How You Remember Events Does Make A Difference

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What can you do about it? How can you lift the onus off your back?

What can you do about it? How can you lift the onus off your back?

“Our findings provide compelling support for the idea that memory and future thought are highly interrelated and help explain why future thought may be impossible without memories.” (Karl Szpunar, lead author of a recent study on the relationship between memory and future thought and a psychology doctoral student in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.)

Suicidally depressed people “don’t remember particularly what happened last month and they can’t really tell you much of anything about what they envision happening next week.” (Szpunar)

What happens when many of your memories are of traumatic events? Might that mean your future thoughts will also be trauma filled? Or maybe you don’t recall things because of drug-related memory loss. Or perhaps your childhood has become amnesic due to childhood illness or psychological issues.

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The Power of Your Affirmations

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"I am NOT angry!!!"

Rigidity of thought – “I’m right!” thinking – tends to embitter one’s life and sour relationships.

A member of the United States Senate, known for his hot temper and acid tongue, exploded one day in mid-session and began to shout, “Half of this Senate is made up of cowards and corrupt politicians!”

All the other Senators demanded that the angry member withdraw his statement, or be removed from the remainder of the session.

After a long pause, the angry member acquiesced. “OK,” he said, “I withdraw what I said. Half of this Senate is NOT made up of cowards and corrupt politicians!”

Did you notice how both of the Senator’s iterations meant the same thing? How many times have you confused yourself with negative affirmations? For example, how many times have you told yourself that you could not do something. Most of the time, such self-defeating affirmations are absolutely false. You aren’t telling yourself the truth.

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RET and Entwined Senses

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"Hearing and sight are deeply intertwined."

A study shows that the senses of "hearing and sight are deeply intertwined" - as they are in Rapid Eye Technology.

The process of Rapid Eye Technology marries visual perception of rapid motion with rapid emotion-laden auditory input to affect an emotional release. The technique has proven successful for many clients seeking relief from emotional troubles and for those seeking to improve themselves in a number of areas.

Another study on the relationship between visual and auditory channels used in RET has emerged from UCLA.

“Most of us understand that smell affects taste. But people tend to think that what they see is what they see and what they hear is what they hear.”

The findings of a study at UCLA, published by the American Psychological Assn, concludes,

“…that, even at a non-conscious level, visual and auditory processes are not so straightforward,” says cognitive neuroscientist and study co-author Robyn Kim. “Perception is actually a very complex thing affected by many factors.”

 

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Peace as an Action

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By doing you manifest what is in your heart. Many stop at the BEing and don't get around to the DOing part.

By doing you manifest what is in your heart. Many stop at the BEing and don’t get around to the DOing part.

If there is to be Peace in the world, there must be Peace in the nations.
If there is to be Peace in the nations, there must be Peace in the cities.
If there is to be Peace in the cities, there must be Peace between neighbors.
If there is to be Peace between neighbors, there must be Peace in the home.
If there is to be Peace in the home, there must be Peace in the Heart.
—Lao Tzu

Perhaps the great Zen master was on to something there…

I see the Peace referred to above as an action. That is, as something we DO from an inner point of BEING tranquil and peaceful (full of peace). Peace, in my way of thinking, feeling, and believing, is only in its manifestation – what we DO about it. Peace as a concept is just a thoughtform – basically fluff – (“the absence of war or hostilities” – what is that?) – of virtually no significance until acted upon. Only ACTIVE peace matters. Some will manifest peace as did Master Tzu or Gandhi. Others like Jesus or the Buddha. Still others like the Prophet Muhammad. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose – so long as the peace in the heart makes itself known in action - in DOing. Continue reading →

Fail Safe Programs

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Psychic Protection Programs protect core beliefs or truths from change. The following is a three-part strategy for self-preservation based on Cause & Effect logic.

3-part strategy for keeping the current belief system stable, safe, and secure:

1. It (life) is as it is and – [belief system needing protection against change]

2. I can’t change it (life) because – [initial protection layer - cause]

*I’ll die (or someone else will die) [ultimate physical fear - result]

*I’m too afraid [based on predictions leading to "I'll die" - result]

*It’s impossible [based on assumption that if I do, "I'll die" - result]

3. Because – [justification - kills desire for change]

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Proxy Addiction?

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Although questioning is important, asking the right question is much more important - and difficult to do.

Although questioning is important, asking the right question is much more important – and difficult to do.

Proxy or surrogate healing is the act of standing in for another during some kind of therapeutic process.

I consider myself a pretty pragmatic guy. I appreciate how important it is for us to have an answer or some kind of reason for why things happen as they do. We invent religions and gods to help us cope with what we don’t understand or fear. Even science has its own religion of sorts – always seeking to find that illusive reason why.

I, too, would love to know why. It’s in my nature to want to know. Although questioning is important, asking the right question is much more important – and difficult to do. In lieu of proper questions, I’ve often settled with poorly formed questions along with answers I’ve settled upon and defended – answers to the wrong questions or a question asked wrongly. Further, I have tended to put “reasons” behind my settled upon answers – a means by which I can protect my “truths” and make them seem right no matter their veracity. We call this process justification or rationalization.

For a moment, let’s dispense with all reasoning/justification/rationalization and simply look at cause and effect. Something happens and that causes something else to happen. Some cause and effect relationships we have experienced often enough that we feel that we can predict effect from cause.

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Path to true happiness ‘revealed’

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From BBC NEWS 11-15-05
Path to true happiness ‘revealed’
Experts believe they have found the essential ingredients to make a person’s life happier.

The 10 steps to happiness

  • Plant something and nurture it
  • Count your blessings – at least five – at the end of each day
  • Take time to talk – have an hour-long conversation with a loved one each week
  • Phone a friend whom you have not spoken to for a while and arrange to meet up
  • Give yourself a treat every day and take the time to really enjoy it
  • Have a good laugh at least once a day
  • Get physical – exercise for half an hour three times a week
  • Smile at and/or say hello to a stranger at least once each day
  • Cut your TV viewing by half
  • Spread some kindness – do a good turn for someone every day

Read the entire story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4436482.stm

Fear Memory Deletion?

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This research strongly suggests that the emotional content of long-term memories can be removed by interrupting the labile phase of long-term memory storage.

This research strongly suggests that the emotional content of long-term memories can be removed by interrupting the labile phase of long-term memory storage.

Another study, this time from the Universiteit van Amsterdam, demonstrates that memories – most particularly long-term fear memories – are encoded when they first happen and then again whenever we re-store those memories. There is a short period of time in which the brain must chemically “prepare” and then “store” the memory. Whenever we bring the memory back to mind, it must go through the same process to re-store it in the brain. In both of these labile phases, the memory is vulnerable to change.

This research strongly suggests that memories are not, therefore, permanent structures in the brain. Their emotional content can be removed by interrupting the labile phase of long-term memory storage.

I wrote about the brain’s file cabinet in another post (Click here to read). Basically, the brain requires a chemical to access memories and to code them back after accessing them. It’s as though we take each memory, like a file, out of the long-term memory cabinet, close the cabinet, look at the file, use it, then open the cabinet again to put the file back in. If I understand Kindt’s research correctly, interrupting that process at the “putting back in” phase can, in theory, stop the perpetuation of the effects of fear memories by eliminating the fear in the memories.

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Sunglasses at Night?

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Could sunglasses help you sleep at night?

Could sunglasses help you sleep at night?

Scientists at the UK’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards are investigating how the changing spectrum of light we are exposed to during the day affects our health. Their results strongly indicate that poorly designed artificial light systems along with spending too little time outdoors can reduce levels of the body clock hormone melatonin causing sleep disruption.

“The spectrum of sunlight changes during the day so the amount of blue light declines as we approach night time. People have evolved to react to this cycle so that the level of melatonin builds up as we approach night time causing us to feel sleepy. If we get a very different pattern of light over the day and into the evenings, our health can be affected,” Dr. John O’Hagan, leader of the HPA’s Laser and Optical Radiation Dosimetry Group, said.

It would seem to me that a simple pair of blue blocker sunglasses worn for a couple hours before retiring to bed might be a solution for those having difficulty drifting off to sleep at night. Cheap fix if it works – and beats taking melatonin pills that over time might disrupt body systems and possibly cause the body to cease producing the chemical at all.

Chocolate For Stress?

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Dark chocolate - good for stress? Yes!

Dark chocolate – good for stress? Yes! Good for you? Maybe not so much.

Maybe. Maybe not!

A recent article by the American Chemical Society (ACS) purports to extol the virtues of dark chocolate as a possible cure for stress. Apparently there is some substance to their study as it is getting plenty of press. Maybe that’s because we Westerners do like chocolate – and having a report that substantiates our appetite for the sweet confection adds to its reasonableness as a snack for us stressed-out folks.

Although it is nice that 1.4 oz of dark chocolate a day can significantly reduce stress over a two week period, it’s also true that “nobody can each just one!”

Let’s face it, some of us like chocolate A LOT – so much so that we might find it difficult to cut back to 1.4 oz per day!

I think it’s a bit early to start patting ourselves on the back for eating what is good for us each time we reach for the bonbons.

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