiences and events.  I am a trauma survivor and have learned a lot through my own journey and growth throughout the years.  My goal is to share what I have learned with you in hopes to guide you to wholeness.

This was a live video feed of part 2 of 2: "Shift the Holidays"- 20 Tips for Self Care - Closing Meditation Hope you will join us.

For "Shift The Holidays - Part 1 - Perspective, 5 Calls to Actions, Closing Meditation", Click here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgChp...

Visit www.laurahealingwithspirit.com for complete list of services, classes, and events

With love and appreciation,
Laura
Healing With Spirit

Today I Bless My Junk Part 3 - Speaking Out and 10 Tips You Can Do Today To Be The Change

This series of "Today I Bless My Junk" began in response to the whole #metoo movement that relaunched after the Weinstein media coverage.

My hope for you is see truth, healing, and how to be a positive force for all survivors. First, we must get raw and real.

I have found this series to be quite challenging, yet, rewarding for me as I share my 12 year journey of healing from multiple abuses ... child abuse, attempted sexual abduction at 12 years old, rape, drugged, work place sexual harassment, domestic violence, and domestic violence by proxy.

You must be saying WHAAAAAT?

However, my goal is to not put on a show, but to be raw, real and authentic seeing all of me unaltered. By "BE-ing" so, the magic of healing and change can commence.

Here is part three in the series of "Today I Bless My Junk". This topic is on what happens when you speak ut and why women wait 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years to speak out.

• I go into the retaliations and a little bit of my story and my experiences with retaliations. I have only spoken out twice in my life outside this video series, and both times I experienced retaliations that I feel were worse than the abuses themselves.
• So, why wait?
• Why speak out now?
• Don't be fooled by the bogus apologies.
• When will it all end?
• Followed by 10 tips on what you can do today to be the change for the future.

Other Videos in the Video Series

For my other videos in the series of "Today I Bless My Junk #metoo"

• Part 1: The Healing Journey
• Part 2: Reality and Stats, Tips for Survivors, Tips for Others

Question To Ponder

I ask for you to consider one question

Are you part of the solution to systemic abuse or are you part of the problem? The choice is yours and only yours to make.

Please go to my Vlog on Youtube for the following videos.

How Can You Help?

As always, please support my healing journey and my desire to help break the cycle of abuse through healing. There many ways you can do this.

Take action on the things I mention in this video series

1. Share these videos
2. Leave supportive comments and let me know what pearl you took away with you
3. Let me know what you would like to see the next video to be on
4. Book me for a speaking engagement. I speak on many topics. One of the most common is on healing trauma through holistic and spiritually based practices.
5. As always, thank you for your support and being a part of my spiritual journey. 
6. Become an ally - support our efforts to break the cycle of abuse through healing.
7. Help me become a better speaker, communicator and video producer. I do these videos as my way of giving back, helping awaken and heal our communities, and are unpaid. Want to volunteer your services to help make that happen? Please private message me and let's collaborate.

With love and appreciation,
Laura
Healing With Spirit

Are Your Old Traumas Making You Sick?

Introduction

Are you still carrying around old traumas and don't even realize it? Do you know how trauma affects your quality of life, health, and soul in the long term?

Do you suffer from fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, adrenal stress, anxiety, addictions, cancer, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and musculoskeletal disorders? This is just a few illnesses and chronic health issues linked to trauma.

Here are just some of staggering statistics:

• 7.7 million are diagnosed with PTSD in USA. Many who have PTSD are not diagnosed and treated symptomatically. 
• 40 million are diagnosed with anxiety. Only 33% seek help.

In light of recent cumulative events over the last couple of years and the stigma associated with trauma, I believe these numbers are higher.

Please ... join me Wed Nov 1st for a presentation and some experientials on Healing Trauma. (Please scroll for complete event details.)

I will also be sharing my own story including healing and how to heal from trauma which can manifest symptoms emotionally, physically, and spiritually and can show up years and decades after a traumatic incident.

The information I will share is backed by scientific and/or medical research and my own personal and professional experiences.

What you will learn, will enlighten you no matter what form of trauma may be lurking in your past here in this life, generationally, or karmicly.

Please join me as I would really LOVE your support on a topic I'm very passionate about.

Together we CAN make change for a better world beginning with US.

In the meantime, don't forget to pause, breathe and take a moment for yourself.

With love and appreciation,

Laura

Healing With Spirit

Healing Trauma Through Spiritually Based Practices

THIS Wednesday, Nov 1st 

 12pm- 2pm 

Hingham Public Library, Hingham, MA

Are you still carrying around old traumas and don't even realize it? Do you know some of the symptoms of trauma? Can you recognize some of the symptoms of abuse?

The topic of abuse ... domestic abuse, child abuse. sex abuse ... is never an easy one to discuss never mind heal from in a way it does not control your life. It can even be very dis-empowering and even energy draining.

Many victims of abuse struggle with moving forward. Many times we are judged harshly for choosing to love someone who ultimately would hurt us. Many times we are left with devastating scars. Many times we feel we've done everything in our power to heal, but somehow the traumatic experiences still haunt us. Just because we were hurt by another, doesn't have to mean a life sentence. Many times the traditional therapies we have sought out doesn’t seem to be working no matter what we seem to try.

Join us for a deep conversation and how to heal those traumatic wounds as Laura shares her healing journey from abuse, her struggles, her triumphs, and why spiritually based practices saved her life. She will discuss how she overcame the dark days and how she reclaimed her power.

What you will learn

• The many faces of trauma
• Trauma defined
• Effects of trauma
• Emotional, physical, and spiritual symptoms of trauma
• Gaslighting
• Causes of PTSD
• Trauma and the effects on the brain 
• ACE Study
• Trauma and abuse
• The "Three-legged stool"
• Understanding the human existance
• The holistic process theory of healing
• Stages to healing
• Healing trauma
• Medical research and studies to various holistic and spiritually based therapies shown to heal trauma
• Experience various exercises
• and more ...

Please join us supporting a topic I have been so passionate about since 2006. My goal is to help survivors empower themselves while finding long term healthy solutions to healing from abuse. With these techniques, I hope to break the cycle of abuse through power of healing.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

• This event is for survivors of abuse,

• loved ones of survivors of abuse,

• as well as anyone who works with abuse victims such as LCSW, and advocates.

There will also be time for Q&A.

This event is FREE. RSVP Requested but not required. Call/text your RSVP to 857-880-0365

Come experience the healing and sample various methods of healing techniques and leave feeling inspired. Spend this time with us and explore methods of self-care and healing that will empower you beyond your story and past and break free from the chains of abuse or traumatic event/s.

Discover the power that lies within us all.

When we address trauma (sometimes hidden), we are less likely to get sidetracked by projecting - in this political age that's very valuable.


ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

Laura Joseph, RMA, RMT is a survivor of repeated abuses, but most notably domestic abuse and systemic abuse. Experiencing many difficult life lessons resulting and complex PTSD and Trauma, Laura had a feeling there was something wrong with her until she rediscovered her gifts, learned spiritually and holistic based therapies, and learned to embrace her sensitivities.

She has a background as a college educator, domestic abuse advocate, Reiki and Meditation Instructor, and allied health professional with a focus on trauma informed holistic care where she has been a frequent guest speaker throughout New England discussing her experiences healing trauma associated with abuse through spiritually based modalities. She has over 15 cumulative years in the holistic and allopathic health fields and has incorporated spiritually based practices and healing since 2006.

Laura believes our body is designed to heal itself. We sometimes need to be reminded how. She is very compassionate and passionate and teaches from the heart what she feels will help humanity heal and break the cycles of abuse through healing.

Laura brings her 12 year journey of acceptance into self discovery, self care, and self love.

She has published many articles on the topics of Holistic Health, Spirituality, Healing Trauma, and Reiki. She is also a frequent guest speaker, writer, and artist.

Laura has a private practice near the ocean on the Weir River in Hingham, MA, where she provides spiritually based holistic health enrichment services and classes. She is also a founding member of Massachusetts Survivors Outreach.

Laura brings her passion, compassion, and wit to assist in bringing out the best in you.

For more information about services and classes, visit Healing With Spirit

Medical Study of the Effects of Singing Bowl Sound Meditation on Mood, Tension, and Well-Being

Laura's Tibetan Bowls for Meditation on the water.
Cape Cod 2016 All Rights reserved

I am ecstatic to see this observational medical study on the use of Tibetan singing bowls. The study was published involving 62 women and men with the mean age 49.7 years of age. I found the results quite interesting.

The study was published in PubMed as well as Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine:

"Poor mood and elevated anxiety are linked to increased incidence of disease. This study examined the effects of sound meditation, specifically Tibetan singing bowl meditation, on mood, anxiety, pain, and spiritual well-being. Sixty-two women and men (mean age 49.7 years) participated. As compared with pre-meditation, following the sound meditation participants reported significantly less tension, anger, fatigue, and depressed mood (all Ps <.001). Additionally, participants who were previously naïve to this type of meditation experienced a significantly greater reduction in tension compared with participants experienced in this meditation (P < .001). Feeling of spiritual well-being significantly increased across all participants (P < .001). Tibetan singing bowl meditation may be a feasible low-cost low technology intervention for reducing feelings of tension, anxiety, and depression, and increasing spiritual well-being. This meditation type may be especially useful in decreasing tension in individuals who have not previously practiced this form of meditation." 

Although the study results are brief, I find it promising.  I began using tibetan singing bowls in my work in 2015 as something I felt drawn to do on an instinctual basis for my own healing. As a someone who has a history of trauma resulting in PTSD due to repeated abuses stemming from child abuse to rape to domestic violence to systemic abuse, I welcome this study.

I went through the traditional medicinal route and felt I was given a band-aid with a wound that continued to grow and fester with no relief in sight. So since 2005, I began looking into me. Who I am, and how can I heal especially when my very trust for humanity was so broken. I went up and build my trust in my spirituality.

For me, I understand these ideas:

1. The human body is made up of mostly water
2. We are beings that self generate electricity, and therefore vibrate energetically a frequency and vibration out creating a ripple effect.
3. There is a mind/body connection to all illness and disease
4. 75 – 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress related problems [1]
5. How we resonate with our external experiences affect our internal experiences and vice versa. How we resonate with our internal experiences affect our external experiences.

So no wonder the bowls have a magical feel to them.  When I searching for ways to heal my own trauma, I was led on a very spiritual path. Over the years as I worked with myself and others on healing, subconscious changes began to take affect. The more I began to trust my instincts and intuition, the more breakthroughs I was led to.

Needless to say, I was led to these bowls.  I believe it was a culmination of all the personal spiritual and professional work I have done over the years. I feel it was a calling, and the day I was gifted my first bowl, I knew I was onto something special. It mesmerized me and calmed me.

Laura's Tibetan Medicine Bowl

After the gift of my 5th bowl by another healer as well as my Tibetan bells, I had an epiphany. I was using them in a reiki healing attunement meditation for a group of over 20 healers. I was told how incredibly powerful and amazing the experience was. I was asked if I taught this. I responded 'no', because every time is different, and I would not know how to teach something like this. I realized how I would just allow myself to be divinely guided in the whole process from acquiring these beauties to where to place them to order of sound to implementing them in meditations and healing sessions. I could not even tell you what each bowl's musical note represents. I just know this bowl goes here to acquire this result. 

All I know is the effect they have on me and those around me. This is a modality that has been used by Tibetan monks for hundreds if not thousands of years, but originated in India. 

You can go to bodhisattva.com for a wonderful interview of Lama Lobsang Molam, a monk at a monastery in Swyambu, Kathmandu, Nepal, by Rain Gray on the history of the Tibetan bowls. Here is an excerpt of that interview:

"They say this is a relic that came from India and was used by the previous Buddha, so this is a very precious relic. So, that's why everybody wants to listen to that singing bowl, the singing, you know, sound. So, many people are making offerings to this singing bowl, and offering money to that singing bowl. So, he said that if someone has pure or not pure karma, you know, if someone has negative karma, their self they have to round, they have to play it with a stick. If someone has a lot of negative karma, this bowl won't give any sound. It gives sound but, not so nice, it's very small and not clear. If the person who rings it has pure karma, it gives a lot of singing and a big sound, wang, wang, wang, wang, like this. It gives a big sound. So their saying this is the story of . . . their saying like this. Even he saw, you know. So in Tibet they have three singing bowls only."

If you have been questioning on how to break through that wall and feel stuck, going to a Tibetan bowl meditation may be of benefit. Tremendous healing can be accomplished with the use and help of these sacred gems.

I would air one word of caution, however.  For those with severe PTSD or anxiety, please find the right teacher. Finding the right teacher who not only understands trauma, but has some training and/or experience with it is important.

Because the bowls create a very powerful frequency and vibration, it creates a metaphoric glass shattering effect which can trigger some emotions that many with PTSD or severe anxiety may still want buried. You must be ready to release those fears, traumas, and karmic cords in order to  heal. Finding the right teacher is key.

Healing With Spirit offers private sessions and a variety of classes that many times incorporates the use of Tibetan singing bowls such as, but not limited to:

• Self Care for the Empath Workshop
• Reiki Vibrational Healing Attunement Meditation Groups
• A Soul Partnership Workshop
• Private Reiki Sessions
• Vibrational Healing
• Sound Bath Meditations
• Chakra Clearings and Balancing

Private sessions are offered via in office, phone, and skype. For more information, please contact me at Healing With Spirit.

As always,

With much love and appreciation,

Laura  Healing With Spirit, 

Spiritual Medium, Public Speaker, and Teacher
Usui Reiki Master Teacher
Shihankaku in Jikiden Reiki

To schedule a private reading, to book a private party, or speaking engagement,  please visit www.laurahealingwithspirit.com 

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REFERENCES:

1. America’s #1 Health Problem; The American Institute of Stress; http://www.stress.org/americas-1-health-problem/ 
2. Tibetan Singing Bowl History, An Interview with Lama Lobsang Molam; Bodhisattva Training Co Inc; By; Rain Gray; http://www.bodhisattva.com/singing_bowl_history.htm 
3. Effects of Singing Bowl Sound Meditation on Mood, Tension, and Well-being
   An Observational Study; Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Tamara L. Goldsby, PhD, Michael E. Goldsby, PhD, Mary McWalters, BA, Paul J. Mills, PhD
1. Tamara L. Goldsby, PhD, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. Email: tgoldsby@ucsd.edu

Copy right 2016 All rights reserved. Laura Joseph, Laura Healing With Spirit. May not be copied or reproduced without expressed written consent