Energywellness

By Judith M Campbell

How do we turn around a life that is unsatisfactory at all levels, when we are out of balance in mind, body, and spirit? The answers to these questions, framed in an energy approach to wellness, are given in Energy Wellness.

Judith Campbell coaches us in the process of choosing good foods and preparing them properly, to bring the body in

• Language: English
• Publisher: Burnstown Publishing House
• Release date: Sep 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781772570724

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BURNSTOWN PUBLISHING HOUSE

5 Leckie Lane, Burnstown, Ontario K0J 1G0

www.burnstownpublishing.ca

ISBN 978-1-77257-072-4

Copyright © Judith Campbell 2012-

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form or by any means without

the prior written permission of the publisher or,

in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence

from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency),

1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5.

Cover photo: Jan Curtis.

Published in Canada.

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Dedication

With Gratitude

Introduction

1. Wellness, a Vibrational Energy

2. So What’s this Spirituality Stuff All About, Anyway?

3. Choice

Let’s Review!

4. Prayer and Meditation

5. Gratitude

Let’s Review!

6. Balancing the Spirit with the Body and Mind

Let’s Review!

7. The Paths of Resistance

8. Harmonic Resonance

9. Love

10. Forgiveness

Let’s Review!

11. Truth

12. Ebb and Flow

13. Critical Judgment or Destructive Criticism

14. Peace

15. Joy

Let’s Review!

16. The Spiritual Realm

17. Communing with All of Nature

Let’s Review!

18. From Denial to Acceptance

19. Detachment

20. Moments of Grace

Afterword

About the Author

To Jennifer and Shannon and all of their sisters

in the world who have known too much

suffering at such an early age;

and to my parents, my daughter, and my husband,

who have been my greatest life teachers.

With Gratitude

I gratefully acknowledge and thank all the members of my family, my friends and acquaintances and all of my life experiences, which have each contributed in a unique way to my life journey resulting in the writing of this book. I also want to thank Tim Gordon who had the faith in my project to publish this book, and his senior editor, Jane Karchmar, who put the finishing touches on it. And I am grateful to Jan Curtis, for sharing his gift of capturing the beauty and mystery of the aurora borealis in his photograph. Finally, I want to thank the Universe for the constant guidance I have received during the writing of this book and the incredible timeliness in bringing it to press.

Introduction

My entire life has been filled with a desire to understand the greater meaning of existence and the role each of us is created to play. This book has evolved over nine years as a result of my own search for meaning and the inner healing I have experienced along the way. Much of the information contained within the book was channelled to me during sleepless nights in my last two very busy years of employment. At that time, I treated the information as insight, was in awe of it, and understood it at some level within myself, but could never have explained it to anyone else intelligibly.

It took all of seven years following retirement for me to be able to translate the raw information into meaningful language so that I could explain it to someone else. By some standards, seven years represents a full life cycle. During this time, the book has gone through many revisions—some to suit a potential publisher, some to suit an editor, and some to suit me. Coincident with the book’s revisions were changes that were underway within myself, for I had embarked on a healing journey. I now understand that the subject matter channelled to me during those sleepless nights was the very information I required to heal myself!

As I progressed within my own seven-year life cycle of growth, development, and healing, so did the material in the book. It progressed from information that I could not explain at the time of its receipt, to information that began to blend easily into my understanding of the meaning of life. Further, I could see how the information fit so well with what had been my life’s work in the preventative health care field.

But it was not until the end of my seven-year cycle that I saw so clearly what was hidden from my own view before. I had all the components of wellness catalogued in this book under the subject of spirituality. And whereas they were rightly catalogued under the topic of spirituality, they are even more correctly catalogued under the general title of wellness. This is not the wellness I had understood during my thirty years of nursing. It is a much more expansive understanding of the subject.

My definition of wellness was expanding naturally as my understanding of the original channelled text became clearer and clearer to me. It is wellness of body, mind, and spirit that supports a spiritual life. And by the same token, living a spiritual life allows us to experience a sense of well-being—a balance and wholeness of body, mind, and spirit. I must emphasize that I am not speaking about spirituality in the religious sense. I am speaking of one’s own spirit, and hence one’s own spirituality. When we allow our spirit to guide our life, it leads us to those things that create health and well-being. It leads us to joy as being part of everything we do!

The information in this book also speaks to life purpose—perhaps from a different perspective, to some, on this subject. It suggests that one’s purpose is not necessarily the achievement of a specific life goal or goals. Rather, it fully acknowledges that each day affords us the opportunity to experience purpose. From this perspective, we find purpose in everything we do. Living a purposeful life, then, allows us to live with the fulfillment of joy as part of everything we do. And of course, a life filled with purpose and joy is a life filled with well-being—wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.

This perspective is in direct opposition to the all-too-popular practice of living with the constant expectation of something more that we should be feeling as we continually search to find the joy in life. From this position, joy is rarely experienced—by the very definition of its elusive quality. Yet subscribers to this way of thinking maintain a constant vigil as they search for joy, in the hope that one day they might find it. A life without joy is a life that is bereft of many of the qualities that make up the energy of wellness.

Wellness is about the factors that make up our ability to feel good about ourselves and, consequently, to feel a sense of well-being. To put it another way, it’s about the ability to find the centre of our being, to feel balanced and happy within our own centre, and to grow in spirit from that point of realization onwards.

The ability to find the centre of our being engages us in the energy of wellness. I have provided my interpretation of the energy of wellness to explain how we use the energy within our being to either embrace our spirit and find the meaning in life, or to use it in negative ways, which separate us from our spirit and from life’s meaning.

Since retiring from my nursing career, I have been teaching the subject of body, mind, and spirit wellness privately, in retreat and workshop format and more recently in community college. I have approached this book, therefore, as an extension of my teaching. At the end of each chapter, you will find a section called Reflections. This is designed to help you to bring the information of the chapter into your own issues, and to take the necessary time to do so before proceeding with the remainder of the book. Also, I have interjected a Let’s Review section here and there to extend your reflections on the subject matter covered, along with an Energy Wellness Tip.

I would suggest that you take the opportunity to journal understandings, feelings and further insights of your own that arise during your reading of the chapters and during moments of reflection that follow. It will lay the groundwork for your future reflection on these subjects long after you have finished reading the book. And it will help you to get the most benefit from the book.

Finally, I hope that you will treat this book as a tool for your personal growth, and that you will return to use it again, over and over. I hope that something within its message will speak to you in a meaningful way and help you to move forward in your journey towards optimal well-being—wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.

If it is in any way helpful to you, then I will be most satisfied in knowing that the information that has taken seven years for me to convert into a meaningful vocabulary was indeed meant to be shared with you!

Namaste! (I bow to the divine in you!)

Judith

1.

Wellness,

a Vibrational Energy

Health is the ideal balance between all major parts of our being—body, mind and soul—in conjunction with our environment and all we encounter.

¹

1 Ted Andrews, The Healer’s Manual: A Beginner’s Guide to Energy Therapies (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1998), p. 3.

Ted Andrews

It was late Friday afternoon in March as my husband and I approached the busy sixteen-lane stretch of traffic on Highway 401 on the eastern outskirts of the city of Toronto. The horrendous traffic was one thing. The blinding snow was another. This spring storm didn’t seem to cause the cars and their drivers to slow down or to surrender their position on the tarmac to a safer speed limit. Why are we doing this again? we asked ourselves as cars and tractor trailers sped by us, weaving in and out of lanes, vying for the breaks in traffic and the supposed fastest way of getting to where they were going.

In our hotel room the following morning, when my husband left to go to his quarterly provincial meeting, I settled into the comfortable chair that was in our room and opened my journal to write about the thoughts that were pouring into my mind. In the background, over the quiet sounds of classical radio music from the CBC, was the constant hum of traffic noise. It was unceasing. It rarely changed in intensity unless there was a large vehicle coming to a halt or starting up its engines on the road directly beneath my window. But the background noise—the hum—was coming from the 401, which was several kilometres away. It made its way over the distance that separated me from the superhighway, through the concrete of the building, and the sounds of music on the radio.

I began to see the traffic hum as energy. And as energy, it contained a vibration. I could certainly hear the vibration. I could even feel it, and I didn’t like it. As I sat cross-legged in my comfy chair, its dull note seemed to cut right through me and out again like a boomerang emerging and returning to the traffic. Its resonance had a quality about it that was foreign to me. It didn’t seem to resonate with anything positive, for my only feeling was one of trying to find a way of escaping it.

I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined myself floating high above the traffic sounds to get away from it in this manner. But still I heard the incessant hum in my mind and felt it in my body. So from my imaginary position floating above it, I decided to take a look down over it all. It was a steady stream of steel, chrome, glass, and acrylic constantly moving, yet, from where I floated, constantly remaining the same. Where was it all going? And where was it coming from? Did anyone really care? For the moment, I cared. I cared because I couldn’t see the sense to it. Certainly, everyone was legitimately on his way somewhere. But at what cost?

From this position, high above the traffic, I could also see the hilltop overlooking the Ottawa Valley, more than four hundred kilometres away, where I live with my husband. On this hilltop, there is no traffic hum. Only the sounds of nature, the weather elements, birds and small animals, and the occasional car or truck are heard on this property. Admittedly, now retired, I can afford to hold a different view of the world of big cities and the energy they create and the effects, therefore, of this energy on the individuals that live within them. It is vastly different from the quiet solitude that prevails in the countryside surrounding our home. There, even the birds and animals that share our property know they are safe—or so it seems.

But what about this energy that I was feeling in my hotel room? What about this energy that hovers over and within the city all day and most of the night? What effect is it having on its inhabitants?

First of all, let’s look at the commute. The average time spent in commuting between home in the suburbs of a huge city and downtown is probably about forty-five minutes to one hour during peak periods. I have friends and family living in Toronto who say they spend longer than this, depending on weather, accidents on the freeway, and so forth. The commute, over time, is a contributing factor to loss of personal energy. It contributes to fatigue. Another way to express this is that it contributes to a loss of life force, or vitality—the very force that allows someone to live a meaningful and healthy life.

And what is health? I believe Ted Andrew’s definition above says it all. It is essentially a balance of everything that is meaningful within life. And when we stray too far out of balance, we begin to suffer. We suffer in the form of loss of our own vitality, or life force—much the same as the way we might feel when we lose our energy to something as simple as the daily routine of a potentially stressful commute to work.

Second, beyond the commute, I was imagining the energy that must pervade the city itself. I realize that most people do not envisage energy in the way in which I am speaking—but only because they haven’t considered it this way before. The fact that you are reading this paragraph suggests your readiness to look at energy through an altered perspective. Allow yourself to see it as something constantly in motion and constantly surrounding everything and everyone.

Next, imagine the effect that this energy might have on the people who are in its midst. To do this, first imagine, for example, a relaxing environment where the energy flow is gentle and comforting—like sitting by a quiet waterfall. Colour this energy your favourite shade of blue. See how it surrounds you and imagine how you might feel within such an energy flow. Take a moment now to imagine this before reading further. Imagine what it would feel like to immerse yourself, your mind, and body in gently swirling energy the colour of blue. Breathe deeply as you let your mind play with this imagery.

In another scenario, imagine energy as something created out of the vortex of traffic patterns on a busy, snowy, twelve- or sixteen-lane highway that wends its way though an entire city. What colour would you make this energy? What are the effects of this type of energy on the way you feel? Take a moment again to really immerse yourself in this imagery and note any sensations you experience before reading further.

Finally, what do you feel might be the effects of this last type of energy on the surrounding inhabitants of the city? Spend another moment with this imagery before reading further, and note how you feel.

From these simple exercises, you are able to connect with the sensation of energy as having a life force behind it or as a component of it. As you begin to perceive energy as a life force, you begin to understand how vital it is that the energy to which you are exposed on a regular basis should bring you sustenance, rather than causing you to feel depleted.

To take this concept a step further, try to think about the things in your life that bring sustenance to your energy level. You may wish to write them down now for future reference. Those things that yield positive energy are commonly referred to as energy boosters.

Next, think about those things, or people, that cause your life force to be compromised. Again, jot down your thoughts. These are your energy robbers.

An energy robber can present itself in a variety of ways. It could be the boss at work, or the job. It could be the relationship you have with your spouse or parent or child. Or it could be something as simple as the commute to work each day. And for those who are not directly involved with the daily commute, an energy robber may be what I experienced in my hotel room that morning listening to the hum of traffic.

There is a further impact of the traffic. It is created by the effect of the ensuing energy configuration that flows out over the city from the commuters themselves. All it takes is a small fraction of the people who speed down the highway exhibiting frustration or road rage for this energy configuration to carry an additional vibrational mix of anger and frustration from its commuters into the city. Their energy does not remain bottled up inside the cars. Instead, it carries itself out into the general traffic stream and adds to the hum that I was hearing. In this hum vibrates not only the sounds of vehicle motors, tires, and the like. It also includes the vibration of the emotional energy that is given off by the travellers on the highway. Together, the energy vibrates at a level or frequency that drones throughout the day and night hours.

I know this is what I was feeling that morning in my hotel room. It was a barrage—an interrupter of my own ability to feel balanced. It was a life force that was hovering outside my hotel and coming through its bricks and mortar into my own space. It was a constant vibrational noise caused by the traffic.

To most, this is translated only as sound. But to me, accustomed to almost constant quiet from living in the country, it was much more than a sound. It was a sound that was interrupting my meditation period, my opportunity to connect with that part of me that allows me to feel a sense of balance with all things that are meaningful in life.

The hum was demanding to be heard over the quietness of the music in my room. And it was threatening to interrupt my day. For me, it was a definite energy robber. And were I to remain in this environment for any length of time, I believe it would begin to threaten my health, for it was certainly threatening my ability to feel balanced.

I began to think about the ways in which people cope with or adapt to this energy robber that I had identified within the city. This led me to a variety of things that we consider to be pleasures, ranging from health or beauty spas, to shopping centres, to theatres, to expensive restaurants. But what about the people who can’t afford these pleasurable diversions as a means of coping or finding balance? Where do they turn to find a sense of peace?

There will always be cities. They serve a very real need. But I sense the pain of the city’s inhabitants who struggle within conflicting energies which prevail so strongly—a struggle which regrettably the people who are most caught up in it know nothing about. Think about it. How long does it take—really—to adjust to the constant sound of the traffic hum? A couple of days, maybe? A couple of weeks at the most? And then, it begins to fade into the background. So, too, do the other things that accompany the traffic hum, and its vibrational energy. We ingest it into ourselves—willingly or obliviously—and begin to normalize its effects. We do this on a mental and physical level.

But on a spiritual level, we do not. And if the traffic hum and its associated energies are not in sync with our spirit, the effect on our bodies and our minds is damaging. Why? Because we are living within an environment wherein our personal energy is not aligned with a vibrational energy that is conducive to our health. Consequently we place ourselves at risk if we remain there for any length of time. We place ourselves at risk in some way—either mentally, emotionally, physically, or, most definitely, spiritually. In fact, from a spiritual perspective we lose touch with ourselves completely. We lose touch with our own authenticity. It is this same authenticity that may have caused us to seek out the job with the commute in the beginning. Somewhere along the way we may find ourselves wondering what has happened to that dream we were following.

Energy, life force, vitality, vibrational energy, universal life force—whatever you wish to call it—is very real. It impacts us every step of the way. We cannot avoid it. We are comprised of energy, as is the environment in which we live. When we surround ourselves with an environment whose energy resonates with that of our spirit and soul, we place ourselves in a position wherein we can achieve balance of body, mind, and spirit.

It is from balance of body, mind, and spirit that we achieve wellness. If this statement is true, then the reverse follows also. When we place ourselves in an environment whose energy is not aligned with that of our spirit and soul, to some degree, we place ourselves at risk. How long does it take for us to feel the effects of an environment that is not aligned with our own energy? This question can only be answered by the individual who finds himself/herself in such a situation. Becoming aware is the first stage of being able to answer this question.

I realize that the majority of people who live in a large city enjoy the idea of the big city, the excitement that it affords, and the opportunities that are present only in a large city. I realize also that we go through stages in life where living in a big city is essential to achieve a certain goal, or to achieve a certain pace that resonates with our needs. Within this context, however, I invite you city dwellers to simply become aware—to tune in to your needs. Are you balancing the need for fast-paced living with a corresponding need to take time off to regenerate? When did you last get out of the city and into the quiet of the open countryside? The greater the intensity of your life, the greater the need to have a complete break from time to time.

Awareness, as I will repeat throughout this book in one way or another, is always the first stage. In this case, it is the first stage of being able to comprehend what it is that places our natural state of wholeness, or wellness, at risk. When we are oblivious to the effects of our daily life on our general state of well-being, we cannot comprehend change, because we see no reason for it. Awareness, then, is something to be developed and nurtured. With awareness in one area of our lives comes awareness in other areas also.

Let’s go back to the traffic analogy. Becoming aware of the effects of the traffic noise on our state of well-being may cause us to make a change in our own living arrangements to remove ourselves from its effects. Or, we may simply bring our attention to its effects and find ways of nurturing ourselves amidst the reality of its energy impact.

Summer cottages have played a very important role over the years for city dwellers to have a means of escaping the city’s energies and to align with nature. Nature is the best antidote for the detrimental energies found within cities. In fact, it is the natural antidote for any energy that takes you out of alignment with your own spirit and soul.

Without awareness—conscious awareness of oneself as a vital life force filled with and surrounded by vibrating energy—you remain closed to understanding something as simple as the effects of traffic noise on your energy system. You are unable to comprehend that your own state of wellness of body, mind, and spirit is dependent upon your ability to vibrate in harmony with everything that is within your environment. This includes the food you eat, the activities you engage in, the people with whom you associate, the jobs you perform, the ways you relax, and so on.

There is an energy link or connection in all that you do. Without this awareness of yourself as vibrating energy, what are you missing? And with this information and knowledge, how can you use it to bring healing to yourself? How can you use it to restore your health and well-being—wholeness of body, mind, and spirit?

First you need to understand yourself as something other than the physical body that you see in the mirror. You need to develop an understanding of spirituality, the subject of the next