Since the Ask The Coach Series is fast running out of questions I have a guided meditation for you to listen to, either on your PC or you can download it for free. This is called Forest walk.

Forest Walk Guided Meditation

It would be great to let me know what you think of it and give any feedback.

It would also be good if you have any requests for guided meditations

You can download the Forest Walk Guided Meditaiton here Just right click the link and save as a file on your desktop.

I regularly work out at the gym.  My two sons have just joined me and we have been going now for about 6 weeks, 3 times per week.  After a session at the gym whilst walking down to the car one of my sons advised me he got a little bored when going round the gym.  I advised him:

“That’s because when you go to the gym, you stay in the gym”

“Eh?” He gave one of those strange looks with a little twist in his mouth.

“Well, I’ve noticed that you’re looking at everybody in the gym whilst you’re working out.”

“Yeah, what else is there to do?  You just close your eyes and don’t open them until you finish your set.”

So I told him where I went when I closed my eyes.

Not being in the gym at the gym

1. The rowing machine

I am in Australia, China, or Greece and sometimes I am even in Glasgow on the Clyde River competing in the Olympics.  I am an unknown and nobody has given me a chance and I only got through to the final on a technicality.  However the commentators are astounded when I am in the bronze medal position and catching up on the Australians and the great British rowing team.  I can see my wife, Sharon and my two sons jumping up and down and hear them calling for me all along the river banks.

With 200 meters to go I am level with the British team and the commentators are calling this “one of the best races I’ve have ever seen, and Steven Aitchison is about to go in front.” I win the race by about 2 metres and the crowd surround me.  I see my wife’s face and my two sons behind her, smiles as wide as the Clyde.

2. The Weights

I find this the most tedious and most strenuous.  With the weights I want to push myself harder and harder.  The only motivation I can think of when I close my eyes is:

My wife and two sons have been held captive by two murderers after being caught up in a foiled bank robbery.  They are in a storage container and they are going to be killed if I don’t pass a series of challenges they have set me.  They make me lift weights and use all the different muscle groups on the various machines except I have to do reps of 12 each time and instead of the weights being taken off they go up by 2.5 kilos after each rep.

My face is nearly purple by the end of the 20 minute session but my wife and kids are safely in my arms and the two bank robbers have been safely put in jail with a few mysterious bruises and a broken jaw and nose (violence doesn’t solve anything, but it’s my wife and kids we’re talking about here.)

3. Cycling

I go for the fat burn here with a target heart rate of 165 and the mountain view (you get a nice little picture of you climbing a mountain as you’re cycling).

I am in the Tour de France.  I am an unknown and I hear the commentators talking as I am cycling.  I start off at the back of the pack of 100 or so cyclists but slowly make my way through the pack to reach a breaking pack of about 30 or so cyclists.  The commentators have now picked up on the fact that I am in 30th position and I am an unknown so they start to find some facts about me.

I see my wife and two sons at the side of one of the roads and cheering me on.  My wife places her hand over her heart, to tell me she loves me, and this spurs me on even though my legs are burning up.

I am on the last 2 miles of a 7 mile stage (hey, it’s my thoughts ) and I am in 9th place.  My son’s voices are ringing in my ears pushing me a little harder.  I climb to 4th place, the commentators are almost screaming, there’s one from Scotland there and he’s nearly wet himself with excitement.  Third place, 1 mile to go.  The camera’s are on me, I can hear everyone screaming.  I am just behind the second place rider and can see Lance Armstrong in front of him.  The crowd are going wild; the Scottish commentator has passed out.  I am right beside Lance Armstrong as we come to the last 200 metres, he glances to the side and smiles and edges 1/2 meter in front of me, I respond and kick my last kick and we finish the race neck and neck.  Lance shakes my hand and hands me the yellow jersey.

You don’t have to be in the gym

All of the above is honestly what I do when I go to the gym and the time flies by and I really enjoy it.  Of course I use other machines but I didn’t want to bore you too much.

What do you do to pass the time in the gym?

I’ve not written a post in a while, or at least it seems like a long while to me.  I have been in agony with a sore back for the last week or so and haven’t been able to sit long at the computer.  I don’t know what happened, I was sitting at the computer last week and stood up and the next minute I was on my knees in agony.

Morning back pain

I suffer back pain every morning but it usually goes away after an hour or so.  Not this time, this one was here to stay.  I kept on going though and went into work, took the painkillers, but it was getting increasingly worse and I was starting to look very strange when I was walking, I was bent over and I had a Charlie Chaplin walking style.   On Friday I happened to say to someone at work that my pain was getting worse.  She said she knew the number of the Jan De Vries clinic and said he was excellent.  I had heard about Jan De Vries before and everybody, no matter their ailment had said he was great.  I duly called the clinic in Troon and was advised there was a space on Saturday at 3.45pm.

Meeting Jan De Vries

We drove the 50 miles to Troon, which is a beautiful drive, and arrived at the clinic at 3.30pm.  My wife and boys went to the little coffee house there, while I booked in.  It was heaving with people coming and going but I was seen within 10 minutes of arriving.  I was shown a consulting room and was advised Jan would be with me soon.  I took the chance to look at the hundreds of books that were shelved around the large victorian styled room.  Jan de Vries came in and asked me what he could do for me.  I briefly explained my problem and he advised he would like to take a quick look.  I was led into another room which was filled with large cubicles with Chinese writing on the doors, don’t know why I noticed that! I got down to my underwear and lay on my front.  Jan came back in and took a look at my back and said ‘oh yes, you have popped a disc out there’ quite matter of factly.  Then he said ‘we’ll get that sorted just now.  He then proceeded to crack my toes, asked my to lie on my back, cracked my toes a second time. He then pulled one leg up and to the side and pushed down hard and did the same with the other leg and said that was it and advised me the disc was still swollen and advised me to take a tincture to ease the swelling.  I looked up, a little stunned, and said ‘is that it! are you finished”, he laughed and told me it was and left to go into one of the other cubicles.  I slowly got up from the massage table and tried to stand.  I started laughing, I could stand up straight which I had not been able to do for over a week.  I was stunned, I couldn’t help laughing in disbelief.  This small framed 72 year old man had fixed a slipped disc within a matter of two minutes, he was like a little ninja darting about all over the place, always calm and in complete control.

The coffee shop

I paid the cost of the treatment, which was only £20 and that included the tincture, and then walked out of the Victorian mansion toward the coffee shop where my wife and boys were.  I caught my wife’s eye as I was walking toward her and she looked in astonishment as I walked into the shop, for the fact that I was walking upright and not bent over and the fact that it had taken 15 minutes from going in to coming out.  I was still feeling sore from the swelling and that I had been using other muscles to compensate for the slipped disc but I was upright, it was great.

The knowledge

As we were driving home I was thinking that it must be amazing to have that knowledge of the human body, just to look at someone and tell them what their problem is and how to fix it.  I was feeling a little dazed all night last night and again this morning for the fact that I had met an amazing person with an amazing ability.

I have just finished another guided meditation entitled Well of The Wyrd and would love your opinions on it. I have purchased some new equipment to make this one and I think it sounds better then the other 3 I have done here:

http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/2008/06/02/guided-meditations/

Well of The Wyrd – Guided Meditation

Put on a pair of headphones find a quiet place and listen for 8 minutes, or if you want to listen to more of the music and drift off to sleep on it I have let the full music track play for 23 minutes.

The music is a beautiful piano piece from the composer Chris Mullett and the script is from Susan Granquist.  The Well of the Wyrd is a place where you can ask any question and receive the answer from.  You will walk, alone in a forest, but feel safe and secure as those you love and have loved will be beside you.  On the journey you will meet a woman who will take your question and answer it for you in the form of gift.

I hope you enjoy this, I have listened to it several times and by the end I have felt relaxed and calm, and that’s even listening to my own voice, which I hate doing (You know when you listen to yourself on a video or something and say, is that really me, I sound weird, that’s how I felt when listening back to this).

Over the last 10 – 15 years there has been a marked increase in the number of people who wear glasses and contact lenses. This can be put down to drastically increased computer useage both at home and at work, and increased television watching. Good news for opticians around the world – bad news for us, but it needn’t be!

Our eyes need regular exercise in order to keep them healthy, just like any other muscle in the body. The thing is, we take it for granted that our eyes will eventually give up on us and we will eventually need glasses or contact lenses. This doesn’t have to be the case if you regularly exercise your eyes. Also, if you start wearing glasses or contact lenses your eyesight will only get worse over time rather than get better as your eyes will get used to the new lense and need even stronger lenses to function properly. Everybody who wears glasses and contacts will tell you their eyes have gradually got worse over time but they have put it down to their eyesight getting worse which is not necessarily the case.

This may sound quite controversial to some people and a lot of people are opposed to this advice when I have given it. Opticians are people of some authority so why would someone listen to me rather than someone who has had years of training and years of experience and have big fancy machines to test your eyes. Simple answer is that 90% of opticians would not be required if everybody done some sort eye exercise on a daily basis.

Of course there are exceptions and a lot of people might need glasses or contacts due to congenital problems or some kind of trauma however I believe most people who wear glasses do not need them or did not need them in the first place.

I use the computer at home and at work for an average of 9 hours per day and do not need glasses. This is only because I have resisted listening to opticians who advised I need them. Instead I have exercised my eyes and after a few weeks of exercising my eyes, they have returned back to normal vision.

I know I will get a lot of abuse for this post but I stand by what I am saying and advise you, if you are a glasses wearer or contact lenses wearer to try the exercises for a few weeks and let me know how you get on. What have you got to lose?

The exercises I use are pretty standard and have been in the public domain for years but they work for me and hopefully they will work for you. I have to give credit here to Marc Grossman after finding his articles on eye exercises a few years ago.

5 Exercises to strengthen your eye muscles and improve your vision

1.Blinking

Blinking is an often overlooked yet simple way to keep your eyes fresh and being able to focus longer. Computer users and television watchers tend to blink less, especially when they are intently focused on something. Try it just now as a simple exercise. For the next two minutes blink every 3 – 4 seconds. After you have done this for two minutes, mentally take note of how your eyes feel, are they strained, relaxed, tired. Now try and not blink for 30 seconds at a time for two minutes. Do you feel any difference?

Whenever you blink your eyes are going into a brief period of darkness which helps to keep your eyes fresh and discharges previous information ready for new information, this helps to reduce eye strain.

Your blink rate can also help with your communication skills. Think about someone who looked at you intently and you possibly felt threatened by them. What you may have missed is the fact that they had stopped blinking. When someone stops blinking and stares at you when you are talking it’s a sign of aggression. However whenever you are talking to someone and they are blinking at a 3 -4 second interval it’s a sign of a relaxed and friendly listener. Check out people’s blink rates the next time you are talking. Check out this article for more info Dramatically improve your eye contact skills

2.Palming

This is done to relieve stress around the eyes and as a way to relax your eyes whilst taking a computer break.

Instructions for palming

1. Take a few deep breathes before you begin.

2. Make yourself comfortable whilst leaning forward on a desk or with your elbows resting on your knees. Close your eyes.

3. Place your two hands over your eyes with the cup of your palm covering your eyes, your fingers on your forehead and the heel of your hand will rest on your cheekbone. Make sure you can blink freely and you are not putting too much pressure on your eyes.

That’s it. Palming gives you the opportunity to rest your mind and your eyes for a few minutes at a time. It may not sound much of an exercise but it can make a big difference in your working day if you stop for a few minutes and do this exercise.

3.Figure of eight

This is to exercise your eye muscles and increase their flexibility. This is quite a simple exercise but a good one.

Imagine a giant figure of eight in front of you about 10 feet in front of you. Now turn the 8 on it’s side. Now trace the figure of eight with your eyes, slowly. Do it one way for a few minutes and then do it the other way for a few minutes. It may seem very alien at first but it’s worth persevering with it.

4.Near and far focussing

This is one of my favourite exercises as you can do it almost anywhere, I say almost as I couldn’t imagine doing it on the underground without getting strange looks from those around me.

Instructions for Near and far focussing.

1. Sit in a comfortable position, or stand, this will only take 2-3 minutes at a time.
2. Put your thumb about 10 inches in front of you and focus on it.
3. Now focus on something else about 10 – 20 feet in front of you.
4. On each deep breath switch between focussing on your thumb and the 10-20 feet object in front of you.

This will strengthen the muscles in your eyes over time and improve your vision overall.

5.Zooming

This is another one of my favourites as it is very easy and quick to do.

Instructions for zooming

1. Sit in a comfortable position
2. Stretch out your arm with your thumb in the hitchhike position
3. Focus on your thumb as your arm is outstretched.
4. Now bring your thumb closer to you, focussing all the time, until your thumb is about 3 inches in front of your face.
5. Now move your thumb away again until your arm is fully outstretched.
6. Do this for a few minutes at a time throughout the day.

This exercise will strengthen your focussing skills and your eye muscles in general.

I hope this post has stimulated your interest in natural vision exercises and it leads you to research this subject more. I am by no means an expert on this subject so please do your own research. I can only tell you what works for me.

As you know I have been heavily into binaural beats for the last few years and have recently brought out my own products at www.binaural-zen.com and www.binaural-sleep.com

I was emailed last week by someone from www.irieradio.com asking if I would like to be a guest on the Rude Awakening Show with Bulldog and the Dude as an expert on binaural beats.  My initial reaction was to say no as I didn’t consider myself as an expert.  However after speaking to my wife who asked me the question: “what makes an expert on any subject an expert?” Since I have researched, read all the available literature and experimented with producing binaural beats I supposed I could be considered an expert, so I decided to do the show.

After listening to some of the shows to get a feel for what Bulldog and the Dude were like I was quite nervous as they can be quite intimidating if you don’t carry yourself well.  Anyway, the experience was great, Bulldog and the Dude were great hosts, they put me at my ease and asked serious questions interjected with their unique sense of humour.

I have posted the interview above which lasts for about 15 minutes.

There are some questions I would have answered differently but it was an experience for me and one I am glad I decided to do.

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions , please feel free to ask them.

www.Binaural-Heaven.com is offering a binaural beat recording which is going to have you revved up with energy ready to tackle the day ahead. This binaural beat’s effect will last for a few hours after listening to it and is guaranteed to be unlike any other binaural recording you have ever heard.

The music is from a very talented composer called Eddy from Dream ED and is entitled Dream Xperience. You can get more of Dream ED’s music from Jemendo

With this recording you will need to wear earphones to get the full effect of the Binaural beats interlaced throughout the music.

www.Binaural-Heaven.com is my own project and offers you a binaural recording every week along with a guided meditation and an eBook every month on personal development. The membership is only $15 but will be going up to $25 per month very soon. If you want me to help you change your life in every way this membership will help you create the change you want from relaxation, a better memory, developing ESP, manifesting your desires and to help you meditate quicker than you have ever experienced Binaural-Heaven will do it for you every week.

How can Binaural Beats change your life?

From the moment I started using Binaural Beats over 10 years ago I have seen a huge change in my thinking and they have undoubtedly helped to shape the person I am today. Then last year I started selling some great binaural beats as an affiliate. Now I have researched the subject and have been making my own downloads for the last 6 months and have had some great feedback.

Binaural beats can help in a multitude of ways. For example when I first started using them I wanted to use it for Lucid dreaming which I did to great effect. I then wanted them for meditational purposes, again they have helped me tremendously and I still use them for meditation and I have found it the best meditation aid going. A lot of people now use them for healing, for manifesting their desires, developing their ESP to tap into the Christ and Shaman consciousness in fact they can help in nearly every area of your life.

Binaural beats is an extremely effective way of changing your life and has no adverse side effects.

Visit www.Binaural-Heaven.com for more information.

I have finally managed to get the two guided meditations fixed from previous posts: Meeting your future self
& Intention manifestation
You can listen to both of them here:

Intention Manifestation

Meeting your future self

A lot of people have written to me asking for some more so being the nice person i am I will be recording a series of 8 guided meditations for personal development and selling them as individual downloads priced at $7 each for personal use. you will also be able to get some of these downloads from my subscription newsletter at www.Binaural-Heaven.com which is now going strong with some great feedback.

This might seem a bit strange but I have noticed over the last few months that when I wear my quartz watch I notice a discernable difference in my energy.

A few months ago, the battery on my watch went dead and I kept meaning to get the battery replaced but kept on forgetting. What I noticed, when I didn’t have the watch, was that I had more energy. I woke up more refreshed in the morning and seemed to have more energy throughout the day. As I said, I put this down to coincidence and threw it to the back of my mind. Then my wife eventually bought a battery, trust my wife to put me to shame, and I started wearing the watch again.

Within a few days my energy levels seemed to drop, I was tired and weary in the morning, I struggled to get out of bed and felt sleepier during the day. Again, the thought that the watch was causing this lethargy was dismissed as nonsense. Of course, I didn’t tell anybody about this.

Therefore, to get the thought out of my head and dismiss it altogether I decided I would try a little experiment.

For two weeks, I would record my energy levels in the morning (6am) Afternoon (1pm) and Night (9pm). The first week was when I was wearing a watch and the second week was when I wasn’t wearing a watch.

The results surprised me.

Energy levels wearing a watch

Nothing much wrong with that, except looking at it now my energy levels seem pretty low. I may have been too harsh when scoring. I judged my energy levels: lethargy (how tired I was feeling), enthusiasm (how eager I was to keep working), and sharpness of mind (was I foggy or was my mind still thinking clearly).

Energy levels without wearing a watch

I was a bit shocked by this. An overall drop in energy levels over the week by about 8%. I definitely felt a difference in my energy levels.

The difference

I thought about this and thought I might have skewed the results in a number of ways;

1. By already noticing in the past that my energy levels were low, thereby I had sort of formed a hypothesis already in my mind. So I could have inadvertently been more energetic when I was not wearing my watch, it’s a possibility.

2. In the second week not wearing my watch I thought about my energy a lot more. I could have boosted my energy by simply thinking about it.

Nonetheless, it was interesting to carry out this experiment. I wonder if anybody else has seen this as well and if it might just be quartz watches. I wonder if it would be the same with a digital watch or a mechanical watch. Let me know your thoughts.

Depression is a word a lot of people run away from due to the stigma attached to it. The truth is everyone has suffered from it at one point in their lives, even if it has been for one day.

I have suffered from it in my late teens/early twenties and paradoxically the only thing that kept me sane was thinking of the different ways I could kill myself. It’s not a nice place to be in at all especially if you’re good at covering it up.

What is depression?

If you are going through a depressive period in your life just now, let me assure you it is not for life and you will get out of it. I have been there and know it can be tough to get out of the quagmire of the mind to see the light again. It can feel like being stuck in quicksand and the more you struggle the worse it gets.

Nobody truly knows what causes depression and it is one of the most common illnesses that doctors deal with.

Depression is a state of feeling low all the time for two weeks or more and some of the symptoms of depressions according to patient.co.uk can be:

• Low mood for most of the day, nearly every day. Things always seem ‘black’.
• Loss of enjoyment and interest in life, even for activities that you normally enjoy.
• Abnormal sadness, often with weepiness.
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or uselessness.
• Poor motivation. Even simple tasks seem difficult.
• Poor concentration. It may be difficult to read, work, etc.
• Sleeping problems:
  • sometimes difficulty in getting off to sleep.
  • sometimes waking early and unable to get back to sleep.
  • sleeping too much sometimes occurs.
• Lacking in energy, always tired.
• Difficulty with affection, including going off sex.
• Poor appetite and weight loss. Sometimes the reverse happens with comfort eating and weight gain.
• Irritability, agitation, or restlessness.
• Symptoms often seem worse first thing each day.
• Physical symptoms such as headaches, palpitations, chest pains, and general aches.
• Recurrent thoughts of death. This is not usually a fear of death, more a preoccupation with death and dying. Some people get suicidal ideas such as …”life’s not worth living”.

Once you recognise the symptoms it will be easier to ask for help in the future and once you have gone through it once it will be easier to deal with if it comes back again.

The situation vs the mind

I believe depression is caused by the situations you find yourself in life. It is not a disease, it can’t be caught, and there is no specific area in your body which, when removed, could alleviate the depression. The logical conclusion and speaking from my experience is that it is where you are in life that causes you to be depressed.

Take for example the person who is feeling lonely, they have a job with little contact with people, they don’t go out a lot, and tend to keep their own company. This lack of human contact can be quite distressing for some people and put them in a depressive state. Now imagine the same person gets a job where there is lots of human contact and meets lots of different people and interacts well with them, their social life improves, and they are not staring at 4 walls as much as they used to. Their depression might not completely disappear but it will be lifted and eventually disappear with a little more confidence in themselves.

Depression is caused by what you focus on and when you always focus on the dark side of life the harder it will be to life yourself out of depression. Going back to the lonely person again; if they focus on not being able to find a partner and they see happy couples everywhere in life they tend to focus on the lack of having a partner. The more you focus on the lack of having a partner the more depressed you get, it is a vicious circle.

The vicious circle

When you have hit rock bottom low it can be hard to pull yourself back up, but it can be done and it can be done easily if you let it. I am not saying the process of getting out of depression is easy but flipping the switch is easier which makes it a lot easier to get out of depression.

If you think the only way to think about life is to focus on what you have or don’t have right now you’d be wrong, totally wrong. This is what can be keeping you in this depressive state. And yes you might say; I have no money, I am £50,000 in debt, I have no partner, I am losing my house, I am losing my job. However, think about this situation for a moment. You are focusing your attention on everything you are losing and it is going round and round in your head about everything you are losing and life sucks. You might resort to medication; I would never advocate this for depression as you are running away form the underlying cause of you feeling depressed.

Overcoming depression

Overcoming depression is extremely easy. Before you say it’s not and ‘you don’t know my situation’. The truth is some people like being labelled, in fact most people label other people to make life a little simpler for themselves. Depressed people label themselves as depressed so they can say ‘I have the label of depression, therefore I will be depressed for a few weeks or a few months but I will get out of it once I feel like un-labelling myself as depressed’. That might sound harsh and I hope I am not offending anybody here however I have been where you are I have sunk to my lowest point in life and I can say it is easy to get out of depression, or rather it is easy to start the process.

Gratitude

You have life, you are living and breathing! Acknowledge this for a few moments, don’t say but, but, but! Just acknowledge that you are living and breathing. Acknowledge another good thing in your life, it might be you have a roof over your head, you have the time to read this article, you have a great partner, you have food in the fridge, just acknowledge the things you have in your life.

This can be difficult at first because that little mind of yours keeps whispering ‘yes you might have food in the fridge but you’ve nobody to share it with’ as soon as you hear the word ‘but’ in your head stop that train of thought and re-focus on what you have. With practice this will become automatic and you will start to see a change in your thinking and a life in your mood.

Visualisation

Another great way to focus on the good things in life is by using your imagination and replaying all your good memories you have in life. Just get time to yourself, close you eyes and find one great happy memory you have and let that lead you to other happy memories. If you feel the sad memories creeping in, just go back and re-focus on the happy memories. Again this can be difficult to begin with but it will get easier.

Another useful way to focus on the good things is to imagine what it will be like in your future. You imagine yourself as the person you want to be in life, you imagine the things you want in life don’t even concern yourself with the tools to get these things just let your imagination go and imagine your ideal future. The more you do this the easier it will become. Don’t let the mind monster steer you away from the good and happy thoughts just keep going back and remember you control your mind, your mind does not control you.

Too simplistic!

Life is simple, it’s the labels we attach to life that are complicated.

Don’t let this simple process put you off trying this, you will find most solutions to problems are simple and so it is with depression.

The reason this works, and I do know from experience, is that it is directing your attention away from the perceived negative situations in your life. The less time you spend in the negative, the less you will feel depressed.

Once you have reached the state of feeling good again it’s time to deal with the circumstances which made you feel depressed in the first place. Due to you feeling good it will be easier to deal with the situations at hand and they will not become as hard as it was.

Looking at your situation logically

When you start to look at all the situations which was making you feel down, look at it from another’s eyes. Imagine your situation is your friends situation and you are advising your friend what to do.

For example

If you are in £50,000 worth of debt you will begin to focus on the solution of getting out of the debt or going bankrupt and starting all over. Going bankrupt is not that big a deal and can be a huge relief, I know it was for me, and it taught me a huge lesson in life.

What’s the worst that can happen?

I always ask myself one question whenever I start to panic about a situation: ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

If you truly find the worst case scenario then work with your problem from that angle you will find things are not as bad as you first imagined.

Living your life again

I hope I have not offended you, or belittled your current situation as this was not my intention when writing this article. My intention is to help you help yourself. I can give you a few tools to change your life but you have to be willing to use the tools.

I hope you do use the tools and hope you change your current state to one of loving life.