Life and learning can be a stressful experience at times. Being able to destress and come into the present moment is a powerful tool for any student, and it can be an effective way to overcome anxiety, nervousness and fear.
Here are some mindful study strategies to implement with your children or with yourself, when you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed. It will help you to become calm and centred once again, so that your studies can continue in a positive and constructive manner.
1. When you discover that you or your child has become bored, distracted, annoyed or frustrated with study, stop and return to the breath. Count the breaths and notice how they slow down. As the breath slows down, so does the mind. A calmness within the body and mind makes it possible to think and study more clearly and effectively.
2. Ask your child or yourself to identify and name the emotion being felt.
3. Ask your child or yourself to express the true emotion being felt. Really feel the emotion and locate where it is sitting in the body.
4. Ask your child or yourself to explain in words what is happening. This will bring awareness to the present time problem.
5. Identify if there is a word or a phrase that your child or yourself does not understand.
6. Clear up the word by using the Word Awareness Procedure.
7. After clearing up any unknown words or phrases, tune into the senses. Notice and pay attention to: a) Any smells b) Any sounds c) Any sensations; heat, cold, pressure, weight etc.
8. Look around the room and find anything in the environment that is liked or cherished. Name the item. Repeat this 10 times.
9. Walk around the environment or room and touch items and things that interest you. Really pay attention to how things feel and look. Continue this process until you or your child seems brighter or more relaxed and calm.
10. Recall a time when you felt pleasure, amusement or great happiness. Recall this pleasure moment with all the senses, such as sight, sound, colour, weight, touch, emotion etc.
Finish by taking 5 deep breaths and notice if you or your child are feeling any better and ready to continue studying. By this time, you or your child will be feeling lighter and brighter.
These Mindful Study Strategies are used by Live and Learn Education specialist tutors, and are part of the Holistic Educational development and mentoring program. Practice these Mindful Strategies any time, and discover for yourself how simple and helpful they are.
For more information on clearing up unknown words go to the Word Awareness Procedure article.
Live and Learn Services offers a Clear Mind Communication Masterclass which teaches a series of Mindful Drills that to improve communication and confidence. By simply directing your attention and looking into the eyes of another individual, you can discover an enormous awareness about yourself, your personal purpose and even the collective consciousness. For many who have carried out these Mindful Drills, they have found that certain mindsets seemed to vanish or dissolve and that somehow, they feel more at ease with life and more capable.
By Michelle Constance: BAppSc Grad Dip Psychology
As humans, most of us live immersed in our daily lives, with little thought of who we truly are. Most of us have never realized our true self, the soul, or what the Buddha called Anatta. As a result, we believe we are these limited bodies. Over many years of conditioning in this material world, we begin to form an identity of ourselves based on our experiences and worldly knowledge. This limiting view of ourselves is not who we truly are, yet we can’t help but identify with the character that we have come to recognise as the self or the ego. As a result, we lose touch with our divinity and our true purpose.
Meditation has surged in popularity in recent years, from a mild interest to a mainstream trend expedited by therapists, scientists, teachers and celebrities. Most people however, have a lot of misconceptions about what meditation really is, and today we find many activities to calm the mind that have been called Meditation but are more like processesto help alleviate suffering. When you are saying affirmations or being guided through some imagery or hypnosis, you may feel better and more relaxed, but this is not meditation. Meditation is being regarded as a process in order to get some kind of outcome or result but rather Meditation is actually the outcome not the process.
The world’s greatest spiritual teachers throughout the ages, have shared the view that the deepest truth of our being is not to be found in any particular spiritual tradition, but can be found within the truth of each individual person. The essence of the ancient Vedic teachings and the Buddha, teaches us to reach for that which is beyond name and form, beyond thinking and beyond the material. So then, whilst the purpose of Mediation has many uses, it’s true purpose is not a meditation type in itself. All traditional techniques of meditation recognise that the object of focus, and even the process of monitoring, is just a means to train the mind, so that inner silence and deeper states of connectedness can be discovered. Eventually the process itself is left behind. The only thing left, is the true self or state of perfect “beingness” or oneness with creation. This end product is meditation, and it is known as the state of Samadhi.
So then, the goal of meditation is to go beyond the mind and experience our essential nature—which is described in the Vedic Scriptures as “Sat, Chit, Ananda”- Eternity, Knowledge and Bliss. Satrefers to the true absolute being of pure awareness, and that which never changes. Chit refers to consciousness, knowledge, or being one with that which never changes. Anandais the experience of bliss which goes with fullness of life, consciousness, truth and connection to purpose.
Meditation has huge benefits but one that stands out is the increased flow of energy in the body, emotional release and the opening of the Heart Chakra. A deeper level of love is experienced. You begin to forgive yourself and others and release all feelings of guilt and victimization. This feeling of happiness for all situations, then develops the practice of gratitude. Higher levels of divinity within you are ignited and activated. You experience a very deep and innermost connection to source with a feeling of divine love, peace and joy.
The mind itself, is the biggest obstacle standing between ourselves and higher awareness. The mind is undisciplined and often out of control. So therefore learning to control it is vital. Throughout our lives we are taught how to move and behave in the outer world, but we are never taught how to be still and examine what is within us. We learn the art of inner guidance pure thought and control, through Meditation. The joy of meditation is immense and lasting. This is a truth supported by a long line of wise sages and teachers, both those who have renounced the world and attained truth, and those who continue living in the world yet remaining unaffected by it.
Translated from the Pali term “sati” mindfulness literally means “to remember” or “to bear in mind.” In Sanskrit it is known as “smriti ” which translates as, “That, which is remembered”.
Mindfulness is rooted in Buddhist thought and theory. In the West, it was popularized in the 1970s by a professor Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, which he launched at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. By the early 2000s, the concept of mindfulness had expanded in popularity.
Mindfulness is a developed practice of maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through the practice of meditation and other training. Mindfulness also involves acceptance of what “is.” This means that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them or trying to alter them in any way. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we are sensing in the present moment rather than turning our attention to past images and recordings of the mind, or future creations of the imagination. When we are able to accept a situation or a condition without resistance, we will find that it will be easier to manage and overcome.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, states that the opposite of forgetfulness is mindfulness. Mindfulness is the energy that helps us recognize the conditions of happiness that are already present in our lives. He reminds us that our true home is not in the past, that our true home is not in the future, but is in the here and the now.
Live and Learn Services offers a groundbreaking Clear Mind Communication Masterclass never before offered in Perth Western Australia. This class will introduce you to the principles behind Meditation and Mindfulness in an extremely unique and masterful way. If you feel that you can’t meditate or that mindfulness is something that you could never hope to accomplish, then think again. This Masterclass will have you accessing mind states of a seasoned meditator within a few short hours. There is no reason you cannot experience the true connectedness mentioned above with some very simple drills from this class.
Benefits of the Clear Mind Communication Masterclass
Excel in your personal and professional life.
Gain the ability to pinpoint the obstacles that stop you from getting what you want.
Know how to bring harmony into every situation in one’s life.
Alleviate your stress at home, at work and in social situations.
Learn the skills behind what true self-discipline is.
Master the skills to confront problems head on.
Newfound ability to handle difficult and challenging circumstances and conditions.
Greater confidence and awareness.
Dissolve negative and destructive mindsets.
Greater Happiness in one’s life.
Experience greater vitality and health.
Improved intellectual capacity.
Greater resilience to challenges.
Increased balance and intimacy in personal relationships.
For more information contact me on the following website or look into enrolling in our Clear Mind Communication Masterclass.
www.liveandlearnservices.org
By Justus Kallhoff
Education and Life Transformation Specialist
To Face Life On Life’s Terms, One Must Be Willing And Able To Confront What Is.
The definition of Confront means to stand face to face, to face up to, to bring into the presence of, to face, meet or deal with a difficult situation or person.
Most problems are best solved by a direct approach to them. Some people have the idea that if they don’t look at their problems, the problems will just disappear. Nice idea, but completely unworkable because problems just have a tendency to pile up worse than ever, if unhandled.
Feelings of low self esteem and anxiety can inhibit your motivation and ability to feel confident in life.
We all know the feeling of what it is like to have doubt or anxiety whenever we are faced with a difficult situation. Surprisingly, we get to have these feeling, almost on a daily basis. Many of us choose to just go with the easiest path because we know we can do what we have done before. One interesting characteristic about the mind is that it will continually keep running back to what is familiar. It has a default setting. We choose to do what we know because it is the easy option. We may have been told, in the past, that it was the right thing to do, or we may have seen it displayed by people we trust. Whether it was your parents, friends, family or even familiar faces in the media. For instance, we may have grown up watching our parents drinking in an attempt to handle life challenges and stress, or we may have watched our loved ones overeat in an attempt to avoid painful emotions. We may have also discovered that it is easier to drop out of that course before we fail.
However, choosing to change the way we respond to circumstances in life, takes a great deal of courage and ability to face what is really happening. We need to ask ourselves whether the choices we have been emulating for so long, are actually the choices that will bring us the greatest personal happiness and success. We have to stop and ask ourselves whether that chocolate cake is really going to help me to avoid my feelings and is that next drink going to really give me the true confidence that I need to face my fears?
Does it make sense for us to continue doing those actions we know we can do because it is familiar? For most people, change is something that we fear because it might mean that we lose something we love, or we have this belief that if we change ourselves, everything around us will change. Like relationships you have with friends, family or even romantic partners.
This is a fair belief…. Because it is true. As we change, so do the lives around us. I’m sure you have seen plenty of times when someone goes for that job they have always wanted or decides to eat healthier. It sparks inspiration in others. It is almost as if it finally grants someone the ability to do something they fear, because they have seen someone they trust, do it.
Funny isn’t it? We have all these opportunities to change yet we wait and wait and wait to do it. Until someone we trust, does the same thing we have wanted to do for so long. Now that they have done it and they are successful in it, somehow you feel motivated, by some magical powers to attempt to succeed in something you once thought was impossible.
Well the magical power you have observed is the ability to confront. You have watched someone successfully face up to the experience of what is, and in doing so, they have managed to create change in their lives. Now you want a piece of this and the desired outcome.
Your ability to confront comes from trust. Trusting that you have the ability to gain the best outcome for yourself no matter what. It is a win-win situation when you think about it. I mean, If you really do put in the effort to confront something and it doesn’t go the way you had visualized, or you didn’t hear the words you needed to hear, you now know exactly what it is that you need to do next time. Alternatively, you may have succeeded, and what once seemed to be impossible is now completely tangible and possible.
So now that you have chosen to confront something or someone, you may recognize some familiar feelings of discomfort. These feelings are something we all know so well. An awkward silence after a disagreement and that neither parties have addressed. Being hungry when you decide to go on that new diet. Being in a relationship with someone you love, but you know it isn’t right for you. The pain you feel when exercising for the first time in forever. Or, it could be the compulsion to do something that you know is not in your best interest.
This moment of discomfort is the pinnacle moment of growth and personal development and if learned to handle correctly, one will move forward to new and greater motivation and confidence in one self.
Unfortunately, what patterns do we tend to repeat? Remember that the mind will go back to what is familiar. We leave the conversation because its awkward. We reach for the nearest snack or cave on our diet, because it’s just not the right one. We continue with the relationship because we think that it will get easier or believe that the problem might just go away. We stop exercising because we can’t handle the pain or we drop out of that course that we always wanted to do.
You don’t need me to tell you what happens when you do this. You are far too familiar with it.
So, let me tell you what happens when you finally decide to change. When you finally decide that you are going to confront life on life’s terms.
Firstly, your whole perspective on life changes, how could it not? At first, you saw the task as impossible and now look at you. You are doing it. You have just achieved something incredible. You have pushed through the moments of discomfort and challenging mindset beliefs and now you have managed to succeed in something that seemed daunting at first.
What kind of things do you think run through your head in this moment of success? You start to say positive things to yourself, you question many things that you believe to be impossible, you begin to feel more motivated and confident in your abilities. Now you have done something that was difficult at first. Guess what? You can build upon that fundamental win that you had.
Secondly, your life changes, as do the lives around you. You suddenly become an inspiration to others without even trying to inspire them. You get to watch others become inspired because of your display of courageous confronting of thoughts, feeling, actions and behaviours.
Thirdly, you do it again, and again, and again!
You have just had a major upgrade in your entire operating system, now it’s time to see what else you can do that once seemed difficult.
You see, when you’re in these moments of discomfort, of course it is easy to go with what you know, and it is okay to do that sometimes. A question I ask my clients all the time is
“If you died tomorrow would you be happy with what you have done today?”
Your next minute isn’t guaranteed. Live the life you want to live by confronting what will seem hard at first, but becomes easy when you have finished confronting.
Live and Learn Services offers a Clear Mind Communication Masterclass, whereby you get the opportunity to practice Mindful Drills that will give you the skills to successfully confront life on life’s terms.
After completing the Mindful Communication Drills in the Masterclass, a graduate walks away with skills that they can apply to all aspects of their lives:
Learning to confront life enables you to move forward with confidence.
BENEFITS OF LEARNING TO CONFRONT LIFE ON LIFE’S TERMS:
1. Excel in your personal and professional life.
2. Gain the ability to pinpoint the obstacles that stop you from getting what you want.
3. Know how to bring harmony into every situation in your life.
4. Alleviate your stress at home, at work and in social situations.
5. Learn what true self-discipline is.
6. Master the skills to confront problems head on.
7. Enhanced capacity to handle challenging circumstances.
8. Greater confidence and awareness.
9. Dissolve negative and destructive mindsets.
10. Greater Happiness in one’s life.
11. Experience greater vitality and health.
12. Improved intellectual capacity
For more information visit
By Michelle Constance : Holistic Education Specialist
The purpose of learning is to acquire knowledge so that one can use it to achieve goals in life. Without basic literacy skills, a student will become bored, confused or lost. Live and Learn Services holistic Education Academy provides a specialist, Super Literacy Programme for students of all ages. This course is for those who are beginners, for the remedial student and for professionals who want to improve their study skills or learn English as a second language.
The course consists of 6 levels, each of which is designed specifically to teach the Phonics of the english language, basic grammar, writing and cutting edge Study Skills. All of these subjects are taught on a gradient that is appropriate for easy and efficient learning. Live and Learn Services Specialist Educators will monitor the success of the student and allow them to work at their own pace. The Literacy specialist Course maintains excellent retention and conceptual understanding of data for all their students. They will acquire knowledge that will be with them for the rest of their lives.
The Phonics section of the course, teaches the 44 distinctive phonological units of sound. It teaches that letters and combinations of letters represent specific sounds. These are known as Phonemes. Most students are never taught to sound out their words. Rather, they are expected to memorise words and hence miss out on the fundamentals of learning how to spell and read fluently.
Most students learn the most common sounds of the letters of the alphabet, but they need a true understanding of how a single letter can have more than one sound. Students also need a thorough understanding of how two or more letters can represent just one sound, these are known as phonics or Phonemes. Once the fundamental sounds of the english language are learned, students can then sound out their words with auditory processing and manage to become good spellers and writers.
As part of the comprehensive course, Grammar is also thoroughly taught and practiced with all students becoming very competent. In a manner of days, student can complete the Great Grammar Course and have a working knowledge of all Grammar essentials.
Comprehension is another part of this Literacy Specialist Course. Most students read robotically, passing over words they do not understand. This results in little or no comprehension of the content being read. Live and Learn Services is unique in using cutting edge techniques to teach understanding and meanings of words. Students gain full understanding of what they read or study, and become super literate with expanded literary skills. As a result, students retain what they have learned and will be able to use the knowledge to their benefit throughout the course of their life.
A unique aspect of Live and Learn Services is the restoration of a student’s passion and eagerness to learn. Learning becomes an invigorating experience and the student becomes self-confident, positive and happy within themselves.
Life is full of Learning.
For more information on the Literacy Specialist Course contact us.
By Michelle Constance
The basics of life begins with the ability to learn and acquire knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge is a complete and Holistic experience. It is one that encompasses an array of strategies and practical activities. For many, this basic task is a huge hurdle to jump over, when considering either the beginning of educational life or maintaining excellence throughout our professional careers and leadership rolls.
Life is learning, and if this passion for learning is lost, then we will see a decline in the overall consciousness of our society in general. There is virtually no activity you engage in that does not involve the use of your ability to learn and comprehend. Without continuous learning you will fail to live up to your full potential in life.
Recognising that learning can often be a stressful and uncreative experience, it is now time to develop a new Holistic direction of living and learning, in order create a life of abundance, creativity and passion. Acomprehensive Holistic Education must be one that:
Rehabilitates the desire to learn.
Provides the opportunity to learn how to learn.
Offers strategic ways to overcome barriers to learning that slow down or impede the living and learning process.
Provides an opportunity to unlearn false information and ways of learning.
Offers the ability to master and apply all that is learned in any field of life.
Develops self confidence, competence and creative flow.
Learning styles refers to the different methods by which a person takes in, understands, expresses and remembers information. There are 4 predominant learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, and Kinaesthetic. Adopting a mode of learning and understanding what works best, is a valuable discovery for the student.
Visual learners learn through observation. Visual displays, pictures, charts, colours and highlighting are all valuable tools for this style of learning. For visual learners, recall of images is more efficient than recalling words. Use of pictures, models and diagrams are all essential. One of the tools we teach in the HEART Method of learning, involves the use of Demonstration Kits which teach the student how to model and show what they are trying to learn.
Auditory learners learn through listening. As such, attending lectures, tutorials, and group discussions are helpful. Reading and sounding words out loud are absolutely essential for these learners. It can also be really helpful to engage in group discussions about course concepts and topics. I often ask my students to explain to me their new topic of learning as if I were a student. They must teach me what they have just learned. This dynamic of learning is a masterful way of consolidating information.
Read/Writelearners learn through reading and writing. As such, university style courses suit these types of learners fairly well. Making lists of glossaries and condensed study notes are useful tools for the read/write learner. Definitions of words and descriptions of concepts can be written to clarify the key data being studied. If a student can’t rewrite a definition or describe a concept in their own words, there is a good chance that there is an aspect of that concept that they didnt fully understand. The HEART Method of Education offers tools in which to clarify terms and learn the value of word definition for successful learning.
Kinaesthetic Learners learn through doing and incorporating all of their senses into the experience. These type of learners think in 3D pictures or holographic perception. Dyslexics often run into difficulty when trying to read two dimensional writing and imagery on paper. These type of learners often experience and perceive the world a little differently as well. They have almost a “being with” experience of the environment. Some learners speak about being “in the zone” and in actual fact it is a natural spiritual perception phenomena. Recognising this type of learning can have a tremendous effect in helping the student to manage themselves whilst learning. Often I have found that the student needs to move around a lot in order to locate themselves in space and time. After a few processes, the student becomes relaxed and more focused. Use of kits that provide mass and form are also valuable tools. Creating models and duplication of concepts helps the student to memorise and conceptualise the material being learned. As a result, the student is able to recall information at will and duplicate the data for further use. Here, the demonstration kit is extremely useful and makes learning a very enjoyable experience.
For more information Contact www.liveandlearnservices.org
May your life be abundant with Learning!
The will to learn, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential...these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence. — Confucius
The basics of life begins with the ability to learn and acquire knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge is a complete and Holistic experience. It is one that encompasses an array of experiences and practical activities. For many, this basic task is a huge hurdle to jump over, when considering either beginning educational life, maintaining excellence within the employment sector or even maintaining career prospects.
The educational system appears to be adding so many subjects to the curriculum, that the basics are often missed. Students are bombarded with so much information to learn, even before they can even fully grasp the meanings of basic spelling words. As a student attempts to learn, confusions are collected and they are quickly shuffled on to the next subject well before they have grasped the first items. This is where the fundamental problem begins along the path of learning, and it isn't any wonder that students begin to have losses along the way and eventually lose their passion for learning.
Life is learning, and if this passion for learning is lost, then we will see a decline in the overall consciousness of our society in general. It is not uncommon to walk into a classroom full of students who are bored, unmotivated, acting out, or full of frustration and anxiety, simply because they cannot fully grasp and maintain conceptual understanding for what they are learning. As a result, students take loss after loss, and eventually lose the will to study and learn under their own self direction and personal decision.
Live and Learn services was designed and founded by Michelle Constance who recognised that learning was not a happy and creative experience any more, and that a new holistic direction of living and learning was needed in order to create a life full of abundance, creativity and passion. Live and Learn Services offers an authentic and comprehensive multi-disciplinary structure of practical strategic studies, courses, therapy and products for students, families and professionals seeking specialist education, confident life transformation and personal mastery.
A comprehensive Holistic Education must be one that can:
Rehabilitates the desire to learn.
Provides the opportunity to learn how to learn.
Provides an opportunity to unlearn False Data and ways of learning.
Offers strategic ways to overcome the Barriers to Study that slow down or halt the living and learning process.
Strategies for Self Confidence and Certainty.
These are the fundamental steps that must be in place for a student to feel confident in progressing forward, towards their life goals and aspirations.
Holistic Education at the Live and Learn Services Academy follows a specialised, evidence based method of learning called the HEART Method, created specifically to mentor the scholar along their educational and career path. The HEART Method involves holistic education strategies combined with self realisation and personal development processes.
This method of learning is is divided into stages, if you will. Each stage builds upon the next and as one moves up the grades, a scholar is more able to take control and master the direction of their lives.
Self confidence and certainty are the next valuable steps in the Educational life transformation process. The key component of the Holistic Education Academy at Live and Learn Services, is the building and fortification of the innate abilities of the student. Each graduate has the opportunity to become the master of their destiny and walk away with life long tools that will carry them forward into their self designed future, full of confidence and responsibility.
The Live and Learn Holistic Education Academy provides tools and support in many areas. All the carefully designed programmes include:
Basic Fundamentals in English Literacy and Numeracy.
Unique Cutting edge tools for Study and understanding the Barriers that prevent Learning.
Diagnostic Assessments.
Courses for Grammar, Phonics and Literacy Enhancement.
Creative Story and Essay writing,
Use and Understanding of Dictionaries.
Guided Mindfulness and Meditation Practices for developing executive function ability.
Strategic Exercises and Processes for cognitive function.
Overcoming Emotional and Behavioural challenges.
The combination of these tools rehabilitates the Scholar and provides a solid base upon which to build a life full of accomplishment, purpose, gratitude and deep happiness.
The following is a short list of some of the key benefits of the HEART method of learning at Live and Learn Services.
Attention ability.
Emotional Regulation.
Social Integration.
Adaptability.
Compassion.
Self Confidence.
Calming and Self Soothing Qualities.
Resilience.
Self Directed Behaviour.
Personal Awareness.
Self Actualisation.
For more information and help contact Michelle at www.liveandlearnservices.org
Realising your dreams, and having the tools and confidence to reach for them is Key.
