The same treatment for muscle sprains also applies to treating stress in life.

Best Treatment for Stress Using P.R.I.C.E.

On January 5, 2016June 4, 2016 By Trisha BarnesIn Personal GrowthLeave a comment

I found the best treatment for stress after a hike through the desert.

But, wait! Everyone already knows that getting out in nature DOES relieve stress. I adamantly recommend daily walks and regular escapes as a means to regroup and reconnect.

But, this treatment is more of a lifetime treatment instead of a quick “take a break and breathe” kind that you do in the middle of your chaotic day.

We recently hiked 4.5 miles through the desert in at the San Tan Mountain Regional Park in Arizona. The hike took us full circle, completely around one of the mountains (and yeah, I know, Colorado folks would say, “that ain’t no mountain!)

Always, as we travel along on our never-ending roadtrip, we look out over plains, and hills, deserts and mountains and feel the longing to BE out there … traipsing over the land like the early settlers, the cowboys, the discoverers and explorers. Yesterday’s hike took us “out there!”

Best treatment for stress is always nature. — How many cowboys and pioneers passed by these saguaros?

We were far away from the hustle and bustle of city streets, and fast food places and malls. We ventured into the wilderness where mountains surrounded us, saguaros towered over us, desert scrub and rocks adorned our path.

We weren’t stressed, but what happened next led me to discover the best treatment for stress, for all those people, and events and situations that kind of rub against the grain of peace and happiness.

Now, about halfway through the hike, I felt my knee start to complain about the strain it was enduring for the hike. I previously strained it on last week’s hike up Pinnacle Peak in Scottsdale, but it had healed quickly – or so I thought. Soon, I began to wonder if I could beg for a ride on one of the horses passing by on the trail.

Found the best treatment for stress when I strained my knee on a hike through the desert. — Oh, please … swoop me up on the back of your horse!

By the time we got back to the truck, I knew the remainder of my day would be spent resting, icing and elevating my knee. It’s the PRICE treatment recommended for muscle strains and sprains and it’s also the best treatment for stress.

Protect – Rest – Ice – Compression – Elevation

As I was resting and icing and elevating (and sometimes … well, a lot of the time … complaining),
I realized how the PRICE treatment could also be the best treatment for stress in our lives.

The same therapy can be used to heal, relieve
and avoid stress in life.

This is how
to apply
PRICE
when life
gets
stressful
and how
to prevent
the stress
before it
erupts.

Protect:

You have to protect yourself from the stress of the negative energy that exudes from naysayers, whiners and complainers for they can certainly cause injury to your overall well-being.

There will be people who will discourage you, irritate you, even hate you and who will try to squash your desire to be successful and happy. Protect yourself from this negative kind of energy.

Protect yourself by choosing to be surrounded by people who are positive, who love and encourage you, who believe in you.

Rest:

Your mind processes 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. With all that thinking going on, is it any wonder that we are stressed?

What chance does our heart have to breathe, feel, and experience life when there is a constant flood of thoughts.

The steady flow of thinking is a thick filter between our thoughts and feelings, our head and heart. The constant mental traffic prevents us from seeing clearly, listening deeply, and feeling our well of being. Taking time to nurture the silence of our heart, we begin to be very present, including present with one another. -Bruce Davis

Science has discovered a wide scope of brain wave frequencies in humans, ranging from the very low levels of deep sleep (Delta) to the high level of consciousness (Beta) where we spend most of our waking day.

Many people spend their days in a sustained, agitated, stressful, high frequency Beta state but, it can cause an unhealthy release of stress chemicals, which will, over time, put the body completely out of balance and cause disease.

You need to rest your mind, slow down to the lower level of frequencies of Theta and Alpha.

Resting your mind is done through meditation.

You don’t have to trek to India, shave your head and sit in a cave 23 hours a day to meditate. Just find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed and sit in silence, breathing in and out deeply. As you do, your brain wave frequencies will slow down.

Best treatment for stress includes meditation. — Find a spot, where it’s quiet and peaceful.

Meditation is healing rest for your mind.

Ice:

Life is going to throw some curve balls at you – it’s inevitable.

It is stressful dealing with uncomfortable and irritating situations, people and circumstances. How you react will either aggravate or alleviate the stress.

Just chill.

It’s your reaction that will aggravate or alleviate the stress caused by crisis and disappointments or the pain of hurtful comments. Reacting with anger, worry, fear, jealousy or doubt feeds the negative energy monster.

Reacting with love expands and attracts joy, peace, equanimity and happiness.

Let go. Let go of the need to be right. Let go of the need to be in control. Let go of the need to figure it all out. Put it on ice.

Compression:

For a muscle sprain, you wrap an elastic bandage around the injury to help reduce swelling to restrict the flow of liquid to the sprain.

Compression can be applied to reduce the “swelling” of overextending yourself in any area of your life.

It’s so very easy to take on too much because there is so much you CAN do, WANT to do, and it’s ALL good. But what happens when you take on too much? You get overwhelmed, exhausted, confused and stressed.

That’s when it’s time for compression. Compress it all down to DO what you enjoy doing. Let go of all the rest. Focus on doing one or two things well instead of trying to be the expert of everything. Forget about what others expect you to be or to do. Do what fills your heart with joy.

Compression: simplifying to decompress.

Elevate:

I’ve been elevating my knee for a few days to reduce the amount of blood flow to the injured area. Too much blood can put undue pressure on the injury, slowing the healing process. The key is to have the injured area above my heart level.

Stress in life puts undue pressure on your well-being. It can fill your mind with depression, anxiety, worthlessness and the whole gamut of negative emotions that will sabotage everything you attempt to do. You have to find a way to elevate your mind.

The best way is to do this is to read books that will help you learn how to navigate through life with a positive attitude and beliefs that serve you instead of destroy you.

Be a lifelong student, never stop learning about the miraculous biology of your brain and your body, about the immense Universal power that is within you to be, do and have all that you desire.

Read daily. Read 15 minutes at a time from several different books to expand and elevate your mind.

You can also elevate your mind by attending webinars or live events to learn from personal development leaders, which puts you in an environment where you are surrounded by people who support and love you. (See “Protect” above.)

PRICE. It’s working great for my knee sprain.

It’s also the best treatment for stress in your life.

I’m sure this has triggered additional thoughts and ideas about how the PRICE treatment can be applied to life. I’d love to hear – we’d all love to hear! Leave a comment below!

Trisha Barnes
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losing-weight-the-naked-hippies-way

Losing Weight the Naked Hippies Way … Remove Clothes

On August 20, 2015June 5, 2016 By Trisha BarnesIn Personal Growth, Vanabode Dream2 Comments

Losing weight the Naked Hippies way?

Yes, it requires you to remove your clothes, and there are some who will think of running around stark naked! While, there’s great freedom in being a naturist, it’s not the subject here. (we’ll get to that in another blog post!)

We’ve been carrying around excess weight for nearly two years.

Lugging around all of this: (it’s shocking, really!)

Guess what happened as soon as I finished clearing out the excess clothes?

I tackled books, papers, junk drawers, kitchen utensils and pots, and all that bathroom/personal stuff that had accumulated.

The result? Losing weight! A TON OF IT! Two huge trash bags of clothes removed to donate; two huge, HEAVY trash bags of junk to throw away; dozens of books to take to the library, a table full of items to sell or donate; a huge box of papers to burn …

And it feels so goooooooood! There is a lightness to the camper now. Our clothes can breathe. Not every drawer and cabinet is stuffed to the brim.

Now we’re wondering how our gas mileage will improve!

This was phase one as we prepare to reduce and simplify our life to live and travel in our Vanabode home. There will be MORE downsizing when the official moving day arrives.

For now, we’re good.

That was how to lose weight the Naked Hippies Way!

This downsizing experience has served two purposes …

First, Losing weight! The physical result of eliminating unnecessary and unneeded items from our living space feels so freeing.

Second, reflecting and realizing how much “junk” we carry around in our minds that weighs us down and keeps us from living the best life possible.

This is losing weight the personal growth way:

We carry around fear, anger, jealousy, lack, low self-worth, bitterness, doubt and worry.

It’s a huge burden that if not removed, will drag you down to the depths of a hellish life, a life where you just exist, you just get by, go through the motions … survive.

When you take time to reflect on the limiting beliefs you have been carrying all your life, you’ll say exactly what I said when I viewed the massive amount of clothes piled in our camper …

“Who NEEDS this?”

You definitely don’t need the negative, limiting beliefs in your life.

They have been taking up space in your thoughts for too long. It’s time to downsize … to clear out the junk drawers of your mind.

Make space for joy and happiness and expectancy and hope and creation.

How?

By going within … through meditation, reflection, getting still. By listening, seeing and feeling your connection to The One, God, the Universe, the great I AM – whatever name you give to your higher power.

Meditation is something Bruce and I take time for every day. No matter what. It is making a huge difference in our life, in what we are seeing manifested.

It is the ONLY way to find yourself, your true self, your higher self, your Divine self. Go within in order to soar without.

There are many roads that lead you to your inner self. Find the one that works for you. The only “mistake” you can make is in not taking the time to meditate.

No matter what road you take, the journey will be remarkable. It’s the focus of our morning mindset call “Journey to Magnificence” where we read and study and discuss personal growth books and ideas.

The call is open to anyone seeking guidance and understanding and knowledge about the Law of Attraction, about manifesting your desires, about being and doing and having all that you dream of.

Join the call Monday thru Friday at 10 am Eastern. Dial in for the live call and discussions here 712-775-7085 pin 150703#.

Or listen to the replays here on Soundcloud.

Dig a little deeper – expand your knowledge and understanding even more with these recent articles which will give you more insight for removing limiting beliefs:

Let Go of the Past with Quantum Physics
Addiction Is In Every Life
Quantum Physics is the New Law of Attraction Paradigm
You’re Never Too Old, Too Young to Step Into Your Greatest Self

Always remember this, expressed so beautifully from “Winnie the Pooh”

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
-A.A. Milne

You are MAGNIFICENT!

Trisha
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Our dream is to live and travel and work from our Vanabode. We’re excited to share the journey of manifesting this in our lives. Keep up with our discoveries and manifestations here.

Visualizing Our Vanabode Dream

On July 13, 2015June 5, 2016 By Trisha BarnesIn Vanabode Dream2 Comments

Visualizing our Vanabode Dream

The Journal of our Manifestation Journey

Faith is to believe what you do not see and the reward of that faith is to see what you believe.
– St. Augustine

It’s been a couple of weeks since Bruce and I made the decision to Vanabode. During this time, we have been immersed in thinking and reading and visualizing our Vanabode lifestyle.

one-year-on-the-naked-hippies-roadtrip — We DID IT! Our dream became our reality!

It’s a familiar journey, for we recognize the excitement, the anticipation and the assurance that we WILL do this. We’ve done it before, when we dreamed and planned and made space to live fulltime in a RV.

This dream, though, is buoyed by the experiences we’ve had over the past eight years of taking leaps of faith, of studying personal growth, and of applying Laws of the Universe to our life. I believe this dream will become our reality in a relative short time as compared to the time it took us to finally get the wheels moving on our camper in 2013.

And, just as before, we don’t know how or when or where our Vanabode will show up, we just know that it will.

There are a few steps we are taking right now, a few rules we have set, in anticipation and preparation for the arrival of our Vanabode.

1. Daily Meditation

Daily meditation has become a habit for us over the past several months. It is during meditation that ideas begin to flow and we are able to see and feel our dream of Vanaboding as if it is happening now.

Meditation has so many benefits to our health, our emotional well-being, our reactions and our state of mind. Too many people medicate with Xanax or anti-depressants to feel peaceful and calm – we don’t medicate, we meditate.

We recreated our vision board with pictures of the Vanabode (inside and out), a map showing the East Coast roadtrip we will take from Maine to Key West, Thoreau’s simple little cabin at Walden Pond (which I am excited to visit), and the autumn colors of New England which we’ve not yet experienced in person.

visualizing-our-vanabode-dream — This is our vision board – what we see as we fall asleep every night and when we wake up every morning in our camper.

I’m such a visual person that these pictures help me “see” the dream as I visualize during meditation.

2. Letting Go of the How

This requires a constant awareness because we are so used to taking control and figuring out solutions to everything in life. Yet, it is exactly what jumbles up the process, slows it down, and prevents your desire from showing up.

As soon as you begin to work out the details, trying to tell the Universe where to find the means to get you to your dream, the door to all the incredible solutions that you didn’t know about slams shut.

So, we are letting go and allowing the Universe to place people, places, things in our path to help us. Now, before you think we are sitting around on our asses waiting for everything to be dropped in our laps … there are some actions we are deliberately taking.

3. Taking Action, Too

Before we manifested our pickup camper, we took action to make space for our dream of living on a never-ending roadtrip. It was drastic measure from most people’s perspective, but it was exactly the right action for us. We got rid of everything in our two bedroom duplex and moved into a tent for the summer. The next Spring, our camper showed up.

We have lived and traveled in this pickup camper since 2010. Every inch of space has been utilized … and then some. It’s time to downsize AGAIN!

The goal we have set is to do something to downsize every single day. Remove something from this camper on a daily basis, until we are down to the minimal basics that we’ll need for our Vanabode.

We will have six plastic containers that are stored under the bed and a set of stacking drawer containers behind the driver’s seat. So far, I’ve decided I will use the containers as follows, but these plans are subject to change, as we get down to the final move in.

Kitchen utensils
Pantry items
Books and CDs
Tech stuff, tools, duct tape, etc.
Clothes
??

See? This is still unfolding as we downsize. My plan is to purchase one of the storage containers to use as a guide for what to keep. It will have to all fit in these containers … if not, donate it or junk it.

4. Awareness and Expectancy State of Being

We remind each other continuously of this dream in conversations between the two of us, and with others. Having a mindset of expectancy is what fuels the manifestation. We think and act and speak without any doubt or hesitancy. Instead of saying “IF” we say “WHEN.” For example, “If we can find a Vanbode for the right price,” we say, “won’t it be fun when we find the right Vanabode.”

And then, we stay aware of the unexpected solutions that the Universe sends to us. It just goes along with letting go and not trying to figure out how this is going to happen.

Everything you can imagine is real.
― Pablo Picasso

I’m sitting here in the camper, looking at a Mason jar filled with shells and sand and rocks and acorns that I picked up as we traveled last year. I smile as I am reminded of all the beautiful places we visited and now realize this jar will be emptied and not part of our next journey in the Vanabode.

downsizing-to-vanabode-naked-hippies-roadtrip — Seashells, rocks, sand, pinecones, cotton, feathers, spanish moss, cactus pod, seaweed … all reminders of the beauty of nature we experienced

Maybe I’ll find a place in the woods here in the Ozarks to build a little gratitude shrine for all the memories these items hold. I’ll return them to nature – and in a thousand years, some archaeologist will find seashells in the Ozarks and wonder what strange phenomena caused them to be deposited here. J

I know what will happen next … we’ll be walking along a beach in Maine or Massachusetts and I’ll see a shell that I’ll slip into my pocket … and soon, another mason jar will begin to be filled with nature’s memories again.

Visualizing our Vanabode dream is fun and exciting. This series of blog posts will keep you entertained for sure, but also make you part of this incredible journey. We are honored that you dream and imagine with us.

Trisha (and Bruce!p: 573-881-6715
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P.S. One of our greatest delights is hearing from you!
Leave a comment below … share your dreams, ideas, and
inspiration.