Host: Sheryl Glick R.M.T.
Special Guest: Eric Walrabenstein (http://www.ericwal.com/)
In today’s episode of “Healing From Within”, your host Sheryl Glick author of The Living Spirit a book that shares stories of spiritual awakenings, healing energies and ways to release fear and stress, to develop new thoughts and actions that support healing for creating your best life. Sheryl welcomes Eric Walrabenstein author of Waging Inner Peace and founder of Operation Bootstrap designed to help returning veterans and their families cope with the effects of post traumatic stress disorder and other psychological effects of war.
Eric, a former US Army infantry officer, will introduce us to the first of its kind program which combines modern scientific stress management principles with the ancient mind/body wisdom of yoga to return both body and mind to their naturally relaxed state of balance. We will discuss the seven week “Bootstrap Program” talking about the benefits of yoga classes, guided meditations and other resources for calming and rebalancing the nervous system releasing stress and creating relaxed living.
Eric tells a story that back in October 1980 as a 17 year old, he found himself in a dark and lonely parking garage in Sacramento California and were attacked by 8 big guys and they wanted his wallet and punched and kicked a skinny kid from out of town. “I had a knife held to my throat. There was an affect to my nervous system and for years dark enclosed spaces sent me into a low grade panic and people who looked and dressed like my attackers stirred up a powerful sense of anxiety in me. I would then find myself racked with fear or even anger and sometimes it would spiral out of control. It took about 15 years for me to get a handle on it. While in western talk we would say the event had been emotionally tagged” from the yogic perspective an example of Samskara was formed.
Samskara is a Sanskrit word that translates loosely as impression and refers to any one of the many tendencies of the mind that are responsible for driving our behaviors and perceptions of the world. One part belief and one part habit, quietly working behind the scenes, affecting our every thought, action and utterance. Ex A policeman knocking on your door? How would you likely react??? It depends on your samskaras.
These opinions points of view and interpretations are all things driven by a particular mix of samskaras, or mental tendencies..Perhaps best thought of as bits of programmed code in our brains, these impressions are not fixed, nor inborn, but learned as a result of the experiences we have as we roll through life. We all are unique in how we see and respond to the world and to the changes within that can improve those responses.
Examples : Some of us think pit bulls are cute and cuddly: other are wracked with fear in their presence….Some feel people to be good and trustworthy: others are suspicious of all they come into contact with….some people are self-confident and motivated: others are hobbled by low self-esteem and doubt.
But here is the good news because Samskaras are learned they can also be unlearned. Because of neuroplasticity or the malleable nature of our brains we are able to pave the way for great transformative healing.
The bad experience, Eric had as a teenager paved the way for him to shape the Bootstrap system that would help thousands of people
Sheryl says, “ In my book the Living Spirit I refer to the many tendencies we each have to develop unfulfilling perceptions or Samskaras and wrote…page 128 “ No matter how adept we become to protecting ourselves from the negative energy of others chances are there will be times when we are upset by the words or actions of others. The key is to realize that each person perceives the world according to his or her experience, from this life and past incarnations. Therefore we cannot hope to understand every aspect of another’s behavior.
