Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Emotional Re-Education Workshop 

July 15th - 17th

Essex Conference Center

Complete the ON-LINE APPLICATION to Participate

This workshop, under the direction of April Prita Manganiello, is facilitated by a team of co-facilitators and assistants, several of whom are members of The Consciousness Collaborative.  The ratio of support to participants is about 3:1 - a highly atypical and nourishing setting for profound group work. 

 "The world belongs to those with the most energy." 

-Alexis de Tocqueville

There's no denying that everyone, at one time or another, has had a snack attack.  Views on snacking differ.  Some of us feel that snacking is bad and that eating between meals leads to weight gain.  Others believe that eating many small meals and snacks throughout the day is healthy for maintaining energy levels and optimal weight.  If there were one way of snacking that was right for everyone, we would all be doing it! 

To alleviate snack attack guilt, try to understand why you are snacking and what snacks work best for your body.  Perhaps you snack because your daily diet is missing nutrition, or because you are eating too little at meals.  You might be snacking to soothe jangled nerves when you are emotional, or to entertain yourself when you are bored.  Whatever your reason, acknowledge it and start thinking about how to create a life that is nourishing and truly satisfying.

Although snacks are no substitute for loving your life, they can be great energy boosters, mood lifters and a healthy and fun way to keep your body fully nourished, as long as you use a little common sense.  So many convenient snack foods are highly processed and full of chemicals, additives, damaging fats and refined sugars.  When a snack attack hits you, try foods that are filling and satisfying, but also nutritious.  Snack on things that don't come in a plastic wrapper or a box, like fresh fruit, leftover vegetables or rice cakes with almond butter and fruit spread.  Make your own signature trail mix, organic hot chocolate made with almond milk sweetened with agave nectar, or blue corn chips with hummus.

You can also try "upgrading."  If you are craving something crunchy, upgrade from potato chips to raw carrots, apples or whole grain crackers; if you are craving a candy bar, upgrade to a handful of nuts and dried fruit; instead of a cup of coffee, upgrade to green tea; instead of ice cream, upgrade to applesauce with cinnamon.  Upgraded snacks are high in nutrition and give you a greater sense of satiety and satisfaction; you won't feel physically or psychologically deprived, and you'll have plenty of energy to sustain your activities for hours.
 
Snacking is enjoyable and there are a wide variety of healthful goodies for whatever you're craving, be it sweet, crunchy, salty, creamy or spicy.  Dive in, be creative and enjoy your snack attack. 

-Contributed by Nathalie Blitz of Vitamin N

(image borrowed from the internet)

When I was little, I would watch The Six Million Dollar Man, and there was this one episode where Steve Austin runs across this World War II Japanese man, Kuroda, who is stuck on an island and still believes it's WWII (There were real accounts of this actually happening, but Steve Austin was my education as a youth).  This soldier is still preparing for battle, still putting up his defenses, still trying to save himself and his country.  He refuses to believe that the war is over until a booby trap reveals Steve's bionic leg.  Then it hits him how many years he's been battling against an enemy that is no longer fighting. 

This all may sound humorous, but how many of us follow this same path?  How many of us are still fighting battles and protecting ourselves from a situation that no longer exists?  I believe, most of us, on one level or another.  When we are young, life happens to us-perhaps a parent is unkind, or traumatizes us, or is not there for us in a way that we truly need.  We were not held or bonded with, and so there is this absence that we want to fill, or perhaps we were bonded too closely, and our lives and our self worth depended so much on how our mother or father or caregiver treated us that day that we forgot where they ended and we began.  We internalize these things; it's what we do as kids.  And we make things up about ourselves:  I don't deserve to be loved; I'm too much and must hold back or someone will be hurt; I am unlovable.  We carry those beliefs forward into every relationship we have, and we play these old beliefs out.  We still fight the battles of our youth, and we find partners who will engage us there, ones that support those old patterns.  It's a very difficult loop, with so much pain and suffering.  If you take a moment and look closely, and stay present, you can see it on the faces of those all around you, in the lines of the faces of your loved ones, and of yourself in the mirror. 

Until we heal those pieces.  The happy ending is that inside each of us is the love and joy and beauty that we seek.  We don't have to earn it; we don't have to have someone else give it to us.  It's naturally and beautifully a part of us.  We need to heal.  Tenzin Rinpoche says, "Most of the time when we suffer, we feel we need to change something in order to improve our lives.  We change our jobs, relationships, diets, personal habits, and on and on... While these actions may provide temporary relief or improve the quality of life, the methods never seem to go deep enough to cut the root of our dissatisfaction."  How true!  More than anything, it is about staying with those feelings of dissatisfaction, not trying to dull the pain or make it go away, but truly being with the little one inside of you who still suffers from those long ago traumas. 

I believe that meditation is one of the great tools on the way to healing.  It isn't all of it-there is counseling, and trauma release work, and many, many ways to clear the pathways to our beautiful center or core of ourselves, and I encourage all of the ones that seem right for you.  What I have learned in meditation is that it allows us to know and become familiar with what Rinpoche calls our "innermost essence."  As the pathways clear, we know this open space within, and we can trust it as home. 

And regarding Kuroda, he brings us even more good news.  In a follow-up Six Million Dollar Man episode, he uses his jungle skills to save and slowly re-acclimate a boy back to civilization.  So all those defenses we created as youths to fight our battles get to be used as strengths.  But that's a story for another day. 

-Contributed by Jamie Thurber, Meditation Leader

Obstacles Real and Imagined

• Do you have a leg injury that would prevent you from achieving your goal of running a 5K? 
• Is there anyone in your life that is not supportive of your success and might sabotage your progress? 
• Do social activities come up and override your training program? 
• Do you need to add a strength-training program to protect your body due to aches and pains from prior attempts to achieve this goal? 
• Do you harbor the belief that successfully reaching your goal would make someone close to you feel uncomfortable or out-shined?

-Contributed by Lisa Andrews of Equilibrium Retreats