tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66014980334605013282024-03-13T10:08:40.082+11:00Life Enhancing'Life Enhancing' brings you tips, techniques and ideas for enhancing life through the science and behavioral technologies of NLP, mBIT and Positive Psychology. It's also about fun, creativity and learning.Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-91130086777188350332016-10-13T12:24:00.003+11:002016-10-13T12:28:06.924+11:00Tips for Simplifying Life<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="color: #20124d;">"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: #20124d;">Lin Yutang</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>In these acceleratingly complex times</b></span>, it's important to bring some calmness and simplicity to your world. One way to do this is, (as much as possible), to simplify your life.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Based on <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/eliciting-your-values.html" target="_blank">values</a></b></span>, here’s some tips for simplifying your life:<br />
<br />
<b>1. Remove clutter from your life</b><br />
It takes time and energy to keep possessions in working order, dusted and looked after, so get rid of stuff you don’t really need or doesn’t align with your key values.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Evaluate your commitments</b><br />
Learn to say “no”. Don't overload your schedule. Use your values to decide what’s important to do and what you can say no to.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Use entertainment media wisely</b><br />
Turn off your TV and limit the amount of wasted time aimlessly listening to radio, mobile phone texting or surfing the web. Before indulging in mind-numbing media, check your values and see if there’s something of higher value that you may not have done. For example, are your kids or family more important? Is your health of higher value than entertainment? If so, go share some valued time doing an outdoor activity with the people you love.<br />
<br />
<b>4. Make time for yourself</b><br />
Commit to yourself. Make time to relax, exercise, meditate and re-vitalise yourself. To cope with the stressful pace of life and change, you need some quiet space. So make time to read books that uplift you and make sure you give yourself regular peace and solitude.<br />
<br />
<b>5. Automate repetitive tasks</b><br />
Automate the ongoing repetitive tasks of life. For example, setup automatic bill payments so you don’t have to waste time on these boring mechanical tasks. Simplify as many tasks as you can. There are a lot of amazing tools and devices that make jobs quicker and easier. Make use of them.<br />
<br />
<b>6. Live a low-footprint life</b><br />
Live within and beneath your means. Studies show that the majority of self-made millionaires are frugal. Choose lower cost options as often as possible and save as much as you can. That way you won’t waste a huge amount of your life working to pay for things you can’t afford.<br />
<br />
<b>7. Listen to your heart and gut</b><br />
Your heart-mind and gut-intelligence have wisdom. Talk to them, ask them for guidance and listen to what they tell you. When you are clear about your values, the whole of your mind/body will work to help you live up to them. Simplify and value your life and you’ll find that ‘<i>too much, too soon</i>’ will become a thing of the past.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Want to learn more</b></span>? Want a happier life? Want more purpose and meaning? Then <b>you might want to read:</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1500251704/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1500251704&linkCode=as2&tag=mbraining-20&linkId=6PODODDAPBSIMUPD" target="_blank"><img alt="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1500251704/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1500251704&linkCode=as2&tag=mbraining-20&linkId=6PODODDAPBSIMUPD" border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gRBm7V1-RjA/VA6k6HSgwFI/AAAAAAAAA1I/xewOvC6znfYsaRuk_3L7-1LdDuV3PO_KACPcB/s320/AE2H-Hardback-Book-web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>And if you'd like to learn more</b></span> about the <b>heart and gut brains </b>that Neuroscience has uncovered in us all:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.createspace.com/3857256" target="_blank"><img alt="https://www.createspace.com/3857256" border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JgtmBfEnZBM/UqBFot4amTI/AAAAAAAAAoc/HrFE8INxgJgRWaFAgSrm1bEcdKwqUqBVACPcB/s320/mBraining-book-cover-print.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #20124d;"><i>life enhancing smiles and wishes</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d;"><i>Grant </i></span>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-67413486594682485292015-11-21T23:06:00.002+11:002015-11-21T23:07:20.120+11:00Generative Learning - The CIA Strategy<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b>gen·er·a·tive</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>adjective \ˈjen-(ə-)rət-iv</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>having the power or
function of generating, originating, producing, or reproducing</div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“Through learning
we re-perceive the world and our relationship to it... 'Survival learning' or
what is more often called 'adaptive learning' <br />
is important - indeed it is necessary. But… <br />
'adaptive learning' must be joined by 'generative learning', <br />
learning that enhances our capacity to create.”</span></i></span></div>
<span style="color: #351c75;">
</span><br />
<div align="right" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Peter
Senge</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Generative Learning (GL) is life enhancing</b></span>. It is a process that can be profound and transformative. The term Generative Learning was first proposed as a learning methodology by learning theorist Merlin Wittrock back in 1974 in a paper published in the journal ‘<i>Educational Psychologist</i>’ and entitled ‘<i>Learning as a generative process</i>’. As expressed by Wittrock (1992), “In the model of generative learning, the brain is a model builder. It does not transform input into output. Instead, it actively controls the processes of generating meaning and plans of action that make sense of experience... the focus in [Generative] learning is on generating relations, (both among concepts and between experience or prior learning and new information), rather than on storing information... [Generative learning] deals with the effects of generation of meaningful relations--among concepts and between knowledge and experience... Within this framework, teaching becomes the process of leading learners to use their generative processes to construct meanings and plans of action.” There is now a strong body of neuroscience based and empirical research support for the model showing its utility for creating deep and powerful learning experiences.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>The term Generative Learning has also been used </b></span>to describe what the philosopher and system theorist, Gregory Bateson, has called Level III Learning. Bateson proposed in his book ‘<i>Steps to an Ecology of Mind</i>’ (1972) that there are five levels of learning, starting with Level 0 which he said was characterised by “specificity of response” that is not subject to correction, up to Level IV which he suggested probably does not occur in any adult living organism on the planet. Learning III (or Level III) was defined in Bateson’s framework as a corrective change in the system of the “<i>sets of alternatives</i>” from which choice is made. Learning 0 can be considered to be stimulus-response learning; Learning I is often called ‘<i>Applied Learning</i>’; Learning II is ‘<i>learning to learn</i>’ and is often connected with Accelerated Learning processes. As learning scholar, Paul Tosey (2006) points out “LII is essentially about learning the pattern of the context in which activity takes place.” And Learning III is a higher-order learning process in which “one not only learns, but simultaneously learns how to learn, and simultaneously learns how to learn how to learn” (Bateson, 1972). Learning III involves enacted and embodied change in relation to contexts and is profoundly reorganizational in character. It produces deep ontological change.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>I was first introduced</b></span> to the term Generative Learning by my colleague, NLP Master Trainer, Marvin Oka back in the mid to late 80’s. Marvin had been studying Bateson’s work and using behavioural modelling to explore Generative Learning strategies. Other scholars and system theorists have followed a separate but similar route. For example the Organizational Learning expert, Peter Senge and his colleagues (Senge, 1990; Senge et al., 2005) have proposed that Generative Learning strategies are important for organizational and personal success and that they relate to Bateson’s Level II and Level III learning processes (Chiva & Habib, 2015). In exploring Generative Learning strategies they claim that Generative Learning encourages experimentation, risk-taking, openness, and system-wide thinking.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>While the work</b></span> of Wittrock and Bateson (et al.) on Generative Learning is not identical, nevertheless it is complementary and has many overlaps. I personally have found in my own work, that a conceptualization of Generative Learning based on an amalgam of both Wittrock’s and Bateson’s ideas is pragmatically useful and powerful for producing generative change in both the training and coaching contexts and in my own life.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #20124d;">Developing the CIA Strategy</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>I developed the CIA GL Strategy</b></span> by a process of behavioural modelling of my own learning behaviours. Throughout my life I have always been incredibly creative, generative and inventive, developing many, many generative models, techniques and even whole new fields, a number of which have been profoundly transformative for myself and others. And so I wondered what were the unconscious processes that lead me to be able to do that. As a behavioural modeller I was curious. What I discovered were a number of strategies, foremost amongst which was a process I ultimately called the CIA Strategy. This is a generative intelligencing process that I apply to all new learnings and that leads to new insights, new applications and new techniques. It’s a process that causes re-organisational shifts in how I understand the world and how I operate in the world. It is deeply and re-entrantly ontological (producing deep shifts in my ways of being in the world that generalize across the contexts of my life.)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>For example</b></span>, the CIA strategy is one of the key strategies I used to co-develop the new field of <i>m</i>BIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques – see <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/">www.mbraining.com</a>). As another example of the power of its use, one of the mBIT Trainers who I explicitly taught the CIA technique to shared with me that it had profoundly changed how he experienced mBIT and what he was able to do with it. He said that the CIA Strategy had been an incredibly transformational learning for him.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>So I wanted to share</b></span> this generative learning strategy with you. It’s deceptively simple. It’s what in NLP we would call a BFO – a blinding flash of the obvious. And yet as we know, profoundly simple patterns are often the most impactful, aren’t they…<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #20124d;">So what is the CIA GL Strategy?</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>What I found</b></span> that I do in life is that whenever I come across a new concept, a new idea, a new piece of information or learning is that I immediately begin to explore it from a CIA perspective. What is that? Well, it’s:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Concept >> Implication(s) >> Application(s)</span></span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>As soon as I learn a new idea</b></span>, I immediately encapsulate it or summarize it ‘<i>conceptually</i>’ that is, I treat it as a concept, (and/or chunk up to the concept that underlies it, connects with it or informs it.) I then begin to explore the implications of this concept, in my own life and in the larger world and its various contexts (business, social, behavioural, etc.) For each of the implications, I then determine possible applications, or ways of using the concept and its implications in real life. I also apply the <b>SWT</b> – the ‘<i>So What Test</i>’, to these applications, looking for pragmatically usable, impactful and meaningful tools, techniques and strategies. Once I’ve developed those I immediately put them into action. I action research them. I try them out and fine-tune them. Through practice they become an ongoing part of my behavioural skill repertoire. And I teach them to others and share them. It’s a key part of learning and making use of the process of teaching to learn (Lieberman, 2014).<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>What makes the CIA Strategy so generative</b></span>, transformational and re-organisational is that it takes any new learning and immediately begins to connect it at many levels across many contexts. And in doing that it encourages my multiple brains, the neural networks of my heart, head and gut to connect the new learning into existing knowledge schemas and to allow those to start being used in new applications. It’s a way of deeply digesting the learning. Often I find that in using the CIA Strategy I start to see things in new ways, in a new light. My existing database of concepts, implications and applications get refreshed and restructured in the light of the new models and frameworks that emerge in my thinking. Suddenly an emergence of understanding and knowing occurs. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>As the great system theorist</b></span>, Humberto Maturana (1992) suggests, “<i>All true knowing is doing</i>.” And I think this is one of the keys to the CIA Strategy. True intelligencing requires the ‘doing’. It needs the application into the real world for the concept and knowledge to come alive, for you to work out the boundaries, the nuances, to build your deep expertise, to gain mastery with the learning. And once you’ve moved from novice to expert, you find that your understandings deepen. You make new connections. Your ways of being and doing in the world change. This is what Generative Learning is all about.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>So I’ve found </b></span>the CIA Strategy to be very simple yet powerful. It makes learning fun. It keeps my life fresh and alive. It encourages my creativity, my curiosity, my passion and capacity for exploration. It helps build my neural circuits of learning, knowing and creating.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>I encourage you to take it onboard</b></span> in your own life. Start right now. Whenever you learn a new concept, immediately apply the CIA Strategy to it. I’ve just shared with you a great new Concept – that there is a simple three step process for enacting generative learning in your life. So what are the implications of that? And what are the applications? How specifically could you apply it and in what contexts? At a deep identity (as well as a values) level, how will you do yourself differently in the application of this concept in your life? What changes in your life as a result of knowing and doing this?<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><b>Doing Deep Inquiry</b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>CIA is a form of deep inquiry</b></span>. It invokes Creativity, Connection, Critical Thinking and Generative Change. From an <i>m</i>BIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques) perspective, the CIA Strategy is directionalized through the <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/mbraining-compassion-creativity-and.html" target="_blank">Highest Expressions</a> (Compassion in the Heart, Creativity in the Head, and Courage in the Gut) of the human spirit. It is through this emergent filter of aligned wisdom’ing that you explore the implications and applications of your learnings. As you learn and embody a new concept, you do so through an orientation that asks, “<i>What is the most compassionate, creative and courageous use I can make of this learning in the world?</i>”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Generative Learning</b></span> also requires ‘<i>active learning</i>’ – the learner must be active in making meaning, in connecting the new knowledge into existing schemas and to directionalize the learning into new ways of being and doing. And the CIA Strategy provides a scaffold and guide for all of this. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>The CIA Strategy provides a process</b></span> for enacting deeper levels of learning as it moves from the conceptual thinking levels back and forth iteratively to the application and doing levels. This is nicely summarized in the following diagram from the work of Senge, Scharmer and colleagues (2005):<br />
<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #351c75;">“Through learning
we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we
never were able to do. Through learning we re-perceive the world and our
relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be
part of the generative process of life.” <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial";"></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21072.Peter_M_Senge"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Peter Senge</span></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #20124d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Implications:</b></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li>Scope</li>
<li>Assumptions</li>
<li>Contexts</li>
<li>Values/Importance</li>
</ul>
Implications also involve and link to Intention, since it is through intention that we contextualize the implications of a concept and how we construct what the concept means in relation to the outcomes it is potentially being linked with. Intention is the bridge or scaffold between Implications and Application.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #20124d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Applications:</b></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li>Attention</li>
<li>Selection Criteria (for using the application; when & when not, where & where not, how & how not, with whom etc.)</li>
<li>Consequences/Outcomes of the application</li>
</ul>
Applications are where the rubber meets the road; they are where you get to utilize the learnings and concepts in real life and to evoke change in the world. Applications directionalize attention and engagement. They also evoke the environmental triggers and criteria that allow you to know when and where to apply the learning. It is through gutsy application and the dance between conscious awareness and the unconscious competencies that are built through real-world practice that true mastery is created.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><b>CIA Questions:</b></span></span><br />
<br />
Questions to ask yourself when deeply learning a new concept or idea:<br />
<ul>
<li>How does this new concept link to other concepts I know?</li>
<li>What is implied by this new concept? What are its impacts?</li>
<li>How can I apply this? What is the most Compassionate, Creative and Courageous use I can make of this learning in the world?</li>
<li>What else is implied and how else can I apply this?</li>
<li>Where can I apply this?</li>
<li>When can I apply this?</li>
<li>With whom can I apply this?</li>
<li>When and where and with whom NOT to apply this?</li>
<li>How will I do my ‘self’ differently in the application of this concept in my life? What changes in my life as a result of knowing and doing this?</li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>References:</b></span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Bateson G., Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Chandler Publishing Company, 1972 [<a href="http://amzn.to/1N1ZGu7">http://amzn.to/1N1ZGu7</a>]</li>
<li>Chiva R. & Habib J., A framework for organizational learning types: generative, adaptive and zero learning, Journal of Management and Organization, Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2015 [<a href="http://www.olkc2013.com/sites/www.olkc2013.com/files/downloads/136.pdf">http://www.olkc2013.com/sites/www.olkc2013.com/files/downloads/136.pdf</a>]</li>
<li>Lieberman M. D., Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, Broadway Books, 2014 [<a href="http://amzn.to/1H3KmXQ">http://amzn.to/1H3KmXQ</a>]</li>
<li>Maturana H., Tree of Knowledge, Shambhala, 1992 [<a href="http://amzn.to/1MYXzba">http://amzn.to/1MYXzba</a>]</li>
<li>Senge P. M., The Fifth Discipline. The art and practice of the learning organization, London: Random House, 1990 [<a href="http://amzn.to/1jcqyv6">http://amzn.to/1jcqyv6</a>]</li>
<li>Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers, Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future, Society for Organizational Learning, 2005 [<a href="http://amzn.to/219Q3iY">http://amzn.to/219Q3iY</a>]</li>
<li>Tosey P., Bateson’s Levels Of Learning: a Framework For Transformative Learning?, Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006 [<a href="http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/1198/1/fulltext.pdf">http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/1198/1/fulltext.pdf</a>]</li>
<li>Wittrock M., Learning as a generative process, Educational Psychologist, 11, 87–95, 1974</li>
<li>Wittrock M., Generative Learning Processes of the Brain, Educational Psychologist, 27(4), 531-541, 1992 [<a href="http://steinhardtapps.es.its.nyu.edu/create/courses/2015/reading/wittrock2.pdf">http://steinhardtapps.es.its.nyu.edu/create/courses/2015/reading/wittrock2.pdf</a>]</li>
</ul>
<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-65745349102077062232014-04-01T22:39:00.003+11:002014-04-02T09:33:57.973+11:00Life Enhancing Magic!<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #20124d;"><i>“Every word, every act of our art is said and is done either for good or for evil. Before you speak or do you must know the price that is to pay!”</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #20124d;"><i><br />“To light a candle is to cast a shadow.”</i></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;">Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea</span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>In the wiccan magic tradition</b></span>, there is a wonderful book that is often considered to be a deeply significant ‘<i>Grimoire</i>’ or text book for learning magic. Now in case you don’t know, magic (and not the kind performed by stage magicians, but the kind performed by mages throughout history) is defined as "<i>the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will</i>". In other words, it is a primitive but powerful and pragmatic form of early psychology aimed at the skills of unconscious change and personal transformation. And it is largely concerned with understanding and use of the ‘<i>true names</i>’ or deeper nature of things, processes, identity and the world.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Magic consists in manipulating the natural world through knowledge of true names.”</i></span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><b>The gift of wisdom</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Many years ago</b></span>, I was introduced to wiccan magic and ceremoniously gifted a copy of this book I am referring to above. I found it to be a powerful book and a beautiful story. You see, it is actually written as an adult-children’s story by a very skillful and popular award winning author named <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin" target="_blank">Ursula Le Guin</a>. Ursula is well-versed in psychology, both modern and ancient, as well as Taoist philosophy and Norse mythology amongst others…<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Her book</b></span>, which is part of a trilogy (that eventually grew to many more books in the series), was first published in 1968 and is titled, ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wizard_of_Earthsea" target="_blank"><i>A Wizard of Earthsea</i></a>’. The book tells the story of a young mage named Ged, who follows a journey of self-discovery, and who learns to embrace his own power, will, and ability in the world of magic.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547773749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547773749&linkCode=as2&tag=mbraining-20" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547773749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547773749&linkCode=as2&tag=mbraining-20" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4yszaHd_X-Q/UzqkOAUQuzI/AAAAAAAAAvE/o-7yMG0YkHE/s1600/earthsea.jpg" height="200" width="121" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;"><i>"Ged was the greatest sorcerer in Earthsea, but in his youth he was the reckless Sparrowhawk. In his hunger for power and knowledge, he tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tumultuous tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance." </i></span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>I’ve now read the story</b></span> many, many times, and on each reading I gain greater and deeper insights from it. The book is largely an exploration of the process of ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individuation" target="_blank"><i>individuation</i></a>’ and the power of our personal magic to cause change in our own phenomenological world through the use of our will and the marriage and embracing of our conscious and unconscious processes. Individuation of course is the process by which a person becomes identified as being distinguished from other people and things, the process by which they become their own unique self’ing. The great psychologist <a href="http://soultherapynow.com/articles/individuation.html" target="_blank">Carl Jung</a> said that individuation is the process of integrating the conscious with the unconscious for the purpose of self-actualization, and is the goal of our psychological and metaphysical development. So you can begin to understand why a story that guides and informs this process, in a deeply metaphorical way, might be important and useful as a tool for personal evolution.<br />
<br />
[BTW, I also introduced the book into the field of NLP many many years ago, where it has gained traction amongst numerous NLP Trainers and Master Trainers, morphing into entrancing learning stories about the deep power and magic of language to influence the unconscious mind and thereby life.]<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><b>Exploring meaning</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Approximately thirty years ago</b></span> I spent 10 days living in a tent, on an ancient isthmus that sits at the southern-most point of mainland Australia. In itself, it’s a magical environment where the mountains meet the sea. During that time, I read and re-read ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547773749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547773749&linkCode=as2&tag=mbraining-20" target="_blank"><i>A Wizard of Earthsea</i></a>’, performing what I called a ‘<i>psycho-magical analysis</i>’ of it. That summary and analysis has lived on in the hard-drives of my various computers over all those years, revisited by myself regularly, but of little life enhancing benefit to others (except where I have specifically shared it with a friend or colleague). While on a trek last week, on the South Island of ‘<i>middle-earth</i>’, magical New Zealand, I was telling some of my fellow hikers about how life enhancing the story of ‘<i>A Wizard of Earthsea</i>’ is and how deeply insightful it can be from both a neuro-linguistic and a psychological perspective. And I promised them that once I returned to my own piece of paradise, I would write a blog post about this and more widely share my analysis and summary with them and the world.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>So sitting on a plane</b></span>, on the way back home, flying at 20,000 feet, I’ve created this post, revisiting and updating the analysis to include the insights of <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>m</i>BIT</a> (multiple Brain Integration Techniques). And here it is, for all those who may enjoy or benefit in some small way from it.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;"><b>WIZARD OF EARTHSEA: A PSYCHO-MAGICAL SUMMARY</b></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i> </i><br />
<i>By Grant Soosalu</i></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Only in silence the word,<br />only in dark the light,<br />only in dying life:<br />bright the hawk’s flight<br />on the empty sky.</span></i></span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: #20124d;">Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea</span></div>
</div>
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><b>Individuation: understanding and knowledge of the process of self’ing</b></span><br />
<br />
<b><i>Ged unwittingly begins upon the path of individuation by copying his ‘aunt’ in the control of animals (goats), but becomes frightened by the results of his natural talent. This leads his aunt to teach him all that she knows:</i></b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“When he found that the wild falcons stooped down to him from the wind when he summoned them by name, ..... then he hungered to know more such names ...... To earn the words of power he did all the witch asked of him and learned of her all she taught, though not all of it was pleasant to do or know.”</blockquote>
The path of individuation is often first begun by blind emulation of another (someone who is significant in your life and whom you unconsciously model) who has skill and understanding and is already a long way up the path of individuation. With knowledge of self comes the understanding of why people (the goats in the story) act and think the way they do, and thus a person gains power to control the thoughts and actions of others. However, if this power comes from emulation rather than true understanding, then the results of personal power, of personal actions/interactions may be frightening.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Ged saves the town from marauders but in doing so overspends himself and falls ill.</i></b><br />
<br />
Along the path of individuation, there comes a time when the individual has built sufficient understanding of the surface nature of human life that he is separated from most others, he has the power to save and help others with this understanding, but only at great cost to himself, with the ultimate result being depression of his soul, unless he can find the way forward into deeper understandings and thereby a more generative healing and expressing of self in the world. This often and classically involves the use of a mentor, a healer, or a guide – someone who can provide reference structure experiences and models of wisdom for the seeker.<br />
<br />
<i><b>The great mage, Ogion the silent, finds and heals Ged and asks to name him:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“For to keep dark the mind of the mageborn, that is a dangerous thing.” </blockquote>
<i><b>After the naming: </b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“... the mage spoke in his quiet voice: ‘Come lad. Bid your people farewell and leave them feasting.”</blockquote>
It is at this time that the silent mage within must be brought forth to heal the personality, to leave the people feasting (following and giving in to their hungers and evolved tendencies), and to really begin to learn.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ogion: “<i>Manhood is patience, Mastery is 9 times patience. To hear one must be silent.</i>” </blockquote>
<br />
<i><b>Ged hungers to learn, to have power. </b></i><br />
<br />
The gut (or core identity) provides the motility at this stage of the path, but usually it is heart-felt pride and hubris which leads and drives this next stage.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Craving knowledge and power, Ged soon becomes frustrated with Ogion, who wishes to teach him patience and respect for order in nature, referred to by wizards as the Balance. Through trying to impress and prove himself to a girl (to the powerful call and expression of our sexual and animal nature), Ged, not fully understanding the use of power, summons a shadow from the darkness, that calls to him in a whisper he doesn’t understand, but fortunately is banished by Ogion who arrives just in time to avert danger. </b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ogion: “Danger surrounds power as shadow does light. ... every word, every act of our art is said and is done either for good or for evil. Before you speak or do you must know the price that is to pay!”</blockquote>
<br />
For those who know NLP: compare this with anchoring of the 5 - tuple of experience i.e. people experience what is communicated (named), and every word has a semantic response that echoes through your life and the lives of those around you. Words, thoughts, ideas and metaphors have power.<br />
<br />
<i><b>On the advice of Ogion, Ged travels to the Island of Roke. In order to enter the ‘wizards school’ on Roke, he must say his ‘true’ name:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Then Ged stood still a while, for a man never speaks his own name aloud, until more than his life’s safety is at stake.”</blockquote>
A wizard’s name expresses his ‘<i>true</i>’ (aligned) and deeper nature. Names have power and ‘<i>true</i>’ namings must be used wisely and carefully and guarded since they have incredible power.<br />
<br />
<i><b>As he enters, a shadow follows him in at his heels.</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is dangerous to speak of your true name - your true or deeper nature - to any but those who truly follow the ‘<i>school</i>’ of magery, i.e. the same path of individuation. Talking about your personal evolution to those not on that path can be dangerous and harmful.</blockquote>
<br />
<i><b>At the school he meets Vetch, who had a greater, unlearned skill, the art of kindness</b></i> (also known as the highest expression of compassion).<br />
<br />
<i><b>Through pride and his strong will, Ged masters the arts of illusion, myth, weather, herbal (nature) and the lesser arts of changing.</b></i><br />
<br />
<b>Illusion:</b> surface behaviours, appearances, self-image <br />
<b>Myth: </b>personal history, programming, upbringing, the patterns of unconsciousness<br />
<b>Weather:</b> emotions<br />
<b>Herbal: </b>animal nature, life force<br />
<b>Changing: </b>behaviour modification – the art of deep personal transformation and evolution<br />
<br />
<i><b>“By the illusion change you can make a rock seem like a diamond, but that is mere seeming. Illusion fools the beholders senses, it makes him see and hear and feel that the thing is changed. But it does not change the thing. To change this rock into a jewel you must change its true name. And to do that, my son, ..... is to change the world. It can be done, it is the art of the Master Changer, and you will learn it, when you are ready to learn it. </b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“But you must not change one thing until you know what good and evil will follow on the act. The world is in balance, equilibrium. A wizard’s power of changing and summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous that power, it is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow.” </blockquote>
Your personal world is in balance i.e. the world of the psyche, ego, consciousness and the unconscious. As you gain new skills and powers of understanding and influence, as you light the candle of knowledge and skill via conscious application and learning, you don’t just brighten your candle, you also create a deeper shadow. Every skill you learn, creates an unconscious competency that the ‘<i>whole</i>’ of you, the whole of your <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/aligning-your-multi-mind.html" target="_blank">multi-mind</a>, including your shadow, has access to. The greater your candle, the darker your shadow!<br />
<br />
<b>Summoning:</b> the planting of personal seeds – the installation of new patterns, ways of being and doing, and that through neural plasticity, ultimately alter the summoner<br />
<br />
<i><b>“Magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing.”</b></i><br />
<br />
<i><b>Through pride and arrogance (in a competition against his rival Jasper), Ged releases his shadow onto the world and is almost killed by it, the old wise Archmage dies by using all his power to mend the rend in the fabric of the world through which the shadow came.</b></i><br />
<br />
As personal power grows, so the shadow of this power is released onto the world, onto the people who make up the seekers/journeyer’s world and onto the journeyer’s own life itself. The shadow of power and understanding can scar the person on the journey of individuation.<br />
<br />
<i><b>The new Archmage: “The power you had to call it, gives it power over you: you are connected.”</b></i><br />
<br />
The power and understanding that allows the shadow out onto the world, also gives the shadow power over the unconscious and the ego self (not just over other people, but also over parts of yourself – your multi-mind)<br />
<br />
<i><b>Even though he has released the shadow, Ged finds Vetch still trusts him (a heart-based competency).</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>Trust and love of another is an important and powerful force in the process of individuation. Compassion and love are the highest expressions of the heart intelligence, and as highlighted in the new field of <i>m</i>BIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques), ‘<i>the heart leads</i>’.<br />
<br />
<b>The Summoner:</b> “The truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do .....”<br />
<br />
<i><b>In order to leave Roke - the Master Doorkeeper says: “Ged, you won entrance to Roke by saying your name. Now you may win your freedom of it by saying mine. ‘Master’, said Ged, ‘I cannot take your name from you, not being strong enough, and I cannot trick your name from you, not being wise enough. So I am content to stay here, and learn or serve, unless you will answer a question I have.’ ‘Ask it.’ ‘What is your name?’ The doorkeeper smiled and said his name.”</b></i><br />
<br />
There are those you meet on the path, who are further along than you. They can often be the gatekeepers to your progress (as can developing parts of your own unconscious mind). Unless you can transcend this stage of your personal evolution, you may end up stuck at the stage of the learning they can offer you. However, you do not have power over them. Yet, by humbly asking them for real connection and support, for them to reveal their true name, their deeper nature, they will give to you this gift. It is the gift of new insights and deeper understandings, and the chance to go forth to higher levels of new learnings and understandings.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Ged leaves and lives life, helping others, at his own peril, fighting dragons. Yevaud the great dragon offers to tell Ged how he can master his shadow: “‘I will tell you its name.’ Geds heart leaped in him, and he clutched his staff, standing as still as the dragon stood. He fought a moment with sudden, startling hope. It was not his own life that he bargained for. One mastery, and only one, could he hold over the dragon. He set hope aside and did what he must do.”</b></i><br />
<br />
In many cultures dragons are viewed as representing the primal forces in nature and the universe. Here, the temptation for the seeker to use the primal forces of nature to gain success in life is a major temptation. As you become individuated, your wisdom and skills can tempt you to take the easier path of using natural primal forces to gain ascendency in life. However, this is a dangerous path and one that must be set aside. True wisdom comes from embracing your own name, not gaining it falsely from the use of power.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Ged begins to travel and meets a strange grey wizard who tells him to go to the court of the Terrenon:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“A wizardly man soon learns that few indeed of his meetings are chance ones, be they for good or evil.” </blockquote>
As you grow in your ability to align your self’ing, to align with the ‘true’ nature of the universe, you tap into synchronicities, entrainment and resonances that you are creating by your very ways of doing and being. You create self-fulfilling prophecies in the patterning of your life. And you soon learn there are no coincidences.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Heading for the court of the Terrenon, Ged is lead and then chased and attacked by his shadow, which has taken over human form as a gebbeth:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“... before Ged could speak spell or summon power, the gebbeth spoke, saying in its hoarse voice, ‘Ged!’ Then the young man could work no transformation, but was locked in his true being, and must face the gebbeth thus defenseless. ..... He ran, and the gebbeth followed a pace behind him, unable to outrun him yet never dropping behind.”</blockquote>
Ged is saved by the Terrenon.<br />
<br />
The shadow once released cannot be ignored or run away from. With time it takes on human (ego/personality) form and follows on your actions - a pace behind. You attract those around you that are reflections of you own shadow, and these create gut-based fear that can destroy you.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Ged wakes to find himself in luxury with a beautiful woman for company. In the court of the Terrenon he is tempted and cajoled to commune with ‘that terrible rock’:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“‘But I will not speak with that spirit’ Ged replied, and looking full at her spoke ‘My lady, that spirit is sealed in a stone, and the stone is locked by binding spell and blinding spell and charm of lock and ward and triple fortress walls in a barren land, not because it is precious, but because it can work great evil. .... the Old powers of earth are not for men to use. They were never given into our hands, and in our hands they work only ruin. Ill means, ill end.’" </blockquote>
Escaping from the shadow can lead to life styles of luxury, sensuality, the games of sex and love (drugs, etc.) - the old dark earth power of ‘glamour’. These must be faced and overcome with honesty and the power of aligned will.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Ged flees and returns to Ogion as a hawk. Ogion helps him to return to his true form:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“...... as a wizard he had learned the price ..., which is the peril of losing one’s self, playing away the truth. The longer a man stays in a form not his own, the greater this peril.” </blockquote>
With knowledge and power comes the ability to assume different images, to play away the truth, to escape from difficult circumstances. This is a dangerous stage which can lead to the journeyer being locked in an ‘image’ (a way of being and doing) that is not the ‘true’ aligned and congruent self’ing.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Ogions advice to Ged:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You must turn around. If you go ahead, if you keep running, wherever you run you will meet danger and evil for it drives you, it chooses the way you go. You must choose. You must seek what seeks you. You must hunt the hunter.”</blockquote>
<i><b>Ged begins chasing his shadow:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Following his falcon flight across the days and winds .... , the shadow might wander or might come straight, there was no telling. But unless it had withdrawn again wholly into the dream realm, it should not miss Ged coming openly, over open sea, to meet it.<br />
On the sea he wished to meet it, if meet it he must. He was not sure why this was, yet he had a terror of meeting the thing again on dry land. Out of the sea there rise storms and monsters, but no evil powers: evil is of the earth.” </blockquote>
The shadow must be met on the sea of life, not some special place or time of life, not unusual circumstance, but in the normal ebb and flow of life. The sea represents the fluid and deep nature of the unconscious mind.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Ged calls to his shadow:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“‘I am here, I Ged the sparrowhawk and I summon my shadow!’ Far off, in the rain he saw the shadow coming. It had a shape now, even in the daylight. In its pursuit of Ged and its struggle with him ... it had drawn power from him sucking it into himself: ... his summoning of it, aloud in the light of day had given to it or forced upon it some form or semblance.” </blockquote>
<i><b>Ged tries to catch it and it turns and flees. Ged follows. </b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“He hunted, he followed and fear ran before him.” But the shadow tricks him into crashing into a reef where he almost drowns.</blockquote>
<br />
On the reef he meets two old people who give him food and water and the old lady gives him a gift which is half of the ring of eternal harmony, but which Ged does not yet know of. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Ged continues after the shadow and comes to land:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“At the sight of it, fear had come into him again, the sinking dread that urged him to turn away, to run away. And he followed that fear as a hunter follows the signs ..... It was fear that lay ahead of him, that lurked hiding from him or waiting for him among the slopes and forests of the island, and straight for it he steered.” </blockquote>
To find the shadow, the dark side of your own nature, you must use your gut-based fear as a compass. What creates fear and tension in your life, must be met and undertaken, and transcended. You must learn to embrace courage in the face of fear. To lead your gut by an integrated alignment of head, heart and gut intelligences.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Once again Ged is drawn into a trap set by the shadow, but at the last second turns to find the shadow behind him and he lunges to seize the shadow, but again after a struggle it flees.</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“All terror was gone, all joy was gone. It was a chase no longer, he was neither hunted, nor hunter, now. ..... neither could escape, when they had come to the time and place for their last meeting, they would meet.</blockquote>
<br />
<i><b>Ged follows on, until at Ismay he meets up with Vetch, his trusted friend. Vetch convinces Ged that he should continue on with him in his final search for the shadow. Speaking of the shadow Ged says: </b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b> </b></i>“When I ceased to flee from it and turned against it, that turning of my will upon it gave it shape and form even though the same act prevented it from taking my strength from me. All my acts have their echo in it; it is my creature.” </blockquote>
<i><b>Speaking to Vetch’s sister, Ged says:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“All power is one in source and end, ... years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man’s hand and the wisdom in a tree’s root: they all arise together. My name and yours, and the true name of the sun or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the Great Word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.” </blockquote>
<br />
<i><b>Together with Vetch, Ged sets off for his final meeting with his shadow:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“They went now on a way in which all events were perilous and no acts were meaningless. On the course on which they had embarked the saying of the least spell might change chance and move the balance of power and of doom: for they went now towards the very centre of that balance, towards the place where light and darkness meet. Those who travel thus, say no word carelessly. ..... Vetch asked no question about their course, knowing that Ged did not choose it but went as he must go.” </blockquote>
<br />
<i><b>Then at the dark of the moon that follows first after sunreturn (the contrary pole of the days of the moon. The dark axis of the year.) Ged meets his shadow. He does this in the open sea, where the sea becomes land:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“.. the sea had turned to sand, shadowy, unstirred. Nothing moved in the dark sky or on the dry, unreal ground that went on and on into the gathering darkness all around the boat, as far as the eye could see.” </blockquote>
The dark of the moon - at the height of the unconscious power. The shadow must be met at the unconscious level. The conscious must meet the unconscious that generates it. You must acknowledge and honour your self’ing, that both exists and does not exist, since it is no ‘thing’, but a process that is called into being and is your ‘human becoming’.<br />
<br />
<i><b>As the shadow comes towards him it assumes numerous forms:</b></i><br />
<br />
1. an old man grey and grim - his father the smith;<br />
2. a young man - Jasper his early rival;<br />
3. Pechvarry - the man whose child he could not save - Pechvarry’s face was all bloated and pallid like the face of a drowned man;<br />
4. the gebbeth;<br />
5. a black animal like shadow crawling on its short taloned legs.<br />
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All of these are aspects of your self’ing, aspects of that which made you, your personal history, your growth, your relationships, those processes that have defined you on your journey to individuation.<br />
<br />
<i><b>As they meet, both Ged and his shadow say each others names:</b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Ged reached out his hands, and took hold of his shadow, of the black self that reached out to him. Light and darkness met, and joined, and were one.” </blockquote>
Vetch watching all this perceives wrongly and is caught up by the illusion. He springs out onto the sand to help his friend, but as he runs the sand sinks under his feet, turning into sea again, and he is almost drowned. But struggling back into the boat, he rows to where Ged is laying and hauls him back into the boat. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“‘Estarriol’ he said ‘look, it is done. It is over.’ He laughed. ‘The wound is healed’ he said, ‘I am whole, I am free.’ Ged had neither lost nor won, but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole, a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life’s sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark.” </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><b>The final summary</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>The process of individuation </b></span>is the process of understanding, embracing and honouring both life and death, of life’ing and death’ing. It is the process of yin and yang, of light and darkness. It involves the grasping and letting go of self, and the journey from human being to human becoming and onwards through the cycle of life’ing through to deathing. Individuation is the creating of a life of meaning, that transcends our limited life-times, and our fear of our mortality, the unknown and the process of knowing and un-knowing. Ultimately, the Wizard of Earthsea is a guide to the journey of your own soul, the process of living as a fractal of godding in the universe, and creating your own unfolding of your unique highest expressing of wisdom in your life’ing.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547773749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547773749&linkCode=as2&tag=mbraining-20" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547773749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547773749&linkCode=as2&tag=mbraining-20" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2whvVI2J5qQ/Uzqkq6sZxLI/AAAAAAAAAvM/zB4DPY-r6kw/s1600/Earthsea-200.jpg" height="200" width="126" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>And I hope that you have enjoyed</b></span> in some small way my simple analysis and summary of Ursula Le Guin’s transformational and incredible story. The way to use this summary best, is to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547773749/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547773749&linkCode=as2&tag=mbraining-20" target="_blank">grab a copy of Ursula’s wonderful book</a> and read it first for the pure enjoyment of its story. Then read it again, in the light of the summary above. Then reflect deeply on your own journey to individuation and where on the mage’s path you are right now, and what you need to do so that you may embrace your own shadow.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="color: #20124d;">Only in silence the word,<br />only in dark the light,<br />only in dying life:<br />bright the hawk’s flight<br />on the empty sky.</span></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><i>Life enhancing thoughts and wishes<br />Grant</i></span>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-86513674294860272332014-01-20T17:18:00.002+11:002014-01-20T17:18:52.532+11:00Enhancing your life with Exquisite Superlatives<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;">“</span><u style="color: #20124d;"><i>Superlative</i></u><span style="color: #20124d;"> – an adjective or adverb expressing the highest order, quality, or degree”</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[Please note, this was originally an article I wrote, entitled '<i>Exquisite Superlatives</i>', that was published in <i>Anchor Point: The International Journal of NLP</i>, September 1994]</span><br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">As you are aware</b>, the words you use and your semantic response to those words – the meaning you make from the words – inherently determines the quality of your life and your experiences. And the most exquisite thing about being human is that you get to choose! You get to choose the qualities with which you relive and <i>represent </i>your memories to yourself and others, and how you <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2010/01/future-pacing-is-life-enhancing.html" target="_blank">future-pace</a> your ongoing actions and immediate experience.<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">For example, at some stage you could choose</b> to enjoy some pleasure, or you can ferociously decide to be completely enveloped with intense and exquisite pleasure NOW!! Which would you prefer? It’s your choice! Like playing a musical instrument though, the secret to mastery is both in practice and in having a superb repertoire to choose from. Having only a few notes or chords won’t allow you to play full and melodious songs – Won’t allow you to play those beautiful songs and music that magically lift you up and take you to the most incredible places.<br /><br /><b style="color: #351c75;">Developing a magnificent repertoire</b><br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">So the key is in developing</b> a working repertoire of fantastically descriptive words – evolving and refining a list of distinctions about life and living – a set of exquisite superlatives. By producing this list of exquisite words – words that have a deep, intense, visceral and profound meaning to you, words that are juicy, ferocious and unsurpassable – you get to alert your conscious and other-than-conscious attention to these qualities of ‘<i>being</i>’. You get to practice them and to elegantly facilitate the submodalities of superb, ongoing experiencing.<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">And you know</b>, Richard Bandler is an excellent example of someone who uses words superbly to add juice to his life and to those around him. Richard doesn’t have “<i>curiosity</i>” in his life, he does “<b><i>wanton curiosity</i></b>,” he doesn’t expect his seminar participants to have “<i>resolve</i>” about their learnings, he demands that they have “<b><i>ferocious resolve</i></b>.” And words are intensely powerful.<br /><br /><b style="color: #351c75;">Create a List NOW!</b><br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">I know that</b> much of this is obvious, and yet how often is it that consistently putting the simple and obvious into practice gets over-looked? As Moshe Feldenkrais might call it: ‘<i>The elusive obvious</i>’.<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">So create a list of superlatives</b> to enhance your languaging. Through the action of creating and using your list, you will have developed an immense repertoire of descriptive qualities you are using to directionalize your living. And to gracefully assist you in this fantastic process, I share with you the following list. Use it to form the basis of your own ultimate transformational dictionary.<br />
<br /><b style="color: #990000;">The Super-duper Hyperflockulated Exquisite Word List</b><br /><br />elegant glorious priceless magnificent<br />keen amazing tremendous scrumptious<br />intense fragrant prime pure<br />brilliant splendiferous sensational fabulous<br />ferocious magic superfine absolute<br />profound exquisite fantastic immense<br />succulent total utter gorgeous<br />unsurpassable keen fierce extreme<br />ultimate ultra spectacular captivating<br />consummate wanton delicious thrilling<br />awesome immense transcendent radical<br />tatalizing luxuriant sublime wondrous<br />voluptuous outrageous splendorous entrancing<br />vivacious delightful beautiful stupendous<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">Own this list</b>, flesh it out, add to it and enhance it. Play with categorizing it into <b>V,A,K,O,G,Ad </b>(Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, Olfactory, Gustatory, Auditory Digital – Language) sections to gain even more distinctions. And tomorrow, don’t just get out of bed and have a shower, instead, ferociously launch yourself up and have a delicious and delight-filled shower; don’t just have breakfast, do a fabulous and incredible breakfasting; and don’t just have a nice day, do a sensational and unsurpassable day! The choice is yours.<br /><br /><b style="color: #351c75;">Using your Superlatives</b><br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">Let’s play with this </b>a little to gain a deeper understanding of its usefulness. Think of something you like and notice the submodalities of the experience. Now, think if something you are absolutely ecstatic about – what are the submodality differences?<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">Ok</b>, now think of some part of your day that was just average, just alright, nothing special, and as you picture it in your mind, repeat the words: “<b><i>spectacular, superb, exquisite</i></b>” out loud, 3 or 4 times. And say them with meaning. Notice the changes that occur in the submodalities of the experience. Powerful, wasn’t it now?<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">This is an example of the entrancing effect</b> that exquisite superlatives can have on your neurology. And by the way, you also get to choose the submodality effects that the words produce. For example, you might anchor sparkle and glitter to the word “<i>awesome</i>,” an intense surround-sound lion’s roar to the word “<i>ferocious</i>,” or even a full-body, lustful flush to the word “<i>outrageous</i>”. Then when someone asks you how you’re feeling, tell them “<b><i>outrageously, ferociously awesome</i></b>” and then STAND BACK!<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">Just imagine</b> what you can do with this. What amazing submodality effects would be sublime to link to the word “<i>immense</i>”? What about “<i>profound</i>”? It’s a difference that truly can make a total difference.<br /><br /><b style="color: #351c75;">Congruence - Becoming a Master of the Non-verbal Superlative</b><br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">As you probably realize</b>, the way you say the words is as important as the words themselves. And as a friend of mine, who is outrageously successful in getting what he wants from life said, “You know, it’s not only the exquisite words you say, it’s also the exquisite way you say them. When you express them with all of your body, all your mind, with total glorious abandon – when all your non-verbals completely and congruently match your words – then things really start happening.”<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">So now practice</b> putting “<b><i>oooowwwssshhhh</i></b>” into the expression of your life. Explore the quality and intensity of both your repertoire of non-verbal superlatives and the non-verbal expression of your verbal superlatives. Get that orchestra hopping, turn up the volume, and make congruence a totally happening thing!<br /><br /><b style="color: #351c75;">Using your NLP Skills</b><br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">Some of the other ways </b>you may want to use your powerful NLP skills to ensure that you get more and more vivacious delight from your life are:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>New Behavior Generator</b></li>
</ul>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Create a powerful part to use exquisite superlatives with unconscious competence.</blockquote>
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<ul>
<li><b>Timeline Installation</b></li>
</ul>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Create a compelling future by placing captivating reference experiences of using superlatives to make an intense difference along your timeline.</blockquote>
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<ul>
<li><b>Submodality Facilitation</b></li>
</ul>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Don’t just design the submodality experiences of each superlative, go further than that and amplify and intensify the submodalities of how you are valuing these ideas. Map across to the submodalities of utter fascination or magnificent obsession.</blockquote>
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Other Ideas</b><br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">You may also wish</b> to place your list in a position where you will read it again and again – especially in a place that is unconsciously linked to important values in your life or living. For example, eating is an important and deeply salient (to the gut and heart brains) life function, so paste your list brightly and boldly next to the kitchen table, and peruse it as you eat breakfast each day. Preparing your mind for the delicious day that lies ahead.<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">Try watching</b> some Bandler videos to note how Richard uses words exquisitely and to such great effect. Or gather some friends and have a superlative word party.<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">Use your words to profoundly enhance</b> the music of your life.<br /><br /><b style="color: blue;">And finally, play with these words</b>, explore them, make them your magnificent obsession. They truly are superlatively exquisite.<br />
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<i><br />life enhancing thoughts,</i></div>
<i style="color: #20124d;">Grant</i>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-36573092139506942402014-01-10T18:03:00.000+11:002014-01-10T18:03:05.531+11:00Meaning and Meaningfulness<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="color: #351c75;">Meaning and Meaningfulness - the Structure of Human Understanding</i></blockquote>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[Note: this post was originally written as an article I had published in '<i>Anchor Point: The International Journal of NLP</i>', August 2004]</span><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In NLP we know that wisdom</b> is supported by multiple distinctions. One useful technique for generating new distinctions is to distill our knowledge and understanding back to the simplest underlying processes possible. This can provide powerful abstractions we can use as tools to explore, filter and understand our world and our selves. <br />
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<div style="color: #20124d; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."</i></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;">Albert Einstein </span></blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">There are two fundamental processes</b> that we as humans do to make sense of the world, indeed there are two fundamental processes that any neural network utilises in order to build a semantic network that models the world:<br />
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<b>The mind/brain is involved in mapping and tracking:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>Meaning </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Meaningfulness</li>
</ul>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="color: #351c75;"> </b><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9et2ixWC2SU/SvT8dWXo1II/AAAAAAAAACo/b-jUBjqqCYo/s1600/brain.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9et2ixWC2SU/SvT8dWXo1II/AAAAAAAAACo/b-jUBjqqCYo/s1600/brain.JPG" height="199" width="200" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Meaning</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Meaning is created through metaphor</b>. According to the Cognitive Linguist, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff" target="_blank">George Lakoff</a>, the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Metaphor constructs meaning by linking experiences and objects together. All new experience is made sense of by linking it to something else that is already understood. X is like Y. Thus to make sense of the world, we as patterning systems, build a semantic network where cognitive concepts and deep structure experiences are linked together in a web of interconnected meaning. Metaphor is primary (and as we have found in the <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/hey-there-well-its-been-quite-while.html" target="_blank">new field of <i>m</i>BIT</a>, it is also largely embodied). It is the fundamental tool by which we construct our maps of the world. And language, one of our key mapping tools, is primarily metaphorical in nature.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">According to Piaget</b>, a famous developmental psychologist who explicated a powerful theory of cognitive epistemology, our cognitive structures change through the two processes of adaptation: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget%27s_theory_of_cognitive_development" target="_blank">assimilation and accommodation</a>. Assimilation involves the interpretation of events in terms of existing cognitive structure whereas accommodation refers to changing the cognitive structure to make sense of the environment. Cognitive development consists of a constant effort to adapt to the environment in terms of assimilation and accommodation. Another term for accommodation is metaphorical extension. We build new metaphorical links that relate new experiences to existing understanding. Assimilation involves interpretation and understanding within the existing cognitive/semantic network.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">A great example of these processes</b> at work in life is when a child first learns about '<i>dogs</i>' and then goes for a drive in the country with his or her parents. "Look mummy," says the small child spying a cow in a field, "a big doggy!" "No," says the parent, "that's not a doggy, it's like a doggy only bigger and instead of saying woof, it says moo." A short while later, the child spys a horse, "Oh mummy, there's a funny shaped cow!" "No darling, that's a horse, it's like a cow only you don't get milk from it and it is used for riding. It says neigh." The child thus learns by assimilating and then extending and accomodating the new experiences and meaning and by linking them metaphorically. X is like Y only different. This is how we construct meaning in our maps of the world.<br />
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<b style="color: #990000;">To summarise:</b> <span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">Metaphor is Meaning</span><span style="color: #20124d;">.</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Meaningfulness</span></b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The neural network of the brain</b> is a values driven patterning system. It tracks for and maps what is important, salient and of value. As new experience occurs, the strength of the synaptic connections that are firing during that experience, get strengthened in proportion to the biological (and eventually semantic) salience of the experience.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Gerald Edelman, in his research on the mind </b>and brain has shown in his theory of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuronal_group_selection" target="_blank">Neuronal Group Selection</a>, that values are at the heart of how we construct our maps of the world. Meaningfulness drives and determines what gets stored in the neural network of the brain. Metaphors are built through shared links of shared salience. Values sort and prioritise which metaphors, which cognitive structures, will eventually come to live in our maps of the world. Meaning and meaningfulness interconnect to determine how we make sense of the world, how we make decisions and ultimately how we come to live our lives. Lives of meaning and meaningfulness.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Values also are at the heart</b> of what information comes through our nervous systems to impinge on our frontal lobe processes and higher brain functions. The <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/are-there-rocks-on-your-beach.html" target="_blank">Reticular Activating System</a> (RAS), a core component of our central nervous system, acts as a filter or way-station to information coming from almost all our sensory processes. And the key to the RAS is salience or values. The RAS only allows information through that it deems to be meaningful.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h8JoxwiTU_c/S5i-x2y7EoI/AAAAAAAAAmc/5dekqslkjmg/s1600/RAS.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h8JoxwiTU_c/S5i-x2y7EoI/AAAAAAAAAmc/5dekqslkjmg/s1600/RAS.gif" height="320" width="315" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">The RAS</b> for example, is responsible for the '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect" target="_blank"><i>cocktail party effect</i></a>', this is where you are at a party or restaurant, surrounded by a sea of noise, of music, of people talking loudly and yet you can choose to ignore or switch off the surrounding noise and totally concentrate on the sound coming from the person you are talking with. Yet when someone three tables or groups away mentions your name, or even something that you are keenly interested in, you suddenly hear their voices. Its like your name leaps out of the blur of noise to grab your attention. And yet, up until then you were totally oblivious (consciously) to their conversation. Your RAS has been unconsciously tracking all of the information impinging on your sensory channels and deleting that which is not salient and amplifying that which is of value to you. <br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Values filter and prioritise</b> the information your nervous system attends to and therefore learns from and builds new maps and metaphors from. Values filter and directionalise learning. The <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/enhancing-your-map-of-world.html" target="_blank">map becomes the territory</a>. Meaningfulness guides the construction of meaning.<br />
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<b style="color: #990000;">To summarise: </b><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">Unless meaning is meaningful it will be meaningless.</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Submodalities - The Structure of Meaningfulness</span></b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">As we have seen</b> above, metaphor codes meaning. But what codes meaningfulness? When you picture a belief in your mind's eye, the content of the picture carries and codes the meaning. What is '<i>in</i>' the picture forms the meaning. And the submodalities (brightness, size, position, colour etc.) code the meaningfulness. Meaningfulness is structured through submodalities.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Submodalities are a discovery from the field of NLP</b>. They’re the building blocks of the senses and as such they structure the meaningfulness of our experiences. For each of our sensory modalities (sights, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells) the sub-components of each modality are its ‘<i>submodalities</i>’. So for sight for example, the pictures in your mind have submodalities like size, focus, distance, position, color/black-and-white etc. <br />
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<b style="color: blue;">For example</b>, picture something in your mind's eye that you strongly believe, something you feel very strongly about and that is very important to you. Something you value highly. Now notice how bright and close the picture is to you. Push the picture way, way off into the distance and dim it right down. Notice that subjectively it no longer seems so important, so salient, so meaningful. Now zoom it back in to where it was originally and brighten it up. Your subjective experience of the belief is intrinsically linked to the submodalities you code the image with.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Notice also</b> that those things that are important to you, that you value highly, tend to have pictures that are physically located high in the visual field. They are '<i>highly valued</i>'. And notice also that this extends into other patterns of how we value our world. Where are the most valued and expensive '<i>top shelf</i>' drinks stored? - On the highest shelf. Where do we physically place the most important people in an organisation? - The office of the CEO is usually on the top floor, and similarly on an Organisation chart, the most highly valued (in importance and in remuneration terms) people are placed on the top of the chart. Have you ever seen a short Super Model? - Research indicates that tall people are more highly valued, they get better jobs, more opportunities and their median income is higher. Society is replete with examples of the vertical sorting of values.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">So the submodality</b> of vertical dimension codes for move towards and move away from values. Up is move towards, down is move away. The higher or lower, the more the towards or away salience.<br />
Distance and brightness combine together, as a means of increasing or decreasing the flux density of photons impinging on the retina, to code for intensity of salience. By brightening an image or moving it closer, you increase the intensity of the meaningfulness. You make it much more meaning-full.<br />
Central and Peripheral physical location also code for meaningfulness. We value those things that are central to us much more than those that are peripheral. (Note however that change in the peripheral view has high salience from the perspective of danger and fear.) Left and right also code for meaningfulness.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">These are just some of the many ways </b>we use submodalities to code how meaningful things and experiences are to us. There are numerous others related to time coding, colour coding, patterns of change etc.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #990000;">To Summarise:</b> <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Submodalities code meaningfulness and values</span></span>.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #351c75;">Putting it all together</b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">As we have seen</b>, we make sense of our world, our lives and our selves through an interplay of meaning and meaningfulness. Meaning is coded through metaphor and meaningfulness is coded through values and submodalities. This means that if you want to live a life designed for success, you need to become aware of and a master of the metaphors you are using to make meaning of your life.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">You need to become a <i>Metasmyth</i></b> - a Meta-phor Smyth, a designer and creator of the metaphors of identity and meaning that organise your reality. You need to become an expert on the process of metaphor’ing and how each word is both a metaphor and a literal descriptor of the deep-structure experience it is encoding. (You need to become '<i>meta</i>' to your own sense of self-ing and how you construct your reality through metaphor.)<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">You also need to become a Values master</b>. Tracking, designing and flexibly operating from very clear and well-defined and well-formed values. Become a master of how you are <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/simplifying-and-valuing-your-life.html" target="_blank">value-ing your life</a>. Values aren't something you have, they're processes that you do. How are you valuing your life? Are your values well-formed and clearly focussed? Prioritised in hierarchies that support your life purpose?<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">By deeply and clearly understanding</b> the importance of these two processes - <b>metaphor and values</b> - and developing skills in tracking and utilising them, you can amplify the excellence of your results, the excellence of your relatings and the meaning you make of your time on this planet.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Meaning and meaningfulness</b> are the keys to the patterns you unfold in your life.<br />
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<i></i></div>
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<i><br />life enhancing wishes</i></div>
<i style="color: #351c75;">Grant</i>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-2120100608737353042014-01-05T11:55:00.001+11:002014-01-05T11:57:11.060+11:00Stories can change your life!<div style="color: #20124d; text-align: center;">
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<i>"The cool thing about reading is that when you read a short story or you read something that takes your mind and expands where your thoughts can go, that's powerful."</i></blockquote>
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Taylor Swift</blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">I’ve written</b> <b style="color: blue;">before</b> about the power of words and the importance of learning and reading for enhancing your life (<a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2009/10/words-are-life-enhancing.html" target="_blank">Words are life enhancing</a>, <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2009/11/loving-your-mind.html" target="_blank">Loving your mind</a>, <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/think-about-this.html" target="_blank">Think about this</a>, <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/we-are-what-we-know.html" target="_blank">We are what we know</a>). And now new research shows that even reading a fiction story changes the neural structures of the brain and leaves traces that last for days…<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The following was reported</b> in today’s <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140103204428.htm" target="_blank">Science News</a>:<br />
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Many people can recall reading at least one cherished story that they say changed their life. Now researchers at Emory University have detected what may be biological traces related to this feeling: Actual changes in the brain that linger, at least for a few days, after reading a novel. Their findings, that reading a novel may cause changes in resting-state connectivity of the brain that persist, were published by the journal Brain Connectivity.</blockquote>
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"Stories shape our lives and in some cases help define a person," says neuroscientist Gregory Berns, lead author of the study and the director of Emory's Center for Neuropolicy. "We want to understand how stories get into your brain, and what they do to it."<br />
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The Emory study focused on the lingering neural effects of reading a narrative. Twenty-one Emory undergraduates participated in the experiment, which was conducted over 19 consecutive days.<br />
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The results showed heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language, on the mornings following the reading assignments. "Even though the participants were not actually reading the novel while they were in the scanner, they retained this heightened connectivity," Berns says. "We call that a 'shadow activity,' almost like a muscle memory."<br />
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Heightened connectivity was also seen in the central sulcus of the brain, the primary sensory motor region of the brain. Neurons of this region have been associated with making representations of sensation for the body, a phenomenon known as grounded cognition. Just thinking about running, for instance, can activate the neurons associated with the physical act of running.<br />
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"The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist," Berns says. "We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else's shoes in a figurative sense. Now we're seeing that something may also be happening biologically."<br />
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The neural changes were not just immediate reactions, Berns says, since they persisted the morning after the readings, and for the five days after the participants completed the novel.</blockquote>
<a href="http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/000/485/i02/051227_synapse_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/000/485/i02/051227_synapse_02.jpg" width="155" /></a><b style="color: blue;">Given that research</b> (for e.g. see <a href="http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0896627308009653/1-s2.0-S0896627308009653-main.pdf?_tid=5442c810-759a-11e3-a001-00000aacb361&acdnat=1388879325_21146eeae6dea618112e4b3b4ee76328" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0060219" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/2/678.full.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.ipmc.cnrs.fr/%7Eduprat/neurophysiology/video.htm" target="_blank">images here</a>) shows that new dendritic growth and neuronal connections can occur with less than a day in the brain(s) (yes, importantly neural plasticity has also been found in both the heart and gut brains as well as the head brain), this means that when you read a book that viscerally moves you, that grips your heart and stirs your mind, that you are literally growing new neural connections and changing the structure of your multiple brains (head, heart and gut).<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So books and stories are powerful!</b> They have the ability to alter your mind and your life. Question is…<br />
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<i>What books and stories are you reading? </i></blockquote>
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<i style="color: #351c75;"> And what books have been life changing for you?</i> </blockquote>
<b style="color: blue;">Many people from around the world</b> have told me that <a href="http://www,mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining</a> has been profoundly life changing for them. Now we know in part why, reading it will have altered the neural structures of their multiple brains in wise and generative ways.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.mbraining.com" border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jgLz9D5e6hw/UdvVttKdDjI/AAAAAAAAAdI/vSjgjOrVZXk/s200/mBraining-book-cover-print.jpg" width="186" /></a></div>
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<i style="color: #351c75;">Great wishes,<br />Grant</i><br />
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<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-44640155694374255382013-12-29T16:49:00.001+11:002013-12-29T16:50:25.617+11:00Vanilla Essence’ing<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>“What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward.”</i></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Jean-Paul Sartre</span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">There is no ‘essence’</span></b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">When we first</b> built our house, we came to our empty block of land and there was a pile of lumber, cladding, roofing iron and stumps sitting on the ground. Over the next couple of weeks this pile of material turned into a house. The same material was now sitting on the block, in the same location, but now it’s ‘<i>essence</i>’ had been transformed from a pile to a house. When we look at a pile of timber, it is the same timber molecules that exist in a tree, and it can be the same timber molecules in a house. The material is the same but the arrangement is different. And the affordance and experience of that material varies profoundly and markedly. A pile of timber on the ground won’t keep you dry, warm and protected on a winter’s night. A tree won’t do that particularly well either, especially on a wild and stormy night. But arrange that timber into a house and you are kept warm, dry and safe. The ‘<i>essence</i>’ of house is not imbued in the timber molecules. You could take the same piece of timber and turn it into a house, a rocking chair, a kitchen spatula or even, if you were skilled enough, into a rose.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7jIwTIqCygI/Ur-wd9g8lvI/AAAAAAAAAqM/aSS5ho8ehEc/s1600/Black-Rose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7jIwTIqCygI/Ur-wd9g8lvI/AAAAAAAAAqM/aSS5ho8ehEc/s320/Black-Rose.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Let’s take the example</b> of a rose. What is a rose? It’s a flower of the Rosaceae family. But this includes strawberries, pears, almonds and cherries. So what is a rose? We now have genetically engineered roses that are black! There’s even a rose that is rainbow colored. <br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7ABh-Xh70Bk/Ur-xN8oAjaI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/wwsvAlkfQJ0/s1600/Rainbow_Rose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7ABh-Xh70Bk/Ur-xN8oAjaI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/wwsvAlkfQJ0/s320/Rainbow_Rose.jpg" width="320" /></a><b style="color: blue;">With a bit </b>of genetic tinkering magic we could create a black rose that smells of lavender. Would it still be a rose? If I took a nano-fabricator, a device that builds objects one atom at a time, and I took the atoms from a piece of lumber… atoms of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen etc. and built a rose one atom at a time, so that before you was a manufactured rose. But it was identical atom by atom to a ‘<i>real</i>’ rose, it looked identical, smelled identical and felt identical. I’d argue that if you didn’t know I’d ‘<i>manufactured</i>’ it, that you’d think it was a ‘<i>real</i>’ rose. That it had the ‘<i>essence</i>’ of a rose. And isn’t this just what the rose bush does, it manufactures (so to speak) the rose, atom by atom, molecule by molecule in the growth process, so that it can seed and propagate itself. In essence, it is ‘<a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/de-nominalising-your-world.html" target="_blank"><i>rose-ing</i></a>’.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Looking deeper – arrangements of energy</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So let’s look a little deeper </b>into this idea of ‘<i>essence</i>’. We spoke above of atoms and molecules. So let’s use those to explore this notion. Elements like carbon, oxygen, copper and zinc etc. are made of atoms. Atoms themselves are made of arrangements of protons, neutrons and electrons. These in turn are made of sub-particles, all the way down to what physicists suspect are tiny multi-dimensional wiggling string like energy quanta. Indeed, the field of quantum physics has shown that at the smallest levels, particles are really just probability distributions of energy. And this is backed up by Einstein’s discovery that energy and matter are one and the same,<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ccmn2VmwuM4/Ur-1pmlPCbI/AAAAAAAAAqo/l52t84wpRNI/s1600/emc2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ccmn2VmwuM4/Ur-1pmlPCbI/AAAAAAAAAqo/l52t84wpRNI/s320/emc2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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E is energy and M is mass. You can convert matter to energy and vice versa. So atoms are arrangements of energy!<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2lFy850yogo/Ur-02GIUrAI/AAAAAAAAAqc/n3PjyH4kC-4/s1600/Periodic+Table.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2lFy850yogo/Ur-02GIUrAI/AAAAAAAAAqc/n3PjyH4kC-4/s400/Periodic+Table.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Now with this insight </b>under your belt, let’s take a look at ‘<i>essence</i>’. If you took a piece of carbon, a black lump of soot or graphite for example. It is relatively hard (indeed, diamond, which is a form of carbon is one of the hardest elements known to man), it tastes like carbon, it is black etc. And it is made up of 6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6 electrons. These components arranged together create a substance that appears to have a particular ‘essence’. But if we add another proton, neutron and electron to this arrangement, we get a very different result. We now have Nitrogen, the clear, odourless, invisible gas that makes up 80% of the Earth’s atmosphere and consists of 7 protons, 7 neutrons and 7 electrons. And underlying all this it’s just energy. So with the same component processes, rearranged in different amounts, we end up with a completely different apparent ‘<i>essence</i>’. It’s as if I was building a house and I added some extra timber and ended up with a very different result. The material is the same, it’s just arranged in a very different way and produces a very different result. And this is what we mistakenly call ‘<i>essence</i>’.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So I hope I’m convincing you</b> that there is no ‘<i>essence</i>’. There is just arrangings of energy and process. And these arrangings, lead to propensities for action, interaction and the production of phenomena and affordance. And this is an incredibly powerful and profound insight that opens up new possibilities that you don’t get if you think things have fixed ‘<i>essences</i>’.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Ancient Wisdom</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Now these insights have been known</b> about for thousands of years. This knowledge actually predates the erroneous Greek philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. Buddhism for example is closest to the scientific understanding of the nature of reality, in that it makes a strong and accurate assertion that all phenomena are empty of any essence,<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>“What is the reality of things just as it is? It is the absence of essence. Unskilled persons whose eye of intelligence is obscured by the darkness of delusion conceive of an essence of things and then generate attachment and hostility with regard to them.”</i></blockquote>
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Buddhapālita</blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">But along the way</b>, we got derailed in the West by the assertions of what Edward de Bono calls the ‘<i>gang of three</i>’ (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle). Plato in his Dialogues propounded that the universe is made up of fixed ‘<i>Forms</i>’ which are eternal, unchanging and complete and that real concrete bodies are the imperfect copies or instantiations of these underlying essence forms. Aristotle moved the Forms of Plato to the nucleus of the individual thing and said that they made up its essence. But as we have seen, at the quantum level and above, there is no fixed essence, no platonic ideal Forms. There is just arrangings of energy and process and the arrangings lead to the behaviours and propensities. And this we naively and mistakenly generalize as the form of the physical entities. But the Buddhists had it right. Science has unequivocally shown that there is no fixed essence or substance, it’s all inherently empty of essence.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">There is no ‘essence’ of You!</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So there is no inherent essence</b>. There’s no vanilla essence of ‘<i>you</i>’ deep within you, hiding like a platonic ideal. You do not have an ‘<i>essence</i>’. What you do ‘<i>have</i>’, (and this is powerful), is a current arranging of a huge myriad of complex processing that leads to certain propensities for action and responding. ‘<i>You</i>’ are an emergence from the processes that currently constitute your ‘<i>being</i>’. You are a human becoming. There is no ‘<i>essence</i>’ for you to find or discover. And this is the point of my book <i><a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining</a></i> and the associated ‘<i>mBraining Evolve your World</i>‘ personal evolution workshop! It’s not about doing a re-birth to find your ‘<i>true</i>’ self. There is no fixed platonic essence you need to connect with and discover. It’s ‘<i>Evolve your World</i>’. It’s about evolving. About changing and creating.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.mbraining.com" border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jgLz9D5e6hw/UdvVttKdDjI/AAAAAAAAAdI/vSjgjOrVZXk/s200/mBraining-book-cover-print.jpg" width="186" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">As we teach in <i>mBraining</i></b> and <i>Evolve</i>, you are inherently creative! You are the author of your self’ing. The self is not fixed but is an emergent phenomena that comes out of your multiple braining. The intelligencing of your body/mind, of your distributed neural intelligences and other underlying processes, gives rise to your ‘<i>self</i>’. And this self-ing and the very neurons that generate it are adaptive, plastic and able to evolve and change. You can do <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/evolving-consciousness.html" target="_blank">conscious evolution</a>. You can direct your ongoing creation, your evolving and your becoming.<br />
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So it’s not about essence. There’s no vanilla essence of you. In reality, there’s just the arranging of you’ing. And the insight of <i>mBraining Evolve</i> is that you are able to evolve yourself wisely to create a more generative way of doing you’ing! <br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Nothing is fixed, all is flowing</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">As the great </b>somatic therapist Moshe Feldenkrais pointed out many years ago, “<i>There is nothing permanent or compulsive in your system except what you believe to be so</i>”. So throw away any notions of fixed essences. There is no vanilla essence of the human soul. That road leads to a dead end. You as a human are amazingly adaptive, creative and flexible. <br />
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<i>"Every brain evolves in its ability to operate as a processor, as a receiver, as a user of information."</i></blockquote>
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Dr. Michael Merzenich</blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">We have yet to find the limits </b>to what humans can aspire to. We can evolve new neural structurings. We can evolve our minds and bodies. With greater scientific understandings we are learning about the power of epigenetics and how it is influenced by thought and belief. We are learning to tap into the intelligence that exists throughout our bodies. We are gaining a power to become the highest expressing of the human spirit. Evolving your world opens up totally new possibilities in your life and your world. This is its gift and its power.<br />
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<i>life enhancing thoughts</i></div>
<div style="color: #351c75;">
<i>Grant</i></div>
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<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-62121529394699153322013-12-13T20:14:00.002+11:002013-12-13T20:38:13.044+11:00Evolving Consciousness<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="color: #20124d;">“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.”
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/27446.Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi" style="color: #20124d;">Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi</a><span style="color: #20124d;"> </span></div>
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<div style="color: #351c75;">
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<b>The Evolution of Consciousness</b></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">In 1976, the American Psychologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Jaynes" target="_blank">Julian Jaynes</a></b> published an amazing and intriguing book with an equally amazing title. It was a book that rocked both my world and mind at so many levels, and its implications and applications still echo and reverberate to this very day in my life and work. <br />
The title of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0618057072/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=mbraining-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0618057072&adid=1W0Z5MX8GB1QKSYP7SWG&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Frcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com%2Fe%2Fcm%3Flt1%3D_blank%26bc1%3D000000%26IS2%3D1%26bg1%3DFFFFFF%26fc1%3D000000%26lc1%3D0000FF%26t%3Dmbraining-20%26o%3D1%26p%3D8%26l%3Das4%26m%3Damazon%26f%3Difr%26ref%3Dss_til%26asins%3D0618057072" target="_blank">Jaynes book</a> was, ‘<i>The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind</i>’. A hell of a mouthful!<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0618057072/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=mbraining-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0618057072&adid=1W0Z5MX8GB1QKSYP7SWG&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Frcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com%2Fe%2Fcm%3Flt1%3D_blank%26bc1%3D000000%26IS2%3D1%26bg1%3DFFFFFF%26fc1%3D000000%26lc1%3D0000FF%26t%3Dmbraining-20%26o%3D1%26p%3D8%26l%3Das4%26m%3Damazon%26f%3Difr%26ref%3Dss_til%26asins%3D0618057072" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0618057072/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=mbraining-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0618057072&adid=1W0Z5MX8GB1QKSYP7SWG&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Frcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com%2Fe%2Fcm%3Flt1%3D_blank%26bc1%3D000000%26IS2%3D1%26bg1%3DFFFFFF%26fc1%3D000000%26lc1%3D0000FF%26t%3Dmbraining-20%26o%3D1%26p%3D8%26l%3Das4%26m%3Damazon%26f%3Difr%26ref%3Dss_til%26asins%3D0618057072" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SRs1QtoWCF0/UqFOqtlo9OI/AAAAAAAAAo0/yMBKWu3qJO8/s1600/origin-of-consciousness-breakdown-bicameral-mind.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">The book covers a lot of ground</b>, but at its heart it says that somewhere around 2500 to 3000 years ago, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank">meme</a> (self-replicating idea) of self-consciousness (of reflective meta-consciousness) was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap" target="_blank">bootstrapped</a> in the human brain and that meme, over a number of generations lead to the breakdown of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind" target="_blank">bicamerality</a> (of split brained-ness – our left and right hemispheres of our head brain operating separately as ‘bicameral’ [two lobed]). Along the way, Jaynes explored the nature and structure of metaphor and how humans use it to organize their reality and make meaning. He examined what the evolutionary purpose of consciousness was. And he looked at extant literature as an archeological record, finding that the expression of self-consciousness only arose around 2500 years ago, and before that humans had no language or symbolic references for self-consciousness and allied conceptualizations.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Neural Plasticity</b><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9et2ixWC2SU/SvT8dWXo1II/AAAAAAAAACo/b-jUBjqqCYo/s1600/brain.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9et2ixWC2SU/SvT8dWXo1II/AAAAAAAAACo/b-jUBjqqCYo/s200/brain.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“It is now well known that behavior, and therefore brain activity, naturally changes the structure of the brain.”</i></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
John L. Locke<br />
Harvard Medical School</blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">Before talking more</b> about what Jaynes’ ideas mean to us today, I need to make a quick detour into the processes of neural plasticity. Modern neuroscience, over the last several years, has discovered that our brains are incredibly plastic. It was once thought that you were born with all the neurons you’d ever have and that slowly over time brain cells would atrophy and die off and the number of neurons in your head would inevitably dwindle. This meant that if you suffered from some debilitating brain disease or damage such as a stroke, then you were forever broken and your brain would not and could not repair itself. This has now been overturned, literally turned on its head (so to speak). Science has uncovered that our brains (and not just the ones in our head, but also the ones in our heart and gut regions i.e. the cardiac and enteric brains) grow new neurons, new dendrites and new synapses all the time. This is called <b>structural plasticity</b>. Our existing neural connections also undergo ongoing change and adaptation, modifying hour by hour the synaptic strength and response of our neural connections. This is known as <b>functional plasticity</b>.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">As neuroscientists like to point out</b>, “<i>Our brain is a verb</i>”, it’s not a fixed object but an ongoing changing and evolving process. I like to think of it as a garden, an ecology, and the thoughts, feelings and experiences that you generate in your life, change the physical structure of your neural networks – of your brains. As Dr. Norman Doidge points out in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143113100/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=mbraining-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0143113100&adid=03QDAYK4ZFZGE6799GZ5&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Frcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com%2Fe%2Fcm%3Flt1%3D_blank%26bc1%3D000000%26IS2%3D1%26bg1%3DFFFFFF%26fc1%3D000000%26lc1%3D0000FF%26t%3Dmbraining-20%26o%3D1%26p%3D8%26l%3Das4%26m%3Damazon%26f%3Difr%26ref%3Dss_til%26asins%3D0143113100" target="_blank">his excellent book</a> on neural plasticity, “<i>The brain that thinks changes itself</i>”. And in keeping with this garden or ecology metaphor, it turns out that cells called micro-glia in our brains, monitor this garden and tend it, helping to build new dendrites and synapses for those neurons that are being used and eating up and dissolving dendrites and synapses that are no longer being used. As a result of this ‘<i>gardening</i>’, as the neuroscientists like to say, “<i>Neurons that fire together, wire together; and neurons that are out of synch, unlink</i>”. Another way of saying this is use it, or lose it. And that the brain builds itself based on focus, attention and action. We’ll come back to this later.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Neural Darwinism</b> <br />
<div style="color: #20124d; text-align: center;">
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<i>“There is no singular mapping to create the mind; <br />there is, rather, an unforetold plurality of possibilities.”</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Dr. Gerald Edelman</div>
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<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Now while we are on</b> <b style="color: blue;">this </b>detour into neural plasticity, I’d like to pay a quick visit to another fascinating and incredibly important set of understandings. To do this I need to tell you about another pivotal thinker and scientific genius. Back in 1992, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Edelman" target="_blank">Dr. Gerald Edelman</a> was awarded the Nobel Prize for his foundational work in immunology. Edelman had shown that the immune system operated as a Darwinian selection system. Another way to say this is that the immune system functions in such a way that it evolves itself to cope with the pathogenic environment it’s living within. Now, having won the Nobel for this work, Edelman decided to challenge himself by stepping beyond immunology and applying his considerable intellect to the human brain.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">He reasoned</b> that if the human genome (and thereby the human organism) operates as a Darwinian selection system, and the immune system, the part of the body tasked with tracking and maintaining bodily self/not self (and good self/bad self) operates as a Darwinian selection system, then given that evolution works by building on and extending existing processes, it’s likely that the human brain may also operate as a Darwinian selection system. So he created the <a href="http://www.nsi.edu/homepage.html" target="_blank">Neurosciences Institute</a> in San Diego USA, attracted funding and some of the top scientists from across the globe, and set out to explore this notion. What he and his colleagues ultimately uncovered is what is now called, ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_darwinism" target="_blank"><i>The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection</i></a>’. [If you are interested in reading more about this, then check out one of his most accessible books entitled ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465007643/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=mbraining-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0465007643&adid=1H6B3QH2NRBX5PCC1WZZ&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Frcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com%2Fe%2Fcm%3Flt1%3D_blank%26bc1%3D000000%26IS2%3D1%26bg1%3DFFFFFF%26fc1%3D000000%26lc1%3D0000FF%26t%3Dmbraining-20%26o%3D1%26p%3D8%26l%3Das4%26m%3Damazon%26f%3Difr%26ref%3Dss_til%26asins%3D0465007643" target="_blank">Bright air, Brilliant fire</a>’.]<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="color: #20124d;">“Competition for advantage in the environment enhances the spread and strength of certain synapses, or neural connections, according to the ‘value’ previously decided by evolutionary survival. The amount of variance in this neural circuitry is very large. Certain circuits get selected over others because they fit better with whatever is being presented by the environment. In response to an enormously complex constellation of signals, the system is self-organizing according to Darwin’s population principle. It is the activity of this vast web of networks that entails consciousness by means of what we call ‘reentrant interactions’ that help to organize ‘reality’ into patterns.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
<span style="color: #20124d;"> <a href="http://www.digitalnpq.org/archive/2004_summer/edelman.html" target="_blank">Dr. Gerald Edelman</a></span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">What Edelman has shown</b>, and it’s supported by the work and ideas of a growing number of independent neuroscientists, is that the human brain (and of course this ultimately means, head brain, heart brain and gut brains) function as evolutionary systems. Our brains evolve and change based on their informational (and physical) environment. The way they evolve is that groups of neurons fire and wire together and build ensembles of allied neurons working in synchrony together. And these neuronal groups compete with each other and get selected based on their success in their environment. Again, we’ll come back to this later. The take home message however is that the brain is a verb, it’s an evolutionary based system that evolves over hours, days, weeks and months. The neural groups evolve, grow, morph, connect and reconnect based on the thoughts, feelings and actions you are generating in your life. This is an incredible insight and its implications are profound.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #351c75;">Combining the insights on a journey to Consciousness</b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Now when we combine the insights</b> of Julian Jaynes, with the understandings of neural plasticity and those of Gerald Edelman, an incredible thing happens… But let me share with you how I first came to the insights I’m about to uncover… It was 2004 and I was driving across the great Australian outback. <br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fMrkGndwfo8/UqFVJ8NH0KI/AAAAAAAAApE/_BUfmIOWiT4/s1600/central+aust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fMrkGndwfo8/UqFVJ8NH0KI/AAAAAAAAApE/_BUfmIOWiT4/s320/central+aust.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">The roads</b> in Central Australia are long and straight. You can drive for hours across the vast sweeping planes of red sand and low harsh scrub without coming to a curve or bend in the road. It’s an ancient vista and lends itself to deep and philosophical thoughts. I’d decided to bring Jaynes book on this outback chataqua, re-read it at night and then cogitate upon it during those long mesmerizing drives each day. I’d already read it and absorbed it a couple of times, but it’s a book that deserves and rewards many readings. And I well remember the epiphany I had on that long hot day when it finally hit me! <br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Jaynes was saying</b> that at some time long ago, the meme of self-consciousness started. He suggests that it got started with the metaphorization of time – that we started to see ourselves and our lives as external agents operating through time. And that when we did this, new ways of thinking, doing and being opened up for us. (In NLP we would talk about this as our time coding and how it relates to ‘<a href="http://nlpuniversitypress.com/html3/TkTz06.html" target="_blank">time-lines</a>’.) Over a number of generations, this ability to do self-consciousness’ing grew to dominate the societies it was bootstrapped into, probably in large measure because it provided greater levels of success. And remember, children learn by unconscious modeling of their parents’ behaviors, amplifying and refining what they see the parents do, and thereby building new neural structures that perform these operations, largely outside of conscious awareness. So here’s the epiphany that hit me…<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Jaynes combined with Edelman and neural plasticit</b><b>y</b> are saying that around 2500 years ago, through a new and pivotal way of using our brain, we evolved new neural structures that had not existed on the planet before. These were actual physical structures. While it came about through what the evolutionist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins" target="_blank">Richard Dawkins</a> calls ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics" target="_blank">memic evolution</a>’, because of the Darwinian selection processes of neural plasticity, this means that it actually created and evolved new neural structures. These neural structures and processes aren’t coded by DNA, and are not passed down through the genome. But they are passed down from brain to brain and generation to generation through a process that the great General Semanticist, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korzybski" target="_blank">Count Alfred Korzybski</a> termed ‘<i><a href="http://boundtolast.wikispaces.com/Time+Binding" target="_blank">time-binding</a></i>’. Korzybski noted that humans as a species uniquely do a process via language, abstraction and symbol use that binds information in time and allows it to be passed down through generations. Each generation learns and stands on the semantic shoulders of the generation before it, not having to reinvent and recreate knowledge and insights. Instead, we have time-bound societal practices and human modeling processes that allow us to learn from all that has gone before us. In part, we call this education.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Evolving our neural networks</b><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GImfdGnGsqE/UqFW_Q387hI/AAAAAAAAApQ/mcHwFODmTyw/s1600/evolveneurons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GImfdGnGsqE/UqFW_Q387hI/AAAAAAAAApQ/mcHwFODmTyw/s320/evolveneurons.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">But this learning isn’t just ideas</b> stored in abstract memories. Learning changes the structure of the brain that learns! We evolve our neural networks. When we systematically and with emotional salience, learn something new, we create new neural structures. A great example of this was described <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRXZxS7_DAg" target="_blank">in a talk</a> I heard recently from one of the fathers of the field of neural plasticity, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Merzenich" target="_blank">Dr. Michael Merzenich</a>. Merzenich, using the example of reading, stated that when we learn to read, we create the neural machinery for reading. In the case of non-readers or those who haven’t learned to read properly, it’s because they haven’t developed (through neural plasticity) the correct neural circuitry for reading in their brain. Wow! This is incredible. This is profound!<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In a</b> <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_merzenich_on_the_elastic_brain.html" target="_blank">TED talk</a>, Dr. Merzenich summarized this evolution of the self in an even more succinct way:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #20124d;">
<i>“What it's all about is the selective representations of things that are important to the brain. Because in most of the life of the brain this is under control of behavioral context. It's what you pay attention to. It's what's rewarding to you. It's what the brain regards, itself, as positive and important to you. It's all about cortical processing and forebrain specialization. And that underlies your specialization. That is why you, in your many skills and abilities, are a unique specialist: a specialist that's vastly different in your physical brain in detail than the brain of an individual 100 years ago; enormously different in the details from the brain of the average individual 1,000 years ago.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote style="color: #20124d;">
<i>Now, one of the characteristics of this change process is that information is always related to other inputs or information that is occurring in immediate time, in context. And that's because the brain is constructing representations of things that are correlated in little moments of time and that relate to one another in little moments of successive time. The brain is recording all information and driving all change in temporal context. Now overwhelmingly the most powerful context that's occurred in your brain is you. Billions of events have occurred in your history that are related in time to yourself as the receiver, or yourself as the actor, yourself as the thinker, yourself as the mover. Billions of times little pieces of sensation have come in from the surface of your body that are always associated with you as the receiver, and that result in the embodiment of you.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i style="color: #20124d;">You are constructed, your self is constructed from these billions of events. It's constructed. It's created in your brain. And it's created in the brain via physical change. This is a marvelously constructed thing that results in individual form because each one of us has vastly different histories, and vastly different experiences, that drive in us this marvelous differentiation of self, of personhood. “</i><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: #20124d;">Dr Michael Merzenich</span></div>
</blockquote>
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<b style="color: #351c75;">A profound insight</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Driving across the desert</b> I was so blown away by this insight. I had to pull over our Campervan, stop and walk around in the hot and drying desert wind, exclaiming over and over to my beloved Fiona who was travelling with me, “<i>Oh my god! This is amazing, this is profound!</i>” When I finally calmed down, and hopped back in the air-conditioned driver’s seat and resumed our journey, I then explained to her my insight and what it means to us all…<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The structure of our brains</b> (head, heart, gut) isn’t fixed. It isn’t determined by our genetics. Instead, it is evolved within the social and informational fabric of our personal world. And it changes on an hourly, daily and monthly basis. When we think (and feel) specific thoughts and take specific actions in a repeated way, with focus and emotional value and salience, we can and do build/evolve/grow/garden new neural structures. This means that if we think, act and feel in ways that have not explicitly been done before on this planet, if we use new metaphors, new abstractions and engender new ontological (ways of being) and phenomenological (subjective experience) experiences, then we can evolve brain structures that have not been seen before on this planet. And if we time-bind this through educational processes and societal mechanisms (such as a new personal evolution field like <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>m</i>BIT – multiple Brain Integration Techniques</a>) then we can lead a change that can bring new evolutionary wisdom to what it means to be human. <br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Evolving your World!</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">And that is both exciting and incredibly profound!</b> It changed my world. I could no longer live the same. And ultimately, this epiphany and insight lead to me co-creating <i>m</i>BIT and a number of other technologies for generative human change. And this is just the beginning…<br />
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<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.mbraining.com" border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CVDv161YYDo/UqBF8RAlL7I/AAAAAAAAAok/9Dv9Z3nwh60/s200/mBIT+Certified+Coach+Logo.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">As neuroscience uncovers greater knowledge</b> and distinctions on how neurons and brains work, about how to target and strategically change specific neural structures, about what produces the quickest and most enduring neural plasticity, we’ll be enabled to empower even greater engineering of our brains. But this power comes with a great risk. Thoughts change the thinker and the neural structures that embody the thinker. If we use this great power to pursue selfish goals and myopic greed based outcomes, then we’ll create monsters in our brains. Instead we need to evolve our brains and our worlds through greater wisdom, through that which is the highest expression of ourselves and through ways that bring the innate human spirit alive. <br />
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<b style="color: blue;">To do this</b> we need to time-bind ways of tapping into the most transformative and adaptive ways of human-being and human-becoming. We need to bring <b>Compassion, Creativity and Courage</b>, aligned through our multiple brains (head, heart, gut, reproductive, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_nervous_system" target="_blank">ANS</a> etc.) and facilitated via ANS balance, to the evolution of our neural structures and to the fabric of our society. We need to create and promulgate throughout society, throughout our businesses, our education systems and our daily lives, rituals, metaphors and behavioural mechanisms/practices that embody new ways of wisdom’ing. And when we do, we’ll have evolved new neural patterns, never perhaps seen before on the planet. A race of neurally wise bodhisattvas. A connected and aligned way of <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>m</i>Braining</a> our world, so that we evolve it generatively and for wiser ecological complexity.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">What’s the most Compassionate, Creative and Courageous you?</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">And this is what inspires me</b>, and drives me every day when I awake, and ask myself the life enhancing question: “What’s the most compassionate, creative and courageous way of being and doing that I could do today?”<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">What inspires you </b>to be the highest expressing of yourself? What are you evolving in your brains, life and world?<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">You can make a wise and generative difference!</b> Make sure you do. It’s life enhancing.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="color: #20124d;">“Experience coupled with attention leads to physical changes in the structure and future functioning of the nervous system. This leaves us with a clear physiological fact…moment by moment we choose and sculpt how our ever-changing minds will work, we choose who we will be the next moment in a very real sense, and these choices are left embossed in physical form on our material selves…”</span></i><span style="color: #20124d;"></span></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: #20124d;">Dr. Michael Merzenich</span></div>
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<i style="color: #351c75;">Smiles and great thoughts and wishes<br />Grant</i>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-76618056433795154272013-12-05T19:40:00.001+11:002013-12-09T11:39:53.038+11:00mBIT - The Power of Dreams<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i style="color: #20124d;">"Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you."</i></b></blockquote>
</div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Dreams have an incredible power</b> to connect you with the deeper aspects of your innate wisdom. <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/sweet-dreams-messages-in-our-dreams.html" target="_blank">I’ve written before</a> about how dreams are often messages from the ‘<i>other than conscious mind</i>’ and can be ways our heart and gut brains communicate with us.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Many Wisdom Traditions</b> say that dreams are portals to the spiritual and esoteric planes, and that in dreams we can unlock the gateways to para-normal consciousness. As a scientist by training, I’m usually sceptical of such claims, however many years ago, after completing my first Physics Degree, I spent a substantial period of time doing a Masters Prelim. for a degree in Parapsychology, and during that research process I discovered evidence that to this day I still can’t explain with current scientific paradigms.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">A fascinating experience from our mBIT workshops</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So it came as a delightful surprise</b> when a participant at one of our <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/become-an-mbit-coach" target="_blank"><i>m</i>BIT Coach Certification workshops</a> reported an incredible and powerful dream experience with the ‘<i>homeplay</i>’ we had set for the evening of the first day of the workshop.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CVDv161YYDo/UqBF8RAlL7I/AAAAAAAAAog/mrjJywVaHhY/s1600/mBIT+Certified+Coach+Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CVDv161YYDo/UqBF8RAlL7I/AAAAAAAAAog/mrjJywVaHhY/s200/mBIT+Certified+Coach+Logo.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">In the training</b>, we ask participants to get in touch with their dreams as messages of wisdom from their heart and gut brains. You see, every night as you sleep, your head brain goes through periods of what is known as REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. REM sleep is a normal stage of sleep, occurs approximately every 90 minutes on average, and is associated with the act of dreaming. <br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Fascinatingly, the gut brain</b> also goes through a process akin to REM sleep, only in the gut this is known as RGM (Rapid Gut Movement) sleep. Approximately every 90 minutes, while you sleep, the gut goes through periods of RGM. It is suggested by some researchers that this is a time when the gut and head are communicating and integrating the knowledge and experiences of the day. It has also been noted by researchers that people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other inflammatory bowel disorders suffer from poor sleep patterns, experience abnormal amounts of REM and RGM sleep periods and report more intense and prolific dreaming compared to control subjects.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So we instruct participants </b>that “<i>as you lay in bed, just before drifting off to sleep, do mBIT Balanced Breathing and fill you heart with peace, love and compassion. Then breathe these up into your head and down to your gut. Fill all your brains with calm, peaceful love. Talk kindly and lovingly to your brains and ask them to give you a message in your dreams about what you need to know to make a transformational shift in your life</i>.”<br />
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<b>And this is what one participant, Diane, reported next day in the class:</b><br />
<br />
“I was somewhat dubious about this exercise because I rarely remember my dreams. I went to bed, thinking that I would take notes first thing in the morning about either a dream or whatever came to mind.<br />
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Just before I woke, I had a vivid dream. I was in the kitchen of a beach house, I recognised the fridge as the one I currently have, but the building, the furniture, the view & everything else was not familiar to me. There was the sound of people discussing things. I was feeling an immense sense of peace, looking at a hand drawn picture on the fridge in 3 colours – green, red, blue - on a square of white paper, boat, beach, trees, and lighthouse. I knew it was special to me because I was immersed in a profound sense of peace, as I looked at it.<br />
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A woman came into the room, she was very upset. I put my arms around her as she sobbed. Neither of us said anything. I had no idea what was wrong. At the same time, I knew that I just needed to be there for her. Her daughter came in, also crying & her son was behind, poking the daughter in the back, teasing her, ridiculing her, finding it really funny & looking very proud of himself. The daughter joined the mum & I in a hug & the son walked off.<br />
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As I awoke, I was aware of the head-brain message – write down the facts.<br />
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On reflection I now feel how the gut-brain kicked in simultaneously – performance anxiety of not having anything to offer back to the class, of sharing something that I sensed is really deep. My heart brain response was go back to bed & meditate, aligning my 3 brains – which I did, & after feeling my way through the experience received a message – draw the fridge drawing on paper. However, my head brain said: ‘I can’t draw’. I had a sense of something coming from outside of me, an energetic strong urge. Draw the picture!<br />
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But I thought, I don’t have any markers. Then I remembered. One of my clients had given me 3 whiteboard markers last month, they had told me that they didn’t need them back, but I am seeing them next week & had them in my bag. I thought of how I would draw the image & went into fear. Since I believe I really can’t draw.<br />
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I moved into my heart & waited, picked up a pencil, sketched, tried to fix it, to get it perfect. Started again, moved into the beautiful sense of peace I could easily recall from my dream & was in flow. As I finished, I looked at the drawing – it wasn’t perfect, things were out of proportion, the lighthouse was higher on the fridge drawing. I put it in a plastic folder to take to class. I felt at ease. I had a story to relate to the class.”<br />
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<b>And here is the picture that Diane drew, which she showed the class at this juncture in her story:</b><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xj6MTOWi-no/UqA-aSySUOI/AAAAAAAAAoA/TyxkmFvLSs4/s1600/Diane+Dream+drawing+on+fridge+-+2+Feb+2013.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="390" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xj6MTOWi-no/UqA-aSySUOI/AAAAAAAAAoA/TyxkmFvLSs4/s400/Diane+Dream+drawing+on+fridge+-+2+Feb+2013.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Diane then continued:</b><br />
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“With a couple of minutes before I needed to leave, I checked my email. There was one from my first ever paying coaching client. I worked with him over a decade ago in the USA. He is now living in Canada. One of the things we worked on then was him getting back in touch with his creativity. He started to paint again. We stayed in contact, maybe an email every 2 to 3 years after the coaching, he had not painted. He contacted me last year & we did 4 more sessions. He started a pen & ink art class & I asked if he could send me some of his work – I thoroughly enjoy sharing in client’s engagements in ‘being themselves more with skill’ (Goffee & Jones). <br />
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I opened the email from him. I was stunned. He had sent me his first ever color drawing which he had only recently completed and wanted to share with me. It was so similar to the drawing in my dream! How do we explain this?”<br />
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<b>And here is the drawing from Diane’s client, (shown with his permission):</b><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tZk0-BH-3os/UqA-iL4ZnpI/AAAAAAAAAoI/87N5fLdPthU/s1600/Diane+Painting+from+email+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tZk0-BH-3os/UqA-iL4ZnpI/AAAAAAAAAoI/87N5fLdPthU/s400/Diane+Painting+from+email+photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b style="color: #351c75;">An incredible experience</b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Isn’t this an incredible experience!</b> The images are so very similar, especially when you consider that Diane was drawing an image from her dream. You can see that both images share common elements, a lake, boats with cord dangling from the front (in one there is 2 narrow boats laying against each other, in the second image there is one wide boat), trees on the shore, etc. Diane’s drawing is like a dream distorted version of the client’s artwork, mirror imaged and with identical image elements. Where hers has a lighthouse, this is similar to the trees on the edge of the lake in the client’s picture. The rope at the prow of the boat is the real kicker!<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">There are fascinating elements</b> in the dream that relate strongly to the gut brain and heart brain prime functions. The upset woman and daughter hugging Diane are clear heart messages about connection and relational affect. The boy pushing the young girl (the younger Diane perhaps) in the back is about courage that pushes from the back to the front in the gut. Diane is standing in front of the fridge (where we store food to protect it, food is a core focus of the gut brain and perhaps symbolic of that which is life affirming) on which the picture is placed on the fridge door. The picture ends up being an image of a real picture that Diane’s first ever paying coaching client had sent her while she was sleeping in real life.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">I spoke with Diane</b> sometime after the training about what the dream meant to her and what messages she got from it. She said that the whole experience of the dream and the subsequent email had spooked her quite a bit, but that as a message of transformational shift it had opened her up to thinking about the deeper spiritual import of life. As she described herself, she had up until the <i>m</i>BIT training been “a head on two legs”, that she had denied her heart and gut and their intuitive competencies most of her life and been largely living from head-based cognitive and rational functioning. But <i>m</i>BIT changed all that, and the dream was an important part of the shift. It proved to her that she could connect with something that rational logic and science could not explain. How could she have dreamt and drawn such a similar image sent to her in email while she was asleep? It defied logic. Yet it happened. So intuitive and para-normal experiences were opening to her and she was learning to trust the messages and intelligence of her heart and gut brains. To connect with the whole of herself and her deeper spiritual aspects.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Indeed</b>, in follow up with Diane six months later, she related to me that she had now had a number of strange and bizarre intuitive communications and experiences. The workshop and her subsequent use of the <i>m</i>BIT techniques has opened the doors of intuitive perception for her. She is now tapping into something beyond the normal 9 to 5 experience of life. And this has helped her to truly bring her spirit alive and connect with a deeper and more generative wisdom.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">It’s amazing</b>, but when you learn to align and connect with your heart and gut brains, something larger than the ego self really does emerge. And <i>m</i>BIT facilitates this type of connection. We’ve now had quite a few people report that they’ve tapped into amazing transcendent experiences through <i>m</i>BIT. And isn’t that what Wisdom Traditions have been saying for thousands of years? According to the majority of spiritual traditions, we have 3 souls (head, heart and gut) and the heart and gut souls are the portals to the spirit and to a wisdom that can’t be gained by focusing on the head brain alone.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">It’s a truly fascinating and life enhancing experience</b>. If you haven’t already, you may want to read <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>m</i>Braining</a> or go on an <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/upcoming-events" target="_blank"><i>m</i>BIT workshop</a>. With <i>m</i>Braining and <i>m</i>BIT you truly can evolve your world!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.mbraining.com" border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JgtmBfEnZBM/UqBFot4amTI/AAAAAAAAAoY/oXge7wX7GFY/s320/mBraining-book-cover-print.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
<br />
<i style="color: #351c75;">Life enhancing wishes and dreams</i><br />
<div style="color: #351c75;">
<i>Grant</i></div>
<br />
<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-25613286326986141532013-11-11T11:25:00.000+11:002013-11-11T11:25:19.473+11:00Time, money and meaning<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Our
economic system incentivizes the exploitation of earth’s finite
resources. Money doesn’t stand for anything and must continue to grow
(consume more resources) in order for the economy to function.
”Conventional economics is a form of brain damage.” ~David Suzuki - See
more at: http://sustainableman.org/#sthash.rt5lnnZ9.dpuf</div>
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<i>"Our economic system incentivizes the exploitation of earth’s finite resources. Money doesn’t stand for anything and must continue to grow (consume more resources) in order for the economy to function. "</i></div>
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<a href="http://sustainableman.org/" target="_blank">The SustainableMan</a></div>
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<i>"Conventional economics is a form of brain damage."</i></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75;">David Suzuki</span></blockquote>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Here's a life enhancing question </b><span style="color: black;">that I'd like to explore in today's post: </span><i style="color: #20124d;">What is more important to you: people, money, wisdom or time??</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>And here</b></span> are my thoughts and some important and fascinating ideas/distinctions for you to explore and play with.
Along with some more questions to help you dig deeper...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-size: small;"><b>Question Everything</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Ok, I believe to really analyze and question</b></span> the importance
of money and time and associated ideas, you need to first determine and examine what the terms or
concepts of time and money mean (in society generally and to you personally).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>For most people</b></span>, a complex equivalence exists of: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">time = money</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and therefore, conversely:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">money = time</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b><span style="color: blue;">This is because </span></b>most people in our '<i>modern</i>' society are forced (in
order to earn meal tickets [$'s] and all the objects/experiences that meal tickets
can buy) to exchange their time for money. Each hour you work equals a certain
number of meal tickets (dollars). So they form an equation in the unconscious
mind (a complex equivalence) that time is money and money buys time.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Very few people are in control</b></span> of their own neurology, their
own motivation (motivating) and their pain/pleasure circuits (circuiting). So
they have learnt (been brainwashed and hypnotised into a consensus trance) that
they can get more time and pleasure in their lives by using money. Of course,
this does not operate as a '<i>true to facts</i>' map of the world. It generates unsane
behaviour (behaving), decisions (decidings) and experiencing. Yes it can
provide a useful distinction and way of thinking to recognize that at times the
'<i>time = money</i>' metaphor(ing) summarizes society's rules and reinforcements.
However it provides only one way out of very, very many ways of experiencing
the world. Unless you have choice in this, it will control you rather than the
life enhancing preference of you controlling your own life and the complex equivalents you
choose to use. [<i>Write now: Grab a piece of paper and a pen and start to list some of your own complex equivalents</i>].</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Time can also equal life</b></span>, can equal experience, can equal
opportunity, can equal a limiting and restricting metaphor. In some ways, we
never ever experience time, we only experience distance and velocity. And you
may remember that in physics velocity equals distance divided by time.
Therefore, we experience objects traveling around us (and us traveling around
and within spaces) at certain velocities and covering certain distances at
these velocities and we label this experience of moving through space as
'<i>time</i>'. It takes certain durations (time) to travel and move through space.
Time can be seen as a deep metaphor for our experience of space and movement.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>So yes</b></span>, you should make it an important learning and
understanding that you want to be living and life'ing very differently to those
people who are not in control of how they are doing themselves with regard to
time(ing) and money(ing).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>So what is money?</b></span> And how do people orient themselves to it?
Also, how do people orient themselves to time? How do you orient and code time?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>It can bring hours and hours of learning</b></span>, choice, power and
fun in answering these question(ings). Take a moment and write up what you
think money and time '<i>are</i>' for you, how do you '<i>do</i>' money-ing and time-ing in your life? How do you orient your life towards and away from these abstractions? How do you control them, or how do you let them control you? What are more empowering, wise and useful ways to experience and utilize '<i>time</i>' and '<i>money</i>'? And how do you relate to or link time and money with people in your life? What is your relationship to people in terms of time and money?</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><b style="color: blue;">At a heart level </b>what does money and time mean to you? At a gut level, how do you deeply experience money and time? What head stories are you running about money, about time? And how are you orienting towards it from an Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) perspective? Do these abstractions and tools (money/time) create Sympathetic dominance (stress)? Do they create Parasympathetic dominance (depression)? Or is the economic meme (self-replicating idea) of Capitalism data-mining your Autonomic Mode, bouncing you between stress and mild-depression, and '<i>causing</i>' you to use food, fornicating (and the semantic equivalents of this) and shopping to do parasympathetic rebound in an attempt to regain homeostasis in your ANS from the stress of daily living, working and trying to get ahead in the money/time game of modern life?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>I look forward to enjoying exploring</b></span> these distinctions and strategies
with you. In upcoming blog posts I'll share with you all about timelines, lifelines, valuelines and time
orientation. We will talk about what money "<i>really is</i>" or more
appropriately, how money is used and abused in our society and useful ways to
think and work with money.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Finally, it is useful to explore</b></span> what is meant by
'<i>importance</i>' - this connects with values and identity. How do you think this
connection works? What makes something important to you? What is '<i>importance</i>' all about, and how does it connect with time and money and other key societal abstractions?</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Some interesting and life enhancing food for thought</b></span> :-) And the more distinctions and choices you have in how you perceive these tools for thinking and living, the more <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/choice-life-enhancing-control.html" target="_blank">choice and control</a> you have in how you create your ongoing '<i>reality-tunnel</i>'. Wisdom comes from balanced and aligned choice. So make the choice to transcend the story of conventional economics and make your own meaning from time and money.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><i>life enhancing smilings, Grant</i></span><br />
<br /></div>
Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-35395110027989781282013-10-12T12:37:00.001+11:002014-01-08T10:54:14.792+11:00Beginner’s Mind - Doing 'Not Knowing'<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #351c75;">
<i>"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.”</i></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #351c75;">
Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi</blockquote>
</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tLyC3NyBh-g/UdvlKv2fVTI/AAAAAAAAAdU/IjXkvxU9_FE/s1600/Beginners+mind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tLyC3NyBh-g/UdvlKv2fVTI/AAAAAAAAAdU/IjXkvxU9_FE/s200/Beginners+mind.jpg" height="137" width="200" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Have you ever noticed</b> how kids assimilate new technologies and take on board changes so easily and with so much gusto? Kids love new things and have an appetite for novelty. In NLP we have an expression we use to describe a powerful way of looking at the world. It’s called ‘<i>seeing the world through the wide eyed curiosity of a child</i>’. It’s soooo true! Children are filled with an insatiable curiosity and passion for learning and trying new things. They have open hearts. They love to play and make a game out of change. And there's a powerful clue!<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bu2YI_UlzwY/UdvlWsE_QtI/AAAAAAAAAdc/z3lmi3a9StQ/s1600/BeginnersMind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bu2YI_UlzwY/UdvlWsE_QtI/AAAAAAAAAdc/z3lmi3a9StQ/s200/BeginnersMind.jpg" height="200" width="160" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">In the philosophy of Zen Buddhism</b>, there is a technique called ‘<i>Beginner’s Mind</i>’. This is a technique that allows you to open your mind and see things anew – to return to that wide eyed curiosity state. The idea of beginner’s mind is to temporarily set aside all your opinions, ideas, cherished beliefs and mindsets and explore the world with a fresh awareness, with an open heart and an open mind.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Through a state of “<i>I don’t know</i>”</b> – that is, by actively doing ‘<i>not- knowing</i>’ – you are able to see and try things that you would otherwise have missed. You open yourself to new possibilities. You open yourself to change more easily.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">The message from this </b>Zen wisdom is to use beginner’s mind in times of change. Look at changes that are thrust upon you with a fresh mind, rather than through pre-conceived prejudices. This will support you in finding the opportunities hidden in the challenges of change. Come at the opportunity of change by holding curiosity and creativity in your head brain, joy and passion for the newness of it in your heart brain, and a calm and courageous acceptance of it in your gut brain. This will bring the wisdom of the child to the changes you are experiencing. When you approach change in a way that is '<i>young at heart</i>', when you embrace it through gutsy courage, when you see it as a creative opportunity and when you experience it through <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/controlling-your-autonomic-mode.html">ANS Balance</a>, then you enable all of your intuitive wisdom and bring a fresh taste of life to how you deal with change.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">How life enhancing</b> will it have been when you embrace change through the eyes of a lifelong child now? What could you bring beginner's mind to in your life right now, today?<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #990000;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Thinking Tools – Beginner’s Mind</b></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #20124d;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>See the world through the wide eyed curiosity of a child.</i></span></blockquote>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jcavZBDW0N4/UdvljCBO3YI/AAAAAAAAAdk/LPl8q_tsvGw/s1600/imagem-if-your-mind-is-empty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jcavZBDW0N4/UdvljCBO3YI/AAAAAAAAAdk/LPl8q_tsvGw/s320/imagem-if-your-mind-is-empty.jpg" height="233" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
And you can read more about how to powerfully embrace change and use the incredible power, intelligence and intuition of your heart and gut brains in my book <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining</a>:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.mbraining.com" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JgtmBfEnZBM/UqBFot4amTI/AAAAAAAAAoc/2AWDPr2WqS4/s1600/mBraining-book-cover-print.jpg" height="320" width="298" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<i>life enhancing smiles</i></div>
<i style="color: #351c75;">Grant</i> <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-37785643465186984092013-09-23T18:35:00.000+10:002013-09-29T10:24:41.155+10:00Controlling your Autonomic Mode<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b style="color: blue;"> </b><i style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif;">"When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace."</span></i></blockquote>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jYPvnKFqE3M/Uj_8igc5AeI/AAAAAAAAAgk/tFcrUl8zPpE/s1600/breathe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jYPvnKFqE3M/Uj_8igc5AeI/AAAAAAAAAgk/tFcrUl8zPpE/s1600/breathe.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Your Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is a key controller of your life!</b> The ANS innervates your head, heart and gut brains and determines what mode or state they operate in. The ANS has two separate arms that operate (typically) in counterbalance -- the<b> Sympathetic</b> (think stress, fight and flight) and the <b>Parasympathetic </b>(think rest and repose, feeding and fornicating). After a stressor has kicked the Sympathetic System into activation and you've escaped from the danger (it could be physical, mental or emotional), the Parasympathetic System activates to bring you back to homeostasis.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Now each of us has learned unconscious patterns</b> and habits in <b>ANS Activation</b> i.e. in patterns of ANS mode that we typically operate in and from. Some people are much more prone to Sympathetic dominance and therefore more prone to experiencing stress, fight and flight responses. They are attuned to being stressed and to getting aroused and aggravated easily. Other people are more Parasympathetic dominant in their typical response to life, they are more chilled, or even somewhat depressed. Or they kick quickly into depression in response to the challenges of life.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Your ANS Response and ANS Mode are really key</b> to how you cope with life, to how you respond and to the sorts of competencies you can bring to any situation. As we show in our book <i>m</i>Braining (<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/">www.mbraining.com</a>), the competencies and functions your multiple brains (head, heart and gut) operate in are influenced and determined by what your ANS is doing. You can't feel relaxed and filled with joy if you are massively stressed and in Sympathetic fight or flight mode. Equally you can't be filled with love and joy for life if you are massively depressed and in Parasympathetic over-dominance.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.createspace.com/3857256" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jgLz9D5e6hw/UdvVttKdDjI/AAAAAAAAAdI/vSjgjOrVZXk/s200/mBraining-book-cover-print.jpg" width="186" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">So learning to track for and control your Autonomic Mode</b> and your Response is vital for creating a life of success, happiness, wisdom and joy.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">And here's a powerful and simple tip</b>: You can quickly and easily control your ANS Mode/Response through your breathing. Yes, in a few simple breaths, you can shift from one mode to the other. I could describe in detail all the neuro-physiology involved in this, but I won't... instead if you are interested you can read about it in <i>m</i>Braining. What I'll do though is share a simple strategy for helping you to shift out of stressed mode, and depressed mode.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">As NLP Trainer</b> (and now an <i>m</i>BIT Coach and Trainer) Linda Kaye, one of the participants of our recent <i>m</i>BIT Coach and Trainers trainings in Toronto, Canada said to me last week, "<i>This technique and information has been life changing for me, it's so simple, but makes such a huge difference. Who would have thought it could be this easy!</i>" And it was her suggestion I write this blog post and share it with you.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #351c75;">To stop stressing - The <i>m</i>BIT StopStress Technique</b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">If you find yourself</b> getting stressed, angry, frightened or any other form of Sympathetic ANS response: Stop, take a breath for 2 seconds in, and 10 seconds out. Repeat 5 times. This will quickly calm you down. Then begin to breathe for 6 (approx.) seconds in, 6 seconds out. This is called Balanced Breathing, and requires the inbreath and outbreath to be of the same duration, and will bring the ANS into balance i.e. a balance between Sympathetic and Parasympathetic. It is calming and healthful. Add into the breathing process that you imagine with every breath your heart, mind and body is filling with a beautiful peaceful loving joy. Breathe this into your heart, up to your head and then down to your gut.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: #351c75;">To stop depressing - The <i>m</i>BIT StopDepress Technique</b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">If you find yourself</b> getting depressed, emotionally down or any other form of Parasympathetic ANS response: Stop, take a breath for 10 seconds in, and 2 seconds out. Repeat 5 times. This will pump you up, fill you with energy. Then begin to breathe for 6 (approx.) seconds in, 6 seconds out. This is
called Balanced Breathing, and requires the inbreath and outbreath to be
of the same duration, and will bring the ANS into balance i.e. a
balance between Sympathetic and Parasympathetic. It is calming and
healthful. Add into the breathing process that you imagine with every
breath your heart, mind and body is filling with a beautiful peaceful
loving joy. Breathe this into your heart, up to your head and then down
to your gut.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">It really is that simple! </b>Practice the two techniques now and see and feel how they powerfully shift your energy states and your mood. Then practice them in the appropriate situations. And before long you'll find that you can overcome stress and lift yourself out of slumps. You'll be in control of your powerful ANS, and bringing a new-found choice to every situation.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="color: #20124d;">“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”</span></i><br />
<span style="color: #20124d;"></span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;">― Thích Nhất Hạnh </span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<div style="color: #351c75;">
<i>life enhancing wishes and smiles</i></div>
<div style="color: #351c75;">
<i>Grant</i></div>
<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-82037851216063229172013-08-29T13:22:00.000+10:002013-08-29T13:22:46.733+10:00Gratitude<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;"><i>"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude."</i></span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;">Friedrich Nietzsche </span></blockquote>
</div>
<span style="color: blue;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Louie Schwartzberg is an award-winning cinematographer</b></span>, director, and producer whose notable career spans more than three decades providing breathtaking imagery for feature films, television shows, documentaries and commercials.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>As a visual artist</b></span>, Louie has created some of the most iconic and memorable film moments of our time. He is an innovator in the world of time-lapse, nature, aerial and "<i>slice-of-life</i>" photography - the only cinematographer in the world who has literally been shooting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week continuously for more than 30 years.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Take a look</b></span> at this TEDx talk he did about the films he created and the images he has captured and fill your heart with <i>Gratitude</i> for the wonderful and beautiful world we live in! It truly is uplifting to your heart and incredibly life enhancing to be re-mind-ed about the beauty all around us. As Louie says, "<i>It connects to something deep within your soul</i>".<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/gXDMoiEkyuQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>And if you'd like to see something even more inspiring</b></span> and incredible, something that makes you realise just how much we have to be grateful for in being alive at this amazing time, on this amazing planet, as it spins through a space that is filled with beauty and mind-blowing complexity, then watch this relatively short video about what scientists saw when they pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a miniscule patch of space that they thought contained 'nothing':<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.upworthy.com/its-ok-to-not-understand-these-pictures-our-brains-werent-built-to-handle-them-2">http://www.upworthy.com/its-ok-to-not-understand-these-pictures-our-brains-werent-built-to-handle-them-2</a><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><i>life enhancing wishes and smiles</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><i>Grant</i></span>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-9486789886981878662013-08-23T18:49:00.000+10:002013-08-23T18:49:06.771+10:00Eating with joy in your heart<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;"> "Eat each meal with joy in your heart!"</span></i></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IMr-XeE8I0Q/UhchGhfwAuI/AAAAAAAAAfg/6hP5nYZbWzw/s1600/EatWithJoy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IMr-XeE8I0Q/UhchGhfwAuI/AAAAAAAAAfg/6hP5nYZbWzw/s320/EatWithJoy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life..."</i></span></span></blockquote>
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">Dr. Deepak Chopra</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: blue;">Many years ago</span></b> I heard about some fascinating and intriguing research during a presentation by Dr Deepak Chopra, and after studying the original research it lead me to develop a life enhancing strategy I've called '<i>joyful eating</i>' that I continue to use to this day and that I highly recommend...</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Back around </b></span>1980, Dr. Robert M. Nerem and his colleagues at the University of Ohio set out to study the effects of diet on
the development of coronary artery disease. To do this they
fed rabbits a toxic diet of high-cholesterol, artery-clogging rabbit food. However when they analyzed the results, surprisingly they found that one group of rabbits did not have their arteries clogged with plaque, even though all the rabbits had been fed the same diet. Unable to explain why some rabbits showed less
evidence of the beginning stages of heart disease, the
researchers decided to retrace each step of the study and found that when
the research assistant fed the rabbits, she would take out those rabbits
in the lower cages so she could cuddle and pet them as she fed them, whereas for the rabbits in the higher cages she could only reach to place the food in their feeding trays and could not pet them.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Finding it</b></span> difficult to believe that loving contact from the research assistant could make such a difference in the condition of the rabbits’
arteries, the researchers replicated the study in a formal and controlled
fashion, making sure the only difference between the groups was loving touch. Again, the results were the same. In all, the research study was repeated three times with the same results and was eventually reported in the prestigious journal <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/208/4451/1475" target="_blank">Science</a> (Nerem et al, 1980, Science 208:1475). The findings indicated there was more than 60% less blockage and significantly less arterial damage in the rabbits that were touched and cuddled compared to those that were not. The researchers hypothesized that the effects of touch produced a change in immune function and hormone levels and therefore in how the toxic diet was metabolized.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>We now know</b></span> from a huge number of studies in the field of <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/pni-psycho-neuro-immunology.html" target="_blank">Psycho-Neuro-Immunology</a> (PNI) that emotions and thoughts influence immune function (and are influenced in return by immune function), so it is not surprising that eating a toxic diet while experiencing loving kindness could influence how the gut and immune system processes what has been eaten. Realizing the power and importance of this, and knowing about the roles of the heart and gut brains, I created a process of joyful eating to ensure that I optimize how my body processes what I eat. Now, every time I sit down to eat a meal, I fill my heart with joy for the food I'm about to enjoy and send powerful messages from my heart down to my gut to really '<i>in-joy</i>' my meal.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>From the new field of mBIT </b></span>(<a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/hey-there-well-its-been-quite-while.html" target="_blank">multiple Brain Integration Techniques</a>), (described in my book <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining</a>) we know that the role of the gut brain is about identity, self preservation and mobilization of our resources and that up to approx. 80% of immune function is controlled and guided by the gut intelligence, so there are deep connections between how we eat, how we feel about ourselves and how our body handles what we've ingested and is attempting to digest. We also know that the heart brain is involved in the process of valuing and in guiding and leading the other brains (head and gut). So by holding love and joy in our heart as we eat, we are setting up strong signals and directions to our bodymind to really make the best response we can in how we are processing what we have just put into our system.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>It's a simple strategy</b></span> yet a powerful and delightful one. In a lot of ways it echoes the wisdom of spiritual traditions that for thousands of years have taught us to '<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_%28prayer%29" target="_blank">give thanks for our food</a></i>' and to say grace and bless our food before eating. In a sense the joyful eating strategy is a secular version of this. It's also an easy form of guided meditation and mindfulness that sends clear signals and messages through our multiple brains to ensure we are eating from highest expression. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>And I can tell you it feels wonderful</b></span> to really fill each meal with joy. Give it a go and make every meal a life enhancing experience. Start doing this today and your health and life will echo ongoingly from your new way of thinking, behaving and eating each meal with joy in your heart.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #20124d;">"Grace isn’t a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It’s a way to live."</span></span></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Jackie Windspear</span> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
Grace
isn’t a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It’s a way to
live. – Jackie Windspear - See more at:
http://www.justfeelgreat.com/25-inspirational-quotes-of-gratitude/#sthash.E8xZ9xNW.dpuf</div>
<span style="color: #351c75;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Life enhancing thoughts and wishes</span></span></i></span><span style="color: #351c75;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Grant</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-75684602256302039212013-08-15T22:38:00.002+10:002013-08-15T22:38:23.145+10:00Your body knows...<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="color: #20124d;"> "Human Cells Respond in Healthy and Unhealthy Ways to Different Kinds of Happiness"</span></i></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;"> Prof. Barbara L. Fredrickson</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x-IR65zG02A/TB3EbDVk_WI/AAAAAAAAAOg/i6v0aS2hWB0/s1600/generosity1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x-IR65zG02A/TB3EbDVk_WI/AAAAAAAAAOg/i6v0aS2hWB0/s200/generosity1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>I came across a fascinating piece of <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729161952.htm" target="_blank">research</a></b></span> recently on the effects of various positive emotions on the body. It's from studies done by Prof. Barbara L. Fredrickson and her colleagues. Her work shows that human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal, responding in ways that can help or hinder physical health. I figured this was sufficiently important and life enhancing that I needed to share it with you in this blog.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>In essence</b></span>, the reseachers found that the sense of well-being derived from "<i>a noble purpose</i>" may provide cellular health benefits, whereas "<i>simple self-gratification</i>" may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness. Now this is interesting, because in my work on mBIT (<a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/hey-there-well-its-been-quite-while.html" target="_blank">multiple Brain Integration Techniques</a>), and as described in my book <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining</a>, our multiple brains (head, heart, gut) have what we call their '<a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/mbraining-compassion-creativity-and.html" target="_blank"><i>Highest Expressions</i></a>'.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>For the Heart it is Compassion</b></span>, for the Head it is Creativity and for the Gut it is Courage. What we found is that each brain has a set of core competencies and prime functions they are involved in expressing, controlling and representing and that these competencies are influenced by the state of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) that innervates all of the brains. The most adaptive and generative ANS mode is one in which the two arms of the ANS (the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic) are in coherence or balance. For the heart, this balanced mode is where competencies such as love, joy, compassion etc. are able to be expressed.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>Now from our behavioral modeling work</b></span>, and backed up by numerous avenues of scientific evidence, we found that Compassion is the most generative of all the competencies of the Heart intelligence. And fascinatingly, the research by Barbara Fredrickson supports this notion. In her studies, she compared heart-based emotions of hedonic happiness with eudaimonic states (striving toward meaning and a noble purpose beyond simple self-gratification) such as loving-kindness and compassion and looked at the biological influence of these in the pattern of gene expression within people's immune cells. While participants reported overall feelings of well-being when experiencing hedonic states such as joy and happiness, these states did not produce the same gene expression of decreased stress related cellular inflammatory response as that of eudaimonic states.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>As Dr. Fredrickson indicates</b></span>, people who experience more hedonic than eudaimonic well-being consume
the emotional equivalent of empty calories. "<i>Their daily activities
provide short-term happiness yet result in negative physical
consequences long-term,</i>" she suggested. And this is important. Highest Expressions such as Compassion in the heart are generative, integrative and adaptive. They produce greater and wiser benefits in your life than the '<i>empty calories</i>' of just experiencing happy (but potentially selfish) feelings in your heart.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>So fill your life </b></span>and every day with life enhancing thoughts and feelings of noble purpose, of loving kindness, of compassion, connection and caring for those around you. Make a difference both in your own life and the lives of others by truly caring, deep in your heart. Your body really does know the difference!<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><i>life enhancing wishes</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><i>Grant</i></span><br />
<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-26921659102855998682013-07-16T10:17:00.000+10:002013-07-16T10:17:11.710+10:00MOOC's are Life Enhancing!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fz5AKew8su8/UeSQrH9b4nI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/AV1RfI9XbBA/s1600/coursera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="107" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fz5AKew8su8/UeSQrH9b4nI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/AV1RfI9XbBA/s400/coursera.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">MOOC's (Massive Open Online Courses) are incredible</b>. As <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> explains it:<br />
<div style="color: #20124d; text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs). MOOCs are a recent development in distance education."</i></blockquote>
</div>
S<b style="color: blue;">ome of the best Universities in the world</b> are putting courses onto MOOC's. I'm now positively addicted to doing MOOC's. My favorite MOOC Portal is <a href="https://www.coursera.org/" target="_blank">Coursera</a>. It has hundreds and hundreds of amazing courses, from incredible Universities and facilitated by some of the top Researchers and Professors in their respective fields. I've now done courses from places like Duke University, with lectures and lessons delivered by people such as Prof. Dan Arieley. I absolutely love it! It's so life enhancing. I get to sit in the comfort of my own home, and tune into and turn onto learnings that I could never have a few years ago. And they are all open and free. What's even better is that you get a Certificate (providing you complete the course and meet the required standards for the course) that you can use with your resume. How cool is that!<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">So if you haven't already discovered MOOC's</b>, then now is the time! Jump on over to Coursera, and take a look at the feast of courses provided. Sign up for some. Then enjoy involving yourself in the learning tribe for that course. Take your knowledge to new levels.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">As I've pointed out</b> in earlier blog posts, learning is important and life enhancing. If you'd like to know the distinctions I made on this, take a look at:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/we-are-what-we-know.html">We are what we know! </a></li>
<li><a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/intelligencing.html">Intelligencing</a> </li>
</ul>
<b style="color: blue;">Continue to enhance your life</b> by involving yourself in ongoing learning. By learning you stimulate neural-plasticity, you grow new neurons and new connections in your brains. You make yourself more intelligent and bring greater knowledge and wisdom to your world. And that is truly life enhancing and generative!<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #351c75;">
<i>life and learning enhancing wishes</i></div>
<i style="color: #351c75;">Grant</i>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-12587682493214432572013-07-12T11:27:00.002+10:002013-07-12T11:29:52.003+10:00Your thoughts leave traces...<div style="color: #20124d; text-align: center;">
<i>"New research shows that spontaneous waves of neuronal activity in the brain bear the imprints of earlier events for at least 24 hours after the experience has taken place."</i></div>
<div style="color: #20124d; text-align: right;">
<br />
Prof. Rafi Malach</div>
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">This is profound! </b>The implications of this new research are quite life changing and life enhancing. Let me explain.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">I just came across this amazing new research</b> in <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130625121153.htm" target="_blank">an article</a> in <i>Science News </i>entitled: <b><span style="color: #990000;">'Past Brain Activation Revealed in Scans: Brain Activity Patterns Preserve Traces of Previous Cognitive Activity'</span></b> and knew I had to read about it and share it. In the experiment, Prof. Rafi Malach and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute Neurobiology Department had volunteers undertake a training exercise that would strongly activate a well-defined network of nerve cells in the frontal lobes. To test whether the connections created in the brain during this exercise would leave their traces in the patterns formed by the resting brain waves, the researchers performed fMRI scans on the subjects before the exercise, immediately afterward, and 24 hours later.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IyepDCSo7S0/Ud9WaHItwvI/AAAAAAAAAd8/XXFObggJ0uw/s1600/brain+activation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IyepDCSo7S0/Ud9WaHItwvI/AAAAAAAAAd8/XXFObggJ0uw/s1600/brain+activation.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Their findings</b>, which appeared in the <a href="http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/22/9488" target="_blank">Journal of Neuroscience</a>, showed that the activation of the specific areas in the cortex did indeed remodel the resting brain wave patterns. Surprisingly, the new patterns not only remained the next day, they were significantly strengthened. These observations fit in with the classic learning principles proposed by Donald Hebb in the mid-20th century, in which the co-activation of two linked nerve cells leads to long term strengthening of their link, while activity that is not coordinated weakens this link. The fMRI images of the resting brain waves showed that brain areas that were activated together during the training sessions exhibited an increase in their functional link a day after the training, while those areas that were deactivated by the training showed a weakened functional connectivity.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Think about this</b>, we know that the brain exhibits neural-plasticity, the ability to grow new connections, new neurons, new dendrites, new synapses, and to strengthen the functional plasticity of existing connections. We know that the process of thinking changes the structure of the brain. And now this new research shows in part how this is occurring. When you think thoughts, when you activate neural circuits, the activation and the pattern of activation continues to fire and run even 24 hours after the initial activation. Your thoughts echo and linger in the physical structures and circuits of your brain long after you've stopped consciously attending to them. And these thoughts and thinking patterns change the structure of your brain.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The implications</b> of this, are as I said above, profound. This means that thoughts aren't mere thoughts, not fleeting ideas or notions that once come and gone are actually gone. Thoughts leave traces that can be viewed with an fMRI up to 24 hours later. Thoughts are like stones that leave ripples on the pond of your mind. They create ongoing propensities and priming of the neural circuits. So you need to be the guardian of the thoughts and neural activation occurring in your brain. Make sure you think thoughts and hold ideas that serve you. Make sure you are throwing into your pond, the sorts of stones that will create ripples that add value to your life. The ripples eventually become new brain structures. And this causes your brain to evolve new structures and patterns that lead to propensities for thinking and feeling in certain ways.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">You become what you focus on</b>. Your thoughts and feelings leave traces. You are either enhancing your life with your thoughts or doing the opposite. So make certain to focus on positivity, on love, on the <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/mbraining-compassion-creativity-and.html">Highest Expressions</a> of<b style="color: #20124d;"> Compassion, Creativity and Courage</b>. And you can be certain that this propensity of neural networks to continue to activate neural circuit patterns is NOT just happening in the head brain. It will also be happening in the heart and gut brains too! You are the gardener of your multiple brains, you are the one who plants the seeds of thinking, feeling and activation in your head, heart and gut brains. You can choose to focus on those ways of <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>mBraining</i></a> (of using your multiple brains to do cool stuff) that bring your human spirit alive, and as you do now, you'll have been finding that this way of being and doing continues to leave traces and echoes for way longer than just 24 hours.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">You can evolve</b> your brains and your world! And that is truly truly life enhancing.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jgLz9D5e6hw/UdvVttKdDjI/AAAAAAAAAdI/vSjgjOrVZXk/s200/mBraining-book-cover-print.jpg" width="186" /></a></div>
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<i>with positive joy and smiles</i></div>
<i><span style="color: #351c75;">Grant</span></i><br />
<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-41859359252530354592013-07-09T19:16:00.001+10:002013-07-09T19:21:19.156+10:00Mastering Accelerating Change<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="color: #351c75;">"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #351c75;">General Eric Shinseki</span></span></blockquote>
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<i>[The following post is excerpted from my upcoming book 'Avoiding the Enemies to Happiness']</i><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The world is changing</b>, and changing at a massive and accelerating rate. More information, more stimulus, new ways of doing things, faster ways of doing things in an ongoing race that touches us in every way. Technological change is driving business change, societal change, environmental change and even personal change. It can be a struggle to just keep up.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">To understand how massive this change is</b> and how it’s accelerating at an ever growing rate, to get a graphic sense of just how fast the change is accelerating, you need to see a few graphs. Let’s start by looking at the amount of invention in the world. Technological invention drives change in our lives. New ways of doing things change the way we work, the way we live and just about every aspect of our lives.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Below</b> is a graph of the number of patents filed in the United States per year. You can see that the graph starts relatively flat, with a small rate of growth over the last 100 years. Indeed, the amount of invention over the last couple of thousand years has been relatively small compared to recent growth. But look what happens from about 1980 onwards. The graph starts to rise and rise at a sharper and sharper rate.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iSCoWE5KyKE/UdvSGD87Y4I/AAAAAAAAAck/pzkatNgRSKI/s1600/USPatents.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iSCoWE5KyKE/UdvSGD87Y4I/AAAAAAAAAck/pzkatNgRSKI/s1600/USPatents.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov)]</i></span></blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">The shape of this graph</b> is known as an exponential curve. This shape comes about due to a process of growth in which the size increases by a fixed multiple over time. For example, in computing there is a law known as ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law" target="_blank"><i>Moore’s Law</i></a>’, coined by Gordon Moore, one of the inventors of the Microprocessor. Moore’s Law predicts that the power of computing will double approximately every 2 years. To get a sense of this, imagine that we start off with 1 unit of computing power. In 2 years time this will have doubled to 2 units. In a further 2 years, we will have 4 units of computing power. Two years later this will double to 8 units, then 16 units, 32 units, 64 units and so on. You can see from this that at first things appear to be growing slowly, but as the size increases, the doublings really start to make a powerful difference. This is the power of exponential growth. Once you reach the turning point, the graph just takes off and explodes upwards.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Importantly</b>, it turns out that exponential growth – that is massively accelerating growth and change – is not just happening in the price/performance of computing. As you’ve seen from the previous graph, the number of patents for inventions is changing at an exponential rate and it’s now at the near vertical rate of growth. This accelerating rate of invention is in part what is driving Moore’s Law in the area of electronics and computing. And these massive changes in computing have lead to the growth and uptake of the internet. Let’s take a look at what its growth looks like.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T4QNRlVIyuY/UdvSkfLusRI/AAAAAAAAAcs/jUHrz8VpHXU/s1600/InternetDomains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T4QNRlVIyuY/UdvSkfLusRI/AAAAAAAAAcs/jUHrz8VpHXU/s1600/InternetDomains.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>[Source: Internet Systems Consortium, Inc. (http://www.isc.org/)]</i></span></blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">You can see from this graph</b> that it’s the same sort of curve and that the rate of growth of the internet is now in the near vertical part of the curve. So what does this mean? It means that the rate at which the internet is growing and changing is massively accelerating. More change and quicker change. Incredible.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The rate of invention development</b> is also feeding other diverse areas such as:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Genetic Engineering:</b> Number of genes mapped per year</li>
<li><b>Medical Technology:</b> Resolution of brain scanning devices</li>
<li><b>Industry:</b> Manufacturing productivity rates</li>
<li><b>Economics:</b> World Economic Growth in GDP.</li>
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<b style="color: blue;">When graphed, these all show exponential growth</b> and are now in the near vertical parts of their growth curves. Science Philosophers have been examining these trends and have shown that these growth curves are all due to an underlying accelerating growth in world knowledge. If we take each unit of knowledge in the world, whether you consider it to be an invention, an idea, a book or a web page and we graph the number of these over time, we find… yes you guessed it, an exponential curve.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Mh3VYVltnM/UdvS6mC2ofI/AAAAAAAAAc0/0mqALzZd4wI/s1600/AcceleratingChange.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Mh3VYVltnM/UdvS6mC2ofI/AAAAAAAAAc0/0mqALzZd4wI/s1600/AcceleratingChange.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">You can clearly see</b> that the world is now at a point where the exponential change is producing <b style="color: #990000;">massively accelerating growth</b>. We are on the steep point of the curve and it’s only going to get bigger and steeper from here. You see, the limits now are not going to be human limits. We are creating intelligent automated systems that are designed to create and generate ideas and knowledge themselves. For example, we now have millions of web pages created each day by ‘<i>know-bots</i>’ (knowledge robots) – automated systems that crawl the web and synthesize, integrate and generate new web pages. Add in Moore’s Law to this and you’ll see that these bots are going to get faster and more powerful and more plentiful.<br />
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<b style="color: #20124d;">So what does this mean to you?</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Well</b>, as one interesting YouTube video <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%28http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmwwrGV_aiE">(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmwwrGV_aiE</a>) created by Dr. Scott McLeod and Karl Fisch puts it: “<i>Shift happens</i>”.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Yes, your world is going to continue to change in massively accelerating ways</b>. Society is changing and changing massively. Work is going to change immensely. Economics is going to change in accelerating ways. The way you live and connect is going to continue and continue to change... massively! You’ll have to keep up. If you don’t you’ll get run over. In order to stay economically viable, you’ll have to continue to learn and adapt. Or like the dinosaur you’ll become extinct. There’s no ignoring it. There’s no escaping it.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">This massively accelerating change</b> means there will always be ‘<i>too much, too soon</i>’ in our lives. Unless you become a change master and learn to ride the wave of change, your happiness will suffer. The stress and overwhelm of ‘<i>too much, too soon</i>’ are enemies to happiness. The good news is that there are skills, attitudes and strategies you can use to increase your resilience and embrace change so that it enhances your life. If you fight change, it will literally kill you. The stress of massive change can impact your mental, emotional and importantly your physical health.<br />
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<i><span style="color: #351c75;">"Worry and stress affects the circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system, and profoundly affects heart action.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #351c75;">Charles W. Mayo, M.D.</span></blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">There are ways of learning to embrace change</b>, to be comfortable with it, to value it in your heart, to not feel threatened by it at a gut level. You can learn to bring wisdom to how you embrace change and to evolve with it. The neural networks of your head, heart and gut brains (see <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/">www.mbraining.com</a> for more info about this) have neural-plasticity. You can literally learn to evolve more complexity and more adaptive ways of processing change. And this is what my upcoming book '<i style="color: #20124d;">Avoiding the Enemies to Happiness</i>' teaches the behavioral skills and competencies of. So stay tuned for when it hits the Amazon book shelves soon. And in the mean time, if you haven't already, <a href="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=mbraining-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1475238584" target="_blank">grab a copy of my book</a> '<i>mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff</i>', co-authored with my colleague Marvin Oka, and learn the skills of connecting with and utilizing the intuitive intelligences of your heart and gut brains.<br />
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<a href="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=mbraining-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1475238584" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jgLz9D5e6hw/UdvVttKdDjI/AAAAAAAAAdE/QiblIMavEVI/s320/mBraining-book-cover-print.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=mbraining-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1475238584" target="_blank"><i>Buy a copy of mBraining from Amazon</i></a></blockquote>
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<div style="color: #351c75;">
<i>life enhancing wishes</i></div>
<div style="color: #351c75;">
<i>Grant</i></div>
<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-72826871621619483672012-08-12T19:48:00.001+10:002012-08-12T23:34:22.856+10:00Sweet Dreams - The Messages in our Dreams<div class="post-header">
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“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”</blockquote>
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<b><i>"When you find a dream inside your heart, don't let it go. For dreams are the tiny seeds from which beautiful tomorrows grow."</i></b></blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">In my blog post on '<i><a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2009/11/life-enhancing-dreams.html">Life Enhancing Dreams</a></i>'</b> I talked about how we direct our life through our dreams, desires and outcomes, explored the difference between dreams and outcomes and described how to integrate the head, heart and gut (enteric) brains to help you begin to create the life you dream about. In today's post however...<br />
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<i><b>"Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions." </b> </i></blockquote>
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<i><b>"Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you."</b></i> </div>
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<b style="color: blue;">I want to explore dreams and dreaming </b>from a different perspective. I want to describe and share evidence and ideas about dreams as messages from our multiple brains; dreams as deeply intuitive communications from our heart and gut brains. But first a true and chilling story...<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Dreams that saved a life!</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In early 2011</b>, Oprah Winfrey decided she wanted to run an issue of her magazine solely devoted to the power of intuition and how to tap into gut instincts. Her magazine editors and researchers began searching for true and verifiable stories about people whose lives had been saved by hunches and messages from their deep intuition. What they found are some amazing stories, and these are detailed in the <a href="http://www.oprah.com/omagazine_archive.html?search_text=Intuition&search_month=8&search_year=2011&sort=&rec_per_page=20" target="_blank">August 2011 issue</a> of O, The Oprah Magazine, but the one that really stands out is the experience of Trisha Coburn.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Trisha was</b> 46 years of age and living a successful, healthy life, when one night she had an intense and disturbing dream that ultimately saved her life. In the dream she was standing at a barbed-wire fence and a group of frail and scary people on the other side were trying to tell her something in a language she couldn’t comprehend. For the next couple of weeks she had the same dream recurringly, and each time the number of people in the dream increased and looked more and more desperate. The dreams were so disturbing she would wake up crying. She knew something was wrong.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So Trisha called her doctor</b> and scheduled a full physical workup. But the results came back negative and her doctor was convinced Trisha was healthy and over-reacting. Still the dream came back, this time with 100 people, all wailing, screaming and pleading in their strange language. A few days after that, the same dream occurred one last time, but in this dream the fence was empty, there was no one there.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">This was so disturbing</b> to Trisha she went immediately to her doctor again and asked him what he thought was the deepest place in the human body. After he told her it was the colon, she demanded a colonoscopy. Even though her doctor was against it because she had no symptoms and no family history of colon cancer, Trisha insisted.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">And fortunately</b> for Trisha, she listened to the messages from her dreams. During the colonoscopy the gastroenterologist found aggressive and fast moving cancer throughout her colon. Her life was saved. A message from her gut brain that all was not well, communicated via dreams, allowed her to find the cancer and have it removed before it killed her. The surgeon later told her if she’d waited another two months, the prognosis would have been grim.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">What a chilling and powerful story</b> about the power of dreams for tapping into your deep gut wisdom!<br />
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<b>The gut dreaming...</b></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Every night</b><b style="color: blue;">, as you sleep</b>, your head brain goes through periods of what is known as REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. REM sleep is a normal stage of sleep, occurs approximately every 90 minutes on average, and is associated with the act of dreaming. It’s believed by many neuroscientists and sleep researchers to be an integral part of the learning process and plays a major role in the integration of memory, experience and knowledge. A <a href="http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/11/23/dream-sleep/" target="_blank">recent study</a> at the University of California, using brain scans, showed that during REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and integrated. It was demonstrated that REM sleep acts like a form of overnight balm, soothing the emotional experiences of the previous day.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Fascinatingly, the gut brain</b> also goes through a process akin to REM sleep, only in the gut this is known as RGM (Rapid Gut Movement) sleep. Approximately every 90 minutes, while you sleep, the gut goes through periods of RGM. It is suggested by some researchers that this is a time when the gut and head are communicating and integrating the knowledge and experiences of the day. It has also been noted by researchers that people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other inflammatory bowel disorders suffer from poor sleep patterns, experience abnormal amounts of REM and RGM sleep periods and report more intense and prolific dreaming compared to control subjects.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Based on these insights</b>, it is likely therefore that dreams are important ways in which the gut brain communicates to the head brain and allows intuitions and ‘<i>gut wisdom</i>’ to surface into consciousness. As the esoteric wisdom traditions maintain, your dreams contain messages from your gut and heart. For example, in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) it is suggested the gut communicates about its state through dreams and when it’s infected with intestinal parasites the dreams have specificity about what sort of parasite exists in the gut. Ancient Taoist TCM texts say that, “<i>When one has small intestinal parasites, one will dream of crowds; when one has long intestinal parasites, one will dream of fights and mutual destruction</i>.”<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Messages from the heart...</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Now here are </b>some more amazing and somewhat '<i>spooky</i>' pieces of evidence about messages received from dreams. These however, are about dream messages from the heart and what is most fascinating is the level of specificity that must be contained in heart brain memories for the messages to contain such incredible details. I hope you find them as intriguing as I did when I first read them.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">As described in my book</b> '<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>mBraining</i></a>', after a heart and lung transplant operation, dancer Claire Sylvia discovered that her new organs were not the only thing she inherited. As detailed in her fascinating biography ‘<i>A Change of Heart</i>’, one night, five months after her operation, Claire woke from a vivid and entrancing dream. In her dream, she met a man named Tim L. and formed a strong bond with him. As the dream unfolded, it became time for Tim to leave, and just before he did, Claire and Tim kissed and during the kiss, Claire inhaled Tim into her and awoke, knowing that she and Tim would be together forever.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">This dream was so vivid</b>, unusual and exhilarating that on awakening, Claire felt as if she’d finally integrated her new heart and lungs within her. She says she woke up knowing that Tim L. was her donor and that parts of his spirit and personality were now within her. This deep sense of knowing started her on a quest to find out who her donor really was and after months and months of frustrated research and searching she finally made contact with his family. And the kicker to the story… the donor’s real name was Tim LaSalle.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">What an amazing story!</b> Definitely worth reading. It’s also backed up by medical research that shows that severed vagus nerves can, after several months, reconnect and re-innervate the cardiac nervous system of the new heart. Obviously, in Claire’s case, her new heart connected strongly and was able to send messages in her dreams to help her accept and integrate her new heart brain.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Finally, here’s another</b> heart chilling and incredible story from the literature on personality changes after heart transplants. In this example, an eight year old girl received the heart of a ten year old girl, but sometime after the transplant, the young recipient began to have vivid nightmares about an attacker and a girl being murdered. Concerned about her young daughter, the mother took her to a psychiatrist who became convinced that with nightmares so detailed and real they appeared to be genuine memories. The psychiatrist recommended they contact the police, and presciently, it turned out the ten year old donor had been murdered.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">According to the literature</b>, the recipient’s violent reoccurring dreams were so vivid and accurate, and she was able to describe the events of the horrible encounter and the murderer with such detail, police were able to apprehend and convict the killer. An incredible story that makes you wonder just how much intelligence and specificity the heart brain and its memories have.<br />
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<b>Dreams as communications...</b></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">So it would seem</b> that dreams can serve as messages from our multiple brains, that dreams can sometimes be deeply intuitive communications from our heart and gut brains to our head brains. This is probably why we say things like '<i>Sweet Dreams</i>' when we wish someone to have a good night's sleep. What the neurolinguistics of this common saying indicates is that we are future pacing the gut brain to do a gustatory experience of '<i>sweetness</i>' (taste is a key sensory modality utilized by the enteric nervous system - we have taste buds not just on our tongues, but spread throughout our GastroIntestinal system) and thereby send positive messages in our dreams rather than messages of fear and anxiety that can lead to nightmares.<b style="color: blue;"> </b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">As you know</b> from my last post on the <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/using-mbit-prime-functions-of-head.html" target="_blank">Prime Functions</a> of the multiple brains, the gut brain is responsible for monitoring safety and threats, both external physical threats and internal ‘<i>semantic</i>’ or psychological threats. So if, before sleeping you put yourself into a hyped up vigilant state, if you ruminate over perceived injustices, or focus on upcoming fearful events, you’ll find that your gut brain will kick into threat monitoring mode and your brains won’t be able to do deep high quality sleeping. You obviously also shouldn’t eat rich and complex meals just before sleeping. Anything that disturbs or distracts the gut brain from calm sleeping can detract from how restful and ‘<i>sweet</i>’ your sleep and dreams can be.<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">Instead</b>, as you lay in bed, just before drifting off to sleep, do Balanced Breathing and fill you heart with peace, love and compassion. Then breathe these up into your head and down to your gut. Fill all your brains with calm, peaceful love. Talk kindly and lovingly to your brains and ask them to do high quality and integrative sleeping. Directionalize your brains respectfully and then filled with warm feelings of safety, love and peace, gently drift off into a refreshing night of health-filled sleep. And pay attention to your dreams, especially the vivid and memorable ones. They are likely to be important messages from your multiple brains and you ignore them at your peril. Indeed, listening to the messages from your dreams just may save your life...<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i style="color: #990000;">We are such stuff<br />
As dreams are made on; and our little life<br />
Is rounded with a sleep. </i></b></blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
<b style="color: #351c75;">Learn more...</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SKoF5BxCluc/T6TTd9SSCEI/AAAAAAAAAYo/e4o_V2p-Akg/s1600/mBrainingFrontCoverSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SKoF5BxCluc/T6TTd9SSCEI/AAAAAAAAAYo/e4o_V2p-Akg/s320/mBrainingFrontCoverSmall.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">If you'd like to learn more</b> about how to communicate with and integrate your head, heart and gut brains, grab a copy of '<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/">mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff</a>'. In it you'll find simple and powerful techniques for tapping into your intuition and using sleep and the wisdom of your heart and gut brains for integrated decision making.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #20124d;">
<i>smiles and appreciation,</i></div>
<div style="color: #20124d;">
<i>Grant</i></div>
<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-18416873160170626292012-08-01T13:55:00.000+10:002012-08-01T13:55:46.059+10:00Using the mBIT Prime Functions of the Head, Heart and Gut Brains<b style="color: blue;">If you follow this blog </b>you'll know that over the last 2 years I've been productively busy researching and developing a new field of personal development called <b style="color: #20124d;">mBIT </b>(<b>m</b>ultiple <b>B</b>rain <b>I</b>ntegration <b>T</b>echniques) and <a href="http://boundtolast.wikispaces.com/Time+Binding" target="_blank">time-binding</a> the models and distinctions from this field into a new book titled '<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff</i></a>'.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SKoF5BxCluc/T6TTd9SSCEI/AAAAAAAAAYo/e4o_V2p-Akg/s200/mBrainingFrontCoverSmall.jpg" width="140" /></a></div>
<br />
<b style="color: #351c75;">The Prime Functions of the Head, Heart and Gut Brains</b> <br />
<br />
One of the key insights from <b style="color: #20124d;">mBIT</b> is that each of your brains (head, heart and gut brains) has its own '<i>Prime Functions</i>'. Each brain has a fundamentally different form of intelligence; they utilize different language, have different goals and operate under different criteria. In other words, your head, heart and gut have different ways of processing the world, of communicating, operating and addressing their own concerns and domains of expertise.<br />
<br />
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<b style="color: #20124d;"><i>mBrain</i> Prime Functions</b><div class="mBITSubhead">
<br /></div>
<div class="mBITSubhead" style="color: #660000; margin-left: 17pt;">
<b>Heart Brain Prime Functions</b></div>
<div class="mBITBullet" style="margin-left: 53.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Emoting</span></div>
<div class="mBITBullet" style="margin-left: 53.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Relational
Affect</span></div>
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<b>Gut Brain Prime Functions</b></div>
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<b>Head Brain Prime Functions</b></div>
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<b style="color: #351c75;">About the head brain…</b><br /> </div>
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<b style="color: blue;">In many ways</b> the prime functions of the head brain are obvious, they involve the mental cognitive functions of logical thinking and include the processes of reasoning, perception and how we make meaning. Thought processes involve mental imagery, language expression, abstraction and symbol manipulation. The main job of the head is to intellectually make sense of the world and to provide executive control.</div>
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<br /><b style="color: #351c75;">About the heart brain…</b></div>
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<br /><b><span style="color: blue;">The heart</span></b> is the seat of love and desires, goals, dreams and values. When you are connected to something you feel it and value it in your heart. When you hear that someone ‘<i>wears their heart on their sleeve</i>’ you intuitively know that this does NOT mean that they are too logical. Instead, this is saying that they show their emotions, desires and intentions too obviously and readily. </div>
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<br /><b style="color: blue;">If you say something is heartfelt</b>, you aren’t saying it’s intellectually concise. And when you look at the language patterns of the heart, they express notions of love, connection, kindness and their converse. The prime functions of the heart intelligence involve salience, affection and relational issues such as a deep sense of moral rightness as compared to rule based ethics. </div>
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<br /><b style="color: #351c75;">About the gut brain…</b></div>
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<br /><b style="color: blue;">Due to its evolutionary history</b>, the gut brain is responsible at a core level for determining what will be assimilated into self and excreted from self. It must determine what is required to maintain health and wellness in the system and decide whether molecules ingested into the stomach will be absorbed or excreted. Indeed, research has shown that more than 80 percent of our immune cells are located in the gut, and the enteric brain is intimately involved in managing immune function.</div>
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<br /><b style="color: blue;">The prime functions of the gut</b> are around protection, self-preservation, core identity and motility. Back when evolution was at the stage of complexity of sea cucumbers and worms, organisms only had a neural processing system of an enteric brain. This intelligence was used to detect threats and food in the environment and move away from danger and towards food. The gut brain maintains boundary detection and mobilization. In humans it is expressed as motivation, gutsy courage and a gut-felt desire to take action (or not).</div>
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<br /><b style="color: #351c75;">Using the Prime Functions as life enhancing diagnostic tools</b></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">One of the most powerful</b> and useful things you can do to gain more personal control in your life is use the <b style="color: #20124d;">mBIT</b> Prime Functions as life enhancing diagnostic tools. Using the Prime Functions as a set of filters you can begin to track and change which of your multiple brains are operating in any given situation or context. Of course, all your brains and neural networks are operating all of the time, however, focus and control moves throughout your brains and knowing which brain is the prime controller at any point in time can really provide leverage for change.</div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Let me share</b> an example from my own personal experience to make sense of this... I had been expecting an overdue delivery of the very first printing of my mBraining book, and contacted the courier to find out why the delivery was late and when I could finally expect to receive my books. I eventually managed to speak to a customer service representative of the global courier company used to deliver the books and was informed that due to various organizational issues, they would not be able to deliver the books to me for another 4 weeks. I got off the phone and found myself feeling both angry and incredibly turmoiled. The book was important to me and I had various commitments and timeframes that relied on having stock of the book on hand.</div>
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<b style="color: blue;">As I sat there</b> fuming over the crap service of this big-named courier company, that promised swift and efficient service on their website and advertising, I realised that feeling angry and upset wouldn't help me or help resolve the situation. I stopped focusing on the issue for a second, and instead did an inventory through my body and noted where and how I was feeling and representing the issue. I noted that I felt anger in my heart region, tension in my forehead and shoulders, but most strongly and overwhelmingly, I felt the issue deep and viscerally in my gut. This told me immediately that I was representing the issue at a gut level and that it was a gut prime function that was driving my response. The gut is responsible for core identity and threat detection. I was obviously treating the book and the missing delivery as if this was a part of '<i>me</i>' that was under threat. The gut brain was then communicating the message of threat to the heart and head leading to angering and repetitive negative cognitions and ultimately tension around the head and face region.</div>
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<b style="color: blue;">As soon as I realized </b>that I was representing the book as if it was part of me, I was now immediately at choice. Did I really want to see the book as '<i>me</i>', was it really part of my core identity, or was it just something I valued highly as a process and an artefact of the production of my creative abilities? Naturally, the book is not '<i>me</i>', it's just something I produced. And as soon as I acknowledged that, and breathed the message of that from my heart, into my head, and down to my gut, everything shifted. I belly laughed, with a big smile of inner realization on my face. The anger in my heart dissolved immediately. And I was able to get a much more useful perspective on the situation. With a light-hearted attitude, I was then able to track down someone within the courier company who really wanted to help and delightfully my books were delivered within the week. Problem solved and done in a compassionate and creative way. By using the Prime Functions as a diagnostic tool and thereby realizing I was treating the book as '<i>me</i>' I enabled a wiser choice in how I responded to the exigencies of life and that truly is life enhancing.</div>
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<b style="color: blue;">So I trust</b> that from the above example you get a sense and idea of how to use the Prime Functions as filters and diagnostic tools. Start to notice where and how in your body you are representing and reacting to each situation. Are you fundamentally processing the situation with your heart? Your head? Your gut? And what prime function(s) are thereby being expressed by the neural network that has prime control? Once you've gained meta-awareness of how you are processing and creating your awareness and reality, you can then use the mBIT Foundational Sequence and Highest Expressions techniques explained fully in the <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining book</a> to produce a more generative and wiser response. </div>
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<b style="color: blue;">So start now</b> to notice how you are mBraining your life, which of your brains is operating in which sequence with the others, which is in control, which can provide the leverage point for change, and what prime functions are operating as you respond to and create your world.<i style="color: #351c75;"> </i></div>
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<i>with appreciation and smiles,</i></div>
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<i style="color: #351c75;">Grant</i></div>
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<br /></div>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-64971839129274431652012-06-18T19:13:00.001+10:002015-11-19T11:04:14.733+11:00I give a shit! -- Scatalogical Marking and the Enteric Brain<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<i><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #20124d;">“The world is not a problem; the problem is your unawareness”</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh</span></span></span></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">I trust </b>and hope that you find today's blog post fascinating, edifying and entertaining in equal measure <b><span style="font-size: small;">:-)</span> </b>and I also hope you aren't easily offended by swearing or scatalogical language, as it's going to form the basis for what we are exploring here today...<br />
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<b>Scatalogical Marking</b></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">In ethology</b> (the study of animal behavior), scatalogical marking is the act that animals undertake to mark out or define their physical or spatial boundaries -- the space they consider to be '<i>theirs</i>', that they own. To do this they '<i>scat</i>' around their boundary by depositing their shit or by urinating. This marks out their territory and sends a clear olfactory message to other animals or rivals of their own species.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In <i>m</i>BIT</b> (multiple Brain Integration Techniques) terms, scatalogical marking is an obvious manifestation of the prime functions of the gut brain. The gut (or enteric) brain is deeply involved in protection, threat monitoring and control, in spatial motility and in maintaining core self. In a sense, the spatial territory that an animal controls is like an extended part of itself and is crucial to both its foraging/food control and its threat/safety control. So the gut brain naturally uses the parts of the anatomy it controls (the bowels and bladder) to deposit strong messages about its domain. Notice also that the gut brain is strongly linked to the senses of taste and smell, so it's part of the language of the gut brain to speak and communicate with strongly smelling substances, and all animals (including humans) are attuned to this. [BTW, if you haven't already, grab a copy of my new book '<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>m</i>Braining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff</a>', and you'll learn all about the prime functions and core competencies of the head, heart and gut brains and how they communicate and how you can align and integrate them for wisdom and success.]<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Who gives a shit?</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Now this is all very interesting</b>, but really, who gives a shit? (so to speak) -- What has this got to do with you and with enhancing your life???<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Well</b>, as we evolved higher functions and more complex brains, our gut brain not only became responsible for physical territory maintenance, it was also co-opted for '<i>semantic</i>' territory maintenace. With our complex head brains and advanced language centers and frontal lobes, we have evolved to be semantic and meaning binding creatures. We live and create our lives and sense of self through the processes of abstraction, symbol manipulation and linguistic meaning. We construct our complex world views through language, beliefs, values and the semantics of identity. And all of this forms our '<i>semantic territory</i>'. So guess what... when someone transgresses your semantic boundaries, when they '<i>shit</i>' all over your values or beliefs, when they act like '<i>turds</i>' or '<i>assholes</i>' and threaten the meaning you are making in your life, it typically '<i>pisses</i>' you off and gives you the '<i>shits</i>'. Indeed, if they piss you off enough, you are likely to haul off and beat the '<i>shit</i>' out of them, either physically, emotionally or intellectually.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Now isn't that fascinating</b>. Our common parlance reflects the scatalogical marking we do within our semantic territory. And this is a direct example of cognitive linguistics, of how the metaphors we use in our every day language are deeply embodied and reflect our underlying unconscious processes.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The reason I share this with you</b> is to begin to attune your mind and ears to <i>m</i>BIT Predicate Tracking -- to noticing and listening for words that indicate heart, gut or head processing and the prime functions of each of those neural networks. Knowing which brain is functioning within any element of human behavior puts you at choice and control for leveraging generative change. And that is certainly life enhancing!<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">I give a shit!</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Courtesy</b> of my good friend and colleague, exquisite cartoonist, corporate speaker and organizational leadership guru, <a href="http://colinjames.com.au/" target="_blank">Colin James</a>, I'd like to share the following cartoon that Colin drew for this blog post.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1BEC10FEQH8/T97K4bX4rFI/AAAAAAAAAac/zkwUFJCw3vU/s1600/I+give+a+shit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1BEC10FEQH8/T97K4bX4rFI/AAAAAAAAAac/zkwUFJCw3vU/s400/I+give+a+shit.jpg" width="365" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">It highlights the idea</b> that each of us has things that we give a shit about, and that we metaphorically mark our semantic boundaries with respect to. And based on this idea, here's a little exercise that I'd like you to play with...<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So I'd like you</b> to take a moment, and think about something that you '<i>really don't give a shit about</i>', something that you could care less about, that really doesn't affect you in any meaningful way. For me its football and other organized sports. I really don't give a shit about them at all. If football was outlawed tomorrow, I wouldn't lose a jot of sleep over it. Wouldn't care less. It's neither a value for me, nor part of my identity. Once you've thought of something you don't give a shit about, I'd like you to get a sense of how that feels within your body, what your visceral experience of it is, in your heart, chest, gut, torso etc.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Now moving on with the exercise</b>... I'd like you to think of something you value, something that's important to you, you care about, but is not part of your identity. In other words, something that you like, but if you weren't able to get it anymore, or if you lost it, then it wouldn't particularly rain on your parade. For me its my drive day car. I like it, I value it, but you know, if something happened to it and I had to replace it, I wouldn't be bothered. A car is a car. No probs. So take a moment, reflect and come up with something you value but that isn't vitally important to you. Once you've done that, notice your felt sense around it. Where do you feel and represent this within your body? For most people, it will be in your heart region. Notice this.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Now, think about and focus</b> on something you really give a shit about, something that is vital to your sense of self. Something that defines you. For me, an example would be my motorbike. As I've written about in this blog, I believe motorbikes are <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/motorbikes-are-life-enhancing.html" target="_blank">Life Enhancing Devices</a> (LEDs). So for me, my bike is like an extension of my self. I love it. It's linked to my core values. So think of your equivalent, and as you bring it fully to consciousness, notice where in your body you feel and represent the meaning of this. For most people this will be felt viscerally in the gut. You may also feel some heart response due to the values and desire for this person/place/thing/process. But the core feeling will be in the gut.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">When you experience something as core to self</b>, the gut kicks in. Your enteric brain has a prime function around core selfing and protection of core self. The ability to notice this and become mindful and aware of where and how you are representing things is key to being able to shift and control your life. I'll speak more about this in upcoming blog posts, and of course, the <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>m</i>Braining book</a> teaches you cool techniques for powerfully utilizing this. But for now I really wanted to bring to your attention the notion that semantics and meaning are embodied and that various functions and aspects of these are processed preferentially and differently in each of your brains.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">You can begin now</b> to notice over the coming days, where in your body you are feeling and processing each experience and work out whether you are representing something as core self or just as a value. Notice what figuratively (and sometimes literally) gives you the shits, pisses you off or impacts you viscerally. Notice what stinks in your life (so to speak) or conversely smells sweet. And start listening for scatalogical marking in the conversations around you and in your own internal dialog. Mindfulness is life enhancing, as is <a href="http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/choice-life-enhancing-control.html" target="_blank">choice and control</a>. And control starts with awareness!<br />
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<i>“Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.”</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Stephen R. Covey</span></div>
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<i style="color: #20124d;">with life enhancing appreciation and smiles,<br />Grant</i>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-40395694845276781372012-05-27T17:42:00.000+10:002012-05-27T17:42:57.468+10:00mBraining - Compassion, Creativity and Courage<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="color: #20124d;">"In the 700 year old Soka Gakkai Buddhism teachings of Japan there is a mystic truth known as the ‘Buddha state’ or ‘Buddha wisdom’ that acts as a reservoir through which anyone can take control of their lives and fulfill their greatest dreams. According to these ancient spiritual beliefs, this state of wisdom involves a melding of Compassion, </i><i style="color: #20124d;">Creativity</i><i style="color: #20124d;"> and Courage." </i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>mBraining</i>, Grant Soosalu & Marvin Oka</span></blockquote>
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<b>The highest expressions: A powerful insight</b></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Years ago</b>, whilst researching esoteric wisdom practices, I came across a powerful insight from the Tibetan Bonpo tradition. It suggested that a person could be considered to have truly lived a wise and beneficial life if they’d mastered three core competencies: <b style="color: #20124d;">Compassion, Creativity and Courage</b>.<br />
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<i>"The heart is a sensory organ and acts as a sophisticated information
encoding and processing center that enables it to learn, remember and
make independent functional decisions."</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Dr. Rollin McCraty</span></blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">After deeply exploring</b> the neuroscience behind the heart, gut and head brains, completing a huge body of behavioral modeling research and then factor analyzing the core competencies of the three brains, I was fascinated to notice that the Bon insight highlighted a key and generative competency from each brain:<br />
<ul>
<li>Heart brain – <b style="color: #20124d;">Compassion</b></li>
<li>Gut brain – <b style="color: #20124d;">Courage</b></li>
<li>Head brain – <b style="color: #20124d;">Creativity</b></li>
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<b style="color: blue;">As</b> I continued the <b>mBIT</b> (multiple Brain Integration Techniques) research I discovered very similar advice from other spiritual and philosophical disciplines. Although slightly different words were used (e.g. kindness instead of compassion, bravery instead of courage, etc.), they all conveyed core competencies that were similar in their qualitative nature.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">I therefore became even more curious</b> and intrigued by these three Tibetan Bonpo core competencies and began to look for structures that could explain the consistency of these prescribed core competencies across so many different philosophies, practices and cultures. The question became: “<i>From an mBIT perspective, what is so special about these competencies?</i>” <br />
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<b style="color: blue;">I discovered</b> three key qualities that make these competencies particularly generative. First, if you look them up in the Core Competencies Framework from Chapter 3 of my book '<i><a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff</a></i>', you’ll notice they’re all highly coherent states. Second, in actual practice, these ‘<i>virtues</i>’ are neurologically integrative by their very nature. Each of these competencies requires the engagement of the other two neural networks in order for them to fully manifest in behavior. This is explained in more detail in the book. And third, the behavioral modeling research found that the interdependent and integrative nature of these three competencies enables the emergence of a higher order level of consciousness and way of being. In other words, they collectively enable and facilitate the Highest Expression of a deeper more integrated '<i>self</i>'.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Subsequently</b>, these three competencies became what we respectfully call the mBrains’ ‘<i>Highest Expressions</i>’, and I’d like to suggest that of all the competencies each brain evinces, these ‘<b style="color: #20124d;"><i>three C’s</i></b>’ (<b style="color: #351c75;">Creativity, Compassion and Courage</b>) are the most generative and defining of them all. They’re certainly the most integrative to work with for attaining greater levels of wisdom and personal evolution. Indeed, from our behavioral modeling and action research work, we’ve found these three competencies, when aligned together are able to produce a synergistic magic that is incredible to experience.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #20124d;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin. Compassion without courage is not genuine. You may have a compassionate thought or impulse, but if you don’t do or say anything, it’s not real compassion."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Daisaku Ikeda</div>
</blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">In upcoming blog posts</b>, I'll explore each of these highest expressions in detail. But until then, may I highly suggest you grab a copy of the book and begin to explore these key competencies in your own life. How can you align more wisdom in your life through Compassion, Creativity and Courage? How can you amplify Compassion in your heart, your thoughts, your life and your actions? How can you creatively Create a life that is more brilliant, more enhanced and more generatively wise? And how can you motivate more gutsy Courage and action into your world?<br />
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<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sWGnuXjp0Yo/T8Gw1m-W12I/AAAAAAAAAaI/PLX1aufCs5w/s320/mBraining+-+KindleCoveVerySmall.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">What would your life look like</b> if you lived through these highest expressions? And how life enhancing would it be for both yourself and the people you love?<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #20124d;">
<i>life enhancing thoughts,</i></div>
<div style="color: #20124d;">
<i>Grant</i></div>
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<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-48872732916289628172012-05-20T19:03:00.004+10:002012-05-20T19:12:06.459+10:00mBraining - Balancing your ANS<br />
<div class="mBITFirstPara">
<span lang="EN-US"><b style="color: blue;">As you know</b>... Over the last decade, the field of
Neuroscience has discovered we have complex and functional brains in both our
heart and gut. Called the cardiac and enteric brains respectively, scientific
evidence is emerging that these neural networks exhibit intelligence and wisdom. In my book with co-author Marvin Oka, <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">'<i>mBraining</i></a>', I've described how to communicate with and harness this intuitive intelligence of your multiple brains, and in the post below, I'll share one of the ways you can begin to control what mode your brains are operating in.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<b style="color: #20124d;">The role of your Autonomic Nervous System</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In order to do effective <i>mBraining</i></b> -- to work powerfully with your multiple brains (head, heart and gut brains) -- it helps to understand the role of your <b>Autonomic Nervous System</b> (ANS) and how it affects the quality of the way your brains function.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">For example, your heart brain</b> may be attempting to fulfill its prime functions in a particular situation by emotionally expressing either sadness or joy. These are two very different expressions that are based on the same prime function. What accounts for the difference? And what can we do to shift from a debilitating expression to a more empowering one? To answer these questions, we need to look to your ANS.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Your nervous system</b> has two major divisions, the voluntary and the autonomic. The Voluntary System is mainly concerned with movement and sensation. The Autonomic Nervous System on the other hand is responsible for control of involuntary and visceral bodily functions. The functions it controls include:<br />
<br />
• Cardiovascular <br />
• Respiratory<br />
• Digestive<br />
• Urinary<br />
• Reproductive functions<br />
• The body’s response to stress<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">It’s called ‘autonomic’</b> because it is operates largely automatically and outside of conscious control. It’s divided into two separate branches — the sympathetic and parasympathetic. These two branches work in a delicately tuned, reciprocal and (usually) opposing fashion. <br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The sympathetic system</b> can be considered to be the ‘<i>fight or flight</i>’ system. It allows the body to function under stress and danger. The parasympathetic system is considered to be the ‘<i>feeding and fornicating’</i> or '<i>rest and digest</i>' arm. It controls the vegetative functions of feeding, breeding, rest and repose. The parasympathetic system also provides constant opposition to the sympathetic system to bring your total system into balance or homeostasis.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In times</b> of danger or stress, the sympathetic system, which has a very fast onset and response, kicks in and gets you moving to handle or resolve the situation. The slower acting parasympathetic system begins to operate after the danger has passed, and brings you back to a normal state. Without the opposing function of the parasympathetic system your body would stay amped up, burning energy and fuel and eventually exhaust itself.<br />
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<i>[BTW: an easy way to remember which of the two systems is which, is to remember that ‘para’ means beside or beyond, and therefore the parasympathetic system works beside or beyond the sympathetic to bring it back to alignment. So just remember, sympathetic does fight/flight and the parasympathetic kicks in beyond the stress to bring you back to normal.]</i><br />
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<b style="color: #20124d;">Why is this important?</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The reason you want to know</b> about the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems is because they innervate the heart, gut and head. There are major connections between the head brain hemispheres, the cardiac brain, the enteric brain and these sympathetic and parasympathetic arms of the ANS. And as the two ANS components work in opposing ways, the dominance of one or the other leads to very different modes of processing throughout our multiple brains.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In the gut</b>, parasympathetic activity enhances intestinal peristaltic movement promoting nourishment during quiescence, whereas sympathetic activity inhibits such activity during times when physical exertion requires catabolic (energy) mobilization. Parasympathetic activity generally slows the heart, whereas sympathetic activity accelerates it.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">You’ll notice here</b> that a powerful functional principle of opponent processing is operating for autonomic control across your total system. Your brains can function in ways that are sympathetic dominant, parasympathetic dominant, or some combination of the two, but that each of these systems typically opposes the other.<br />
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<b style="color: #20124d;">So what?</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The really interesting thing</b> about these sympathetic and parasympathetic activation processes is that while they normally operate in opposition to each other, they don’t always have to. In certain circumstances they can operate in patterns where one, the other or both are dominant in chronic patterns. What you’ll also see shortly is that when your brains are operating in sympathetic or parasympathetic dominance, they have access to differing psychological qualities and core competencies.<br />
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<b style="color: #20124d;">Physiological coherence – balance between the systems</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The diagram above</b> summarizes the four modes that your system can operate in. In the top mode, when your two systems are in balance and harmony, when you are in a powerful state known as physiological coherence (more on this coming up in a future blog post), you are able to respond optimally to the world. This mode is connected with feelings of joy, happiness, peace and relaxation.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #20124d;">Sympathetic dominance</span></b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In the next mode</b>, your sympathetic system is dominant. This is the stress and danger response and in this mode you have access to competencies that typically serve you to respond via fight and flight processes such as anger, aggression, defensiveness and avoidance. It can be linked to lifestyle patterns of stress, such as taking on too much work, or worrying excessively about things you can’t control.<br />
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<b style="color: #20124d;">Parasympathetic dominance</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In the third mode</b>, your parasympathetic system is dominant. As we’ve seen above, this is the mode that quietens and settles your neurophysiology. It’s normally designed to bring you back to homeostasis after a sympathetic dominant experience. However, in certain circumstances parasympathetic dominance can be chronically activated and lead to withdrawal, depression, despair and down regulation of all your vital functions. People in this state have essentially given up and are living with a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Poor diet, toxic metals and chemicals in our food, water and air can lead to issues of parasympathetic dominance.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Parasympathetic over-dominance</b> can also activate in acute stress situations as an overreaction to an intense sympathetic response, and lead to what is called parasympathetic rebound. This leads to the ‘<i>freeze</i>’ response and in really extreme cases can cause the heart to stop completely and result in death. This is what causes people to literally die of fright, fear and shock.<br />
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<b style="color: #20124d;">Mixed dominance</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In some cases</b>, a person can have both sympathetic and parasympathetic systems operating in high states of activation. When these are in relative balance, the snapshot that the person presents is somewhat similar to the first mode described above. However, with this mixed dominance mode, the system is in what’s called a ‘<i>meta-stable state</i>’ and can flip rapidly from one state to the other. The two systems are in effect maxed out and fighting one another. So the dominance can rapidly oscillate from one extreme to the other. Some researchers suggest this mode may be associated with bipolar disorder and involve rapid changes from a manic phase to deep depression. Certainly this mode is not a healthy one and is representative of diminished control in the system.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #660000;">|| </span><b style="color: #660000;">Cool Fact:</b><span style="color: #660000;"> </span><i>The sympathetic and parasympathetic dominance of your ANS controls the operating modes of your three brains and influences the core competencies they evince.</i></blockquote>
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<b style="color: blue;">So the mode in which your brains function </b>is determined by the state of your ANS. For example, neuroscience research over the last decade has shown that the head brain's processing mode is influenced by sympathetic and parasympathetic dominance so that the left hemisphere is dominant when the nervous system is under parasympathetic control, and the right hemisphere is dominant when the sympathetic arm is in ascendance. And the two hemispheres, left and right, have very different ways of processing, thinking and responding to the world. When you shift dominance from one to the other you shift into a very different state of mind. Equally, the heart and gut brains respond and process very differently depending on ANS mode.<br />
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<b style="color: #20124d;">What you can learn from this</b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">What you need to know</b> is that Autonomic Mode is the controller of your state of being and the controller of the competencies and functions you are able to express. And the most generative and life enhancing mode is when the two arms of the ANS are in balance. There are simple and powerful techniques for bringing your ANS into balance, and that's what you'll learn in my new book '<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff</a>'. So if you haven't already, pop over to the <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3857256" target="_blank">CreateSpace eStore</a> (or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SU4LBE/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=mbraining-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B007SU4LBE&adid=1M7V72ZKQAJCYQ182977&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Frcm.amazon.com%2Fe%2Fcm%3Ft%3Dmbraining-20%26o%3D1%26p%3D8%26l%3Das1%26asins%3DB007SU4LBE%26ref%3Dtf_til%26fc1%3D000000%26IS2%3D1%26lt1%3D_blank%26m%3Damazon%26lc1%3D0000FF%26bc1%3D000000%26bg1%3DFFFFFF%26f%3Difr" target="_blank">Amazon for the ebook</a> version) and grab a copy.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aB_57Hwee1I/T7izNp4gv3I/AAAAAAAAAZw/JG7aJN5219c/s320/mBrainingFrontCoverSmall.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
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<i style="color: #351c75;">with life enhancing appreciation,<br />Grant</i>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-48193473555904948882012-05-09T19:57:00.000+10:002012-05-09T19:57:50.511+10:00mBraining - Digest this idea...<b style="color: blue;">Here's some interesting food for thought</b>... A fascinating TED talk '<i>How do we consume data?</i>' by technologist JP Rangaswami, who muses
on our relationship to information and offers a surprising and sharp
insight: <b style="color: #351c75;">we treat it like food</b>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/jp_rangaswami_information_is_food.html" target="_blank">Click here to view the vid on TED</a> </div>
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<b style="color: blue;">Now if you've read my and Marvin's new book</b>, '<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank"><i>mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff</i></a>', you'll know that our gut brain is deeply involved in assimilating knowledge and information. The following story explores the neuro-linguistics of this.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #351c75; text-align: left;">
<b>Knowing in your gut</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><b style="color: blue;">It is known</b> from ancient Chinese historical records that the great sage Li Shizhen, a famous physician from the Ming Dynasty, was a skilled medical practitioner with a great love for medical books. Now, it’s said that in his home town there was a rival physician who was both incompetent and ignorant, but who owned a huge collection of medical books he used to show off his supposed wealth of knowledge.</div>
<blockquote>
As the story goes… one day at the end of a long and wet rainy season, the rival doctor ordered his servants to lay out his collection of medical books in the courtyard to dry. Pacing back and forth in front of the collection he primped and preened in an all too obvious display of both himself and his knowledge. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Passing through the courtyard, Li Shizhen stopped, loosened his clothing and dropped down next to the books. The physician, seeing Li Shizhen laying with his belly exposed to the sun, rushed over and asked, “Hey, what are you doing there?” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Li Shizhen responded, “I also want to get some sunshine for my books.”</blockquote>
<blockquote>
His rival asked, “But where are your books then?” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Li patted his belly and said, “All my books are in here.”</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="color: blue;">Li Shizhen’s humorous yet insightful rejoinder</b> tells us a lot. It talks deeply about how true knowledge depends not on how many books you own, but on how much knowledge you have digested. Now isn’t that interesting…</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><b style="color: blue;">It is a common expression</b> to talk about ‘<i>digesting an idea</i>’. You often hear people say things like “I need to digest that fact,” “I can’t swallow that notion.” What’s that about? Why is knowledge and understanding linked linguistically and metaphorically to gustatory experience? What’s going on here? As you’ll see, these are not just figures of speech.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><b style="color: #351c75;">Deep insights from neuro-linguistics</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />In the early 1970’s, John Grinder and Richard Bandler based at the University of California, and drawing on work from a diverse range of fields including General Semantics, Transformational Grammar, Ericksonian Hypnosis and Systems Theory, created a powerful synthesis they called Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP for short. Using the methodology of Behavioral Modeling (more on this below), NLP developed models for human communication, learning and behavioral competence amongst others.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />Science Digest reported that NLP: “could be the most important synthesis of knowledge about human communication to emerge since the explosion of humanistic psychology… It may be the ultimate behavioral engineering tool.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />NLP provides a set of models, skills and techniques for thinking and acting effectively in the world, through which you can change, adopt or eliminate behaviors in yourself and others. Most importantly for us, one of the many principles that NLP provided is the insight that how people use language is a direct representation of what is happening in their neurology. As NLP points out, “very little of human communication is metaphorical, language is a literal description of deep unconscious process.” What this means is that we can listen to natural and common expressions and unpack the underlying neurological processing represented within.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />In terms of evidence for multiple intelligences outside of the head brain, common expressions such as:</div>
<ul>
<li>“Listen to your gut wisdom”</li>
<li>“Trust the intelligence of your heart”</li>
<li>“Follow your heart”</li>
<li>“Use your gut intuition”</li>
<li>“Trust your gut”</li>
<li>“Be true to your heart”</li>
<li>“My gut is telling me there’s something wrong”</li>
<li>“Deep in my heart I know”</li>
<li>“Go with your gut response”</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="color: blue;">These expressions all indicate</b> in their neuro-linguistics that intelligence, wisdom and intuition are occurring in the regions of the heart and gut. This is a powerful insight and backs up the message from ancient esoteric traditions.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><b style="color: #351c75;">Cognitive linguistics</b><br /> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="color: blue;">In 1980, at the University of California</b>, two young linguists published a book that rocked the field of linguistics to its core and created a whole new and exciting field called Cognitive Linguistics. In their book, ‘<i>Metaphors We Live By</i>’, Professor George Lakoff and Dr. Mark Johnson demonstrated that much of language and thought is grounded in metaphor and that metaphor and associated aspects of mind are embodied. What does this mean?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><b style="color: blue;">When Lakoff and Johnson</b> claim that mind and language is ‘<i>embodied</i>’ they are saying that human cognition depends on and deeply uses the sensorimotor system and emotions. An example might help explain this more simply. According to Lakoff a statement such as “She gave me a warm greeting” is based on an underlying conceptual metaphor that ‘<i>Affection is Warmth</i>’, and that this cognitive concept is embodied in an actual physical experience and a corresponding neural network mapping. We literally feel and experience affection as warmth. So the linguistic expressions we use to communicate and make sense of our world are representations of our ongoing unconscious experience of the world. As Lakoff puts it, “We are neural beings. Our brains take their input from the rest of our bodies. What our bodies are like and how they function in the world thus structures the very concepts we can use to think. We cannot think just anything — only what our embodied brains permit.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><i>[BTW: Notice the similarity here to the powerful ideas from NLP, cool hey, science meets the progeny of behavioral modeling.]</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><b style="color: blue;">Lakoff and Johnson’s insights</b> and theories were initially controversial and at first hotly debated throughout the halls of linguistic and psychological science. However, in the intervening period since 1980, and with the use of brain imaging tools, neural network simulations and other powerful technologies, the ideas from Cognitive Linguistics have been largely proven out. Metaphor and cognition really is embodied. And in the case of our example above, researchers at Yale University recently found that subjects holding a warm cup of coffee in advance were more likely to evaluate an imaginary individual as warm and friendly than those holding a cold drink. This of course is predicted by the conceptual metaphor that affection is warmth.<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="color: #351c75;">"Thought and language are largely metaphorical and embodied. Our language deeply represents underlying neural and behavioral processing."</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><b style="color: blue;">Ok, that’s interesting</b>, but really… so what? Well, here’s what’s really cool and useful about this: you can use what’s called ‘<i>linguistic corpus analysis</i>’ to unpack and infer the underlying neurological processes and competencies that are being referenced by the words people use. You can take common expressions and parlance, folk-wisdom if you will, and use it as a tool to guide behavioral modeling. And this is one of the many methodologies we’ve employed to create the new field of <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/mbit-info" target="_blank">mBIT</a> (multiple Brain Integration Techniques) and to discover what the core competencies of the gut and heart brains are. </div>
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<br /><b style="color: blue;">And linking all this back</b> to the TED talk above, you can see and hear the connection of how we process and consume knowledge -- we digest it, chew it over, use it as food for thought and learn by assimilating it into our core selves and our lives. When an idea doesn't sit right, we feel it in our gut. And this really is a deep and important insight.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #20124d; text-align: left;">
<i>with appreciation,</i></div>
<div style="color: #20124d; text-align: left;">
<i>Grant</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6601498033460501328.post-14374988869338663562012-05-05T17:24:00.003+10:002012-05-05T22:56:47.331+10:00Aligning your multiple brains - mBraining<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="color: #20124d;">
<i>"You have a brain in your head, heart and gut. Generative wisdom comes from aligning your multiple brains through their highest expressions."</i></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">As you know</b>, my colleague Marvin Oka and I recently launched a new book called '<a href="http://www.mbraining.com/" target="_blank">mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff</a>', and I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the print version of the book is now available at <b style="color: blue;">Amazon CreateSpace</b>: <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3857256" target="_blank">Get your copy here</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.createspace.com/3857256" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SKoF5BxCluc/T6TTd9SSCEI/AAAAAAAAAYo/e4o_V2p-Akg/s320/mBrainingFrontCoverSmall.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">I'd like to share</b> with you some of the key insights and findings from the book and from our last 2 years of behavioral modeling research on the multiple brains and how to align them and harness their intelligence, intuition and wisdom.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #351c75;">
<b>Aligning your multiple brains</b></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">We have three separate intelligences</b> operating in our bodies and these can end up in antagonism to each other, can have various patterns, habits and learned propensities, and can be aligned or not aligned. How our brains communicate and operate with each other is vital for success and happiness. It can be life denying when our brains fight each other or ignore each other and alternately, it is incredibly life enhancing when our multiple brains work harmoniously together to produce generative wisdom in our lives.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">So how do you know when your mBrains are NOT aligned?</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">In our action research</b> and behavioral modeling work we found that the following clues will often alert you when your brains are not aligned or integrated:<br />
<ul>
<li>You experience internal conflict within yourself between your thoughts, feelings and actions</li>
<li>You’ve not acted upon your dreams, goals and plans</li>
<li>You do unwanted behaviors or habits and don’t know why or have difficulty in stopping</li>
<li>You find it difficult to make a decision(s)</li>
<li>Something within you is making it difficult for you to motivate yourself to take action</li>
<li>You sabotage yourself from achieving your goals</li>
<li>You chronically experience disempowering emotional states such as frustration, depression, anger, anxiety, etc.</li>
<li>You suffer from chronic health issues, especially those to do with the heart or gut region </li>
</ul>
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<b style="color: blue;">So any time you find</b> elements of these experiences in your life or behavior, then it's time to reach for the <b>mBIT</b> (<b>m</b>ultiple <b>B</b>rain <b>I</b>ntegration <b>T</b>echniques) <b>Toolkit</b> and use the <b>mBIT</b> processes we've detailed in the <i>mBraining</i> book, to repattern how your brains are working together to support you and enhance your life.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">The mBIT Roadmap</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">One of the models we’ve developed </b>during our work is the <b>mBIT Roadmap</b>. It is an explicit framework that outlines a clear developmental path when working with your three brains to bring them into coherence and alignment and produce generative wisdom in your life.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Alignment and integration</b> of your multiple brains requires a number of steps and functions. To start with it needs communication between your three brains and this must be performed in an optimal sequence. The three brains need to then be brought into congruence and this is done through what we call the ‘<i>Highest Expression</i>’ of each of your brains’ prime functions i.e. through Compassion, Creativity and Courage. All of this needs to be facilitated within a framework of wisdom, and there are specific steps and techniques to do this.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Communication</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Assuming you have recognized the need and value</b> of aligning and integrating your three brains, the first step is to establish communication with your brains and facilitate communication between each of the brains. Remember, each brain speaks to you in different languages and in different ways as related to their prime functions. In order to facilitate communication with and between each of the brains, you’ll need to develop the skills detailed in the <i>mBraining</i> book and that I'll introduce you to over upcoming blog posts.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Congruence</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">This is about alignment</b> between the brains. The flip side of this is to eliminate any conflict between the brains, and ensure they are in agreement and supporting each other in their functions toward a common agreed outcome. In order to facilitate this, you will need to work with <b>NIE’s</b> (Neural Integrative Engagements) and <b>NIB’s </b>(Neural Integration Blocks) — more about this in the book and in upcoming blog posts.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Highest Expression</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">Now</b> that all of the brains are in alignment from the Congruence stage, you want to ensure each neural network is functioning in its most optimized state. We call this optimized state the ‘<i>Highest Expression</i>’ of each brain’s intelligence. Note that there isn’t a single, definitive Highest Expression for each brain that is universally true for everyone in all contexts. However, we have found that the following generative set serves as a powerful foundation from which you can start to explore, apply and work with the majority of life issues.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The Highest Expressions</b> of the three brains are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Head brain – Creativity</li>
<li>Heart brain – Compassion</li>
<li>Enteric brain – Courage</li>
</ul>
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<b>Wisdom</b></div>
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<b style="color: blue;">This is the payoff </b>for working with your three brains to get them aligned and integrated. This stage is about the practical applications of <b>mBIT</b> to the issue(s) you are working on. Wisdom is not a specific thing but rather an emergent quality that is the result of harnessing the perspectives and insights from all of your brains when they are functioning at their Highest Expressions of intelligence.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">The wisdom that emerges</b> from aligning and integrating your three brains is now applied to your issue(s) in areas such as decision-making, action-taking, problem-solving, harnessing your intuition, reflection and learning, etc. Remember that a major contributor to the emergence of wisdom at this level is not simply due to the Highest Expressions, but comes from aligning and integrating your brains in an optimally effective sequence which we have called the <b>mBIT Foundational Sequence </b>and I'll describe that in a later blog, or you can check it out and learn about it in your copy of the book.<br />
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<b style="color: #351c75;">Wrapping it up</b><br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So in summary</b>, the <b>mBIT Roadmap</b> is a simple yet powerful framework for aligning and integrating your three brains. It enables you to quickly harness their intelligence for wiser and authentic living at your highest level of being.<br />
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The <b>mBIT Roadmap</b> provides a structure for the process of:<br />
<ol>
<li>Establishing communication with your three brains</li>
<li>Aligning them so each is fulfilling its prime functions congruently as appropriate to the task-at-hand</li>
<li>Ensuring each is operating from its Highest Expression, and </li>
<li>Applying those Highest Expressions for greater wisdom in decision-making and action-taking</li>
</ol>
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<b style="color: blue;">I hope you've found this as fascinating</b> and intriguing as we have as we were discovering and researching it. Once you know how to, and are skilled in, aligning your multiple brains, life really starts to flow more easily and things that were previously difficult become so much easier. You are no longer fighting yourself or undermining your deep intuitive intelligence. You open up to the inherent wisdom of your deep inner self and become one with your core values and core authentic self. You also open up new possibilities in how you are creating and authoring your life. And that is truly life enhancing.<br />
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<b style="color: blue;">So do yourself a favor</b>, and if you haven't already, pop over to our <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3857256" target="_blank">CreateSpace eStore</a> for a physical copy of the book, or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SU4LBE/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=mbraining-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B007SU4LBE&adid=1M7V72ZKQAJCYQ182977&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Frcm.amazon.com%2Fe%2Fcm%3Ft%3Dmbraining-20%26o%3D1%26p%3D8%26l%3Das1%26asins%3DB007SU4LBE%26ref%3Dtf_til%26fc1%3D000000%26IS2%3D1%26lt1%3D_blank%26m%3Damazon%26lc1%3D0000FF%26bc1%3D000000%26bg1%3DFFFFFF%26f%3Difr" target="_blank">Amazon.com</a> for a copy of the kindle ebook (and you can read it on the iPad too with the free kindle reader app). And check out our website: <a href="http://www.mbraining.com/">http://www.mbraining.com</a> for more info on our fascinating work on <b>mBIT</b> and <b><i>mBraining</i></b>.<br />
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<i>smiles and appreciation,</i></div>
<div style="color: #20124d;">
<i>Grant</i></div>
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<br />Grant Soosaluhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926109399246162045noreply@blogger.com0