Some years ago, my wife and I were invited to do a fire walk. We built a BIG fire – over 8 feet tall and 20 feet across we stacked the wood – then burned it down to a 15 foot round bed of hot coals. It was so hot in fact that we burned our faces from several feet back.

Sure it’s possible to walk on coals – lots of people have done it before and not gotten so much as an ouch of a burn. But I had not done it before – and even after the first person walked across – and even though we knew scientifically and spiritually that it was possible – the HEAT and FIRE coupled with our own past experiences with fire – I had been burned badly on my feet in a fire in the garage in our old house – confronted us with the real possibility of serious injury.

FIRE BURNS FLESH!!! My body knows it – which is why I don’t put my hand on the hot stove on purpose. My body knows about heat and knows how to react to it – mostly by AVOIDING IT.

I don’t care how much you believe you can do it – when you stand at the precipice and your face and arms are burning from the heat – you are face to face with one of the greatest inbred fears of animal-kind – the fear of fire – ala Frankenstein’s monster. All animals are afraid of fire – including humans. Fire is TERRIFYING.

What would it take to make me step from the cool grass onto the superheated hot coals?

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The best resolution to guilt is ACTION – some kind of action that mitigates or helps redeem us from our transgression.

I have always felt that guilt, far from being the “bad guy” of the new age, plays a vital role in the regulation of social behavior. That feeling in your gut often serves as the impetus for a stab at redemption.

Psychologists have trouble agreeing on the function of this complex emotion. On one hand, the punitive feeling of guilt may keep you from repeating the same transgressive behavior in the future, which psychologists call “withdrawal motivation.” Conversely, some researchers view the function of guilt in a societal context, in that it keeps people’s behavior in line with the moral standards of their community. This view emphasizes a more positive emotional experience and is associated with “approach motivation.”

In a study appearing in Psychological Science, published by the Association for Psychological Science, New York University psychologist, David M. Amodio, and his colleagues, Patricia G. Devine, and Eddie Harmon-Jones, sought to bring some understanding to this complex issue. The researchers believe that guilt is initially associated with withdrawal motivation, which then transforms into approach-motivated behavior when an opportunity for reparation presents itself. Furthermore, the researchers sought to test these questions about the functions guilt plays in the context of reducing racial prejudice.

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People who complain that they are more sensitive to sadness or frustration than others and report feeling “hurt” may be telling the truth.

There are approximately three billion base pairs (connections) in a strand of DNA. That represents a virtually infinite number of possible combinations. The variation between each of us, although nearly infinitesimally small, is so significant that no two of us in the world population of nearly 7 billion humans is exactly identical. Even identical twins are different from each other.

It is that small variation in each of us that is the result of and contributes to the evolution of the specie. In a study by UCLA researchers, publishing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Markus Heilig, Faculty Member for F1000 Biology, and Chief of the Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, MD, report that they have identified a genetic factor that causes some people to actually experience stronger physical sensations associated with emotions (in the study case, the emotion was rejection).

There is apparently a wide variation or spectrum associated with the feeling (physical sensations) of emotions. Therefore, some people who complain that they are more sensitive to sadness or frustration, for example, than others and report feeling emotionally “hurt” may be telling the literal truth.

Can these genetic factors be moderated through training or experience? What do you think? Are we “hard wired” – or can we significantly affect our emotional states in spite of genetic predisposition or genetic variations?

An abstract of the original paper, Variation in the micro-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) is associated with dispositional and neural sensitivity to social rejection is online at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/19706472?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn.

My thanks to John Phillips for this little jewel.

“If I had my life to live over again, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I’d limber up. I’d be sillier than I’ve been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would, perhaps, have more actual troubles but fewer imaginary ones. You see, I’m one of those people who was sensible and sane, hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I’ve had my moments. If I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else- just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I could do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances, I would ride more merry-go-rounds, I would pick daisies.” –Nadine Stair at age 89

“I failed my math test. – THEREFORE – I must be stupid.”

“I failed! I’m so stupid!”

Ever heard that before – in your own head?

It’s a logic level leap.

What? You’ve never heard of logic levels? Well don’t feel bad – lots of people haven’t heard of them. In Neurolinguistics, logic levels are basically a hierarchy of experience.

Rapid Eye Technicians are familiar with NLP logic levels – they are represented in the Circle of Creation Walk. Basically there are 8 logic levels (named and described by Robert Dilts, 1991):

1. Environment
2. Behavior
3. Capabilities
4. Beliefs
5. Values
6. Identity
7. Mission/Vision
8. Spirituality

Logic level leaps are errors in cause and effect thinking. We misidentify the cause from the effects we experience. Let’s look at two logic levels, Behavior and Identity. Behavior is the level of action (do) whereas Identity is the level of being (be). Over time, this confusion of logic levels creates a situation in which the person believes they ARE what they DO. Sound familiar?

Many people run with the following logic levels leap:

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