Emotional Crisis Kit

Have any of you ever felt like somebody threw a live grenade in your hand and said "Oh hey! By the way, deal with this?"

Recently i had one of those moments. I won't go into the details here, but i was given a very complicated situation, and told to fix it! In that moment i felt lots of things, nausea, tired, stressed, anxious, scared, and like i wanted to curl up in a ball in my bed and pretend the grenade didn't exist.

However, my yoga training kicked in and i pulled out my trusty meditation pillow and plopped my rear down, and started meditating. 

I definitely wasn't in the mood for a nice, calm, deep meditation. I needed something to turn the intensity down in my chest, and give me some clarity of mind and heart. Intuitively i knew that i needed to do some alternate nostril breathing. 

After a few minutes of that, i felt enough clarity to realize that i was hungry and couldn't solve the problem on an empty stomach. After eating some food i made a few phone calls and found a solution that was simpler than i expected.

Because i love this meditation so much, i wanted to share it with you. Enjoy and share!

Meditation and Mental Health

I've blogged before about the power of meditation, and anyone who knows me knows that i love meditating! What you might not know is that meditation literally saved my life. I'll post the story here later, but i had severe PTSD, depression, anxiety, and was contemplating suicide.

It wasn't until I literally almost drove off a cliff that i realized i needed professional help. I scheduled an appointment with a counselor but wouldn't get in for about a week. Riding on the waves of my near suicide experience i found strength and energy to change my habits to help me survive until my appointment. First thing i did was i started doing Kundalini Yoga and Meditation. Fortunately i was no stranger to Kundalini Yoga or meditation. A divinely planted curiosity sprouted within me over a decade ago, and i began the practice of regular meditation years prior. I never thought it would save my life.

By the time i got in for a psych assessment, the clinician evaluating me took my stable disposition to mean that i was stable. She took me to the scheduling desk and said, "Ryan needs to be put on our waiting list to see a therapist." Disappointed and a little shocked, I went home cursing the fact that I did Kundalini Yoga before my assessment. When the clinician looked at my answers to the online portion of the assessment she was shocked! She called me a few hours later and told me that she was sorry and got me in to see a therapist the next day.

I met with a therapist, and he was very impressed with the condition I was in. He was even familiar with meditation, and was happy that started doing it on my own. "I usually have to tell people to start meditating. This is great, it will just speed up your recovery time."

While meditation didn't take away the trauma, it made the pain, and the symptoms more bearable while I dealt with it in therapy. The best part was, i didn't need to wait for 6-8 weeks to notice a difference like i did with the prescription medication i was given. I noticed an instant difference right away!

While i'm still in therapy, and i'm still healing from the mental illness, i hold to meditation as a gift from God; meditation is a tool from heaven that has helped me regain my sanity in the midst of a dark depression. Unfortunately not everyone is well versed in all the different types of meditation, and loads of people either have a mental illness, or know someone who is experiencing a mental illness. Maybe you or they have seen an infographic like the ones my friend make and thought about learning to meditate? Maybe you tried but felt like it wasn't for you, or you "can't do it," or "it's too hard," or the infamous "I can't stop thinking!"

Check out her Facebook page here for more awesome infographic.

Well I feel like it is my call to share with you that there are more than 35 different ways to meditate, and one of them is perfect for you, and i'd like to help you find it. I've been all over the globe (figuratively speaking) hunting down meditation practices that worked for me, and that i was able to integrate into my daily life. Going out and living in a forest, while it might help, just isn't feasible for me. So I tried loads of meditations from hot yoga, to inca shamanism, to sweat lodges, to chanting, to sitting in my room quietly trying to empty my brain, and what i've found is that there's a meditation style for everyone. Even better, I've found loads of science to back up why they work! And especially why they work for healing mental illness.

If you're feeling called to meditate but don't know where to start, if you or a loved one are currently experiencing a mental illness, then this class is for you. It's 7 weeks long, there are two books that we'll be reading from, and loads of different meditation exercises that we'll be doing so you can find a practice that is just right for you. If you can't participate online then don't worry because i'll have recordings available, and the discussion will continue in our "Meditation and Mental Health" Facebook group for ongoing support.

I'll be teaching it live, class will start July 29, 2015,  7pm - 8:15pm MST. You can register below!

Meditation and Mental Health
Price: $75.00 (If you're a college student, email me at ryan (at) beehivehealingarts . org and i'll give you the college discount!)
Worth: Priceless

I really hope you'll join me on this awesome adventure! If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments below or email me at the email above.

Testimonials - (From this class taught at Brigham Young University - Idaho)

"Meditation and Mental Health has been my favorite class this semester. Learning the basic skills and science of meditation is like opening a world of hope. This class has really been inspiring. We have had an excellent class and a lot of class participation. This causes the class to be a unifying experience. I like how the reading homework and personal meditation is set up. The book Meditation as Medicine is a really fun and useful read. Dharma Singh Khalsa has a lot of fascinating case studies and information.... Molecules of Emotion was helpful in understanding the science portion. Class time is a feel good time. I am really grateful for the opportunity to be in this class. I think if everyone in the school took this class then there would be a lot of benefit. Ryan has been wonderful. He is helpful and understanding. He is mindful of everyone and he teaches quite naturally. I wish I could give more helpful feedback, but my reaction to this class seems to be very positive." 

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"This class has been helpful in maintaining peace in my life. Ryan does a great job at helping me understand the importance of meditation through self-reflection. What I love most about this course is that I can see where meditation fits into the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ryan does a great job at helping me discover truth for myself and not telling me what to believe. I think that if this class were available more readily to students, it would be a great resource for stress relief. This meditation class also emphasizes the importance of pondering and of being still."

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"I love the class it is a good escape for the regular day to day class it does what meditation is meant for. it relaxes me and calms me down and gets me to be able to focus more. now doing meditation every day. it is a great way to get relief and this will come in handy the rest of my life to be able to help not only people i will be counseling but also my family to find a little peace when we go through hard time. Next semester they should have a advanced class so we could learn more and make it longer so we could do more of these meditations and get the full experince"

Meditation and Mental Health

Oh say what is truth?

The story has often been told of several men who are wise, but blind, trying to decipher what an elephant is merely by their experience with it.

The thing with truth is, it can't be completely comprehended by one experience alone. We're told in the scriptures that we will be given light "line upon line" until we can comprehend "all things." It is in that place of comprehending all things that we have "truth." Everything up until that point is just a piece of truth. It's value is in it's ability to lead one to more truth, however it is worthless by itself.

A less well known story is that of a man who sees the devil and how he treats the rest of mankind. The man having the vision sees another man (we'll call him Bob) walking along and finds a piece of truth on the ground. Bob stoops down to pick it up, and walks along his way. The man having the vision is baffled that the devil didn't do anything to Bob.

"Why didn't you stop him?" the man cried. "Isn't it bad for you if he has truth?" "No," the devil smoothly replies. "I'm going to let him keep that piece of truth, and let him believe that what he has is all there is."

The devil is suave

If any of you have ever had an experience with truth, I encourage you to keep it! However, as you proceed with life, please hearken to those who claim to have had experiences with truth you haven't quite collected yet. There is great danger in saying, "A bible a bible, i have already got a bible, and need no more bible!" Or in modern terms, "A testimony, a testimony! I've already gotten a testimony and need no more testimony!" For those who say they have enough, it shall be taken from them, even that which they have. (Alma 12:9-11)