I am really having an embarrasing problem with concentration and retaining information. I am currently in massage therapy school and I have a problem retaining info. When the instructor demonstrates something, and then the class has to do what she just did, I draw a total blank, it's like the info just skims right over me. For example, she was demonstrating a draping procedure, and for me, it just wasn't sinking in. It was a simple procedure, but I just "blanked out". And the more she showed me the more "blank" I became. She then went thru the procedure step by step as if I was a child while the class stood there and watched. I was completely mortified and just wanted to die right there. It was embarrasing because I was coming off as thick, or slow, and believe me, I'm anything but that! I seem to have memory "black outs". This seems to be a pattern, and I've had other experiences of being shown how to do something over and over, not being able to follow, and being humiliated because people are watching me. I seem to be experiencing a lot of "pressure" when I am comprehending, although at first, no one is pressuring me. I understand the information, but it just isn't sinking in.

In trying to deal with this problem, at first I was drawn to nutrition, especially brain nutrition, but I felt like I needed something more, like working on my third eye and crown chakra. It seems as though there is a lot of "stuff" going on in my head. I also thought about meditation and relaxation. Could you give me some insight as to why I have this problem and what are some things I can do to improve my memory and concentration--nutrition therapy, chakra work, meditation, yoga, prayer? Is my conentration and memory problem nutrition related or more mental in nature?

Hi - thanks for writing in. Here's what I am being shown. You have some ADHD stuff going on, and this is what is making it more difficult for you to grasp concepts and focus and process info. I invite you to find some holistic, energetic ways of working with this. A couple of things that can help with this are the following:

1. Knowing that this is the way you are wired up, accept it as neither right nor wrong - just as what is for you. Love yourself, and let yourself be where you are with it. It is in no way a lessening of your intelligence or competence. It just means that you learn in your own way, and knowing what way that is will help you create ways of learning that are right for you. We all process information differently, and once we know which way we do it, we can relax and work with it. Explore ways that work for you to learn, and when in a student role, let the teacher know what works for you so he or she can understand and offer it to you in an honoring way. Speak your truth to them calmly without any judgment of yourself.

2. So - in regards to this, let go of the need to judge yourself. Increase, instead, your susceptibility to having love and honoring behavior extended to you by others - and this comes about as a reflection of the love and honoring YOU offer yourself. The first is simply a mirror for how you love yourself. As you live in the vibrational frequency of loving and honoring yourself, this then, is what you create in your world and experiences, because it is what you ARE - and like attracts like.

   To embody vision and acceptance, we must first admit the perfection of our own life. (go over this one a bit... it's key.)

3. Increase your tendency to just let things happen rather then make them happen. Move into a state of "allowing" rather then exerting pressure (that is, I think, the pressure that you are feeling due to a fear of being embarrassed and humiliated. This fear of being humiliated needs to be explored and released - it is shame based, and fear based - not love based. And if you have had ADHD stuff going on and not knowing it, then it makes sense that you would not have understood, and others would not have understood, how you need to take in info - and after many experiences of feeling not like others or embarrassed or not good enough in regards to this, it is natural that you would have fear up about being embarrassed again. Acceptance and appreciation of yourself is the antidote.... Gratitude for who you are.

4. Strengthen your life force energy in general. You do this, again, by loving yourself and not putting pressure or stress on yourself. Use the breath - tune into your Chi, or life force energy, and allow it to expand.  Be gentle, not rigid with yourself. When one is rigid,  or in shame, fear, etc., it constrains the flow of life force energy - constricts it. That is what is meant with the phrase go with the flow. Life force is flow. It is self love, first and foremost.

454. "I feel I need to heal the relationship with my mother before I can leave"