POINTING THIS WAY OR THAT

Your Brain On God

We are all storytellers ... when we pray or even think, we are telling the Law our story

What story do you want to tell?

A Cherokee elder is teaching his grandchildren about life and says, "a fight is going on inside of me it is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves.

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, pride and superiority … lies, lies, lies.

The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion,faith and Truth.

This same fight is going on inside of you and every other person too," the elder said to the wide-eyed kids. The grandkids thought about it for a while and then one of them asked "which wolf will win?"

"The one I feed," the old Cherokee answered, “the one I feed.”

What are you feeding your mind?

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. ~Thoreau

Sympathy with Intelligence? That's with God, Spirit....

In the book, HOW GOD CHANGES YOUR BRAIN, Andrew Newberg MD and Mark Robert Waldman talk about the science of faith. Using our brain's plasticity, we can change our lives through faith, meditation, prayer and other spiritual practices. The reasons for this change come through our desire, focus, conscious regulation of breath, and posture/body movements. The mechanism for change is faith. It is a practice that stops you from ruminating or focusing on fear and/or anger. Meditation or prayer and other spiritual practices are the opposite of rumination and cause your brain to change.

You may say, "hey, Jay, I don't always have time to meditate or pray and my mind is tired from a full and busy morning at work." Or you may not have any spiritual practice at all. Then just take a moment and Breathe; breath replenishes neural energy and gives you a coffee-like boost.

I'm sure most of you have heard of Jill Bolte Taylor. Ms. Taylor is a Harvard-trained neuro-anatomist who experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain in 1996, at the age of 37. She lost judgment, critical analysis, sense of past and future and was finding herself existing just in now, using her right hemisphere. She wrote"

...and for me it was a total experience of peacefulness and euphoria. ... "The Blue Sky is Always There", and to me the blue sky is the consciousness of the right hemisphere. And then the clouds come in, which is the consciousness of the left hemisphere and the verbiage and it blocks our ability to see the blue sky, but the blue sky is always still there. And to me that's what going on with our consciousness. We always have that blue sky, that right hemisphere experience of euphoria is at the essence of what we are. You always have the option, moment, by moment, of saying in this moment, I'm going to sit back, I'm going to look at the world around me. I'm going to escape all the things that I'm thinking about. And I am just going to pay attention to how the air feels, the temperature of the air, my breath... Look at the colors in the field around me, stop thinking and analyzing everything that is going on in your left hemisphere; all the jargon. ...consciously choose to have that experience at any moment. …. we are biologically designed to have this experience of feeling at one with all that is.

You can watch her TED Talk to learn more. And she has written a book on the experience, as well.

With your brain on God, the chemicals zapping around lowers anxiety and depression and relaxes you; it lights you up like the sun. I don't want to get into the electro-chemical descriptions of it all, but suffice it to say, different hormones and the like are excreted on a moment-by-moment basis, when you daily use spiritual practices. And I don't mean just prayer or meditative modalities. What lights you up in positive way? What music, reading, affirmations, walking the beach or the mountains, etc. are you including in your life on a daily basis? And if not on a daily basis, why not? There's enough junk floating around in your head that gets in your way, why do we not set ourselves up for greater success by setting a mental experience, along with goals and other success tools?

Some of you might ask, "Do you need God to do all this?" "God," it's just a term/name for the energy that surrounds us. But most importantly, it is an energy or frequency or vibration that we surround ourselves with. The breath, the music, the animal friend we hang out with, enjoying he company of our children, reading inspiring words, sitting on the porch and watching the sunset, etc. It is the consciousness of Universe being allowed to step in and refresh the brain and thus the body, spirit, et al. Call it what you will, the name is irrelevant. But if you are okay with the term 'God,' realize that that word is a noun....and a verb....and an adjective.

In the book, How God Changes Your Brain, they list five fundamental neurological truths that coincide with New Thought:
1-Your thoughts clearly affect the neurological functioning of your body
2-Optimism is essential for maintaining a healthy brain
3-Positive thoughts neurologically suppress negative thoughts (conscious optimal ones even more)
4-When you change the way you think , you begin to change your outward circumstances
5-Consciousness, reality, your mind, and your spiritual beliefs are profoundly interconnected and inseparable from the  functioning of your brain

Let's all get in the Zone everyday...the zone of Spirit in our lives. Stay interested, be in wonderment, use your imagination, have smiles at the ready, release anxiety in your mind and body with yawns, and increase your playfulness. You will see that when your perception changes...reality bends! Yes, negative experiences may occur, but how you deal with it will change; gratitude will step in quicker, your neutrality to the negative condition will rise up and free you from emotional blockages in wisdom and action . You will still have compassion for yourself and others' plights in the moment, but you will react from strength not weakness and love not fear.

Affirmation
I AM IN  UNITY WITH THE DIVINE!
Peace surrounds me. Peace upholds me.  Peace is what I surrender to, with which I inhale, and from which I begin and end my day. Peace is where I flow from and what I travel with.  In me is embedded an attitude of peace, a bias of peace, a philosophy of peace, and a mind set in peace.                       
LOVE, ACCORD, AND FRIENDSHIP ARE MINE!

What Are You Forgetting?

Last month our theme was...
We learned that, again and again, we should treat our mind with mind candy, knowing we are the ones starting the healing process, in co-creation with the Universe, by going back to our factory settings, especially when faced with chaos or trauma.


This month's theme is...
We bend reality all the time, using our perceptions on life. For example, some people feel unloved. It probably started with some stupid thing and hurtful thing our parents said. And no matter how much we are show or told how wrong we are, this idea continues to bend reality through that dumb learned belief of being unlovable. It became a subconscious habit, a core belief...an inner dialogue etching. We all have similar triggers. Do our perceived “truths” eliminate the Truth?  Or have we just forgotten? 

Faria Sana, psychology professor at Athabasca University wrote:

The information flowing in actually doesn’t stick unless you put effort into it and concentrate and engage in certain strategies that will help you remember.

There is something call the forgetting curve. It is described as the timely decline of memory retention, if no attempt to retain it. It happens within 24 hours. And, after a few days, you usually can only recall one fourth of what you read; a few days after that, you're pretty much a goner, retention-wise.
We must use our brains and minds on purpose, if we want to retain the tools and tenets of this philosophy. We want to do more than learn, we want to transform.

Massive change requires some form of transformation. Professor Emeritus Robert Boyd, a Psychologist, and the Director of the Laboratory of Group Dynamics at Univ of Wisconsin-Madison tells us:

Transformation involves experiencing a deep, structural shift in the basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions. It is a shift in consciousness that dramatically and irreversibly alters our way of being in the world

Transformation allows us to irreversibly see the world in a fundamentally different way. It is an expansion and evolution that takes place in our brain and throughout our entire Divine Matrix of heart, mind and gut.

Here's a couple of examples of transformational learning:
     You start a business, it fails, you lose a ton of money, it’s painful, but you look back at what may have gone wrong and learn what to do and what not to do the next time you attempt your next business.

     You may be extremely ambitious at work, stress takes its toll and you fall ill...it’s painful, but once you recover, you make a commitment to take better care of your health.

This type of transformation comes from satori learning . Satori is a Japanese Buddhist term for awakening, comprehension; understanding.














Another type is a gradual accumulation of experiences that shifts the way we understand how we fit into the world through insight. It is a type of transformation from kensho learning, a Japanese term from the Zen tradition. Ken means "seeing," and shō means "nature, essence;" "seeing one's (true) nature." One is usually chock with painful experiences – satori, the second (evolving over time) is usually more slow in the download – kensho.




So how do you shift from just learning to transforming? Here's a few ways to lock in learning and turn it into transformation:

Critical Reflection Sometimes it is advantageous to assess your fundamental assumptions and beliefs honestly through a critical reflective practice, whether as a voluntary process or taking advantage of some dilemma you just experienced. Through meditation, contemplation, using spiritual mind treatment or affirmative prayer to unlock insights from the Universe on what's going on in that belief system of yours.

Think of a belief that limits how you experience life right now. We all have one or some. We bend reality by thinking these beliefs are 'truth:'  “I’m not smart enough” or “People just don’t respect me.”
Ask yourself, "What was the stacking of ideas, beliefs and learning from childhood to now that makes me arrive at this particular form of identity? Did I create these beliefs based on my own experiences? Or did I inherit them from fathers, mothers, preachers, teachers or the news media?

Once identified, find a specific example how you came to this belief. Maybe recall an embarrassing, shameful, or traumatic moment in which this 'truth' took hold. For example, maybe in elementary or junior high school, you raised your hand in class to ask a question, and everyone laughed at your question. After that, you decided to never risk that kind of exposure again. Now you play it safe and wait before you speak. It has happened to a lot of us. Okay, then picture yourself back in that specific moment, but then imagine yourself finding your voice. Tell those involved how you feel about what just happened or what they said or 'did' to you. Reflect on how different your beliefs about yourself would be if this event never happened. Many times these beliefs stick because we haven't expressed ourselves on purpose about them.

In another situation, you might remind yourself that these beliefs are a product of your experience. Then, you might imagine yourself being raised in a loving and supportive family.  Notice how differently you feel about yourself? Once you choose to reclaim your potential, you cease being a victim of damaging circumstances. Remind yourself, over and over again (re-treat) that “I don’t need to be imprisoned by my past if I choose to free myself from my limiting beliefs.”  You may want to do this kind of shadow work with a professional, but the transformation you will feel and have as you take control and command of these limiting beliefs will be exponential in living your greatest life.

Contemplative Study & Writing Using my talks, other talks, classes, the weekly affirmation cards (see this week's below), and integration of SOM principle like you would in a class with a test. Not to memorize facts and figures, as such, but to comprehend and integrate the information. This will commonly lead, over time, to the accumulation of what is called, changed meaning-schemes. Not schemes, as in something nefarious, but in an conglomeration of ideas from various deep learning experiences that you work on and allow to stick.

Sharing Talk with like-minded friends or start a small group at your home. These gatherings develop new frames of reference, integrating learning into practice. Like a movie or book discussion club, this type of conclave of friends, works the brain to integrate these concepts on a deeper level.

Application Like riding a bike, learning an instrument or new skill, you gotta work this stuff. Through spiritual practice, you work your new or remembered knowledge. It is essential that this not be just an intellectual process, though it may start that way. The application of this information requires it to be worked logically, scientifically, whole-heartedly, spiritually, and holistically - it is a full body experience!

Steven Kotler, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author, wrote:

We need to start moving from a mono-phasic state of existence to a poly-phasic state of existence.

Though we may start there, to effectively transform, we need to go from doing (mono-phasiic) to being (poly-phasic). Mindfulness meditation or other contemplative practices create a lasting transformation. You are more than your experiences! There is an infinite potential of possibility awaiting you. And it matters not your age, gender, height, weight, schooling, culture, etc. Once you learn to see how your beliefs are informing you and do the work of transformation, you are free to bust through, soar...zoom into your greatest life.

Witness your thoughts and recognize the story they are telling you. Don’t confuse them with the truth. You can always rewrite your story. Immersion leads to inspiration, which leads to transformation. See and experience “painful” moments in a different light. Go ahead and allow to experience the initial pain of the experience of change, but quickly then turn that pain or shame, blame, guilt or embarrassment into something that doesn't pull you down, but informs you. It is an indicator you are on the cusp of new growth, a course-correction of the direction of your life. Use to expand and evolve, then life becomes an ever-growing unfolding of new ideas, insights, and awakenings into those Aha moments. I know life can suck sometimes, but using the concepts I talked about last month (see top of blog or previous blogs at this site), you will go from victim to victor. 

Memory must be the storehouse of all ideas that have passed through my mind. Memory is active, for my thoughts come back to me. My thought is conscious of my body; my body is operated upon by my thought, and it must be operated upon by my memory, since memory is active; but since memory is the result of conscious thought, memory of itself is an unconscious operation of what was once a conscious thought. This is one of the most important conclusions which the mind of [humankind] has ever made.   ~Dr. Ernest Holmes

So, don't just learn the Truth, become the Truth! You know, an acorn doesn't learn to be an oak tree, it becomes one and a caterpillar doesn't learn to be a butterfly, it transforms into one.

By changing [their] thought, [one] could re-mold [their] affairs; and by right thinking [one] could bring new conditions into [their] life.  ~Holmes

Next time you experience a painful moment, as we all do in life, ask yourself this:  “What have I learned from this and how can I grow?”  And when you do, you’ll quickly realize that pain is nothing more than the Universe’s way of directing you to take the next step. It is a time you are in that liminal space (see previous blog), at choice. It is a time to choose to remember your heritage, your factory settings and transform your core beliefs.

What are you forgetting? Nothing! It is there in your memory, waiting to come out .... grab it, learn it, absorb it, and transform yourself into constantly and consistently Being It. The power in you is always at the ready to transform your life so you can bust through, soar and zoom into your best self.

Affirmation 
I Am Evolving
I move through the world around me with confidence, kindness, compassion and grace. Today I calmly challenge the status quo of my life, enriching it with thoughts of joyous prosperity and feelings of gratitude.

The Evolution Is In Full Swing
I live in the world I choose, experiencing the abundance I choose; confident my awakened consciousness points True.