Shawn Hammer

07/31/2022

07/12/2022

To be mindful means to pay attention to what is happening in the mind, body, and immediate environment and to remain present, while both curious and compassionate.

Moreover, mindfulness is not complicated.

It improves in response to a straightforward set of meditation practices that develop an increased awareness of thoughts, sensations, and feelings. Combined with increased kindness and passion, mindfulness improves our capacity to cope by identifying the options available to us.

Mindfulness leads to greater well-being and mental clarity, and an increased ability to care for both yourself and others.

The practice can be as simple as an awareness of breath and body. We observe our thoughts and emotions as they come and go before gently returning focus to physical sensations, while remaining curious, compassionate, and accepting.

Mindfulness can help you foster more healthy, compassionate responses to your own experiences and those of others around you.

And no less incredible, it can, in a very literal sense, change your physical and mental well-being.

Below are four simple practices you can do throughout the day to be more mindful and to bring your awareness to the present moment.

05/15/2022

Intimacy usually denotes mutual vulnerability, openness, and sharing.

It is often present in close, loving relationships such as marriages and friendships. The term is also sometimes used to refer to s*xual interactions, but intimacy does not have to be s*xual.

Intimacy can be vital to maintaining a healthy social life.

If you avoid intimacy, you may find yourself isolated or in constant conflict with others.

When fear of intimacy disrupts a relationship, couples counseling or individual therapy may help.

Even when neither partner fears intimacy, a couple may still have trouble opening up to each other.

The following suggestions may allow you and your partner to grow closer.

1️⃣ Be patient. Getting to truly know someone is a serious time commitment. The trust-building process is often a slow one. Intimacy is not a race.

2️⃣ Start with the easy stuff. If you find it easier to talk about the future than the past, then start by sharing your dreams and goals. As trust builds, you may find it less frightening to talk about the more difficult topics.

3️⃣ Talk openly about your needs. Are you someone who needs a lot of time alone to recharge? How often do you like to have s*x? You can prevent a lot of misunderstandings if you tell your partner plainly what you want instead of assuming your desires are “obvious”.

4️⃣ Respect each other’s differences. Even the most intimate partners still have their own identities. You and your partner do not need to agree on everything in order to love each other.

05/14/2022

Who would have guessed that a tiny needle (or 12) could be such a boon to your well-being?

Here are researched-backed ways the ancient practice of acupuncture improves your health from head to toe.

https://www.shawnhammer.com/body/benefits-of-acupuncture/

05/13/2022

Most of us spend our lives reacting to the world around us.

If something good happens, we feel happy. 🥳

If something bad happens, we feel upset. 😢

We tend to see our lives as a series of unrelated events, each one producing its own independent reaction.

However, there is another way to think about our experiences.

Instead of reacting to each event separately, we can step back and look at the larger picture.

By doing so, we can start to see the connections between different events and identify patterns that may otherwise have gone unnoticed.

This type of thinking is known as condition-based thinking. It allows us to see the world in a new light and make better decisions about how to respond to the events in our lives. 🥰

Discover the dangers of condition-based thinking and how to overcome them!

https://www.shawnhammer.com/mind/condition-based-thinking/

05/12/2022

I am frequently asked, “What is Plant Medicine?” and how can plant medicine help to treat and prevent many of today’s chronic and acute illnesses?

In our newest blog post, we discuss the many benefits of plants and herbs as medicine and how incorporating them as a complementary or alternative form of therapy can help when conventional methods didn’t.

👇 Check it out! 👇

https://www.shawnhammer.com/plants-as-medicine/

05/11/2022

"You Changed."

Oftentimes when we are on the journey of learning how to reconnect with and love ourselves, people may call us selfish or stuck up for taking time for ourselves, placing boundaries, saying "no" to things we do not want to do, wanting alone time, eating differently, thinking differently, "not being fun anymore", and basically shaming us for not being who we used to be.

This is completely normal, and it also shows you who your true friends are.

True friends love unconditionally.

People who shame you for being your true self, oftentimes, like what you DO for them, and they do not necessarily like you for YOU.

Healing and evolving will expose these people, and it will also shed light on the people who are good for you.

05/10/2022

The Dark Night of the Soul is akin to spiritual depression.

It is a period in your life after you wake up to your true divinity that everything will seemingly go wrong.

It is not uncommon for friendships and relationships to break down, to lose jobs, and to experience some of the hardest things you ever have (internally and externally).

This is part of the process!

It wakes you up to your shadow self, shows you what to work on in yourself, and makes you extremely resilient.

Trust the process!

The bad is being cleared out to make room for magic to happen.

05/10/2022

When you learn the lesson, the lesson will stop showing up.

05/06/2022

It's pouring outside this morning and it's really putting a damper on my mood. I don't like the rain, especially when it's cold like this. It just makes me feel so gloomy. All I want to do is curl up in bed and sleep away the day.

But I can't do that. I have things to do, people to see. So I'll just have to push through this feeling and hope it goes away soon.

Have you ever felt like this? Where your emotions just takes a complete nosedive for no reason?

Emotions are funny things. They can be caused by something as simple as the weather or a memory from our past. And they can range from positive emotions like happiness and love to negative emotions like sadness and anger.

But regardless of whether they're positive or negative, emotions are a normal and essential part of life. They make us who we are and help us connect with the world around us.

So the next time you're feeling down, don't fight it. Embrace it and see where it takes you. You might be surprised at what you find!

A Quick Guide to Emotion:

https://www.shawnhammer.com/a-quick-guide-to-emotion/