When people have just the earliest awareness of hope in the possibility of another way, another perspective, the quantum leap from the old pattern to the new pattern instantly makes a big difference in how people perceive their situation. If we can shift our attention and interpretation, we open up new possibilities for experiencing and healing. That is our ultimate goal here at the Chopra Center. Human reality is shaped by patterns of what we focus on and how ...

There are a lot of movement meditations in our programs at the Chopra Center, and through them, I see people who are really uncomfortable moving in their bodies -- mostly because they were raised to think it wasn't appropriate or they didn't look good doing it. Learning to dance is like the process of learning to ride a bicycle: No parent says to his child, "Read a book on riding a bicycle," ...

I wrote Loolwa a few weeks back, impressed with her post, "Fundamental Principle of Dancing with Pain®," and she graciously invited me to write a piece on imagery and writing for natural pain relief, specifically, on how I incorporate it into my work as a physician. After thinking a bit, I realized that (of course) I've learned most about this topic from those dealing with chronic pain. Here are some observations and impressions from my ...

Loolwa Khazzoom: In my experience, the difference between walking into a room with a healthcare practitioner who held a genuinely loving space for me, and a health care practitioner who didn't, was night and day. How and why does a healthcare practitioner's concern for a client translate into encouragement of that person's healing?

When you find that something you love, like dancing, can be reworked to stimulate chronic pain relief, it makes sense - based on recent scientific discoveries about which parts of the brain carry, amplify, and suppress chronic pain. We know that when neural pathways have been activated repeatedly, nerve signals travel quickly and easily over the synaptic connections that make up the pain pattern, like a train over a well-used track. New brain research shows ...