What is happiness? How does one get a grip on this most elusive, intractable and perhaps unanswerable of questions?
I teach philosophy for a living, so let me begin with a philosophical answer. For the philosophers of Antiquity, notably Aristotle, it was assumed that the goal of the philosophical life — the good life, moreover — was happiness and that the latter could be defined as the bios theoretikos, the solitary life of contemplation. Today, few people would seem to subscribe to this view. Our lives are filled with the endless distractions of cell phones, car alarms, commuter woes and the traffic in Bangalore. The rhythm of modern life is punctuated by beeps, bleeps and a generalized attention deficit disorder.
But is the idea of happiness as an experience of contemplation really so ridiculous? Might there not be something in it? I am reminded of the following extraordinary passage from Rousseau’s final book and his third (count them — he still beats Obama 3-to-2) autobiography, “Reveries of a Solitary Walker”:
If there is a state where the soul can find a resting-place secure enough to establish itself and concentrate its entire being there, with no need to remember the past or reach into the future, where time is nothing to it, where the present runs on indefinitely but this duration goes unnoticed, with no sign of the passing of time, and no other feeling of deprivation or enjoyment, pleasure or pain, desire or fear than the simple feeling of existence, a feeling that fills our soul entirely, as long as this state lasts, we can call ourselves happy, not with a poor, incomplete and relative happiness such as we find in the pleasures of life, but with a sufficient, complete and perfect happiness which leaves no emptiness to be filled in the soul. (emphases mine)
This is as close to a description of happiness as I can imagine. Rousseau is describing the experience of floating in a little rowing boat on the Lake of Bienne close to Neuchâtel in his native Switzerland. He particularly loved visiting the Île Saint Pierre, where he used to enjoy going for exploratory walks when the weather was fine and he could indulge in the great passion of his last years: botany. He would walk with a copy of Linneaus under his arm, happily identifying plants in areas of the deserted island that he had divided for this purpose into small squares.
On the way to the island, he would pull in the oars and just let the boat drift where it wished, for hours at a time. Rousseau would lie down in the boat and plunge into a deep reverie. How does one describe the experience of reverie: one is awake, but half asleep, thinking, but not in an instrumental, calculative or ordered way, simply letting the thoughts happen, as they will.
Happiness is not quantitative or measurable and it is not the object of any science, old or new. It cannot be gleaned from empirical surveys or programmed into individuals through a combination of behavioral therapy and anti-depressants. If it consists in anything, then I think that happiness is this feeling of existence, this sentiment of momentary self-sufficiency that is bound up with the experience of time
Look at what Rousseau writes above: floating in a boat in fine weather, lying down with one’s eyes open to the clouds and birds or closed in reverie, one feels neither the pull of the past nor does one reach into the future. Time is nothing, or rather time is nothing but the experience of the present through which one passes without hurry, but without regret. As Wittgenstein writes in what must be the most intriguing remark in the “Tractatus,” “the eternal life is given to those who live in the present.” Or ,as Whitman writes in “Leaves of Grass”: “Happiness is not in another place, but in this place…not for another hour…but this hour.”
Rousseau asks, “What is the source of our happiness in such a state?” He answers that it is nothing external to us and nothing apart from our own existence. However frenetic our environment, such a feeling of existence can be achieved. He then goes on, amazingly, to conclude, “as long as this state lasts we are self-sufficient like God.”
God-like, then. To which one might reply: Who? Me? Us? Like God? Dare we? But think about it: If anyone is happy, then one imagines that God is pretty happy, and to be happy is to be like God. But consider what this means, for it might not be as ludicrous, hybristic or heretical as one might imagine. To be like God is to be without time, or rather in time with no concern for time, free of the passions and troubles of the soul, experiencing something like calm in the face of things and of oneself.
Why should happiness be bound up with the presence and movement of water? This is the case for Rousseau and I must confess that if I think back over those experiences of blissful reverie that are close to what Rousseau is describing then it is often in proximity to water, although usually saltwater rather than fresh. For me, it is not so much the stillness of a lake (I tend to see lakes as decaffeinated seas), but rather the never-ending drone of the surf, sitting by the sea in fair weather or foul and feeling time disappear into tide, into the endless pendulum of the tidal range. At moments like this, one can sink into deep reverie, a motionlessness that is not sleep, but where one is somehow held by the sound of the surf, lulled by the tidal movement.
Is all happiness solitary? Of course not. But one can be happy alone and this might even be the key to being happy with others. Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud when walking with his sister. However, I think that one can also experience this feeling of existence in the experience of love, in being intimate with one’s lover, feeling the world close around one and time slips away in its passing. Rousseau’s rowing boat becomes the lovers’ bed and one bids the world farewell as one slides into the shared selfishness of intimacy.
…And then it is over. Time passes, the reverie ends and the feeling for existence fades. The cell phone rings, the e-mail beeps and one is sucked back into the world’s relentless hum and our accompanying anxiety.
Simon Critchley is chair of philosophy at the New School for Social Research and the author of several books, including his most recent, “The Book of Dead Philosophers
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
pm What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous By Daniel Gilbert
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Seventy-six years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took to the inaugural dais and reminded a nation that its recent troubles “concern, thank God, only material things.” In the midst of the Depression, he urged Americans to remember that “happiness lies not in the mere possession of money” and to recognize “the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success.”
“The only thing we have to fear,” he claimed, “is fear itself.”
As it turned out, Americans had a great deal more to fear than that, and their innocent belief that money buys happiness was entirely correct. Psychologists and economists now know that although the very rich are no happier than the merely rich, for the other 99 percent of us, happiness is greatly enhanced by a few quaint assets, like shelter, sustenance and security. Those who think the material is immaterial have probably never stood in a breadline.
Money matters and today most of us have less of it, so no one will be surprised by new survey results from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index showing that Americans are smiling less and worrying more than they were a year ago, that happiness is down and sadness is up, that we are getting less sleep and smoking more cigarettes, that depression is on the rise.
An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.
But light wallets are not the cause of our heavy hearts. After all, most of us still have more inflation-adjusted dollars than our grandparents had, and they didn’t live in an unremitting funk. Middle-class Americans still enjoy more luxury than upper-class Americans enjoyed a century earlier, and the fin de siècle was not an especially gloomy time. Clearly, people can be perfectly happy with less than we had last year and less than we have now.
So if a dearth of dollars isn’t making us miserable, then what is? No one knows. I don’t mean that no one knows the answer to this question. I mean that the answer to this question is that no one knows — and not knowing is making us sick.
Consider an experiment by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who gave subjects a series of 20 electric shocks. Some subjects knew they would receive an intense shock on every trial. Others knew they would receive 17 mild shocks and 3 intense shocks, but they didn’t know on which of the 20 trials the intense shocks would come. The results showed that subjects who thought there was a small chance of receiving an intense shock were more afraid — they sweated more profusely, their hearts beat faster — than subjects who knew for sure that they’d receive an intense shock.
That’s because people feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur. Most of us aren’t losing sleep and sucking down Marlboros because the Dow is going to fall another thousand points, but because we don’t know whether it will fall or not — and human beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they’re uncertain about.
But why?
A colostomy reroutes the colon so that waste products leave the body through a hole in the abdomen, and it isn’t anyone’s idea of a picnic. A University of Michigan-led research team studied patients whose colostomies were permanent and patients who had a chance of someday having their colostomies reversed. Six months after their operations, patients who knew they would be permanently disabled were happier than those who thought they might someday be returned to normal.
Similarly, researchers at the University of British Columbia studied people who had undergone genetic testing to determine their risk for developing the neurodegenerative disorder known as Huntington’s disease. Those who learned that they had a very high likelihood of developing the condition were happier a year after testing than those who did not learn what their risk was.
Why would we prefer to know the worst than to suspect it? Because when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our attitudes. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.
Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty. Americans have been perfectly happy with far less wealth than most of us have now, and we could quickly become those Americans again — if only we knew we had to.
“The only thing we have to fear,” he claimed, “is fear itself.”
As it turned out, Americans had a great deal more to fear than that, and their innocent belief that money buys happiness was entirely correct. Psychologists and economists now know that although the very rich are no happier than the merely rich, for the other 99 percent of us, happiness is greatly enhanced by a few quaint assets, like shelter, sustenance and security. Those who think the material is immaterial have probably never stood in a breadline.
Money matters and today most of us have less of it, so no one will be surprised by new survey results from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index showing that Americans are smiling less and worrying more than they were a year ago, that happiness is down and sadness is up, that we are getting less sleep and smoking more cigarettes, that depression is on the rise.
An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.
But light wallets are not the cause of our heavy hearts. After all, most of us still have more inflation-adjusted dollars than our grandparents had, and they didn’t live in an unremitting funk. Middle-class Americans still enjoy more luxury than upper-class Americans enjoyed a century earlier, and the fin de siècle was not an especially gloomy time. Clearly, people can be perfectly happy with less than we had last year and less than we have now.
So if a dearth of dollars isn’t making us miserable, then what is? No one knows. I don’t mean that no one knows the answer to this question. I mean that the answer to this question is that no one knows — and not knowing is making us sick.
Consider an experiment by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who gave subjects a series of 20 electric shocks. Some subjects knew they would receive an intense shock on every trial. Others knew they would receive 17 mild shocks and 3 intense shocks, but they didn’t know on which of the 20 trials the intense shocks would come. The results showed that subjects who thought there was a small chance of receiving an intense shock were more afraid — they sweated more profusely, their hearts beat faster — than subjects who knew for sure that they’d receive an intense shock.
That’s because people feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur. Most of us aren’t losing sleep and sucking down Marlboros because the Dow is going to fall another thousand points, but because we don’t know whether it will fall or not — and human beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they’re uncertain about.
But why?
A colostomy reroutes the colon so that waste products leave the body through a hole in the abdomen, and it isn’t anyone’s idea of a picnic. A University of Michigan-led research team studied patients whose colostomies were permanent and patients who had a chance of someday having their colostomies reversed. Six months after their operations, patients who knew they would be permanently disabled were happier than those who thought they might someday be returned to normal.
Similarly, researchers at the University of British Columbia studied people who had undergone genetic testing to determine their risk for developing the neurodegenerative disorder known as Huntington’s disease. Those who learned that they had a very high likelihood of developing the condition were happier a year after testing than those who did not learn what their risk was.
Why would we prefer to know the worst than to suspect it? Because when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our attitudes. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.
Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty. Americans have been perfectly happy with far less wealth than most of us have now, and we could quickly become those Americans again — if only we knew we had to.
The Limits of Control
By Leonard Mlodinow
My mother had always feared domestic animals, but now as a plump neighborhood cat ran up our driveway, she gazed at the feline, and revealed that 70 years ago she had had a pet cat. Her 87-year-old eyes teared up. Her cat was white, she said, and so thin you could see its ribs. Still, she loved to cuddle it. It wasn’t a house cat – it couldn’t have been, because she was imprisoned at the time, in a forced-labor camp the Nazis set up in Poland, the country where my mother was born and raised. Back then she was as emaciated as the cat, but still she shared her food with it. It gave her comfort she said, and it was a way of fighting back, to help this animal that, like her, the Germans planned to let die.
The need for control can inspire great achievements, such as dams, medicines and chocolate soufflés, but it can also lead to sub-optimal behavior
The psychologist Bruno Bettelheim concluded that survival in Nazi concentration camps depended on “one’s ability to arrange to preserve some areas of independent action, to keep control of some important aspects of one’s life despite an environment that seemed overwhelming.” Studies suggest that, even in normal conditions, to be happy, humans must feel in control. We are currently confronting economic hardship that, though a far cry from the horrors of World War II, has eroded the feeling of self-determination for many of us.
Eliminate control, and people experience depression, stress and the onset of disease. In a study of elderly nursing home patients[1] , one group was told they could decide how their room would be arranged, and could choose a plant to care for. Another group had their rooms set up for them and a plant chosen and tended to for them. Eighteen months later 15 percent of the patients in the group given control had died, compared with 30 percent in the passive group.
The need for control can inspire great achievements, such as dams that prevent flooding, medicines to ease our lives, and perfectly confected chocolate soufflés. But it can also lead to sub-optimal behavior. Though people generally view “control freaks” in a negative light, that need makes us all vulnerable to making bad decisions – especially when it comes to money. Studies show that people feel more confident they’ll win at dice if they toss the dice themselves than if others toss them [2], and that they are likely to bet more money if they make their wager before the dice are tossed than afterward (where the outcome has been concealed)[3]. They’ll value a lottery ticket more if they can choose it than if it is given to them at random[4]. And in a well-known 1975 study in which Yale University students were asked to predict the results of coin tosses, a significant number of presumably intelligent Yalies believed their performance could improve through practice, and would have been hampered if they’d been distracted.[5] In each of these situations, the subjects knew that the enterprises in which they were engaged were unpredictable and beyond their control. When questioned, for example, none of the lottery players said they believed that being allowed to choose their card influenced their probability of winning. Yet on a deep, subconscious level they must have felt it did, because they behaved as if it did.
That people are prone toward feeling in control even when they are not probably endowed our species with an advantage at some point in our evolution. Even today, a false sense of control can be beneficial in promoting a sense of well-being, or allowing us to maintain hope that a bad situation can improved.
My mother’s illusion came to an end when, one day, her labor camp cat stopped coming. She never learned exactly what happened to it. Unfortunately, that became a template for nameless outcomes by which her sister, her father, and most of her friends disappeared. Of her many illusions of youth that the Nazis snuffed out, the feeling that she could control her destiny was one of the most difficult to accept. But for my mother, and for all those who lived through similar experiences, surviving meant not only possessing a special toughness of body, but also of mind. She found a way to face the world without the illusion of control, of dealing with life as it comes, day to day, without expectation.
On a far different scale, we face losses today. To economists our plight is a “severe downturn,” but to me it feels like a roller coaster ride in which I discover, first, that I have no seat belt, and then, that the concession operator is Norman Bates. Given my jitters, it is a comfort to know that my mother survived a far worse experience and yet maintained the capacity to be happy when, for instance, her grandchildren hug her, or she discovers a tasty new sugar-free dessert. But more important is what I’ve learned from the fact that the current events don’t seem to bother her.
It’s not that my mother hasn’t lost money, or that she doesn’t need it. She isn’t bothered because her early experiences of utter powerlessness taught her to give herself up to what she calls fate. Understanding my own need for control – and exactly why I cannot have it – I now take comfort in letting go of the illusion, and accepting that despite all my efforts and planning some aspects of my future are beyond my sphere of influence. That realization has given me permission not to kick myself for the losses I have incurred. That can be a liberating thought in trying times like these, or any times at all.
For the curious reader, here are the studies referred to above:
[1] Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin (1977). Long-Term Effects of a Control-Relevant Intervention With the Instituitonalized Aged. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, 12, 897-902)
[2] Dunn, D. S., & Wilson, T. D. (1990). When the stakes are high: A limit to the illusion of control effect. Social Cognition, 8, 305–323
[3] L.H. Strickland, R.J. Lewicki, and A.M. Katz (1966). Temporal orientation and perceived control as determinants of risk-taking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 143-151.
[4]Ellen J. Langer (1975),The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32, 2, 311-328.
[5] Langer, E. J. & Roth, J. (1975). Heads I win, tails it’s chance: The illusion of control as a function of the sequence of outcomes in a purely chance task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, 191-198
Leonard Mlodinow teaches randomness to future experimenters at Caltech. His books include “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives” and “Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace.” More of his writing and information about his work can be found at his Web site.
My mother had always feared domestic animals, but now as a plump neighborhood cat ran up our driveway, she gazed at the feline, and revealed that 70 years ago she had had a pet cat. Her 87-year-old eyes teared up. Her cat was white, she said, and so thin you could see its ribs. Still, she loved to cuddle it. It wasn’t a house cat – it couldn’t have been, because she was imprisoned at the time, in a forced-labor camp the Nazis set up in Poland, the country where my mother was born and raised. Back then she was as emaciated as the cat, but still she shared her food with it. It gave her comfort she said, and it was a way of fighting back, to help this animal that, like her, the Germans planned to let die.
The need for control can inspire great achievements, such as dams, medicines and chocolate soufflés, but it can also lead to sub-optimal behavior
The psychologist Bruno Bettelheim concluded that survival in Nazi concentration camps depended on “one’s ability to arrange to preserve some areas of independent action, to keep control of some important aspects of one’s life despite an environment that seemed overwhelming.” Studies suggest that, even in normal conditions, to be happy, humans must feel in control. We are currently confronting economic hardship that, though a far cry from the horrors of World War II, has eroded the feeling of self-determination for many of us.
Eliminate control, and people experience depression, stress and the onset of disease. In a study of elderly nursing home patients[1] , one group was told they could decide how their room would be arranged, and could choose a plant to care for. Another group had their rooms set up for them and a plant chosen and tended to for them. Eighteen months later 15 percent of the patients in the group given control had died, compared with 30 percent in the passive group.
The need for control can inspire great achievements, such as dams that prevent flooding, medicines to ease our lives, and perfectly confected chocolate soufflés. But it can also lead to sub-optimal behavior. Though people generally view “control freaks” in a negative light, that need makes us all vulnerable to making bad decisions – especially when it comes to money. Studies show that people feel more confident they’ll win at dice if they toss the dice themselves than if others toss them [2], and that they are likely to bet more money if they make their wager before the dice are tossed than afterward (where the outcome has been concealed)[3]. They’ll value a lottery ticket more if they can choose it than if it is given to them at random[4]. And in a well-known 1975 study in which Yale University students were asked to predict the results of coin tosses, a significant number of presumably intelligent Yalies believed their performance could improve through practice, and would have been hampered if they’d been distracted.[5] In each of these situations, the subjects knew that the enterprises in which they were engaged were unpredictable and beyond their control. When questioned, for example, none of the lottery players said they believed that being allowed to choose their card influenced their probability of winning. Yet on a deep, subconscious level they must have felt it did, because they behaved as if it did.
That people are prone toward feeling in control even when they are not probably endowed our species with an advantage at some point in our evolution. Even today, a false sense of control can be beneficial in promoting a sense of well-being, or allowing us to maintain hope that a bad situation can improved.
My mother’s illusion came to an end when, one day, her labor camp cat stopped coming. She never learned exactly what happened to it. Unfortunately, that became a template for nameless outcomes by which her sister, her father, and most of her friends disappeared. Of her many illusions of youth that the Nazis snuffed out, the feeling that she could control her destiny was one of the most difficult to accept. But for my mother, and for all those who lived through similar experiences, surviving meant not only possessing a special toughness of body, but also of mind. She found a way to face the world without the illusion of control, of dealing with life as it comes, day to day, without expectation.
On a far different scale, we face losses today. To economists our plight is a “severe downturn,” but to me it feels like a roller coaster ride in which I discover, first, that I have no seat belt, and then, that the concession operator is Norman Bates. Given my jitters, it is a comfort to know that my mother survived a far worse experience and yet maintained the capacity to be happy when, for instance, her grandchildren hug her, or she discovers a tasty new sugar-free dessert. But more important is what I’ve learned from the fact that the current events don’t seem to bother her.
It’s not that my mother hasn’t lost money, or that she doesn’t need it. She isn’t bothered because her early experiences of utter powerlessness taught her to give herself up to what she calls fate. Understanding my own need for control – and exactly why I cannot have it – I now take comfort in letting go of the illusion, and accepting that despite all my efforts and planning some aspects of my future are beyond my sphere of influence. That realization has given me permission not to kick myself for the losses I have incurred. That can be a liberating thought in trying times like these, or any times at all.
For the curious reader, here are the studies referred to above:
[1] Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin (1977). Long-Term Effects of a Control-Relevant Intervention With the Instituitonalized Aged. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, 12, 897-902)
[2] Dunn, D. S., & Wilson, T. D. (1990). When the stakes are high: A limit to the illusion of control effect. Social Cognition, 8, 305–323
[3] L.H. Strickland, R.J. Lewicki, and A.M. Katz (1966). Temporal orientation and perceived control as determinants of risk-taking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 143-151.
[4]Ellen J. Langer (1975),The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32, 2, 311-328.
[5] Langer, E. J. & Roth, J. (1975). Heads I win, tails it’s chance: The illusion of control as a function of the sequence of outcomes in a purely chance task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, 191-198
Leonard Mlodinow teaches randomness to future experimenters at Caltech. His books include “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives” and “Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace.” More of his writing and information about his work can be found at his Web site.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Feeling Depressed.....go fly a kite!!
Did you know that it is physiologically impossible for depressed people to fly kites?
I just watched a video by a psychologist and therapist Dr. Lynn Ianni where she says that it is almost impossible for us to look up and feel depressed at the same time.
Kite flying gets you out doors and forces you to LOOK UP. Depressed people find it hard to look up and therefore find it hard to fly kites!
Could kite flying be used to alleviate sadness?
Ever notice how depressed people walk? Their eyes are cast down, shoulders slouched and movement slow and weak. Whereas when you fly kites you have to look up, run after the kite and pull and tug at the string with the right amount of pressure and awareness. The body language of a kite flyer is exactly the opposite of a depressed person.
Often we hear the term- “Mind over Matter” implying our minds control over our body and its actions. Could our bodies be used in such a way that it could control our mind?
Our brain does not know the difference between real or fake movement. When we fake a smile, the same hormones are released that would be released when we genuinely smile, similarly when we look up, the brain understands it to be a positive movement and all the feelings associated with positivity can be felt in our body. You cannot be sad and depressed and run around and fly kites at the same time.
So the next time you are feeling down and depressed, go buy yourself a kite, find a friend or bribe a neighbors child to go kite flying with you. Go alone if you have to.
If all fails…just imagine a beautiful bright kite flying in the air and going up, above the tallest trees, reaching for the stars. Close your eyes and visualize it in the finest detail. The colour, the shape , the material, the touch. Go into as much detail as you can and now let your kite fly soaring as high as it can. Now imagine yourself chasing it, saving it from other predatory kites and sharp surfaces.
Open your eyes and try and look for that imaginary kite. Look up in the sky and am sure you will find something to smile about.
Luv/luck/happiness
I just watched a video by a psychologist and therapist Dr. Lynn Ianni where she says that it is almost impossible for us to look up and feel depressed at the same time.
Kite flying gets you out doors and forces you to LOOK UP. Depressed people find it hard to look up and therefore find it hard to fly kites!
Could kite flying be used to alleviate sadness?
Ever notice how depressed people walk? Their eyes are cast down, shoulders slouched and movement slow and weak. Whereas when you fly kites you have to look up, run after the kite and pull and tug at the string with the right amount of pressure and awareness. The body language of a kite flyer is exactly the opposite of a depressed person.
Often we hear the term- “Mind over Matter” implying our minds control over our body and its actions. Could our bodies be used in such a way that it could control our mind?
Our brain does not know the difference between real or fake movement. When we fake a smile, the same hormones are released that would be released when we genuinely smile, similarly when we look up, the brain understands it to be a positive movement and all the feelings associated with positivity can be felt in our body. You cannot be sad and depressed and run around and fly kites at the same time.
So the next time you are feeling down and depressed, go buy yourself a kite, find a friend or bribe a neighbors child to go kite flying with you. Go alone if you have to.
If all fails…just imagine a beautiful bright kite flying in the air and going up, above the tallest trees, reaching for the stars. Close your eyes and visualize it in the finest detail. The colour, the shape , the material, the touch. Go into as much detail as you can and now let your kite fly soaring as high as it can. Now imagine yourself chasing it, saving it from other predatory kites and sharp surfaces.
Open your eyes and try and look for that imaginary kite. Look up in the sky and am sure you will find something to smile about.
Luv/luck/happiness
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Law of Attraction for Money: Five Simple Ways to Trick Your Mind Into Attracting Wealth By Andreas Ohrt
Learning how to use mind power, and learning specifically how to use mind power to attract wealth and abundance, has been a major focus for most of my life. Along the way, I've learned that using mind power works most effectively when it is done with ease and grace. You don't have to struggle to get exactly what you want in life. In fact, whenever you struggle, you push away that which you most desire.
Using mind power to change your life is more like a magic trick than anything else. You simply trick your mind into believing that you have what you want, and then your life miraculously changes to reflect your new belief. And just like a magic trick, it seems impossible until you learn the trick, and then you realize it is actually very simple.
Yes, I said very simple. The five steps which follow are designed for the complete beginner. You can start today, right now, to attract more prosperity in your life. Here are five ways to start immediately.
FIVE SIMPLE WAYS TO TRICK YOUR MIND INTO ATTRACTING WEALTH
1. Show gratitude for any money which enters your life . In order to attract money into your life, you must show gratitude for the money which is already in your life. Instead of bemoaning how little money you have, bask in gratitude at the many ways in which you are rich already. For example, if you earn more than $2,182 a year, you have more wealth than 85 per cent of the people on earth. And if you earn over $25,400 per year, you are in the top 10 per cent of wealthy people on this planet. When you focus on what you have rather than what you want, you realize that you ARE already rich. Give thanks often for all the riches in your life.
How to use this principle today: The next time money enters your life, from any source whatsoever, instead of barely noticing what has happened and mentally beginning to spend it, use a few moments of time to give thanks to the universe for bringing this money into your life. Every time you receive a paycheck, every time someone gives you money for any reason, every time you find money, or get a great deal, or save money in some way, stop and appreciate the fact that money is flowing into your life. Doing this every time money comes to you will attract more and more money into your life.
2. Act as if you are rich. This is the fundamental truth of all mind power work, that you must act as if what you want is already yours. So act as if you already have the money you wish to have. Ask yourself, if I was already rich, what would I do, how would I act, how would I feel, and then do, act, and feel in those ways.
Of course, you don't need to quit your job and move to the South Pacific like you would if you suddenly won the lottery, but you start small and with each success you build your way to greater and greater wealth. Eat a little bit better, dress a little bit nicer, go on slightly higher-end vacations, take a cab instead of the bus now and then, take that course you think you can't afford, or do anything at all that you wish to do but believe you can't because of a lack of money.
And when you do these things, bask in joy at your inner state of wealth, and know that this state will be reflected in your outer world. You'll be amazed at how life provides for the things which bring you joy.
How to use this principle today: The next time you are about to buy something, anything at all, purchase an item that is of slightly higher quality and price than you would usually buy. Even if something only costs a few dollars more than what is usual for you to spend, buy that item and thank the universe for providing for your new expanding lifestyle.
Even though it is a tiny step, you are beginning to teach your mind that you are expanding your limitations, and as you practice this you will begin to purchase more of the things you want in your life and the money will come to you to pay for them.
3. Find a penny, pick it up. In order to attract wealth into your life, your subsconscious mind must be open to the idea of wealth flowing to you. You must be open and receptive to money coming to you from any source whatsoever. This includes the pennies laying on the street. If you pass a penny on the sidewalk, and your usual reaction is simply to ignore it because stooping down to pick up a penny is not worth the effort, you are telling your subconscious mind that you are not willing to put out effort for money. The amount of money makes no difference whatsoever. The subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between one penny and one million dollars. All it knows is how you feel.
Of course this manifests in many other ways as well. Whenever you do not accept a gift graciously, whenever you do not charge someone for work that you have done for them, or charge them way less than you should because you feel guilty, and whenever you sell a product for less than it is worth because you do not want to charge too much, you are generating the same emotions. So begin to be open to money, in whatever form, and begin to accept it's flow into your life, even if it's only a penny on the street.
How to use this principle today: Simply go for a walk today and look for money. You are sure to find at least a penny somewhere. Pick it up and thank the universe for bringing money into your life. Let your subconscious mind know that you are open and willing to accept money from any source.
As well, apply this principle in your working life. If you have been undercharging for your services, raise your prices. If you are not earning what you feel you should, ask for a raise. And whenever anyone gives you anything, especially money, accept it graciously and give thanks.
4. Be open to money-making opportunities. One thing that all self-made millionaires agree on is that there are opportunities everywhere, if we are just open to seeing them. You can prove this for yourself by looking at your own life. There are probably many times in your past which you think back to and wonder what might have happened if you had taken an opportunity at just the right time. Whether it's obvious things like career opportunities you let slip by, investment opportunities you didn't belive in, or less obvious opportunities like an idea you once had that is now making someone else rich, or an industry you could have joined before it became saturated.
If you are like most people, when you think of your past opportunities, you believe that you once had a chance but that opportunity is now gone. The difference between rich and poor people is that rich people realize that new opportunities are always all around us, all the time. You simply need to keep a look out for the opportunities, keep and open mind, and be prepared to take advantage when the opportunity arrives.
I'm sure you've heard the old adage that luck occurs when opportunity meets preparation. Well, it couldn't be more true. If you expect to find money-making opportunities in your life, and you prepare to take advantage of them when they come, you will be blessed with more incredible luck than you have ever experienced.
How to use this principle today: Get out a little notebook and write down all the money-making ideas you can think of. It doesn't matter how stupid or outrageous the idea might seem, write it down anyway.
This does two things. First, you realize that there are plenty of money-making opportunities around you right now, as there always have been and always will be. Secondly, this exercise will stimulate your mind to see money-making opportunities where it might have ignored them in the past, and will help you practice to see opportunities in the future.
If you keep adding ideas to your notebook consistently, one day you will see an incredibly opportunity on your list which is perfect for you. Then go for it!
5. Do something that makes you feel good. This has got to be the easiest money-making advice I could ever give. Do something that makes you feel good. When you feel good, your energy rises, and when your energy rises, it attracts more of the things into your life which make you feel good.
Could life be any easier? Not really, but we are so caught up in the backwards thinking of everyone around us that we miss the obvious flow of energy. All you really need to attract more of the good things in your life, including more money, is to generate positive energy into the world. The states of happiness and joy literally rearrange the atoms of your world to bring you more happiness and joy. Of course, the reverse is true as well. So avoid fear, anger, depression, and spend your time feeling good about yourself and your life.
If this is difficult for you, just practice. Begin with some small thing which brings you happiness. It could be as simple as watching a sunset, renting your favorite movie of all time, taking someone you love out for dessert, or anything at all.
The secret is to do these things whole-heartedly, with all your attention focussed on the happiness vibrating from your soul out into the world. This simple act will bring you rich rewards.
How to use this principle today: Don't just read this article and think "that sounds good" and then go back to your life. Pick something to do which will bring you happiness and do it today. It doesn't matter what it is or how small it seems. In fact, you don't have to do anything at all. All that is important is feeling the positive emotions of happiness and joy emanating from your soul.
One simple way to generate positive emotion is to feel gratitude for something in your life. Just pick something in your life for which you are very grateful, and vibrate your gratitude towards it.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE IF YOU START NOW That should get you started. Five extremely simple actions you can take to begin to expand the prosperity you experience in your life. But don't stop there. Never let fear or doubt enter your mind. There is nothing you need in order to succeed except the power of your own mind.
If you worry that you are not smart enough, not connected enough, not talented enough, not young enough or not old enough, you are simply creating limiting beliefs which will manifest in the outside world. All you really need to know is that the outside world is a reflection of the state of your inner mind. Know that you can make every day from this day forward a little more joyful and a little more abundant and then watch your life begin to change.
It's an easy and gentle process, much like letting a plant grow. One day you will suddenly realize that all of your good thoughts have grown into the beautiful fruits of a happy and successful life.
Andreas Ohrt is the author of "Money Making Secrets of Mind Power Masters." Learn the secrets of the world's most spiritual multi-millionaires at http://www.SecretMindPower.com
Another great resource about Law of Attraction: www.law-of-attraction-info.com
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.
Using mind power to change your life is more like a magic trick than anything else. You simply trick your mind into believing that you have what you want, and then your life miraculously changes to reflect your new belief. And just like a magic trick, it seems impossible until you learn the trick, and then you realize it is actually very simple.
Yes, I said very simple. The five steps which follow are designed for the complete beginner. You can start today, right now, to attract more prosperity in your life. Here are five ways to start immediately.
FIVE SIMPLE WAYS TO TRICK YOUR MIND INTO ATTRACTING WEALTH
1. Show gratitude for any money which enters your life . In order to attract money into your life, you must show gratitude for the money which is already in your life. Instead of bemoaning how little money you have, bask in gratitude at the many ways in which you are rich already. For example, if you earn more than $2,182 a year, you have more wealth than 85 per cent of the people on earth. And if you earn over $25,400 per year, you are in the top 10 per cent of wealthy people on this planet. When you focus on what you have rather than what you want, you realize that you ARE already rich. Give thanks often for all the riches in your life.
How to use this principle today: The next time money enters your life, from any source whatsoever, instead of barely noticing what has happened and mentally beginning to spend it, use a few moments of time to give thanks to the universe for bringing this money into your life. Every time you receive a paycheck, every time someone gives you money for any reason, every time you find money, or get a great deal, or save money in some way, stop and appreciate the fact that money is flowing into your life. Doing this every time money comes to you will attract more and more money into your life.
2. Act as if you are rich. This is the fundamental truth of all mind power work, that you must act as if what you want is already yours. So act as if you already have the money you wish to have. Ask yourself, if I was already rich, what would I do, how would I act, how would I feel, and then do, act, and feel in those ways.
Of course, you don't need to quit your job and move to the South Pacific like you would if you suddenly won the lottery, but you start small and with each success you build your way to greater and greater wealth. Eat a little bit better, dress a little bit nicer, go on slightly higher-end vacations, take a cab instead of the bus now and then, take that course you think you can't afford, or do anything at all that you wish to do but believe you can't because of a lack of money.
And when you do these things, bask in joy at your inner state of wealth, and know that this state will be reflected in your outer world. You'll be amazed at how life provides for the things which bring you joy.
How to use this principle today: The next time you are about to buy something, anything at all, purchase an item that is of slightly higher quality and price than you would usually buy. Even if something only costs a few dollars more than what is usual for you to spend, buy that item and thank the universe for providing for your new expanding lifestyle.
Even though it is a tiny step, you are beginning to teach your mind that you are expanding your limitations, and as you practice this you will begin to purchase more of the things you want in your life and the money will come to you to pay for them.
3. Find a penny, pick it up. In order to attract wealth into your life, your subsconscious mind must be open to the idea of wealth flowing to you. You must be open and receptive to money coming to you from any source whatsoever. This includes the pennies laying on the street. If you pass a penny on the sidewalk, and your usual reaction is simply to ignore it because stooping down to pick up a penny is not worth the effort, you are telling your subconscious mind that you are not willing to put out effort for money. The amount of money makes no difference whatsoever. The subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between one penny and one million dollars. All it knows is how you feel.
Of course this manifests in many other ways as well. Whenever you do not accept a gift graciously, whenever you do not charge someone for work that you have done for them, or charge them way less than you should because you feel guilty, and whenever you sell a product for less than it is worth because you do not want to charge too much, you are generating the same emotions. So begin to be open to money, in whatever form, and begin to accept it's flow into your life, even if it's only a penny on the street.
How to use this principle today: Simply go for a walk today and look for money. You are sure to find at least a penny somewhere. Pick it up and thank the universe for bringing money into your life. Let your subconscious mind know that you are open and willing to accept money from any source.
As well, apply this principle in your working life. If you have been undercharging for your services, raise your prices. If you are not earning what you feel you should, ask for a raise. And whenever anyone gives you anything, especially money, accept it graciously and give thanks.
4. Be open to money-making opportunities. One thing that all self-made millionaires agree on is that there are opportunities everywhere, if we are just open to seeing them. You can prove this for yourself by looking at your own life. There are probably many times in your past which you think back to and wonder what might have happened if you had taken an opportunity at just the right time. Whether it's obvious things like career opportunities you let slip by, investment opportunities you didn't belive in, or less obvious opportunities like an idea you once had that is now making someone else rich, or an industry you could have joined before it became saturated.
If you are like most people, when you think of your past opportunities, you believe that you once had a chance but that opportunity is now gone. The difference between rich and poor people is that rich people realize that new opportunities are always all around us, all the time. You simply need to keep a look out for the opportunities, keep and open mind, and be prepared to take advantage when the opportunity arrives.
I'm sure you've heard the old adage that luck occurs when opportunity meets preparation. Well, it couldn't be more true. If you expect to find money-making opportunities in your life, and you prepare to take advantage of them when they come, you will be blessed with more incredible luck than you have ever experienced.
How to use this principle today: Get out a little notebook and write down all the money-making ideas you can think of. It doesn't matter how stupid or outrageous the idea might seem, write it down anyway.
This does two things. First, you realize that there are plenty of money-making opportunities around you right now, as there always have been and always will be. Secondly, this exercise will stimulate your mind to see money-making opportunities where it might have ignored them in the past, and will help you practice to see opportunities in the future.
If you keep adding ideas to your notebook consistently, one day you will see an incredibly opportunity on your list which is perfect for you. Then go for it!
5. Do something that makes you feel good. This has got to be the easiest money-making advice I could ever give. Do something that makes you feel good. When you feel good, your energy rises, and when your energy rises, it attracts more of the things into your life which make you feel good.
Could life be any easier? Not really, but we are so caught up in the backwards thinking of everyone around us that we miss the obvious flow of energy. All you really need to attract more of the good things in your life, including more money, is to generate positive energy into the world. The states of happiness and joy literally rearrange the atoms of your world to bring you more happiness and joy. Of course, the reverse is true as well. So avoid fear, anger, depression, and spend your time feeling good about yourself and your life.
If this is difficult for you, just practice. Begin with some small thing which brings you happiness. It could be as simple as watching a sunset, renting your favorite movie of all time, taking someone you love out for dessert, or anything at all.
The secret is to do these things whole-heartedly, with all your attention focussed on the happiness vibrating from your soul out into the world. This simple act will bring you rich rewards.
How to use this principle today: Don't just read this article and think "that sounds good" and then go back to your life. Pick something to do which will bring you happiness and do it today. It doesn't matter what it is or how small it seems. In fact, you don't have to do anything at all. All that is important is feeling the positive emotions of happiness and joy emanating from your soul.
One simple way to generate positive emotion is to feel gratitude for something in your life. Just pick something in your life for which you are very grateful, and vibrate your gratitude towards it.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE IF YOU START NOW That should get you started. Five extremely simple actions you can take to begin to expand the prosperity you experience in your life. But don't stop there. Never let fear or doubt enter your mind. There is nothing you need in order to succeed except the power of your own mind.
If you worry that you are not smart enough, not connected enough, not talented enough, not young enough or not old enough, you are simply creating limiting beliefs which will manifest in the outside world. All you really need to know is that the outside world is a reflection of the state of your inner mind. Know that you can make every day from this day forward a little more joyful and a little more abundant and then watch your life begin to change.
It's an easy and gentle process, much like letting a plant grow. One day you will suddenly realize that all of your good thoughts have grown into the beautiful fruits of a happy and successful life.
Andreas Ohrt is the author of "Money Making Secrets of Mind Power Masters." Learn the secrets of the world's most spiritual multi-millionaires at http://www.SecretMindPower.com
Another great resource about Law of Attraction: www.law-of-attraction-info.com
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.
The Healing Power of the Mind is Your Best Medicine
By Joel Chue / Creator of Mind Power Special Report
When you have just recovered from an illness like heart attack or stroke your doctor will always give you advice on how to regain back your health.
This advice can included quiting smoking, eating a balanced diet and getting regular exercise. However the healing power of the mind is also an essential and powerful weapon and medicine to your road to recovery.
In 2002, the Mayo Clinic did research and reported that people who are pessimistic about life don’t live as long and happily as optimistic people. The finding confirms what health professionals have believed for a long time. People who expect the worst and think of negative thoughts have more trouble coping with significant illness.
Hopeful and optimistic people who are excited about their recovery recover more quickly and live more active lives. Bottom line: stay in touch with your mind, be in constant positive thought to activate the healing power of the mind.
How do constantly think of positive and healthy thoughts? First, begin with an easy task and take small and stable step to accomplishing it. Reward and take a break every time you achieve your target. Take note of your stress levels. If you become angry, feel hopeless or numb yourself through addictive behavior, actively adopt a brighter outlook.
Just remember that though you do not have the power to control what really happens in your life, you have the power to take a positive response to the matter. Make a list of the things you want to accomplish, the places you want to go and the people you want to see and do something fun to stimulate a positive perspective.
You can make your mind rapidly change your thoughts from negative to positive. If you find yourself thinking about the disabilities of your body, stop and start to appreciate all the things it can do and feel the excitement in you growing.
Seriously limit or even stop going out with negative people unless they change. Try this exercise: Every time you stop at a light while you are driving, listen to your self talk. If you are thinking about a fight with your spouse, replaying a stressful and painful thought at work, or beating yourself up for running late to your next appointment, replace those thoughts by thinking about something good that happened during your day. Feel the joy in you. The healing power of the mind begins with your positive thoughts. Your mind is the most effective medicine to illnesses and constantly stay in touch with it.
You may ask if there is any connections between negative thoughts and illnesses. Well, I personally believe there is. When there is mental unrest, it affects the body as well. A physical symptom is a signal which your body is communicating to you to tell you that something is wrong and has to be dealt with. It is bringing to your attention a problem in your emotions, thinking or environment that is non-beneficial or harmful to you, so you can face it and resolve it.
Illnesses arise because the result of being ignorant of the constant signals our bodies alert us. When they become more serious, most people will then take actions to consciously change their state of mind to recovering it. However, there are still stubborn people who refuse to take action to change their mental and physical state.
Be aware of what your body is trying to tell you. You also need to know that your body and mind works as one. Either one can lead and the other will follow. But the mind is the overall in charge. The power of your mind has the ability and capability to override the body. Simply put, when you are always indulge in negative thoughts, illness arise faster.
Having the mindset that all your thoughts and emotions control your physical well-being rather than the other way around is to represent things in a way that empowers you. Think of things that empowers you rather than the other way around. When your mind is filled with positive thoughts, you have the the healing power of the mind on your side. When your mind is being controlled by negative thoughts, you are being controlled by the negative thoughts.
The most effective way to real and quick healing is to be healed both mentally and emotionally rather than just working on curing the physical ailment. The system of psychoneuroimmunology (the way the mind affects the nervous system which in turn affects the immune system).
Remember the best and the least expensive medicine to recovery of any illness is the healing power of the mind. Harness your mind power today!
When you have just recovered from an illness like heart attack or stroke your doctor will always give you advice on how to regain back your health.
This advice can included quiting smoking, eating a balanced diet and getting regular exercise. However the healing power of the mind is also an essential and powerful weapon and medicine to your road to recovery.
In 2002, the Mayo Clinic did research and reported that people who are pessimistic about life don’t live as long and happily as optimistic people. The finding confirms what health professionals have believed for a long time. People who expect the worst and think of negative thoughts have more trouble coping with significant illness.
Hopeful and optimistic people who are excited about their recovery recover more quickly and live more active lives. Bottom line: stay in touch with your mind, be in constant positive thought to activate the healing power of the mind.
How do constantly think of positive and healthy thoughts? First, begin with an easy task and take small and stable step to accomplishing it. Reward and take a break every time you achieve your target. Take note of your stress levels. If you become angry, feel hopeless or numb yourself through addictive behavior, actively adopt a brighter outlook.
Just remember that though you do not have the power to control what really happens in your life, you have the power to take a positive response to the matter. Make a list of the things you want to accomplish, the places you want to go and the people you want to see and do something fun to stimulate a positive perspective.
You can make your mind rapidly change your thoughts from negative to positive. If you find yourself thinking about the disabilities of your body, stop and start to appreciate all the things it can do and feel the excitement in you growing.
Seriously limit or even stop going out with negative people unless they change. Try this exercise: Every time you stop at a light while you are driving, listen to your self talk. If you are thinking about a fight with your spouse, replaying a stressful and painful thought at work, or beating yourself up for running late to your next appointment, replace those thoughts by thinking about something good that happened during your day. Feel the joy in you. The healing power of the mind begins with your positive thoughts. Your mind is the most effective medicine to illnesses and constantly stay in touch with it.
You may ask if there is any connections between negative thoughts and illnesses. Well, I personally believe there is. When there is mental unrest, it affects the body as well. A physical symptom is a signal which your body is communicating to you to tell you that something is wrong and has to be dealt with. It is bringing to your attention a problem in your emotions, thinking or environment that is non-beneficial or harmful to you, so you can face it and resolve it.
Illnesses arise because the result of being ignorant of the constant signals our bodies alert us. When they become more serious, most people will then take actions to consciously change their state of mind to recovering it. However, there are still stubborn people who refuse to take action to change their mental and physical state.
Be aware of what your body is trying to tell you. You also need to know that your body and mind works as one. Either one can lead and the other will follow. But the mind is the overall in charge. The power of your mind has the ability and capability to override the body. Simply put, when you are always indulge in negative thoughts, illness arise faster.
Having the mindset that all your thoughts and emotions control your physical well-being rather than the other way around is to represent things in a way that empowers you. Think of things that empowers you rather than the other way around. When your mind is filled with positive thoughts, you have the the healing power of the mind on your side. When your mind is being controlled by negative thoughts, you are being controlled by the negative thoughts.
The most effective way to real and quick healing is to be healed both mentally and emotionally rather than just working on curing the physical ailment. The system of psychoneuroimmunology (the way the mind affects the nervous system which in turn affects the immune system).
Remember the best and the least expensive medicine to recovery of any illness is the healing power of the mind. Harness your mind power today!
Food guide
Apples
Protects your heart
prevents constipation
Blocks diarrhea
Improves lung capacity
Cushions joints
Apricots
Combats cancer
Controls blood pressure
Saves your eyesight
Shields against Alzheimer's
Slows aging process
Artichokes
Aids digestion
Lowers cholesterol
Protects your heart
Stabilizes blood sugar
Guards against liver disease
Avocados
Battles diabetes
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Bananas
Protects your heart
Quiets a cough
Strengthens bones
Controls blood pressure
Blocks diarrhea
Beans
Prevents constipation
Helps hemorrhoids
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Stabilizes blood sugar
Beets
Controls blood pressure
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Protects your heart
Aids weight loss
Blueberries
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Stabilizes blood sugar
Boosts memory
Prevents constipation
Broccoli
Strengthens bones
Saves eyesight
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Cabbage
Combats cancer
Prevents constipation
Promotes weight loss
Protects your heart
Helps hemorrhoids
Cantaloupe
Saves eyesight
Controls blood pressure
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Supports immune system
Carrots
Saves eyesight
Protects your heart
Prevents constipation
Combats cancer
Promotes weight loss
Cauliflower
Protects against Prostate Cancer
Combats Breast Cancer
Strengthens bones
Banishes bruises
Guards against heart disease
Cherries
Protects your heart
Combats Cancer
Ends insomnia
Slows aging process
Shields against Alzheimer's
Chestnuts
Promotes weight loss
Protects your heart
Lowers cholesterol
Combats Cancer
Controls blood pressure
Chili peppers
Aids digestion
Soothes sore throat
Clears sinuses
Combats Cancer
Boosts immune system
Figs
Promotes weight loss
Helps stops strokes
Lowers cholesterol
Combats Cancer
Controls blood pressure
Fish
Protects your heart
Boosts memory
Protects your heart
Combats Cancer
Supports immune system
Flax
Aids digestion
Battles diabetes
Protects your heart
Improves mental health
Boosts immune system
Garlic
Lowers cholesterol
Controls blood pressure
Combats cancer
kills bacteria
Fights fungus
Grapefruit
Protects against heart attacks
Promotes Weight loss
Helps stops strokes
Combats Prostate Cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Grapes
saves eyesight
Conquers kidney stones
Combats cancer
Enhances blood flow
Protects your heart
Green tea
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Helps stops strokes
Promotes Weight loss
Kills bacteria
Honey
Heals wounds
Aids digestion
Guards against ulcers
Increases energy
Fights allergies
Lemons
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Stops scurvy
Limes
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Stops scurvy
Mangoes
Combats cancer
Boosts memory
Regulates thyroid
aids digestion
Shields against Alzheimer's
Mushrooms
Controls blood pressure
Lowers cholesterol
Kills bacteria
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Oats
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Battles diabetes
prevents constipation
Smoothes skin
Olive oil
Protects your heart
Promotes Weight loss
Combats cancer
Battles diabetes
Smoothes skin
Onions
Reduce risk of heart attack
Combats cancer
Kills bacteria
Lowers cholesterol
Fights fungus
Oranges
Supports immune systems
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Straightens respiration
Peaches
prevents constipation
Combats cancer
Helps stops strokes
aids digestion
Helps hemorrhoids
Peanuts
Protects against heart disease
Promotes Weight loss
Combats Prostate Cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Aggravates
Diverticulitis
Pineapple
Strengthens bones
Relieves colds
Aids digestion
Dissolves warts
Blocks diarrhea
Prunes
Slows aging process
prevents constipation
boosts memory
Lowers cholesterol
Protects against heart disease
Rice
Protects your heart
Battles diabetes
Conquers kidney stones
Combats cancer
Helps stops strokes
Strawberries
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
boosts memory
Calms stress
Sweet potatoes
Saves your eyesight
Lifts mood
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Tomatoes
Protects prostate
Combats cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Protects your heart
Walnuts
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
boosts memory
Lifts mood
Protects against heart disease
Water
Promotes Weight loss
Combats cancer
Conquers kidney stones
Smoothes skin
Watermelon
Protects prostate
Promotes Weight loss
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
Controls blood pressure
Wheat germ
Combats Colon Cancer
prevents constipation
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
improves digestion
Wheat bran
Combats Colon Cancer
prevents constipation
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
improves digestion
Yogurt
Guards against ulcers
Strengthens bones
Lowers cholesterol
Supports immune systems
Aids digestion
7 don'ts after a meal
* Don't smoke-Experiment from experts proves that smoking a cigarette after meal is comparable to smoking 10 cigarettes (chances of cancer is higher).
* Don't eat fruits immediately - Immediately eating fruits after meals will cause stomach to be bloated with air. Therefore take fruit 1-2 hr after meal or 1 hr before meal.
* Don't drink tea - Because tea leaves contain a high content of acid. This substance will cause the Protein content in the food we consume to be hardened thus difficult to digest.
* Don't loosen your belt - Loosening the belt after a meal will easily cause the intestine to be twisted &blocked.
* Don't bathe - Bathing will cause the increase of blood flow to the hands, legs & body thus the amount of blood around the stomach will therefore decrease. This will weaken the digestive system in our stomach.
* Don't walk about - People always say that after a meal walk a hundred steps and you will live till 99. In actual fact this is not true. Walking will cause the digestive system to be unable to absorb the nutrition from the food we intake.
* Don't sleep immediately - The food we intake will not be able to digest properly. Thus will lead to gastric & infection in our intestine.
Protects your heart
prevents constipation
Blocks diarrhea
Improves lung capacity
Cushions joints
Apricots
Combats cancer
Controls blood pressure
Saves your eyesight
Shields against Alzheimer's
Slows aging process
Artichokes
Aids digestion
Lowers cholesterol
Protects your heart
Stabilizes blood sugar
Guards against liver disease
Avocados
Battles diabetes
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Bananas
Protects your heart
Quiets a cough
Strengthens bones
Controls blood pressure
Blocks diarrhea
Beans
Prevents constipation
Helps hemorrhoids
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Stabilizes blood sugar
Beets
Controls blood pressure
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Protects your heart
Aids weight loss
Blueberries
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Stabilizes blood sugar
Boosts memory
Prevents constipation
Broccoli
Strengthens bones
Saves eyesight
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Cabbage
Combats cancer
Prevents constipation
Promotes weight loss
Protects your heart
Helps hemorrhoids
Cantaloupe
Saves eyesight
Controls blood pressure
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Supports immune system
Carrots
Saves eyesight
Protects your heart
Prevents constipation
Combats cancer
Promotes weight loss
Cauliflower
Protects against Prostate Cancer
Combats Breast Cancer
Strengthens bones
Banishes bruises
Guards against heart disease
Cherries
Protects your heart
Combats Cancer
Ends insomnia
Slows aging process
Shields against Alzheimer's
Chestnuts
Promotes weight loss
Protects your heart
Lowers cholesterol
Combats Cancer
Controls blood pressure
Chili peppers
Aids digestion
Soothes sore throat
Clears sinuses
Combats Cancer
Boosts immune system
Figs
Promotes weight loss
Helps stops strokes
Lowers cholesterol
Combats Cancer
Controls blood pressure
Fish
Protects your heart
Boosts memory
Protects your heart
Combats Cancer
Supports immune system
Flax
Aids digestion
Battles diabetes
Protects your heart
Improves mental health
Boosts immune system
Garlic
Lowers cholesterol
Controls blood pressure
Combats cancer
kills bacteria
Fights fungus
Grapefruit
Protects against heart attacks
Promotes Weight loss
Helps stops strokes
Combats Prostate Cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Grapes
saves eyesight
Conquers kidney stones
Combats cancer
Enhances blood flow
Protects your heart
Green tea
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Helps stops strokes
Promotes Weight loss
Kills bacteria
Honey
Heals wounds
Aids digestion
Guards against ulcers
Increases energy
Fights allergies
Lemons
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Stops scurvy
Limes
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Controls blood pressure
Smoothes skin
Stops scurvy
Mangoes
Combats cancer
Boosts memory
Regulates thyroid
aids digestion
Shields against Alzheimer's
Mushrooms
Controls blood pressure
Lowers cholesterol
Kills bacteria
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Oats
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
Battles diabetes
prevents constipation
Smoothes skin
Olive oil
Protects your heart
Promotes Weight loss
Combats cancer
Battles diabetes
Smoothes skin
Onions
Reduce risk of heart attack
Combats cancer
Kills bacteria
Lowers cholesterol
Fights fungus
Oranges
Supports immune systems
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
Straightens respiration
Peaches
prevents constipation
Combats cancer
Helps stops strokes
aids digestion
Helps hemorrhoids
Peanuts
Protects against heart disease
Promotes Weight loss
Combats Prostate Cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Aggravates
Diverticulitis
Pineapple
Strengthens bones
Relieves colds
Aids digestion
Dissolves warts
Blocks diarrhea
Prunes
Slows aging process
prevents constipation
boosts memory
Lowers cholesterol
Protects against heart disease
Rice
Protects your heart
Battles diabetes
Conquers kidney stones
Combats cancer
Helps stops strokes
Strawberries
Combats cancer
Protects your heart
boosts memory
Calms stress
Sweet potatoes
Saves your eyesight
Lifts mood
Combats cancer
Strengthens bones
Tomatoes
Protects prostate
Combats cancer
Lowers cholesterol
Protects your heart
Walnuts
Lowers cholesterol
Combats cancer
boosts memory
Lifts mood
Protects against heart disease
Water
Promotes Weight loss
Combats cancer
Conquers kidney stones
Smoothes skin
Watermelon
Protects prostate
Promotes Weight loss
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
Controls blood pressure
Wheat germ
Combats Colon Cancer
prevents constipation
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
improves digestion
Wheat bran
Combats Colon Cancer
prevents constipation
Lowers cholesterol
Helps stops strokes
improves digestion
Yogurt
Guards against ulcers
Strengthens bones
Lowers cholesterol
Supports immune systems
Aids digestion
7 don'ts after a meal
* Don't smoke-Experiment from experts proves that smoking a cigarette after meal is comparable to smoking 10 cigarettes (chances of cancer is higher).
* Don't eat fruits immediately - Immediately eating fruits after meals will cause stomach to be bloated with air. Therefore take fruit 1-2 hr after meal or 1 hr before meal.
* Don't drink tea - Because tea leaves contain a high content of acid. This substance will cause the Protein content in the food we consume to be hardened thus difficult to digest.
* Don't loosen your belt - Loosening the belt after a meal will easily cause the intestine to be twisted &blocked.
* Don't bathe - Bathing will cause the increase of blood flow to the hands, legs & body thus the amount of blood around the stomach will therefore decrease. This will weaken the digestive system in our stomach.
* Don't walk about - People always say that after a meal walk a hundred steps and you will live till 99. In actual fact this is not true. Walking will cause the digestive system to be unable to absorb the nutrition from the food we intake.
* Don't sleep immediately - The food we intake will not be able to digest properly. Thus will lead to gastric & infection in our intestine.
Daily hapiness checklist by Dr. Timothy Sharp – The Happiness Institute
□ I’ve reminded myself of my life purpose
□ I’m clear on my priorities for the day
□ I’ve engaged in exercise
□ I’ve planned to eat healthily
□ I intend to practice meditation/relaxation
□ I will not accept unhelpful, negative thoughts
□ I’m confident today will be a good day
□ I’m hopeful for the future
□ I’m grateful for the people in my life
□ I intend to praise at least one person today
□ I’m determined to find ways to use my strengths
□ I’m going to have fun
□ I will laugh and smile
□ I will endeavour to be in the moment as much as possible
□ I’ll savour all positive experiences
□ I’m clear on my priorities for the day
□ I’ve engaged in exercise
□ I’ve planned to eat healthily
□ I intend to practice meditation/relaxation
□ I will not accept unhelpful, negative thoughts
□ I’m confident today will be a good day
□ I’m hopeful for the future
□ I’m grateful for the people in my life
□ I intend to praise at least one person today
□ I’m determined to find ways to use my strengths
□ I’m going to have fun
□ I will laugh and smile
□ I will endeavour to be in the moment as much as possible
□ I’ll savour all positive experiences
10 Virtually Instant Ways to Improve Your Life by Adrian Savage
Many of our problems come from within our own minds. They aren’t caused by events, bad luck, or other people. We cause them through our own poor mental habits. Here are 10 habits you should set aside right away to free yourself from the many problems each one will be causing you.
1. Stop jumping to conclusions. There are two common ways this habit increases people’s difficulties. First, they assume that they know what is going to happen, so they stop paying attention and act on their assumption instead. Human beings are lousy fortune-tellers. Most of what they assume is wrong. That makes the action wrong too. The second aspect of this habit is playing the mind-reader and assuming you know why people do what they do or what they’re thinking. Wrong again, big time. More relationships are destroyed by this particular kind of stupidity than by any other.
2. Don’t dramatize. Lots of people inflate small setbacks into life-threatening catastrophes and react accordingly. This habit makes mountains out of molehills and gives people anxieties that either don’t exist or are so insignificant they aren’t worth worrying about anyway. Why do they do it? Who knows? Maybe to make themselves feel and seem more important. Whatever the reason, it’s silly as well as destructive.
3. Don’t invent rules. A huge proportion of those “oughts” and “shoulds” that you carry around are most likely needless. All that they do for you is make you feel nervous or guilty. What’s the point? When you use these imaginary rules on yourself, you clog your mind with petty restrictions and childish orders. And when you try to impose them on others, you make yourself into a bully, a boring nag, or a self-righteous bigot.
4. Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations. The words you use can trip you up. Negative and critical language produces the same flavor of thinking. Forcing things into pre-set categories hides their real meaning and limits your thinking to no purpose. See what’s there. Don’t label. You’ll be surprised at what you find.
5. Quit being a perfectionist. Life isn’t all or nothing, black or white. Many times, good enough means exactly what it says. Search for the perfect job and you’ll likely never find it. Meanwhile, all the others will look worse than they are. Try for the perfect relationship and you’ll probably spend your life alone. Perfectionism is a mental sickness that will destroy all your pleasure and send you in search of what can never be attained.
6. Don’t over-generalize. One or two setbacks are not a sign of permanent failure. The odd triumph doesn’t turn you into a genius. A single event—good or bad—or even two or three don’t always point to a lasting trend. Usually things are just what they are, nothing more.
7. Don’t take things so personally. Most people, even your friends and colleagues, aren’t talking about you, thinking about you, or concerned with you at all for 99% of the time. The majority of folk in your organization or neighborhood have probably never heard of you and don’t especially want to. The ups and downs of life, the warmth and coldness of others, aren’t personal at all. Pretending that they are will only make you more miserable than is needed.
8. Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy. How you feel isn’t always a good indicator of how things are. Just because you feel it, that doesn’t make it true. Sometimes that emotion comes from nothing more profound than being tired, hungry, annoyed, or about to get a head-cold. The future won’t change because you feel bad—nor because you feel great. Feelings may be true, but they aren’t the truth.
9. Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic. If you expect bad things in your life and work, you’ll always find them. A negative mind-set is like looking at the world through distorting, grimy lenses. You spot every blemish and overlook or discount everything else. It’s amazing what isn’t there until you start to look for it. Of course, if you decide to look for signs of positive things, you’ll find those too.
10. Don’t hang on to the past. This is my most important suggestion of all: let go and move on. Most of the anger, frustration, misery, and despair in this world come from people clinging to past hurts and problems. The more you turn them over in your mind, the worse you’ll feel and the bigger they’ll look. Don’t try to fight misery. Let go and move on. Do that and you’ve removed just about all its power to hurt you
1. Stop jumping to conclusions. There are two common ways this habit increases people’s difficulties. First, they assume that they know what is going to happen, so they stop paying attention and act on their assumption instead. Human beings are lousy fortune-tellers. Most of what they assume is wrong. That makes the action wrong too. The second aspect of this habit is playing the mind-reader and assuming you know why people do what they do or what they’re thinking. Wrong again, big time. More relationships are destroyed by this particular kind of stupidity than by any other.
2. Don’t dramatize. Lots of people inflate small setbacks into life-threatening catastrophes and react accordingly. This habit makes mountains out of molehills and gives people anxieties that either don’t exist or are so insignificant they aren’t worth worrying about anyway. Why do they do it? Who knows? Maybe to make themselves feel and seem more important. Whatever the reason, it’s silly as well as destructive.
3. Don’t invent rules. A huge proportion of those “oughts” and “shoulds” that you carry around are most likely needless. All that they do for you is make you feel nervous or guilty. What’s the point? When you use these imaginary rules on yourself, you clog your mind with petty restrictions and childish orders. And when you try to impose them on others, you make yourself into a bully, a boring nag, or a self-righteous bigot.
4. Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations. The words you use can trip you up. Negative and critical language produces the same flavor of thinking. Forcing things into pre-set categories hides their real meaning and limits your thinking to no purpose. See what’s there. Don’t label. You’ll be surprised at what you find.
5. Quit being a perfectionist. Life isn’t all or nothing, black or white. Many times, good enough means exactly what it says. Search for the perfect job and you’ll likely never find it. Meanwhile, all the others will look worse than they are. Try for the perfect relationship and you’ll probably spend your life alone. Perfectionism is a mental sickness that will destroy all your pleasure and send you in search of what can never be attained.
6. Don’t over-generalize. One or two setbacks are not a sign of permanent failure. The odd triumph doesn’t turn you into a genius. A single event—good or bad—or even two or three don’t always point to a lasting trend. Usually things are just what they are, nothing more.
7. Don’t take things so personally. Most people, even your friends and colleagues, aren’t talking about you, thinking about you, or concerned with you at all for 99% of the time. The majority of folk in your organization or neighborhood have probably never heard of you and don’t especially want to. The ups and downs of life, the warmth and coldness of others, aren’t personal at all. Pretending that they are will only make you more miserable than is needed.
8. Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy. How you feel isn’t always a good indicator of how things are. Just because you feel it, that doesn’t make it true. Sometimes that emotion comes from nothing more profound than being tired, hungry, annoyed, or about to get a head-cold. The future won’t change because you feel bad—nor because you feel great. Feelings may be true, but they aren’t the truth.
9. Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic. If you expect bad things in your life and work, you’ll always find them. A negative mind-set is like looking at the world through distorting, grimy lenses. You spot every blemish and overlook or discount everything else. It’s amazing what isn’t there until you start to look for it. Of course, if you decide to look for signs of positive things, you’ll find those too.
10. Don’t hang on to the past. This is my most important suggestion of all: let go and move on. Most of the anger, frustration, misery, and despair in this world come from people clinging to past hurts and problems. The more you turn them over in your mind, the worse you’ll feel and the bigger they’ll look. Don’t try to fight misery. Let go and move on. Do that and you’ve removed just about all its power to hurt you
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The power of words.
Most of us have heard sayings and quotations about words. Words are just labels and yet they have the power to change your life. Often as a young teen, I would say hurtful things to my mother and actually end up really hurting her. She did try her best, but her best was never good enough for me. She was never as good a cook as my friends mother, or as good a teacher as my teacher or as well dressed as my neighbor. I always had something to pick on her.
I never did realize the power of my hurtful words till I heard something on similar lines from my daughter.
Life has a way of giving back. Just yesterday she said something like “mummy everyone thinks you are pretty, but they never see you in the morning when you wake up !!” I thought it was rather funny and pretended to laugh it off but when I thought about it, it actually bothered me. I thought about how I used to say things to my mother with the intention of hurting her. I thought that my daughter was purposely trying to say something to hurt me. Maybe hurting me was not her intention, but I took it as such and I started a whole debate on how she was being disrespectful and hurtful. She is still very young, so I don’t think her intention was to hurt me, but I already started thinking about when she would become a teenager and say things that would hurt me to no end. All this is going on in my own little brain and I have no proof that it will happen, but here I am thinking about how my daughter would behave towards me after 4-5 years. Is that warped or what????
This might sound a bit smug, but I think I have done a bit more research on child behavior and child psychology than my mother did. So instead of telling my daughter about the power of words and how it affects people, we did a little experiment. I had read about Masaru Emoto’s water experiment and how the water reacts to words. ( Google Masaru Emoto…if you don’t know about it). I saw the video and was quite fascinated, but being the skeptic that I am, I had to see the results for myself. I think I must have read somewhere about the rice experiment and decided to check for myself if it was really true that what we say has an impact?
The experiment goes like this.
Take two or three jars/bottles/Tupperware. On one jar write, I LOVE YOU, on another write, I HATE YOU, and if you have a third, write IGNORE. ( I made my daughter do that)
Next take boiled/steamed rice and put equal amounts in each jar. Cover the jar and say out what you have written on the jar, so to the jar that says, I love you…say with love..I love you and to the one that says, I hate you …say with emotion..I hate you and the one that says ignore, just leave it somewhere where you may not see it and just ignore it.
Do this every day for about a week to 10 days . The results will blow your mind.
In our case the Jar which said ‘I love you was all white with very few green fungus bits, The jar which had I hate you written was all black and green and the ignored one was the worst, it was all fuzzy and mouldy. We could hardly see the rice.
Exactly same content, same environment, the only difference being the written word and the thought given to it. If words can do this to rice, imagine what they can do to us and to our life.
So now I had ammunition to show to my daughter. As she was the one who had done the writing, it was really her experiment. She immediately understood how what she said had an effect on people. No she has not become mother Teresa and neither have I, but we are now a bit more aware and conscious of the words we speak and the thoughts we think.
My mother used to always tell me… “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t bother saying it at all.” But did I listen?
Well, I guess it is never too late to start
I never did realize the power of my hurtful words till I heard something on similar lines from my daughter.
Life has a way of giving back. Just yesterday she said something like “mummy everyone thinks you are pretty, but they never see you in the morning when you wake up !!” I thought it was rather funny and pretended to laugh it off but when I thought about it, it actually bothered me. I thought about how I used to say things to my mother with the intention of hurting her. I thought that my daughter was purposely trying to say something to hurt me. Maybe hurting me was not her intention, but I took it as such and I started a whole debate on how she was being disrespectful and hurtful. She is still very young, so I don’t think her intention was to hurt me, but I already started thinking about when she would become a teenager and say things that would hurt me to no end. All this is going on in my own little brain and I have no proof that it will happen, but here I am thinking about how my daughter would behave towards me after 4-5 years. Is that warped or what????
This might sound a bit smug, but I think I have done a bit more research on child behavior and child psychology than my mother did. So instead of telling my daughter about the power of words and how it affects people, we did a little experiment. I had read about Masaru Emoto’s water experiment and how the water reacts to words. ( Google Masaru Emoto…if you don’t know about it). I saw the video and was quite fascinated, but being the skeptic that I am, I had to see the results for myself. I think I must have read somewhere about the rice experiment and decided to check for myself if it was really true that what we say has an impact?
The experiment goes like this.
Take two or three jars/bottles/Tupperware. On one jar write, I LOVE YOU, on another write, I HATE YOU, and if you have a third, write IGNORE. ( I made my daughter do that)
Next take boiled/steamed rice and put equal amounts in each jar. Cover the jar and say out what you have written on the jar, so to the jar that says, I love you…say with love..I love you and to the one that says, I hate you …say with emotion..I hate you and the one that says ignore, just leave it somewhere where you may not see it and just ignore it.
Do this every day for about a week to 10 days . The results will blow your mind.
In our case the Jar which said ‘I love you was all white with very few green fungus bits, The jar which had I hate you written was all black and green and the ignored one was the worst, it was all fuzzy and mouldy. We could hardly see the rice.
Exactly same content, same environment, the only difference being the written word and the thought given to it. If words can do this to rice, imagine what they can do to us and to our life.
So now I had ammunition to show to my daughter. As she was the one who had done the writing, it was really her experiment. She immediately understood how what she said had an effect on people. No she has not become mother Teresa and neither have I, but we are now a bit more aware and conscious of the words we speak and the thoughts we think.
My mother used to always tell me… “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t bother saying it at all.” But did I listen?
Well, I guess it is never too late to start
Save the best for last!!!!!
Yesterday I gave my daughter some chocolates. She quickly gobbled up a few and kept her favorites one for later. I asked her why she had kept her favorite one and had the ones she did not particularly like? Her reply was “ Mummy, I am saving the best for last.”
I think I did exactly the same when I was young. In fact my mother used to do the same and I suspect her mother and grandmother did the same. Some where somehow in our psyche we have been programmed to save the best for last.
I’m not sure where this belief originated and whether it is the right thing to do or not? But it got me thinking…. Why do we save the best for last? What if that last was too late?
I remember a beautiful set of china in my house which always stayed neatly packed . I asked my mum, when we would use it? She said it was for a special occasion and that it was rather expensive, so we had to be extra careful with it. The result was that we never ended up using it. It stayed neatly wrapped occupying space in the cupboard. I left home when I was 20 and sort of forgot about it. When my mum passed away,iIt came upon me to sort out her stuff (Stuff that she had collected over years and that was neatly wrapped in tissue and plastic) I saw the expensive china dining set and with great trepidation opened it. It was beautiful, but it had gotten stained! It had never been used and yet it had gone brown and showed very fine cracks. I saw it and cried and cried.
Maybe it was not that special after all!!!
What would have made it special would have been the memories associated with it. The occasions that would have been termed special just because we chose to make them special . What if we had used it just for fun? Just because we wanted to celebrate the fact that we were all together. We never realized that just being together and being alive was reason enough to celebrate. I don’t think it was my mother’s fault and I don’t blame my grandparents either. It was just the way things were. It was all a part of conditioning based on fear and lack.
Most of us keep waiting for a special moment when things will begin to feel special. We put happiness on hold in anticipation of a better tomorrow. We keep our best linen and our best china neatly wrapped in anticipation of a special moment. The special moment when I get that promotion, the special moment when my child graduates, the special moment when !!!!!!
Why?
Why not make every moment special? According to Buddhist teaching, death is definite, but it’s time is uncertain. So why not rejoice the moment of life and stay prepared for the moment of death.
I know I have digressed a long way away from the irresistible chocolate and why my daughter wanted to save it for the last. But a seven year old getting conditioned in the theory of “saving the best for the last was definitely not something I wanted to encourage.
At the same time I do not wish to imply that we should live a nihilistic lifestyle with no regard or appreciation of the future. We all want to savor what we like for as long as we can, but we do not need to go through life waiting and wanting. In our waiting and wanting we forget to appreciate the moment and fail to realize that every moment is special and that every piece of chocolate has a distinct yet pleasurable taste.
Ironically, my daughter lost her favorite chocolate. My dog realized it was something rather special and very appropriately found his salivating mouth all over it. Inara was inconsolable, but in this case I had a few extra chocolates and I very quickly replaced the one that had found its way into the dogs belly, but often in life we do not get chances to replace what we lose or to make up for moments that could have been special but we did not think they were.
So go get that beautiful china out, lay the table with your best table cloth and decide to make every moment a special moment.
Next time someone offers you, your favorite chocolate, grab it with both hands and thank the makers for that irresistible smooth creamy taste. Start living in the now and revel in the abundance and not in fear and regret.
Luv/luck/happiness.
I think I did exactly the same when I was young. In fact my mother used to do the same and I suspect her mother and grandmother did the same. Some where somehow in our psyche we have been programmed to save the best for last.
I’m not sure where this belief originated and whether it is the right thing to do or not? But it got me thinking…. Why do we save the best for last? What if that last was too late?
I remember a beautiful set of china in my house which always stayed neatly packed . I asked my mum, when we would use it? She said it was for a special occasion and that it was rather expensive, so we had to be extra careful with it. The result was that we never ended up using it. It stayed neatly wrapped occupying space in the cupboard. I left home when I was 20 and sort of forgot about it. When my mum passed away,iIt came upon me to sort out her stuff (Stuff that she had collected over years and that was neatly wrapped in tissue and plastic) I saw the expensive china dining set and with great trepidation opened it. It was beautiful, but it had gotten stained! It had never been used and yet it had gone brown and showed very fine cracks. I saw it and cried and cried.
Maybe it was not that special after all!!!
What would have made it special would have been the memories associated with it. The occasions that would have been termed special just because we chose to make them special . What if we had used it just for fun? Just because we wanted to celebrate the fact that we were all together. We never realized that just being together and being alive was reason enough to celebrate. I don’t think it was my mother’s fault and I don’t blame my grandparents either. It was just the way things were. It was all a part of conditioning based on fear and lack.
Most of us keep waiting for a special moment when things will begin to feel special. We put happiness on hold in anticipation of a better tomorrow. We keep our best linen and our best china neatly wrapped in anticipation of a special moment. The special moment when I get that promotion, the special moment when my child graduates, the special moment when !!!!!!
Why?
Why not make every moment special? According to Buddhist teaching, death is definite, but it’s time is uncertain. So why not rejoice the moment of life and stay prepared for the moment of death.
I know I have digressed a long way away from the irresistible chocolate and why my daughter wanted to save it for the last. But a seven year old getting conditioned in the theory of “saving the best for the last was definitely not something I wanted to encourage.
At the same time I do not wish to imply that we should live a nihilistic lifestyle with no regard or appreciation of the future. We all want to savor what we like for as long as we can, but we do not need to go through life waiting and wanting. In our waiting and wanting we forget to appreciate the moment and fail to realize that every moment is special and that every piece of chocolate has a distinct yet pleasurable taste.
Ironically, my daughter lost her favorite chocolate. My dog realized it was something rather special and very appropriately found his salivating mouth all over it. Inara was inconsolable, but in this case I had a few extra chocolates and I very quickly replaced the one that had found its way into the dogs belly, but often in life we do not get chances to replace what we lose or to make up for moments that could have been special but we did not think they were.
So go get that beautiful china out, lay the table with your best table cloth and decide to make every moment a special moment.
Next time someone offers you, your favorite chocolate, grab it with both hands and thank the makers for that irresistible smooth creamy taste. Start living in the now and revel in the abundance and not in fear and regret.
Luv/luck/happiness.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
PAIN…. Potential Aftermath of Intense Nihilism
A few weeks ago, thanks to an overindulgence in the nectar of the GOD’s ; I spent the entire Christmas Day in bed holding my head and regurgitating the few remains of the delicious Biryani. Am sure I could have thought of better things to do!!
This led me to try and evaluate the meaning of PAIN.
The word PAIN is related to the Greek word Poine which means retribution, vengeance, punishment and penalty. Poine- the goddess of retribution and punishment was closely connected with Praxidike-the “extractor of Justice”. The two pretty much went hand in hand.
If you do the crime…you bloody well do the time!
Pain never happens without a reason, it is invariably a penalty for sins/crimes we may have committed. In my case, I had definitely indulged in my gastronomic liquid passion and abused my liver. Justice was called for and eventually served. With my head inside the toilet bowl, I swore never to touch the silky red liquid from the Rhone Valley. (That promise was kept until New Year’s Eve).
Pain is body’s defense mechanism. Pain alerts us to more serious potential threats, so maybe we should welcome pain….. should we really??? I doubt any one likes pain, so the only solution therefore is to not do the activity that leads to pain.
Each and every pain can be checked if not completely eliminated if we were to just watch our actions and our thinking. Physical pain is a consequence of poor actions and emotional pain is a consequence of poor thinking. Neither can be avoided all the time, but they can surely be brought under conscious control. The adage “No pain no gain” may hold some truth, because it is only after experiencing the pain that we take the initiative to control pain. Till we get sick, we don’t care about our bodies, till we experience heart ache, we don’t care about hurting others, till we experience loss we don’t value what we have.
But does it really have to be that way? Why not try and prevent the pain? By this I don’t mean never to push our bodies or to fall in love for fear of loss. By all means do. Do it with all your heart and passion. Give it all you got, never second guess your decisions. It is the disconnect that arises out of confusion, resentment, hatred, envy, jealousy, anger that leads to the pain. If we are in alignment with the universe, there is no reason for pain. It is only when we decide to go against the flow that we experience pain.
Had I drunk in moderation, I would have had a great time and still been able to enjoy the morning after. It was the hedonism /nihilism that led to my pain.
According to Louise Hay – bestselling author, speaker, and motivational coach- each physical ailment has an emotional bias. It therefore makes sense to control our emotions in order to control our bodies.
If we were to indulge in actions that are uplifting, both for the mind and body, there is no way we will have to suffer in pain. You could however argue that what is uplifting for me is not necessarily uplifting for you, but I think there are some generic criteria that are considered uplifting and some that are considered depressing. (I won’t go about preaching those here).
The premise being, that pain is a penalty for actions undertaken, so if one wants to avoid pain, better not incur the action that may lead to pain.
But if you are a sadist and masochist…who am I to say anything… Enjoy the pain.
PS: I read a legend about a Christian hermit Alexandra who sold her house, shut herself in a tomb and never looked at the outside world again. Her fellow hermit Paul slept on a blanket on the floor of a windowless mud hut and recited 300 prayers every day. He was all content till he heard about another holy man who managed 700 prayers a day and slept in a coffin.
I guess for them Pain was their salvation. I think I shall limit my masochism to a few extra glasses of the red.
Luv/luck/Happiness and a great 2009.
This led me to try and evaluate the meaning of PAIN.
The word PAIN is related to the Greek word Poine which means retribution, vengeance, punishment and penalty. Poine- the goddess of retribution and punishment was closely connected with Praxidike-the “extractor of Justice”. The two pretty much went hand in hand.
If you do the crime…you bloody well do the time!
Pain never happens without a reason, it is invariably a penalty for sins/crimes we may have committed. In my case, I had definitely indulged in my gastronomic liquid passion and abused my liver. Justice was called for and eventually served. With my head inside the toilet bowl, I swore never to touch the silky red liquid from the Rhone Valley. (That promise was kept until New Year’s Eve).
Pain is body’s defense mechanism. Pain alerts us to more serious potential threats, so maybe we should welcome pain….. should we really??? I doubt any one likes pain, so the only solution therefore is to not do the activity that leads to pain.
Each and every pain can be checked if not completely eliminated if we were to just watch our actions and our thinking. Physical pain is a consequence of poor actions and emotional pain is a consequence of poor thinking. Neither can be avoided all the time, but they can surely be brought under conscious control. The adage “No pain no gain” may hold some truth, because it is only after experiencing the pain that we take the initiative to control pain. Till we get sick, we don’t care about our bodies, till we experience heart ache, we don’t care about hurting others, till we experience loss we don’t value what we have.
But does it really have to be that way? Why not try and prevent the pain? By this I don’t mean never to push our bodies or to fall in love for fear of loss. By all means do. Do it with all your heart and passion. Give it all you got, never second guess your decisions. It is the disconnect that arises out of confusion, resentment, hatred, envy, jealousy, anger that leads to the pain. If we are in alignment with the universe, there is no reason for pain. It is only when we decide to go against the flow that we experience pain.
Had I drunk in moderation, I would have had a great time and still been able to enjoy the morning after. It was the hedonism /nihilism that led to my pain.
According to Louise Hay – bestselling author, speaker, and motivational coach- each physical ailment has an emotional bias. It therefore makes sense to control our emotions in order to control our bodies.
If we were to indulge in actions that are uplifting, both for the mind and body, there is no way we will have to suffer in pain. You could however argue that what is uplifting for me is not necessarily uplifting for you, but I think there are some generic criteria that are considered uplifting and some that are considered depressing. (I won’t go about preaching those here).
The premise being, that pain is a penalty for actions undertaken, so if one wants to avoid pain, better not incur the action that may lead to pain.
But if you are a sadist and masochist…who am I to say anything… Enjoy the pain.
PS: I read a legend about a Christian hermit Alexandra who sold her house, shut herself in a tomb and never looked at the outside world again. Her fellow hermit Paul slept on a blanket on the floor of a windowless mud hut and recited 300 prayers every day. He was all content till he heard about another holy man who managed 700 prayers a day and slept in a coffin.
I guess for them Pain was their salvation. I think I shall limit my masochism to a few extra glasses of the red.
Luv/luck/Happiness and a great 2009.
Fun truths....
1.. My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God and I didn't.
2.. I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
3.. Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.
4.. I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.
5. Don't take life too seriously; No one gets out alive.
6.. You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me
7.. Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
8. . Earth is the insane asylum for the universe .
9.. I'm not a complete idiot -- Some parts are just missing.
10... Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
11.. NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning medicine.
12.. God must love stupid people; He made so many.
13.. The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
14.. Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.
15.. Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
16.. Being 'over the hill' is much better than being under it!
17.. Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew up.
18 Procrastinate Now!
19.. I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts; Do You Want Fries With That?
20.. A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
21.. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
22.. Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere!
23..They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.
24.. He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless DEAD.
25.. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it uses up three
thousand times the memory.
26.. Ham and eggs...A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.
27.. The trouble with life is there's no background music.
28.. The original point and click interface was a Smith & Wesson.
29.. I smile because I don't know what the hell is going on.
Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends!
Life is too short and friends are too few!
2.. I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
3.. Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.
4.. I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.
5. Don't take life too seriously; No one gets out alive.
6.. You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me
7.. Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
8. . Earth is the insane asylum for the universe .
9.. I'm not a complete idiot -- Some parts are just missing.
10... Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
11.. NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning medicine.
12.. God must love stupid people; He made so many.
13.. The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
14.. Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.
15.. Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
16.. Being 'over the hill' is much better than being under it!
17.. Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew up.
18 Procrastinate Now!
19.. I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts; Do You Want Fries With That?
20.. A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
21.. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
22.. Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere!
23..They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.
24.. He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless DEAD.
25.. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it uses up three
thousand times the memory.
26.. Ham and eggs...A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.
27.. The trouble with life is there's no background music.
28.. The original point and click interface was a Smith & Wesson.
29.. I smile because I don't know what the hell is going on.
Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends!
Life is too short and friends are too few!
A Philosophical Physiology of Love .......copyright.. Lily Splane
"The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know." Many a philosopher and poet have pondered one of our most motivating emotions—love—offering little towards the understanding of this most compelling of experiences. While psychology has been deeply involved in the effects of love on humans, it is only recently that the biochemists and physiologists have taken on the inner-workings one of the most perplexing and life-altering experiences that humans have..
Einstein once said, "Marriage is the unsuccessful attempt to make something lasting out of an accident." The newest research would tend to concur with Einstein: Love is indeed unintentional and involuntary—it just "happens." This in no way suggests that love, or marriage, is a mistake. What it does imply is that love cannot be directed or controlled, is sometimes aimed towards those who cannot return it, and has the capacity to bring great joy or unbearable misery to one's life. Romanticize love rather than understand its physiological roots, it's meaning, and its purpose, and you risk losing your mind to it..
The heart—the "feeling" mind—is in every respect as influential in human decision-making as is logic and reason, if not more so. There are anatomical, physiological, and social reasons why this is so. Giving in to one's heart is not necessarily a liability in creating a happy life, though modern American society would have one believe it is a sign of weakness or stupidity (except in advertising, where it is used to manipulate and persuade us). As much as the logical, reasoning, abstracting, left-hemisphered rational mind is worshipped and groomed in higher education, we all live most of our lives through our feeling, sensing, emotionally-responsive mind. The emotional mind is where our identities lie, where intuition and pre-logical impressions give rise to new insights, where appreciation for beauty and pleasure lie, and where we relate to other living things. The feeling mind is most of who we are..
The most common fallacy of this day is: "I think, therefore everything I am is what I think." Astonishingly, most people are usually aware of what they think (the internal verbalizations), rather than what they feel. The most difficult task a therapist has is getting a patient to describe his or her own feelings. Many patients literally don't know what they feel—are cut off from their emotions; others simply find describing them a daunting task. We use language to attempt to transcribe our emotions to another, but much is lost in the translation even for the most expressive of us. (Language is, after all, a translation of what happens in the brain, not the actual event). Worse, most people believe that they can make themselves feel a certain way, can think themselves into a different mood. Not so. A person cannot direct, but only influence his/her emotional life. No one can will him- or herself to love the right mate, to want the right thing, or to be happy after a sad event. We humans frequently castigate ourselves for our failure to will emotional change, when in reality emotion cannot be commanded and does not bend to will..
Anatomy Lesson
Evolutionary processes are responsible for how the human brain is constructed and functions. Evolution does not happen linearly, progressing along a predictable path. It is a haphazard branching process in which recent developments build atop older structures having more fundamental functions, with each newer structure becoming ever more complex, adding functions, altering the workings of previous structures..
The human brain is a triune organ; three main evolutionary levels of anatomy comprise it:
The reptilian brain (brainstem): primitive functions reside here, such as the startle reflex, fear, sex, territorialism, and ritualistic display. It is essential to all automatic functions: heartbeat, breathing, thermostat, swallowing, and visual tracking. The reptilian brain is the oldest of the brain's structures and is deep within the center of the brain, a bulb of neurons atop the spinal cord..
The mammalian brain (limbic system): anger, love, joy, sadness, shame, pride, happiness, mirth, separation anxiety, etc. are processed here. This is where the identity—personhood—resides. The mammalian brain evolved after the reptilian brain, neatly enveloping the bulb of the brainstem. All mammals, and some birds, possess this second stage of brain structure..
The neocortex (reasoning brain): abstraction (art, representation, planning, strategy, symbols, language), free will, communication, and complex skills are processed here. The neocortex is the most recent structure, and is the outermost layer of the brain. Higher mammals and humans have a well-developed neocortex..
The chemistry of primal and recent brain systems is different, evidenced by selective destruction of certain brain cells with specific toxins that leave other structures untouched. Because of this biochemical variance, these "three brains" sometimes have competing interests, creating disharmony and unease..
It is easy for humans to think of themselves as the pinnacle of evolution. However, we are in no way the apex of evolution; we are simply the most recent. We have not been here very long. By far, Komodo dragons and beetles are splendidly successful, and eons older than humans. Nature has yet to show us that our particular kind of intelligence has a decided evolutionary advantage. As evolution continues, nature tries new things, makes many mistakes, and succeeds at only a handful. Nature overproduces. It is grandiose and wasteful in its attempt to ensure survival of just the few who will prevail into new generations. It is quite possible our triune brains may fail us. It is equally possible that new structures will evolve that make complex brains more adaptive than they are now..
What does this have to do with love? Everything. As a mammalian trait, affectionate attachments have survival advantages—not only for mating purposes, but as a security factor in communal living so common with most mammals (including us). We are social animals, and that means very much more than just getting help when we need it, or reproducing. It means truly bonding with others in a way that seems magical..
We share in common with most mammals, a capacity for knowing and loving another that transcends reason, logic, or free will. Our faculty for internally connecting with another of our own kind, or even with a member of a different species, derives from the structure and physiology of our mammalian "feeling" brains. The emotional bond of affectionate attachment is so overwhelming and consuming as to be nearly miraculous. It is as close to mind reading and psychic connection as we—in common experience—can get. The capacity to love, rather than our cognitive skills, may be the very thing that ensures our survival as a species..
Limbic Resonance
Our capacity to emotionally bond with another is mediated through a phenomenon known to physiologists and behaviorists as "limbic resonance." Limbic resonance is the tuning in to another's internal state; it is the most reliable way a mammal can know the emotional state of another without the necessity of translation (facial expressions, language). Limbic resonance occurs in all mammals, but is absent in reptiles, fish, and most birds. It occurs through eye contact, and the sensations multiply through mutual recognition and the continual back and forth feedback. Two nervous systems for an instant become in sync. Limbic resonance is the foundation of the "love at first sight" phenomenon, combined with other factors such as programmed attractors described below. Limbic resonance is responsible for that tickle in the pit of your stomach when you look into the eyes of someone you adore. When you feel that tickle, so does the other, and the feeling propagates and augments the growing attraction, building the affectionate attachment..
Because feelings can "leap from mind to mind" so to speak, the absence of such feedback is disturbing—as in meeting someone you instantly dislike, and can't put your finger on why. Many have lost their ability to fully emotionally resonate with another—becoming insensitive, even cold towards others in favor of reason and logic. People know when they are liked, when others feel comfortable around them. Likewise, a negative internal response from another may be reflected back to them in ways we cannot fully understand, and the feelings of discomfort, of dislike, amplify. It is difficult to befriend or even like someone who cannot resonate with you..
The limbic activity of others around us allows us to achieve almost immediate congruence—it can be felt in a movie theater, or as a surge of emotion as panic propagates through a crowd. The ability to read another's emotional state is older than our own species, yet we distrust it, devalue the sheer joy of being alone with another for the pure experience of his or her inner state, and further isolate ourselves. This is society's legacy of alienation and loneliness, and we suffer immeasurably for it..
The inner state of others must matter to us. It is essential to our survival and to our individual health more than most of us are aware..
Limbic Regulation
The human is a social animal. Human sociability extends far beyond the need for reproduction, for security in numbers, or for commerce. Modern physiology research has discovered that the human body is not a self-regulating, closed-loop organism. Human physiology depends on limbic resonance from others to achieve physiological balance. Homeostasis derives from physiological synchronicity with another. Heart and breathing rate, hormone levels, immune response, sleep rhythms, blood pH, and neurochemistry are influenced by the presence of another or several others, and you in turn, regulate others. Human physiology does not direct all of its own functions; it is interdependent. It must be steadied by the physical presence of another. This is necessary for both physical and emotional health. In many ways, humans cannot be stable on their own—they require another to survive. Health and happiness mean finding people who regulate you well, and staying near them. It is the basis of communal living, and makes ostracism from any social contact the cruelest of punishments. (Luckily, cross-species attachments are equally as valid as human-to-human ones, hence the well-documented benefits of keeping pets)..
Limbic Revision
In a relationship, one mind revises the other's; one heart changes the other's. We are capable of remaking the emotional life of the one we love; and he or she remodels us. Who we are and who we become depends in part on who we love. Yet, we change emotionally over a lifetime, sometimes growing closer and even more compatible; sometimes becoming a stranger to those we were once so attuned with. It is quite possible, that because of this mutual limbic revision and a 50% chance of emotional drift, that marriage is physiologically a 50-50 prospect. Statistically, about 50% of marriages or long relationships tend to fall apart at about the twenty-year mark. Those who divorce find that staying with the "alienated" partner, is more lonely and stressful than being with no one. It is quite possible that "till death do we part" is too much to expect. True life-mates are rare. If you find one, hold that person near for as long as you can..
Surviving Incompatibility and Loss
Contact with loved ones raises natural opiate and seratonin levels. Likewise, artificial increases of seratonin and opiates greatly reduce the pain of losing someone or severing a relationship. Those who need frequent surges of natural opiates will require more contact with loved ones than those who are less opiate-sensitive..
This is yet another factor in determining how compatible two people may be—do you have the same needs for a rush of brain chemistry?
Mismatched chemistries can become a contest of wills, wherein one requires cuddles while the other craves solitude. The emotionally needy partner will feel neglected and rejected; the more independent partner will feel suffocated and controlled. Such discord can change the brain chemistry of each partner to such an extent as to destroy any feelings of love and dissolve an affectionate attachment. One or both partners will be said to be "in a mood," a state of enhanced readiness to experience a particular emotion. Someone who stays in a bad mood for a long time has been repeatedly stimulated to experience a single emotion, and he or she rides that swirling vortex for weeks on end. The neocortex, with its ability to hypothesize, stimulates the limbic brain to respond. The limbic brain, unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality, responds even when no real threat exists. In fact, brain scans reveal that perception and imagination stimulate the exact same brain areas. This means that your perceptions of your partners intentions and behavior can rule how you respond to your partner, regardless of your partner's true intentions..
Memory and Emotion
Emotions do indeed color the recall of experience. If the emotion is strong enough, it can inhibit opposing feelings so completely as to make the memories of those opposing emotions completely inaccessible. A person can effectively change history in his own head. Rage can make a man strike the woman he forgets he loves. Likewise, strong emotions serve to amplify responses to nearly benign experiences: past abuses can greatly amplify a response to an angry expression; a mildly sad experience can cascade into a nightmare of depression. Experience rewires the brain: what it has experienced dictates what it can experience; how much feeling was associated with past experiences influences and perhaps amplifies subsequent similar experiences, or even intimations of similar experiences..
Attractors and Love Attachments
Limbic resonance, limbic revision, and limbic recognition are not the only factors influencing our love choices. Your lifetime bonding experiences teach you how love works, creates your attractors (those tiny behaviors or qualities in others that you associated with love in your earliest years), which in turn influences who you love. Given the pre-logical character of the limbic system, love choices sometimes make little sense. The neocortex isn't the brain making the decision or guiding the heart..
Being "in love" with someone encompasses three characteristics: the belief that this one person fits in a way no one else can or will; the need for skin-to-skin closeness; the urge to disregard all else. It is a kind of madness, and it is temporary. Truly loving another necessitates knowing the other through sustained and prolonged intimacy; sharing a life, a mutuality of limbic resonance and regulation..
Staying in a relationship that deviates from one's "ideal model" (the person who possesses the appropriate attractors, resonates with us, and regulates us well) is living in a disturbed isolation. It is the most miserable kind of loneliness. Yet, most people will stay in a terrible relationship with someone their limbic brain recognizes, rather than be in a boringly pleasant relationship with a kinder partner..
Unhealthy Attachments
People who require limbic revision (rather than simply respond over time), usually have pathological attractors. Negative incidents and behaviors become associated with love. These people may pick fights or nag their mates for the reward of "making up," create unease through jealousy, or do other negative things to keep the "zest" in the relationship. These people drain others, and leach the life out of those they love. They are so needy as to have nothing whatsoever to give, but can only take through creating discord and animosity. They are eternally unhappy, but not for any particular reason. Healthier potential mates may steer clear of someone they sense is perpetually unhappy. These people can benefit most from the bond between therapist and patient. Two people who require limbic revision are the last two people who can help each other..
Love's Future
What we do inside relationships is the most important aspect of life. Modern American life embraces activities and attitudes that not only discourage limbic resonance and love, but seek to destroy it...
The Internet is exemplary of the escalating syndrome of self-imposed isolation while engaged in seeking out contact with others that cannot possibly benefit us physiologically if such contact remains electronic. The Internet is often touted as a global community, but we do not resonate with others. When we are online, we are alone. This paradox occurs to few; the consequences of such isolation has yet to be studied and assessed..
The damaging affects of parental absence during infancy through "toddlerhood" are well documented. Yet, society devalues, even shames parents who choose to parent full-time, rather than work outside the home. The incessant drone of advertisements encourages getting love through things rather than through other humans. Material gain and social status become all-consuming, and relationships are considered disposable to materialistic ideals. Only those with the courage to reject America's values—social status, titles, expensive vacations, Madison Avenue physiques, designer possessions everywhere—will have a decent life in creating time for loving others, and being loved in return..
References:
* Becker, Ernest. Escape from Evil, Free Press, 1975..
* Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained, Little, Brown and Company, 1991..
* Jaynes, Julian. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976..
* Lewis, Thomas M.D., Amini, Fari, M.D., and Lannon, Richard, M.D. A General Theory of Love, Random House, 2000..
* Morris, Desmond; Intimate Behaviour, Random House, 1971..
* Rand, Ayn; Philosophy: Who Needs It, Bobs-Merrill, 1982..
* Russell, Bertrand; Philosophical Essays, Simon and Schuster, 1967..
* Schneider, Allen M., and Tarshis, Barry; An Introduction to Physiological Psychology, Random House, 1975..
Einstein once said, "Marriage is the unsuccessful attempt to make something lasting out of an accident." The newest research would tend to concur with Einstein: Love is indeed unintentional and involuntary—it just "happens." This in no way suggests that love, or marriage, is a mistake. What it does imply is that love cannot be directed or controlled, is sometimes aimed towards those who cannot return it, and has the capacity to bring great joy or unbearable misery to one's life. Romanticize love rather than understand its physiological roots, it's meaning, and its purpose, and you risk losing your mind to it..
The heart—the "feeling" mind—is in every respect as influential in human decision-making as is logic and reason, if not more so. There are anatomical, physiological, and social reasons why this is so. Giving in to one's heart is not necessarily a liability in creating a happy life, though modern American society would have one believe it is a sign of weakness or stupidity (except in advertising, where it is used to manipulate and persuade us). As much as the logical, reasoning, abstracting, left-hemisphered rational mind is worshipped and groomed in higher education, we all live most of our lives through our feeling, sensing, emotionally-responsive mind. The emotional mind is where our identities lie, where intuition and pre-logical impressions give rise to new insights, where appreciation for beauty and pleasure lie, and where we relate to other living things. The feeling mind is most of who we are..
The most common fallacy of this day is: "I think, therefore everything I am is what I think." Astonishingly, most people are usually aware of what they think (the internal verbalizations), rather than what they feel. The most difficult task a therapist has is getting a patient to describe his or her own feelings. Many patients literally don't know what they feel—are cut off from their emotions; others simply find describing them a daunting task. We use language to attempt to transcribe our emotions to another, but much is lost in the translation even for the most expressive of us. (Language is, after all, a translation of what happens in the brain, not the actual event). Worse, most people believe that they can make themselves feel a certain way, can think themselves into a different mood. Not so. A person cannot direct, but only influence his/her emotional life. No one can will him- or herself to love the right mate, to want the right thing, or to be happy after a sad event. We humans frequently castigate ourselves for our failure to will emotional change, when in reality emotion cannot be commanded and does not bend to will..
Anatomy Lesson
Evolutionary processes are responsible for how the human brain is constructed and functions. Evolution does not happen linearly, progressing along a predictable path. It is a haphazard branching process in which recent developments build atop older structures having more fundamental functions, with each newer structure becoming ever more complex, adding functions, altering the workings of previous structures..
The human brain is a triune organ; three main evolutionary levels of anatomy comprise it:
The reptilian brain (brainstem): primitive functions reside here, such as the startle reflex, fear, sex, territorialism, and ritualistic display. It is essential to all automatic functions: heartbeat, breathing, thermostat, swallowing, and visual tracking. The reptilian brain is the oldest of the brain's structures and is deep within the center of the brain, a bulb of neurons atop the spinal cord..
The mammalian brain (limbic system): anger, love, joy, sadness, shame, pride, happiness, mirth, separation anxiety, etc. are processed here. This is where the identity—personhood—resides. The mammalian brain evolved after the reptilian brain, neatly enveloping the bulb of the brainstem. All mammals, and some birds, possess this second stage of brain structure..
The neocortex (reasoning brain): abstraction (art, representation, planning, strategy, symbols, language), free will, communication, and complex skills are processed here. The neocortex is the most recent structure, and is the outermost layer of the brain. Higher mammals and humans have a well-developed neocortex..
The chemistry of primal and recent brain systems is different, evidenced by selective destruction of certain brain cells with specific toxins that leave other structures untouched. Because of this biochemical variance, these "three brains" sometimes have competing interests, creating disharmony and unease..
It is easy for humans to think of themselves as the pinnacle of evolution. However, we are in no way the apex of evolution; we are simply the most recent. We have not been here very long. By far, Komodo dragons and beetles are splendidly successful, and eons older than humans. Nature has yet to show us that our particular kind of intelligence has a decided evolutionary advantage. As evolution continues, nature tries new things, makes many mistakes, and succeeds at only a handful. Nature overproduces. It is grandiose and wasteful in its attempt to ensure survival of just the few who will prevail into new generations. It is quite possible our triune brains may fail us. It is equally possible that new structures will evolve that make complex brains more adaptive than they are now..
What does this have to do with love? Everything. As a mammalian trait, affectionate attachments have survival advantages—not only for mating purposes, but as a security factor in communal living so common with most mammals (including us). We are social animals, and that means very much more than just getting help when we need it, or reproducing. It means truly bonding with others in a way that seems magical..
We share in common with most mammals, a capacity for knowing and loving another that transcends reason, logic, or free will. Our faculty for internally connecting with another of our own kind, or even with a member of a different species, derives from the structure and physiology of our mammalian "feeling" brains. The emotional bond of affectionate attachment is so overwhelming and consuming as to be nearly miraculous. It is as close to mind reading and psychic connection as we—in common experience—can get. The capacity to love, rather than our cognitive skills, may be the very thing that ensures our survival as a species..
Limbic Resonance
Our capacity to emotionally bond with another is mediated through a phenomenon known to physiologists and behaviorists as "limbic resonance." Limbic resonance is the tuning in to another's internal state; it is the most reliable way a mammal can know the emotional state of another without the necessity of translation (facial expressions, language). Limbic resonance occurs in all mammals, but is absent in reptiles, fish, and most birds. It occurs through eye contact, and the sensations multiply through mutual recognition and the continual back and forth feedback. Two nervous systems for an instant become in sync. Limbic resonance is the foundation of the "love at first sight" phenomenon, combined with other factors such as programmed attractors described below. Limbic resonance is responsible for that tickle in the pit of your stomach when you look into the eyes of someone you adore. When you feel that tickle, so does the other, and the feeling propagates and augments the growing attraction, building the affectionate attachment..
Because feelings can "leap from mind to mind" so to speak, the absence of such feedback is disturbing—as in meeting someone you instantly dislike, and can't put your finger on why. Many have lost their ability to fully emotionally resonate with another—becoming insensitive, even cold towards others in favor of reason and logic. People know when they are liked, when others feel comfortable around them. Likewise, a negative internal response from another may be reflected back to them in ways we cannot fully understand, and the feelings of discomfort, of dislike, amplify. It is difficult to befriend or even like someone who cannot resonate with you..
The limbic activity of others around us allows us to achieve almost immediate congruence—it can be felt in a movie theater, or as a surge of emotion as panic propagates through a crowd. The ability to read another's emotional state is older than our own species, yet we distrust it, devalue the sheer joy of being alone with another for the pure experience of his or her inner state, and further isolate ourselves. This is society's legacy of alienation and loneliness, and we suffer immeasurably for it..
The inner state of others must matter to us. It is essential to our survival and to our individual health more than most of us are aware..
Limbic Regulation
The human is a social animal. Human sociability extends far beyond the need for reproduction, for security in numbers, or for commerce. Modern physiology research has discovered that the human body is not a self-regulating, closed-loop organism. Human physiology depends on limbic resonance from others to achieve physiological balance. Homeostasis derives from physiological synchronicity with another. Heart and breathing rate, hormone levels, immune response, sleep rhythms, blood pH, and neurochemistry are influenced by the presence of another or several others, and you in turn, regulate others. Human physiology does not direct all of its own functions; it is interdependent. It must be steadied by the physical presence of another. This is necessary for both physical and emotional health. In many ways, humans cannot be stable on their own—they require another to survive. Health and happiness mean finding people who regulate you well, and staying near them. It is the basis of communal living, and makes ostracism from any social contact the cruelest of punishments. (Luckily, cross-species attachments are equally as valid as human-to-human ones, hence the well-documented benefits of keeping pets)..
Limbic Revision
In a relationship, one mind revises the other's; one heart changes the other's. We are capable of remaking the emotional life of the one we love; and he or she remodels us. Who we are and who we become depends in part on who we love. Yet, we change emotionally over a lifetime, sometimes growing closer and even more compatible; sometimes becoming a stranger to those we were once so attuned with. It is quite possible, that because of this mutual limbic revision and a 50% chance of emotional drift, that marriage is physiologically a 50-50 prospect. Statistically, about 50% of marriages or long relationships tend to fall apart at about the twenty-year mark. Those who divorce find that staying with the "alienated" partner, is more lonely and stressful than being with no one. It is quite possible that "till death do we part" is too much to expect. True life-mates are rare. If you find one, hold that person near for as long as you can..
Surviving Incompatibility and Loss
Contact with loved ones raises natural opiate and seratonin levels. Likewise, artificial increases of seratonin and opiates greatly reduce the pain of losing someone or severing a relationship. Those who need frequent surges of natural opiates will require more contact with loved ones than those who are less opiate-sensitive..
This is yet another factor in determining how compatible two people may be—do you have the same needs for a rush of brain chemistry?
Mismatched chemistries can become a contest of wills, wherein one requires cuddles while the other craves solitude. The emotionally needy partner will feel neglected and rejected; the more independent partner will feel suffocated and controlled. Such discord can change the brain chemistry of each partner to such an extent as to destroy any feelings of love and dissolve an affectionate attachment. One or both partners will be said to be "in a mood," a state of enhanced readiness to experience a particular emotion. Someone who stays in a bad mood for a long time has been repeatedly stimulated to experience a single emotion, and he or she rides that swirling vortex for weeks on end. The neocortex, with its ability to hypothesize, stimulates the limbic brain to respond. The limbic brain, unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality, responds even when no real threat exists. In fact, brain scans reveal that perception and imagination stimulate the exact same brain areas. This means that your perceptions of your partners intentions and behavior can rule how you respond to your partner, regardless of your partner's true intentions..
Memory and Emotion
Emotions do indeed color the recall of experience. If the emotion is strong enough, it can inhibit opposing feelings so completely as to make the memories of those opposing emotions completely inaccessible. A person can effectively change history in his own head. Rage can make a man strike the woman he forgets he loves. Likewise, strong emotions serve to amplify responses to nearly benign experiences: past abuses can greatly amplify a response to an angry expression; a mildly sad experience can cascade into a nightmare of depression. Experience rewires the brain: what it has experienced dictates what it can experience; how much feeling was associated with past experiences influences and perhaps amplifies subsequent similar experiences, or even intimations of similar experiences..
Attractors and Love Attachments
Limbic resonance, limbic revision, and limbic recognition are not the only factors influencing our love choices. Your lifetime bonding experiences teach you how love works, creates your attractors (those tiny behaviors or qualities in others that you associated with love in your earliest years), which in turn influences who you love. Given the pre-logical character of the limbic system, love choices sometimes make little sense. The neocortex isn't the brain making the decision or guiding the heart..
Being "in love" with someone encompasses three characteristics: the belief that this one person fits in a way no one else can or will; the need for skin-to-skin closeness; the urge to disregard all else. It is a kind of madness, and it is temporary. Truly loving another necessitates knowing the other through sustained and prolonged intimacy; sharing a life, a mutuality of limbic resonance and regulation..
Staying in a relationship that deviates from one's "ideal model" (the person who possesses the appropriate attractors, resonates with us, and regulates us well) is living in a disturbed isolation. It is the most miserable kind of loneliness. Yet, most people will stay in a terrible relationship with someone their limbic brain recognizes, rather than be in a boringly pleasant relationship with a kinder partner..
Unhealthy Attachments
People who require limbic revision (rather than simply respond over time), usually have pathological attractors. Negative incidents and behaviors become associated with love. These people may pick fights or nag their mates for the reward of "making up," create unease through jealousy, or do other negative things to keep the "zest" in the relationship. These people drain others, and leach the life out of those they love. They are so needy as to have nothing whatsoever to give, but can only take through creating discord and animosity. They are eternally unhappy, but not for any particular reason. Healthier potential mates may steer clear of someone they sense is perpetually unhappy. These people can benefit most from the bond between therapist and patient. Two people who require limbic revision are the last two people who can help each other..
Love's Future
What we do inside relationships is the most important aspect of life. Modern American life embraces activities and attitudes that not only discourage limbic resonance and love, but seek to destroy it...
The Internet is exemplary of the escalating syndrome of self-imposed isolation while engaged in seeking out contact with others that cannot possibly benefit us physiologically if such contact remains electronic. The Internet is often touted as a global community, but we do not resonate with others. When we are online, we are alone. This paradox occurs to few; the consequences of such isolation has yet to be studied and assessed..
The damaging affects of parental absence during infancy through "toddlerhood" are well documented. Yet, society devalues, even shames parents who choose to parent full-time, rather than work outside the home. The incessant drone of advertisements encourages getting love through things rather than through other humans. Material gain and social status become all-consuming, and relationships are considered disposable to materialistic ideals. Only those with the courage to reject America's values—social status, titles, expensive vacations, Madison Avenue physiques, designer possessions everywhere—will have a decent life in creating time for loving others, and being loved in return..
References:
* Becker, Ernest. Escape from Evil, Free Press, 1975..
* Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained, Little, Brown and Company, 1991..
* Jaynes, Julian. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976..
* Lewis, Thomas M.D., Amini, Fari, M.D., and Lannon, Richard, M.D. A General Theory of Love, Random House, 2000..
* Morris, Desmond; Intimate Behaviour, Random House, 1971..
* Rand, Ayn; Philosophy: Who Needs It, Bobs-Merrill, 1982..
* Russell, Bertrand; Philosophical Essays, Simon and Schuster, 1967..
* Schneider, Allen M., and Tarshis, Barry; An Introduction to Physiological Psychology, Random House, 1975..
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