Jessicas Stover 0:07 [musical interlude] Jessicas Stover 0:09 This recording is an offering of Networks for Training and Development's Online University. Rosa McAllister 0:24 Aloha, this is Rosa McAllister of Networks for Training and Development. And it's a beautiful Monday, March 4, and this is our Healing Circle Call. This is our time, once a month on the first Monday of the month, where we come together, to breathe together, to think together, to listen to learn, and just to hold space with one another. Maybe we're going through something tough. Maybe we're reaching out thinking of others. Maybe we're trying to learn or deepen our practices. Maybe we just want to share with others and be with kindred spirits. Whatever your reason in joining us, we say aloha and welcome. We're glad you're here with us. As we are each month. Rosa McAllister 1:15 We started these Healing Circle Calls a couple of years ago, it's actually a follow up to something that I've been offering for quite a number of years with various group of friends and others, who just wanted time to get together and kind of meditate and breathe and be together and to offer help to one another when we're going through tough times where our loved ones are. So we started doing these Healing Circle Calls a while ago, we meet on the first Monday of the month. It's an anonymous time where you don't have to sign up like most of our other training events, etc. at Networks, but it's a time where you can just join in and be quiet. You don't have to announce yourself, you don't have to speak at all. You don't have to do or say anything. And one of us from Networks, one of our Wholistic Practices folks, we help lead the discussion or lead the thought. And we go by whatever so moves us. Rosa McAllister 2:18 So some of you may know this, but recently, very recently, I was out of the country, I was back in Cuba, or Cuba (promounced Coo-bah), as we like to say. I was there three years ago, and it was amazing. Amazing. I'd always wanted to go to Cuba, there were connections for me from the time I was a very young child, and they just grew and grew. And there was an amazing opportunity through a very good friend to go on a trip to Cuba as part of a group and I did. And from the moment I arrived there, I knew the magic was very real. Not just for me, but frankly, especially for me, it connected and I knew I was going to come back. And I knew that I needed to do more in some way to be of service to Cuba itself, and to the people there the ones I was meeting as well as others. And so just recently, I went back there for 10 days. And it was incredible. And I'm still trying to find words to aptly describe what it was and what happened then, gosh, I'm not so good at that. I'm still faltering trying to piece it together. And as life is interesting, oftentimes, coming back from Cuba, I - it was my birthday, which is always a wonderful event I find in a time of passage in life where I contemplate what has been, who I am, who I am becoming and maybe what will be. And then my sister came out to visit and then a friend came out to visit, an old friend from 30 years ago. And amongst my visit to Cuba and my birthday, and my sister and my friend's visit and conversations with others, many, many other friends since I've been home. It's been really interesting how there's been a similarity in the conversations. Rosa McAllister 4:19 When I was in Cuba the first time, I could not get over the colors, and you hear about the old cars and the music and the cigars and the rum and dancing, and yes, that's all there. But what hit me more than anything, were the colors and the life force, the force of life that just is palpable, for me in Cuba. And coming back to it three years later, I felt it even more so. It's in the conversations and it's in people's dress, and it's in the food and it's certainly in the music and the rum and the dance and the cigars. It's in the old car. In the beautiful old colorful building, some of which are falling down. It's in the Malecon, the street that jets up against the ocean in Havana and the waves that crash over the house, the Malecon onto the cars and the people all the time. Rosa McAllister 5:17 This life force is so strong, here these people who have lived without so much for so long, and yet they are so much more full of life than many of us are. And along with that life force is the spirituality, the strong sense of something larger connectedness with all of us. And interestingly enough, coming back, what of my conversations with people around my birthday and with my visitors, etc. It's been about connectedness and life force and spirituality. And so here I am with today's topic, and our Healing Circle Call and I feel like I have to talk about this. Rosa McAllister 6:08 And so that's what I'd like to talk about today. So a lot of times in the last several years, I have been leading more and more discussions and classes in groups on meditation and yoga and various things of, like holistic types of lifestyles and practices. But in all honesty, I've always been a pretty woohoo-y, kind of person. I thought I'd do a little true confessions. Some of you may know this, but those of you who don't, I was a little kid. I was very, very sensitive, born into a very large religious family. Very, you know, typical organized religion. We went to church every Sunday as a group, we dressed up. I went to a religious school for 10 years. I learned specific prayers. And how, and the ritual. I was in the choir at church. I was a good religious little girl. But I also had very, very strong sensitivities and other spiritual ways. I felt life force around me from the time I was very young. I have many, many different examples and situations when I was quite young, all the way through my life where I felt other things that were not specifically talked about in my religion. And in fact, were kind of poo-pooed in my religion. I also had an extraordinary benefit, divine intervention, who knows what... At the age of 12, my older brother, Michael, and his girlfriend took me to the Abington YMCA to attend classes with them in Hatha yoga and Transcendental Meditation. As I've oftentimes said, who knows why in the world a teenage guy and his girlfriend would take a yucky 12 year old, but thank goodness they did. At around the same age, my Aunt Mary, who was a nun, started sending me books and information about other types of Eastern spirituality - Buddhism, and other religions - and very, very deep books about even Catholicism and differing opinions about Mary Magdalene and Jesus and others - very different than what I had been taught. And so here I was this kid, who was very shy and quiet as a child, very introspective, with lots of people around, big family, very religious, learning lots of religious protocol and ceremony, and specific prayers and how to and when to what to do and all that. And then also then learning these other things all at the ripe age of 12 years old, and it fed me incredible knowledge and incredible information, and led me to questioning and researching and probing so much that has continued through my life. Rosa McAllister 9:12 In the last 10 years or so I've become more open, maybe 15 years, more open and obvious to others about these questions and these leanings that I've had for so much my life. And I find myself nowadays in so many more conversations openly talking about this, where previously I did not. So oftentimes, in these discussions what comes up - as did very recently with both my good old friend and my sister and others and even in Cuba. What's the difference between prayer and meditation? What's the difference between religious protocol and religious ceremony and other spirituality? What's the difference between religion and spirituality? Rosa McAllister 10:00 So I've been talking about this a lot. And I've been thinking about this a lot. And I've been reading more and pulling books off my shelf from years gone by, some from my beloved Aunt Mary, some from college, some from more recently. And I've even done some internet research on this. What is this? So as I was originally taught, prayer is a conversation or a personal or private dialogue one has with God. That's what I was taught. And yet I was also taught very specific prayers like the Hail Mary and the Our Father and the Act of Contrition, and ritual and protocol about how you say it, and when you say it. And I learned these prayers, without really understanding what they meant. I learned them rote style, you know, memorization, how we learned things way back when. And so, while I received the definition and understood the definition This is private and personal dialogue with God. I learned the practice of prayer of specific prayers done in specific ways, in groups at specific times, almost "call and response" by priests during Mass. I didn't understand that. Rosa McAllister 11:20 And as I've done more research and looking and talking with others, most people define prayer as I was originally taught that it is personal and it is private and it is conversation with God. And the survey says most of us pray when we have a need. Most of us pray when we are sad, or hurting, or scared, or trying for ourselves or someone else to find an answer. Some say they fall to their knees and pray when they're at death's door, or at the bottom of the barrel, or a hopeless cause. Many people pray every day. And prayer is very much part of their life. But most others, the survey says, come to prayer in times of need. And when they do, it's not so much the prayers that we learned maybe in rote style, or specific ritual or processes of prayer, but more the dialogue with God with their God with their maker. This isn't just Catholicism, this is across the board, many, many different religions. Their prayer is oftentimes done in groups and oftentimes done in specific ways. But again, most people come to prayer, they say, when in need, and in a much more private and personal way. Rosa McAllister 12:50 So if that's prayer, what is meditation? Meditation is defined in many different ways. But I like to say and I like to teach while I can teach, you know, Transcendental Meditation and alternative breathing etc. I like to say that meditation is times that we find when we can quiet our body, quiet our minds, quiet ourselves so that we can be more introspective and converse with ourself. So while prayer might be a conversation with God, I think of meditation as conversation with our inner self with our very own lifeforce, and therefore then expanding that to the life force of others around us. Prayer, while it's a conversation or dialogue with God is oftentimes also a dialogue with life and others. Rosa McAllister 13:47 So how are they different? And how are they similar? Both can take on the form of specific postures, body, ways in which we hold ourselves specific words that we say or don't say, Transcendental Meditation might be with a particular mantra or the seed sound of "om", that many people use, or it might be a specific meditation mantra or thought that people use. It might be a pattern of breath. It might be music, it could be other things. I like to talk about meditation that we all do, in some ways, and that some of us call it prayer. And that some of us call it taking a bath. Some of us call it walking in nature, or listening to music with headphones or not, or dancing, or reading a book, or anything that quiets ourself in such a way that we hear more our inner voice, our inner workings, our life force, and it helps us connect to the greater good and the Greater Life around us. Prayer is part of that, as far as I'm concerned. Rosa McAllister 15:02 So what is it, then is religion? And what is spirituality? And what's the difference? Well, there's lots of different definitions of that. But one of the things that I really like to think about and have been thinking a lot about is the purpose of group meditation or group prayer. So there's been lots of studies about this and how interesting it is that all of the formal religions that we know of all have practices of group prayer or group meditation, or group bonding, beyond the private conversation with God, or the quiet introspection of self. It's the idea of coming together with like minded others, to do the same thing or something similar to share space and time, and intention. And that's one of the defining things about group meditation or group prayer, is that it oftentimes is around a specific intention that is shared amongst those participating. So there's lots of studies, some very rigorous scientific studies, some more qualitative, some very loose story, some probably pretty factual and some probably not. But I found a couple around group meditation or group prayer that I think is very interesting that I'd like to share. Rosa McAllister 16:25 So in 1993, a successful experiment was performed in Washington DC to demonstrate the effect of large group use of Transcendental Meditation on crime levels, the specific intention was on crime levels. Researchers predicted in advance that the calming influence of group meditation practice could reduce violent crime by 20% in Washington DC, during an eight week period in the summer of 1993. So they set about doing a couple things, trying to engage a number of people who already use Transcendental Meditation around the world with the specific intention of reducing the crime level in Washington DC. And they also looked for volunteers in the Washington DC area specifically to learn Transcendental Meditation and had several hundred people come forward. And all, both those from afar who already were meditators and those who are new to this in the local area, were all asked to meditate daily for an eight week period during the summer of 1993. Rosa McAllister 17:37 It was carefully controlled study. The demonstration project involved assembling the DC area nearly 4000 practitioners of Transcendental Meditation programs from 81 countries, as well as several hundred who were new to it in the area itself. The experiment was rigorously analyzed by a 27 member project review board composed of independent scientists and civic leaders who approved the research protocol and monitored the research process. And guess what? The findings showed that the rate of violent crime decreased by 23% during the June 7 to July 30 experimental period, the odds of this result occurring by chance are less than two in 1 billion. I'll say that again, the odds of this result occurring by chance are less than two in 1 billion. The implications of this are really exciting and yet not very surprising, are they? Meditation doesn't just serve you, it serves your world. And it assists in raising the overall frequency and consciousness level on the planet, As does prayer. Rosa McAllister 18:53 So similar studies have been done about prayer and in fact, a very similar study was done in the Chicago area, not quite at the same time period, but very close. And they had people who engaged in very specific prayers daily for also an eight week period to reduce the crime levels in Chicago. And guess what they found? 22.5% decrease in crime levels in the Chicago area during that eight week time period - Is 23% decrease the specific magic number? Of course not. But how interesting that similar study - meditation / prayer found very similar results into very plagued area at that time with a lot of crime and violence. Rosa McAllister 19:46 So what does this mean for you and me and all of us? I think there's probably lots of implications and maybe I'm extrapolating too much. But I can't help but think that with these Healing Calls, just as taking this time together, whether it's a few of us or many of us, what can we do with this time? And how far is the ripple effect on us and those close to us? So, oftentimes people will send me a request, whether it's a prayer or meditation request or what have you, they'll ask me to "yourhold me in your heart" and in their, my thoughts and meditations, something that they're going through or something or someone that they know. Rosa McAllister 20:29 And so please don't feel you need to write this down or memorize this. But as you go about your prayer, your meditation, your walks in nature, your dances, your long baths, whatever it is, and all that you do to take care of yourself. Can you please keep the following people in mind, I'm just going to give you their initials. You don't have to know them or their circumstance. Just please know that they are some folks that I love dearly and/or have been asked to hold in my heart, and I asked you to share it as well. FB, SJ, EL, NL, and MS. Rosa McAllister 21:13 I also asked you to hold me in your heart. I ask you to hold yourself in your heart, and all those on this call, and my family and your family, and everyone on the call's family, and all my loves, and all your loves, and everyone on this call - their loves. I ask you to hold in your heart and in your prayers and meditations - holding your bath with you or, in your walks or your dances or whatever it is you do for yourself. Please hold the thought of people in my town, in my community, and your town, in your community. And everyone in this call's town and community. And what about the large world, my world, your world, their world, our world. Politicians, some of which we may agree with, and some of which may not. Rosa McAllister 22:10 Friends and loved ones, and those who maybe push my buttons and push your buttons and push other's buttons. The animals and the plants, and the air and the sun and the stars and the moon, and the universe around all of us. What if we held with each other, each other, and all that surrounds us? I wonder if it would be 23% change or maybe more. Rosa McAllister 22:40 Let's give it a try. I love you all. I thank you all for joining me. I look forward to next month when we meet again on the first Monday of the month at 8pm Eastern time at this phone number. Please take care of yourself. Please take care of your heart. I hope Spring is just right around the corner and it is a beauty. Aloha. Jessicas Stover 23:16 Thank you for listening. We hope the information provided was helpful. Don't forget to stop by our website and take advantage of all we have to offer. Transcribed by https://otter.ai