If you are anything like me, I find change very hard... any change... so, now after the 30 days of the holy month are over, I need time to resettle into my daily life...

To start getting back into my routine I needed some mindfulness practice. And, my favorite is Art journaling.

I’ve kept an art practice for years… I’ve always used visual art as a form of meditation, stress management, and self-exploration... But, it was only a few years back when I realized that I have been documenting my life in those pieces. I have always seen and interpreted my world within the pages of my art journals - my visual representation was an attempt to make sense of a very complicated (or maybe rich) reality that I struggled to make sense of.
In the Quran, God tells us: “We will show them Our signs in the horizons [the universe] and within themselves until it is evident to them that it is the Truth.” (Q. 41: 53)

سَنُرِيهِمْ آيَاتِنَا فِي الْآفَاقِ وَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ الْحَقُّ (فصلت ٥٣)
My art practice was my humble attempt to discern those Signs that God was sending me “in the horizons”. And, my Body Whispers’ teaching was an attempt to discern those Signs “within ourselves.”

Avicenna (Ibn Sina), the famous Muslim physician (d. 1037 C.E.) saw that, in addition to our five external senses, our soul has amazing 5 inner senses that help us “see” the world and connect to its higher meaning and purpose. One of those inner senses is Imagination (Al-khayāl). In our Western culture, we might be familiar with creativity and intuition, but Al-khayāl goes way deeper than that. Imagination (Al-khayāl), according to Avicenna, is the power that bridges the soul (al-nafs) to the Spirit (al-ruh), it connects us to the higher wisdom, the sacred Divine Breath within us.

Yet, this Imagination (Al-khayāl) needs to be trained for it to be able to discern the signs, to speak the language of symbolism and archetypes, and for this, it needs reflection, creative practices, silence & mindfulness, and self-awareness & awakening.
And, like all faculties of the soul, Imagination (Al-khayāl) also needs to be tamed, and this is the role of the heart - a pure, sincere heart is our gateway for a whole magical world of imagination - a world that strengthens our connection with our Creator as we see His Signs everywhere “in the horizons” and “within ourselves.”

Maybe I will be brave enough to share some pages of my art journals with you …

For now, I highly encourage you to start your own mindfulness practice… Open up to the universe and it will open up to you! Let your imagination roam freely.
Have a beautiful week,

As we are still focusing on immunity, let’s listen to our Body Whispers! When you suffer from poor immunity, one of those three chakras are usually involved:

• The root chakra with its relation to basic human needs including safety, security, and belonging.
• The heart with the feeling of love (including self-love) and intimacy with ourselves, with others and with God.
•  The throat chakra where your higher creativity is located, where you connect to your authentic voice and feel empowered to announce this voice to your surrounding while balancing your will and power with the Divine will.

 
If you find yourself falling sick over and over again, catching every “virus” in the air, you need to pay attention to what has been brewing beneath the surface of your conscious mind. Low immunity is linked to deep underlying grief… Grief has so many levels and is manifested in different shapes and forms. It is related to feelings of helplessness, despair, resentment, and dissatisfaction. Those feelings don’t only affect our emotional and mental wellbeing, they also deeply affect our physical health. Our inability or unwillingness to fight emotional and mental threats translates into an inability to fight environmental and physical threats. When your Body Whispers, it’s time to pause, listen and reflect. It’s time to make some choices and decisions.
 
And, as usual, don’t ignore the physical side of any “whispers”. You still need to support your body with healthy food, lifestyle, and even medications when required. If you missed it, here are my 30 tips for healthy immunity

And, this  is my favourite immune boosting smoothie

​Do you feel that you are running and rushing all the time?
Are you tired and exhausted?
It’s as if you’re looking for something but don’t know what it is…  Your mind is working nonstop… Your mind chatter is torturing… And, there are those heart palpitations and speeding heart beats… Your breathing becomes shallow and your hormones a mess… PMS, pre-menopausal symptoms, thyroid issues… You have low tolerance to people and daily annoyances… Sounds familiar?
 
In the past month alone I had more than 20 clients and students approaching me regarding their anxiety issues… 
Anxiety is very individualized condition. It comes in various shapes and forms, different severity and intensity. It carries different pains and signs and poses varying challenges for its sufferers. The DSM (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) lists more than 30 different disorders under anxiety… Yet, if you dig at the core of it, no one really knows what anxiety is and where it comes from…

New studies link anxiety to autoimmune disease, Hashimoto Thyroiditis being a common one I see in my practice… Yet, is it a cause or an effect of the autoimmune disease? No one really knows. What we know for sure is that anxiety increases inflammation in the body and the inflammation in its turn increases anxiety… A viscous cycle. Turning on the furnace in our cells turns it on in our brain and vice versa.
 
I see anxiety as a gentle (or may be not so gentle at times) warning sign sent our way to tell us that we’re over doing it… over thinking, over acting, over working… We need to slow down… slow down the pace of our life and the speed of our thoughts… we need to close those pop-up windows that keep surfacing out of no where and jamming our mental screen. We need to slow down this crazy chatter and endless clutter of to-dos, ideas, information, worries, and fears… 
 
My favourite way of slowing down is taking a deep breath, grab my journal and do a “Brain Dump”… Pouring my thoughts onto the pages gives my brain a break…  It helps me organize my thoughts and decide on what I need to keep in my mind and what I need to let go of…
 
Hit reply and let me know, what’s your favourite way of SLOWING DOWN?

​It all starts as subtle whispers... or, maybe mild symptoms like headache, heartburn, insomnia, or racing heartbeats... But you ignore the whispers... you pop a pill when you have a headache or an antacid when your stomach objects... or, maybe you watch a movie to distract your thoughts or burry your boredom in a double chocolate cheesecake only to hate yourself, even more, when you step on the bathroom scale at the end of the day...
 
All what you are doing is neglecting your body’s warnings, or even worse, suppress those warnings with quick fixes so that the whispers just shut up and stop bothering you... But, the whispers won’t go away, they will keep getting louder and louder until they turn into shouts and screams now requiring medical intervention and you end up with an official diagnosis... a ‘label’ that needs a prescribed medication.
But, the medicine won’t solve the problems you are facing at work... it won’t force your son to study... it won’t heal your broken heart... pay your bills... fix your relationship... calm your anger or ease your fears...
All what it does is suppress those whispers... it makes them stop nagging so that you can step back on the hamster wheel and keep spinning... non-stop.
 
I’m here to remind you to slow down the pace of your life and listen to those Body Whispers®… You are the only one who can listen, decode, decipher, and devise a healing plan…
 
Your body possesses an amazing healing power. If you give it what it needs, it will achieve all the healing… and what it needs is not just food, drink, vitamins, minerals, or supplements… but also emotions, feelings, mental patterns, and spiritual needs…To restore your health, you need to look at your health from a much wider perspective, wider than drugs or even herbs and vitamins… you need to work on your body as well as your mind, your heart and your soul.
 
So, today, it is time to Slow Down and Listen to the Whispers: What is one thing you can do today to help you slow down?
 

Do you feel that something is wrong with your body but you cannot quite define it?
Your lab results are normal. The doctors tell you that it is all in your head or maybe it is just stress. Yet, in your heart, you’re just not ‘you’.
Or, maybe you’ve been diagnosed with a chronic disease. You took medicine after medicine with no sign of relief. Some symptoms are fading; yet, you’re still tired, exhausted, and depleted. You lack energy… You’ve lost the zest of life, motivation, and enthusiasm.
Or, you’ve just recovered from a serious illness, life trauma, or grief. People praise you for how brave and resilient you have been. Your doctor tells you that you can finally get off your meds; you don’t need them any more… Yet, deep inside, you still feel depleted and weak. You’ve tried to eat healthy, live healthy, exercise, and sleep early. You’ve tried all the supplements, herbs and superfoods your friends and nutritionists recommended. Yet, you still have a deep feeling of unrest and unease. You start feeling helpless and discouraged with all your seemingly endless complaints that no one acknowledges. You start believing that this is the norm and you just have to get used to those body aches and pains... you have to get used to this brain fog, chronic exhaustion, anxiety, and depressive mood...
Your body communicates to you in a way that is uniquely yours—it is the sum of your experiences, memories, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. You are the only one who can decode those Whispers… You are the only one who can devise your healing plan. Start by listening… What is your body trying to tell you?
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