from Cindy Harp Hively

HEALTH AND WELLNESS LIVING AWAP... ("As Well As Possible").

Even though you may be living with a life difficulty, or with an illness, is your life on the "Grow and Glow?" I sure hope so. It is still a new year, a new month, a new YOU.....Yes, it can be a new YOU! All of these growth seeds can be tough to measure, but you know when you have it and when you don't. As we learn from our dis-eases, we can still cultivate what is within to heal and make us feel better, no matter how many tough life difficulties are knocking at our door. It is so true. Along with cultivation I am now living with CONSCIOUS INTENTION HEALING. This has been a challenge, but this practice is providing healing for myself and others.

I have been working on my own life difficulties these last two months and have miraculously seen and felt a shift in healing. I am working on my life intentions and with other women who are challenged with life difficulties of all kinds. Every morning when I wake up I choose my intentions for the day, what am I going to do and how I am going to feel. What will be my attitude and how will I determine what part of myself (mind, body, spirit) I will give my intention to for healing. This is very scientific stuff and as someone who has begun to practice living with intention, I know it works. Here is an example of what science is saying about conscious intention healing. This information wows me because we do have the information now to start healing in new ways.

To read the entire column go to www.BuddhaChickLife.com

Thanks to Cindy for sending this our way, John Heil

Rhythms of the Heart and Nature by Cindy Hively

Cindy Harpe Hively writes on living life with the daily struggle of chronic illness. She calls the Roanoke Valley in Virginia her home, surrounded by beautiful mountains that inspire and heal her everyday. Having worked twenty five years in the retail industry, she moved up quickly and loved her career, but had to quit work due to chronic illness. She is on a healing journey through Metta meditation, mindfulness practices and self compassion.

You can read her columns at BuddhaChickLife.com

Living with Chronic Pain: Art & Exercise

Sponsored By: Psychological Health Roanoke

Presented by: Billy Bob Beamer

and

Stephanie Simmons Gillenwater

Saturday, June 4, 2011; 10:00am-12:00pm; PHR Offices

The Role of Art
Billy Bob Beamer is an internationally known artist who creates his art through use of meditation. He also teaches classes in “drawing as quiet active meditation” to relieve pain and stress. Beamer, a sociology graduate of the College of William and Mary, is also a retiree from the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Social Services, and an award-winning trumpeter, with a 40-year week-end career playing jazz, R & B, blues, and other types of music.

The Role Of Exercise
Stephanie Simmons Gillenwater is a Personal Trainer and Group Exercise Instructor at the YMCA in Salem, VA who is also diagnosed with fibro-myalgia. Stephanie will share her experience with exercise as a way to manage her chronic pain. Stephanie is hoping to eventually begin a group exercise program at the YMCA specifically for people with chronic pain.

ART & PSYCHOLOGY

Bill Beamer is a former patient with us who sought treatment to help deal with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. While participating in biofeedback, he was able to experience a trance-like state, that provided relief for a time from pain. When he realized that he was able to produce this same state of mind through a methodical repetitive drawing technique, his longstanding interest in art took on a new meaning and purpose. Bill’s career has since blossomed.

John Yimin of Outsider Art has written that his work "lies in a world, somewhere between what you see and what you think” and describes it as “staggeringly forceful.” You can find out more about Bill and his art at http://www.outsiderart.info/ (Follow the link to U*Space Gallery in Atlanta, GA).

Bill notes that although he still has these disorders – but thanks to his art, the disorders don’t have him.