Have you ever wondered why someone people seem to struggle through life while others breeze through it? Have you ever compared yourself to someone in a similar situation and wondered why they seem so content while your frustrations are escalating to an all time high? Sometimes it all comes down to perspective. Luckily, you can change your perspective.
Albert Ellis was a successful American psychologist and psychotherapist. As part of his work Ellis identified twelve irrational ideas that he called ‘The Dirty Dozen’. He believe that these commonly held ideas can unnecessarily contribute to difficulties in life.
I have listed the dirty dozen below; have a read through them, you might be surprised at how many you can relate to. If you identify with any of them, ask yourself:
Self-acceptance could be the key to a happier life,
yet it’s the happy habit many people practice the least…
March 7, 2014
Source: University of Hertfordshire
Happiness is more than just a feeling; it is something we can all practice on a daily basis. But people are better at some ‘happy habits’ than others. In fact, the one habit that corresponds most closely with us being satisfied with our lives overall — self-acceptance — is often the one we practice least.
5,000 people surveyed by the charity Action for Happiness, in collaboration with Do Something Different, rated themselves between 1 and 10 on ten habits identified from the latest scientific research as being key to happiness.
Giving was the top habit revealed by those who took the survey. When asked about Giving(How often do you make an effort to help or be kind to others?) people scored an average of 7.41 out of 10, with one in six (17%) topping 10 out of 10. Just over one in three (36%) people scored 8 or 9; slightly fewer (32%) scored 6 or 7; and less than one in six (15%) rated themselves at 5 or less.
The Relating habit came a close second. The question How often do you put effort into the relationships that matter most to you? produced an average score of 7.36 out of 10. And 15% of people scored the maximum 10 out of 10.
The survey also revealed which habits are most closely related to people’s overall satisfaction with life. All 10 habits were found to be strongly linked to life satisfaction, with Acceptance found to be the habit that predicts it most strongly. Yet Acceptance was also revealed as the habit that people tend to practice the least, generating the lowest average score from the 5,000 respondents.
When answering the Acceptance question, How often are you kind to yourself and think you’re fine as you are? people’s average rating was just 5.56 out of 10. Only 5% of people put themselves at a 10 on the Acceptance habit. Around one in five people (19%) scored an 8 or 9; Less than a third (30%) scored a 6 or 7; and almost half (46%) of people rated themselves at 5 or less.
Treating our bodies to regular physical activity is another proven happy habit. Yet the survey revealed that this is another habit that often gets overlooked. The average answer to How often do you spend at least half an hour a day being active? was just 5.88 out of 10, with 45% of people rating themselves 5 or less.
Professor Karen Pine, a psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire and co-founder of Do Something Different, said: “Practicing these habits really can boost our happiness. It’s great to see so many people regularly doing things to help others — and when we make others happy we tend to feel good ourselves too. This survey shows that practicing self-acceptance is one thing that could make the biggest difference to many people’s happiness. Exercise is also known to lift mood so if people want a simple, daily way to fee happier they should get into the habit of being more physically active too.”
Dr Mark Williamson, Director of Action for Happiness, said: “Our society puts huge pressure on us to be successful and to constantly compare ourselves with others. This causes a great deal of unhappiness and anxiety. These findings remind us that if we can learn to be more accepting of ourselves as we really are, we’re likely to be much happier. The results also confirm us that our day-to-day habits have a much bigger impact on our happiness than we might imagine.”
To support participants who want to boost their happy habits, Do Something Different and Action for Happiness have also created a new Do Happiness program, which sends people regular small positive actions (Do’s) to help them practice the habits that science shows tend to make people happy.
How can we practice the self-acceptance habit?
Here are three positive actions that people can take to increase their levels of self-acceptance:
Be as kind to yourself as you are to others. See your mistakes as opportunities to learn. Notice things you do well, however small
Ask a trusted friend or colleague to tell you what your strengths are or what they value about you
Spend some quiet time by yourself. Tune in to how you’re feeling inside and try to be at peace with who you are.
Where did the happy habits come from?
The happy habits included in the survey are based on the Ten Keys to Happier Living framework, developed by Action for Happiness based on an extensive review of the latest research about what really affects mental well-being.
Together the Ten Keys spell the acronym GREAT DREAM, as follows:
Giving: do things for others
Relating: connect with people
Exercising: take care of your body
Appreciating: notice the world around
Trying out: keep learning new things
Direction: have goals to look forward to
Resilience: find ways to bounce back
Emotion: take a positive approach
Acceptance: be comfortable with who you are
Meaning: be part of something bigger
Key Survey Question Average score
Giving How often do you make an effort to help or be kind to others? 7.41
Relating How often do you put effort into the relationships that matter most to you? 7.36
Exercising How often do you spend at least half an hour a day being active? 5.88
Appreciating How often do you take time to notice the good things in your life? 6.57
Trying out How often do you learn or try new things? 6.26
Direction How often do you do things that contribute to your most important life goals? 6.08
Resilience How often do you find ways to bounce back quickly from problems? 6.33
Emotion How often do you do things that make you feel good? 6.74
Acceptance How often are you kind to yourself and think you’re fine as you are? 5.56
Meaning How often do you do things that give you a sense of meaning or purpose? 6.38
A final question posed was: Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
The average score was 6.49, compared to a national average of 6.34 reported in the UK National Values survey 2013.
University of Hertfordshire. “Self-acceptance could be the key to a happier life, yet it’s the happy habit many people practice the least.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 March 2014.
Psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke introduces a Beauty Patch
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The science behind the social experiment is solid, experts say.
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Beauty Patch Experiment Panel Discussion
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Simply feeling more attractive may boost confidence. “The most remarkable finding was that an independent set of coders who listened only to the women (and didn’t see a picture) also thought that the women who were supposedly more attractive were more friendly and sociable.”
A study by researchers at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that adults can be trained to be more compassionate. The report, recently published online in the Journal Psychological Science, is the first to investigate whether training adults in compassion can result in greater altruistic behavior and related changes in neural systems underlying compassion.
“We have more than five senses, and not everything meets the eye.“
~ Roman Krznaric
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PDF: How Should We Live?
by Roman Krznaric
Publisher: Bluebridge
(December 1, 2013)
Book Description
Twelve universal topics including work, love, and family; time, creativity, and empathy are explored in this book by illuminating the past and revealing the wisdom that people have been missing. Looking to history for inspiration can be surprisingly powerful. In How Should We Live?, cultural thinker Roman Krznaric shares ideas and stories from history each of which sheds invaluable light on decisions made every day. There is much to be learned from the ancient Greeks about the different varieties of love, for example, from the Renaissance about living with passion and facing the realities of death, from various indigenous cultures on bringing up our children, and from Japanese pilgrims on the art of travel. History is usually read for pleasure or for insight into current affairs, but this book is practical history showing that history can teach the art of living, using the past to think about day-to-day life. note: A survey is required to get the free PDF book. .
Probably the greatest investment that I’ve personally made in myself is to work on and develop, deeply, empathy skills. Here is an outstanding video and article that I think you’ll enjoy
The Six Habits of Highly Empathic People
We can cultivate empathy throughout our lives,
says Roman Krznaric — and use it as a radical
force for social transformation.
If you think you’re hearing the word “empathy” everywhere, you’re right. It’s now on the lips of scientists and business leaders, education experts and political activists. But there is a vital question that few people ask: How can I expand my own empathic potential? Empathy is not just a way to extend the boundaries of your moral universe. According to new research, it’s a habit we can cultivate to improve the quality of our own lives.
But what is empathy? It’s the ability to step into the shoes of another person, aiming to understand their feelings and perspectives, and to use that understanding to guide our actions. That makes it different from kindness or pity. And don’t confuse it with the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As George Bernard Shaw pointed out, “Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you — they might have different tastes.” Empathy is about discovering those tastes.
The big buzz about empathy stems from a revolutionary shift in the science of how we understand human nature. The old view that we are essentially self-interested creatures is being nudged firmly to one side by evidence that we are also homo empathicus, wired for empathy, social cooperation, and mutual aid.
Over the last decade, neuroscientists have identified a 10-section “empathy circuit” in our brains which, if damaged, can curtail our ability to understand what other people are feeling. Evolutionary biologists like Frans de Waal have shown that we are social animals who have naturally evolved to care for each other, just like our primate cousins. And psychologists have revealed that we are primed for empathy by strong attachment relationships in the first two years of life.
But empathy doesn’t stop developing in childhood. We can nurture its growth throughout our lives — and we can use it as a radical force for social transformation. Research in sociology, psychology, history — and my own studies of empathic personalities over the past 10 years — reveals how we can make empathy an attitude and a part of our daily lives, and thus improve the lives of everyone around us. Here are the Six Habits of Highly Empathic People!
Habit 1: Cultivate curiosity about strangers Highly empathic people (HEPs) have an insatiable curiosity about strangers. They will talk to the person sitting next to them on the bus, having retained that natural inquisitiveness we all had as children, but which society is so good at beating out of us. They find other people more interesting than themselves but are not out to interrogate them, respecting the advice of the oral historian Studs Terkel: “Don’t be an examiner, be the interested inquirer.”
Curiosity expands our empathy when we talk to people outside our usual social circle, encountering lives and worldviews very different from our own. Curiosity is good for us too: Happiness guru Martin Seligman identifies it as a key character strength that can enhance life satisfaction. And it is a useful cure for the chronic loneliness afflicting around one in three Americans.
Cultivating curiosity requires more than having a brief chat about the weather. Crucially, it tries to understand the world inside the head of the other person. We are confronted by strangers every day, like the heavily tattooed woman who delivers your mail or the new employee who always eats his lunch alone. Set yourself the challenge of having a conversation with one stranger every week. All it requires is courage.
Habit 2: Challenge prejudices and discover commonalities We all have assumptions about others and use collective labels — e.g., “Muslim fundamentalist,” “welfare mom” — that prevent us from appreciating their individuality. HEPs challenge their own preconceptions and prejudices by searching for what they share with people rather than what divides them. An episode from the history of US race relations illustrates how this can happen.
Claiborne Paul Ellis was born into a poor white family in Durham, North Carolina, in 1927. Finding it hard to make ends meet working in a garage and believing African Americans were the cause of all his troubles, he followed his father’s footsteps and joined the Ku Klux Klan, eventually rising to the top position of Exalted Cyclops of his local KKK branch.
In 1971 he was invited — as a prominent local citizen — to a 10-day community meeting to tackle racial tensions in schools, and was chosen to head a steering committee with Ann Atwater, a black activist he despised. But working with her exploded his prejudices about African Americans. He saw that she shared the same problems of poverty as his own. “I was beginning to look at a black person, shake hands with him, and see him as a human being,” he recalled of his experience on the committee. “It was almost like being born again.” On the final night of the meeting, he stood in front of a thousand people and tore up his Klan membership card.
Ellis later became a labor organizer for a union whose membership was 70 percent African American. He and Ann remained friends for the rest of their lives. There may be no better example of the power of empathy to overcome hatred and change our minds.
Habit 3: Try another person’s life So you think ice climbing and hang-gliding are extreme sports? Then you need to try experiential empathy, the most challenging — and potentially rewarding — of them all. HEPs expand their empathy by gaining direct experience of other people’s lives, putting into practice the Native American proverb, “Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins before you criticize him.”
George Orwell is an inspiring model. After several years as a colonial police officer in British Burma in the 1920s, Orwell returned to Britain determined to discover what life was like for those living on the social margins. “I wanted to submerge myself, to get right down among the oppressed,” he wrote. So he dressed up as a tramp with shabby shoes and coat, and lived on the streets of East London with beggars and vagabonds. The result, recorded in his book Down and Out in Paris and London, was a radical change in his beliefs, priorities, and relationships. He not only realized that homeless people are not “drunken scoundrels” — Orwell developed new friendships, shifted his views on inequality, and gathered some superb literary material. It was the greatest travel experience of his life. He realized that empathy doesn’t just make you good — it’s good for you, too.
We can each conduct our own experiments. If you are religiously observant, try a “God Swap,” attending the services of faiths different from your own, including a meeting of Humanists. Or if you’re an atheist, try attending different churches! Spend your next vacation living and volunteering in a village in a developing country. Take the path favored by philosopher John Dewey, who said, “All genuine education comes about through experience.”
Habit 4: Listen hard—and open up There are two traits required for being an empathic conversationalist.
One is to master the art of radical listening. “What is essential,” says Marshall Rosenberg, psychologist and founder of Non-Violent Communication (NVC), “is our ability to be present to what’s really going on within — to the unique feelings and needs a person is experiencing in that very moment.” HEPs listen hard to others and do all they can to grasp their emotional state and needs, whether it is a friend who has just been diagnosed with cancer or a spouse who is upset at them for working late yet again.
But listening is never enough. The second trait is to make ourselves vulnerable. Removing our masks and revealing our feelings to someone is vital for creating a strong empathic bond. Empathy is a two-way street that, at its best, is built upon mutual understanding — an exchange of our most important beliefs and experiences.
Organizations such as the Israeli-Palestinian Parents Circle put it all into practice by bringing together bereaved families from both sides of the conflict to meet, listen, and talk. Sharing stories about how their loved ones died enables families to realize that they share the same pain and the same blood, despite being on opposite sides of a political fence, and has helped to create one of the world’s most powerful grassroots peace-building movements.
Habit 5: Inspire mass action and social change We typically assume empathy happens at the level of individuals, but HEPs understand that empathy can also be a mass phenomenon that brings about fundamental social change.
Just think of the movements against slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries on both sides of the Atlantic. As journalist Adam Hochschild reminds us, “The abolitionists placed their hope not in sacred texts but human empathy,” doing all they could to get people to understand the very real suffering on the plantations and slave ships. Equally, the international trade union movement grew out of empathy between industrial workers united by their shared exploitation. The overwhelming public response to the Asian tsunami of 2004 emerged from a sense of empathic concern for the victims, whose plight was dramatically beamed into our homes on shaky video footage.
Empathy will most likely flower on a collective scale if its seeds are planted in our children. That’s why HEPs support efforts such as Canada’s pioneering Roots of Empathy, the world’s most effective empathy teaching program, which has benefited over half a million school kids. Its unique curriculum centers on an infant, whose development children observe over time in order to learn emotional intelligence — and its results include significant declines in playground bullying and higher levels of academic achievement.
Beyond education, the big challenge is figuring out how social networking technology can harness the power of empathy to create mass political action. Twitter may have gotten people onto the streets for Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, but can it convince us to care deeply about the suffering of distant strangers, whether they are drought-stricken farmers in Africa or future generations who will bear the brunt of our carbon-junkie lifestyles? This will only happen if social networks learn to spread not just information, but empathic connection.
Habit 6: Develop an ambitious imagination A final trait of HEPs is that they do far more than empathize with the usual suspects. We tend to believe empathy should be reserved for those living on the social margins or who are suffering. This is necessary, but it is hardly enough.
We also need to empathize with people whose beliefs we don’t share or who may be “enemies” in some way. If you are a campaigner on global warming, for instance, it may be worth trying to step into the shoes of oil company executives—understanding their thinking and motivations — if you want to devise effective strategies to shift them towards developing renewable energy. A little of this “instrumental empathy” (sometimes known as “impact anthropology”) can go a long way.
Empathizing with adversaries is also a route to social tolerance. That was Gandhi’s thinking during the conflicts between Muslims and Hindus leading up to Indian independence in 1947, when he declared, “I am a Muslim! And a Hindu, and a Christian and a Jew.”
Organizations, too, should be ambitious with their empathic thinking. Bill Drayton, the renowned “father of social entrepreneurship,” believes that in an era of rapid technological change, mastering empathy is the key business survival skill because it underpins successful teamwork and leadership. His influential Ashoka Foundation has launched the Start Empathy initiative, which is taking its ideas to business leaders, politicians and educators worldwide.
The 20th century was the Age of Introspection, when self-help and therapy culture encouraged us to believe that the best way to understand who we are and how to live was to look inside ourselves. But it left us gazing at our own navels. The 21st century should become the Age of Empathy, when we discover ourselves not simply through self-reflection, but by becoming interested in the lives of others. We need empathy to create a new kind of revolution. Not an old-fashioned revolution built on new laws, institutions, or policies, but a radical revolution in human relationships.
I worked during December 2013 to post content for self-improvement. In January 2014, I’ll begin posting on how we can improve the world. I hope you’ll come back often — there is more to be discovered.
“How do I feel” and “What do I need?” keeps things nice and simple – what is in the way of my joy? Am I okay with what I am doing, saying, feeling — whatever it takes — take the little bit of action that gets me out of my defeat — life can become a jumble of conflicts if that is what I allow the ego-mind to make of the present. Someone once said “Life is a gift – enjoy the present.” or was it: “Today is a gift – that’s why we call it a present.” I’m presently working on what Karol Ward is writing about in this reblogged post. I enjoyed reading it and I decided to follow http://bringingupbuddhas.com/ too. ~ Eric
Unexpressed emotional needs are like a stream that gets blocked by fallen branches forming a dam. Eventually the water behind the dam finds its way over or around the blockage and the stream continues on. When you don’t acknowledge what you need, either to yourself or to another person, the emotions don’t go away. They either get expressed indirectly or can show up in your body as physical symptoms: headaches, ulcers, teeth-grinding, etc. These painful physical signals show the effort the body goes through to manage unexpressed feelings.
As a side note, I do want to clarify that some physical symptoms are not emotionally based, and all should be discussed with your medical or wellness practitioner.
In my experience as a therapist, unexpressed emotions continue to knock at the door of our conscious minds, waiting to be released. Maybe your needs to have more rest, more fun or to get support are being ignored. Perhaps…
Carl Jung said: “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” I want to stimulate some thinking about that and how it looks, so I came across this on November 22, where Stewart ofDark Matters a Lotposted this video:
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Carl Jung pointed out that “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.” Beyond Medsposted a video and article, apparently byMonica Cassani, on Alan Watts speaking about Carl Jung on Accepting the Darkness of Self and Others:
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Jung also said:
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
If I said, “I just want to be there, at the outcome; making money or living in peaceful bliss.” What would you tell me?
Put yourself in a pair of somebody’s boots in Iraq — how does if feel?
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Program Description
Sam Richards encourages students to engage more fully with the world and to think for themselves — something he claims that he did not do until his third year in college. Because of his passion for challenging students to open their minds, an interviewer recently referred to him as “an alarm clock for eighteen-year-olds.” Every semester, 725 students register for his Race and Ethnic Relations course, one of the most popular classes at Penn State. In this lecture, he challenges students to visualize the world differently — for the perspectives of insurgents living in Iraq. THIS IS NOT ABOUT TAKING SIDES — its a thought experiment.
This report presents brain research breakthroughs that are continuing to develop our scientific understanding that the brain-body is a complex bio-mechanical system that can be directed towards inner peace and serenity. My findings via science are helping me be able to communicate how we may each find meaning in our lives that draw us — each one — to transcend self. I refer to this process as spirituality — not as religious practices. Everyone has biological needs for inner peace and transcendence of self.
Regarding spirituality, scientists speculated for a long time that there may be a “God gene” that possibly causes a person to believe in God and that the human brain possibly features a “God spot” area that may be responsible for increasing spirituality. The “God gene” is still unfound, but it isn’t ruled out. Presently, science is not focusing on brains as having a single “God spot” because…
“No ‘God Spot’ In Brain,
Spirituality Linked To Right Parietal Lobe.”1
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University of Missouri research findings indicate spirituality is a complex phenomenon, and multiple areas of the brain are responsible for the many aspects of spiritual experiences.“
We have found a neuropsychological basis for spirituality, but it’s not isolated to one specific area of the brain,” said Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the School of Health Professions and others at the University. “Spirituality is a much more dynamic concept that uses many parts of the brain. Certain parts of the brain play more predominant roles, but they all work together to facilitate individuals’ spiritual experiences.” Thus, preliminary speculation that there is a “God spot” in the brain may not be found to be true.
The brain is (probably) trainable. I’m in no way disappointed. In fact, this latest research finding confirms my belief that just about anyone may train their brain in order to increase peaceful sensations resulting from meditation, chanting, soothing music, prayer, spiritual activities, and the like. This study began after previous research findings by the same University scientists that the right side of the brain is associated with self-orientation, whereas the left side is associated with how individuals relate to others.
Although the current study looks at people with brain injury, previous studies of meditating Buddhists and Franciscan nuns with normal brain function have shown that people can learn to minimize the functioning of the right side of their brains to increase their spiritual connections during meditation and prayer.
Johnstone studied 20 people with traumatic brain injuries affecting the right parietal lobe. He surveyed participants on characteristics of spirituality, such as how close they felt to a higher power and if they felt their lives were part of a divine plan.
The study found that the participants with more significant injury to their right parietal lobe showed an increased feeling of closeness to a higher power. He found that the participants with more significant injury to their right parietal lobe showed an increased feeling of closeness to a higher power.
“Neuropsychology researchers consistently have shown that impairment on the right side of the brain decreases one’s focus on the self,” Johnstone said.
“Since our research shows that people with this impairment are more spiritual, this suggests spiritual experiences are associated with a decreased focus on the self. This is consistent with many religious texts that suggest people should concentrate on the well-being of others rather than on themselves. ”
In addition, Johnstone measured the frequency of participants’ religious practices, such as how often they attended church or listened to religious programs. Research subjects were measured as to activity in the frontal lobe and the result indicates a strong correlation between increased activity in this part of the brain and increased participation in spiritual practices. “This finding indicates that spiritual experiences are likely associated with different parts of the brain,” Johnstone said.
The research makes no claim about spiritual truths. The study merely demonstrates how that the brain allows for different kinds of feelings of a spiritual experience that Christians might experience as God, Buddhists as Nirvana, or for atheists it may seem like a feeling of serene peacefulness.
Any one can learn to increase an experience of spirituality!
Professor Johnstone says that for him it is music that helps him transcend himself: “When I put on my headphones and listen to “Stairway to Heaven” I just get lost.
Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the University of Missouri School of Health Professions, studied spirituality in people with right parietal lobe brain damage.
So, spirituality is not limited to religious (people). Anyone can develop the experiences that allow for us to relax in a peaceful spirit. The pursuit of individuality and self-interests occurs in the side of the brain where it turns out that this strength may weaken “spirituality.”
Each person it seems must take action themselves. The old thinking that a “God spot” in the brain may direct spirituality is all but thrown out completely.
A person may strengthen “spirituality” by means of prayer, peacefulness meditations, relaxation or soothing music, and by other means that cause us to lose our sense of self and allow us to sense connections with a more universal presence. The article points out that this “inner place” is called many different names depending on what spiritual development practices that may be guiding an individual.
Do you have a regular spiritual daily routine? I believe that we humans are prepared better to live in a diverse culture if we’d take some action to develop daily practices of a “spiritual” nature. If you begin a regular practice, for example, of prayer, bible meditation, and fellowship, and prayer again, you may find yourself changed dramatically in a short time is what I think.
More: morning Meditation, Mindfulness is Self-Kindness, The Importance of Prayer.
Thanks for reading (spiritual topics in a secular world),
There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
How do thoughts occur?
Well, it turns out that no one exactly knows.However, there is evidence that thought originates from our source… not the brain… no, our energy source.
Watch these video clips and then, let’s talk about it.
Before you experience a conscious thought, there are unconscious brain processes at work behind the scenes that must generate the thought. We know this, but we do not yet have a solid idea regarding what it is about brain function that gives rise to a thought.
One important point to keep in mind regarding any functions of consciousness in the brain is that, even if consciousness serves no functional role whatsoever (as some say), science must explain what consciousness is and how it is part of the natural world.
There is a reason that science can’t pronounce Schrodinger’s Cat dead or alive!Here is why: so, just for fun, think about it!Well, when the box is opened, if you look at the cat, a decision is final… only then is the cat found to be dead or alive. Otherwise, the quantum cat is either or neither… or, as was further suggested, the cat is both dead and alive. Now, this is STRANGE; to say the least. In another few installments, I want take this to some extremes. If you stick around, this cat puzzle will be only the tip of the huge unknown that is becoming known because of this very experiment. This strange thought experiment led to amazing discoveries about the properties of light, quarks, bosons, a time-space fabric, and lots more. Einstein probably can’t rest… its that exciting… so exciting that even grade school kids love learning about physics. This experiment led also to exploring the nature of consciousness and that is what I most want to explore.Strange but possibly true:
I’m working on this and on how consciousness works. Don’t miss it.
Memories are powerful — but they change… so, I set out to learn all there is to know. This will take considerable time; meantime, I’m reporting as I go. I’ve uncovered some rewarding findings including why telling another person about your anger, fear, even a phobia is part of a powerful healing technique.
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awakening a new future
Recalled memories are reconstructions of events, situations, thoughts, ideas, and so on. Memories are not an actual record of what happened. Additionally, your own experience tells you that memories need not even be at all accurate. In some cases though, we “think” a memory is accurate and yet find out sometime later that this is not true. It proves out to be that exploring of memories is a way to heal. There is a reason of the physical laws of the universe for this is what eventually that I’ll explore.
There may be an image copyright
In fact, taking this just a bit further, you’ll realize that reviewing a memory creates a new memory… the very act of remembering changes memories; in treatment, perhaps substantially. My friend; so, a past memory is REALLY a memory of a memory. So, what about creating memories? Well, I’ve been experimenting with something that ties in. In fact, during meditation, I sometimes review past memories; even of events and times that I’d prefer to forget. It turns out that if I concentrate on what I did and only what I was feeling during the event, I can actually take it out of the mental/emotional baggage area and by doing a positive review with the person or with a substitute if need be, I can choose to handle future situations differently and even take the sting out of my shameful self or victim memories and even for others too. Its truly amazing that I can heal of the emotional past.
Yes, it seems that the mind’s ability includes being able to heal past hurts and past mistakes. So, in effect, the future came reach back to change the past. Now, actually according to quantum physics, the Newtonian sense that cause and effect move only toward a future end point, in reality, perhaps the points in between a cause and effect sequence of events may in fact be uncertain. In fact, modern physics supports that anything can come from nothing and that time is based on units that are infinitesimally small (see planck time). Because particles can physically occupy alternate realities, there is possibly something to the experience that is similar to miraculous. I’ll get back to this in a future post and that in effect will change this experience (memory).
Back to this post… the set right-minded idea isn’t to hide the truth. That’s what we tend to do with painful situations — hide it or suffer and so, hide it generally. That is in ways the other side of mind’s strength and yet its a tremendous weakness if without the important review process. In cases where I’d like to heal, hiding memories isn’t a good thing… it preserves the fear and the inner hurts too. The hiding drains energy — matter is compressed energy and matter requires tremendous amounts of energy. Think about this:
Going over hurts and feelings is potentially a positive force for change. Again, its too much for this one post, so, I’ll return to this also in the future.
Now, what really happened is important. However, when I say really, I do mean exactly that. What did I really feel and therefore think and do? Is the truth in there? With it is my feelings, my reason and there is in where the problem lies… LIES to me. It turns out that my thoughts directed me… and it occurs upon review of a past event that there were many possible thoughts that I might have had. When I select to review past situations as purely an observer, many alternate realities become available sometimes.
As an example, most can relate to loss of control occasionally. Years ago, I yelled at my Dad and it turned out badly. I wasn’t really listening and I made assumptions. I thought I had a valid reason to yell at my Dad — turns out I was wrong to yell at him; and therefore, I needed to deal with what Dad did and the memory of my anger separately. Once I’d seen this, it was easy enough to change my thinking and see that two wrongs didn’t make either of us right. I went to my Dad and confessed that I had lost control and that it was wrong to get mad at him. He thought he was trying to help me. So, he’d been feeling that I was ungrateful and rebellious and selfish. Dad died about five years later. Meantime, I was free during all of that time to enjoy him and he to enjoy me. What if I hadn’t gone to him to discuss my outburst? Was that pre-determined or was it because of my conscience that we were saved from the bitter separation from each other?
Memories are important; but reviewing memories of failures and of loss of control is essential to making progress towards a peaceful and joyful life.
Have you ever wondered why someone people seem to struggle through life while others breeze through it? Have you ever compared yourself to someone in a similar situation and wondered why they seem so content while your frustrations are escalating to an all time high? Sometimes it all comes down to perspective. Luckily, you can change your perspective.
Eric
But what is empathy? It’s the ability to step into the 
Highly empathic people (HEPs) have an insatiable curiosity about strangers. They will talk to the person sitting next to them on the bus, having retained that natural inquisitiveness we all had as children, but which society is so good at beating out of us. They find other people more interesting than themselves but are not out to interrogate them, respecting the advice of the oral historian Studs Terkel: “Don’t be an 
We all have assumptions about others and use collective labels — e.g., “Muslim fundamentalist,” “welfare mom” — that prevent us from appreciating their individuality. HEPs challenge their own preconceptions and prejudices by searching for what they share with people rather than what divides them. An episode from the history of US race relations illustrates how this can happen.
So you think ice climbing and hang-gliding are extreme sports? Then you need to try experiential empathy, the most challenging — and potentially rewarding — of them all. HEPs expand their empathy by gaining direct experience of other people’s lives, putting into practice the Native American proverb, “Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins before you criticize him.”
There are two traits required for being an empathic conversationalist.
Eric
Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the University of Missouri School of Health Professions, studied spirituality in people with right parietal lobe brain damage.
However, there is evidence that thought originates from our source… not the brain… no, our energy source.
Here is why: so, just for fun, think about it!
Well, when the box is opened, if you look at the cat, a decision is final… only then is the cat found to be dead or alive. Otherwise, the quantum cat is either or neither… or, as was further suggested, the cat is both dead and alive. Now, this is STRANGE; to say the least. In another few installments, I want take this to some extremes. If you stick around, this cat puzzle will be only the tip of the huge unknown that is becoming known because of this very experiment. This strange thought experiment led to amazing discoveries about the properties of light, quarks, bosons, a time-space fabric, and lots more. Einstein probably can’t rest… its that exciting… so exciting that even grade school kids love learning about physics. This experiment led also to exploring the nature of consciousness and that is what I most want to explore.Strange but possibly true:
