Human eye could detect spooky action at a distance

Well of course! The human eye sees a lot more than it is given credit for -- auras, nature spirits, etc.

the physics arXiv blog � Blog Archive � Human eye could detect spooky action at a distance

The Workplace: For workers, happiness is next to productivity - International Herald Tribune

The Workplace: For workers, happiness is next to productivity - International Herald Tribune

A No-brainer Way to Feel Better in 2 Minutes Flat

Ever been in a meeting, or at the airport, or even driving, & felt crummy? You know, those times when you have to stay focused on the meeting, the departure announcements or the road, but all you want to do is take care of yourself?

Guess what? It's possible to do both -- stay focused on the task at hand and take care of yourself -- at the same time. And it's ridiculously easy. And no one will ever know.

I just learned this amazing Brain Gym technique from someone I met (thanks, Dorothy!) and I can't believe how well it works. Here's what you do:

Push the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, just behind your front teeth, and hold it for 2 minutes.

You do have to find the right place to push. To find it, you can either:

1. Try a few different ones till you find it by trial and error, noticing when you feel the rush, or
   
2. Suck your thumb for a second. Where your thumb pushes against the roof of your mouth is the right place.

Apparently, pushing against this place releases endorphins. It's why babies suck their thumbs.

I tried it a few times yesterday, including lying in bed. And when I was lying there, quite still, I could actually feel the subtle rush. This morning, I did it while I was walking, and I swear, it didn't take 2 minutes. I suppose, like any else, the more you practice it, the easier and quicker the response, as you will have developed neural pathways to support it.

Ever wonder how smell works?

Turns out it may be a quantum phenomenon. This is very cool... (and the controlling your thoughts thing is a good headline, but not overly persuasive).

Is Quantum Mechanics Controlling Your Thoughts? | Subatomic Particles | DISCOVER Magazine

The world's quickest, easiest way to relax, anywhere, any time!

Usually, when I go for my morning walk, I get into a meditative state by just looking at whatever I pass, without making words in my mind about it. If words show up, I just let them go. Or I repeat a mantra in my mind -- same effect.

Today, however, I decided to look at the spaces between things, instead of at the things themselves. Bingo -- instant trance! I couldn't even make words in my mind.

The easiest way to start is to use tree branches (or anything else that has a lacy effect). Look at the spaces between the branches.

Or try it right now, wherever you are. Are there dangling wires for your equipment? Look at the space between them. A pair of scissors in a pencil cup? Look at the spaces in and around the scissors.

Pretty quickly, you'll move on to bigger things, so that you see all the space around you. For me, that seemed like I was walking in a sea of air, like I'm a tiny creature in this sea.

What happens for you? Let me know...

Mind - Crying as Catharsis Isn’t Always the Case - NYTimes.com

Mind - Crying as Catharsis Isn’t Always the Case - NYTimes.com

How to Have More Love in Your Life

People celebrate the upcoming Valentine's day in all sorts of ways -- flowers, chocolate, champagne, and more. But the romantic love that we celebrate at Valentine's Day -- while wonderful -- is only one kind of love. Or maybe it's the poster child for all kinds of love.

So how do you create more love in your life? First, realize that "I love" is a complete statement. It has a subject and a predicate and does not actually need an object. Say it to yourself right now -- "I love". Simple. Complete. "I love."

How do you know when you love? Think about this for a moment. Often people will confuse the actions that express love, like a hug, or a kiss, or a gift, with the love itself.

Second, be clear that love is a feeling, so you need to be able to recognize it in yourself. Here's a simple exercise which will, with practice, enable you to recognize the feeling of your own love, as well as the feeling of others' love coming back to you:

• Find someone or something to love - I highly recommend pets or small sleeping children, as we tend to have more complicated relationships with older humans (as in, "I love my husband, but he leaves the toilet seat up" or "I love my girlfriend but [fill in the blank with whatever makes her imperfect]"). If you don't have handy, regular access to either a pet or a child, you can try an adult, or a plant, or a place. In a pinch, you can even use a memory of someone or something you love, or have loved. I will refer to this as your 'creature', partly for convenience, and partly in honor of my black and white cat, Creature, who sleeps beside me as I write this, and with whom I do this often.
  
• Actively love this creature - Sit or stand near it, contemplating all the wonderful qualities (s)he possesses, until you notice a response in your body and/or a more subtle one in your energy field.
• Pay attention to the feeling - Notice exactly where the feeling is. Is it in your chest? stomach? around your head? somewhere else? Roughly what shape is it? How large an area contains the feeling? If it's spherical, is it the size of a golf ball, or a baseball, or a softball, or a basketball? Now describe it to yourself, using only kinesthetic words, such as warm, cold, tense, relaxed, expanding, contracting, or tingly. For example, I feel love as an expansive warmth in my chest (around my heart chakra!), somewhat smaller than a basketball, thought the size does change.
  
• This feeling is how you feel love - Notice that you generated it yourself, using only your thoughts. If you did it just now, what's stopping you from doing it any time? What's stopping you from having more love in your life?
  

This is an exercise worth practicing, though I hesitate to use the word 'practice', because that makes it sound like work, when it's so much fun!

Eventually, you'll probably find the feeling of love actually expands to include the creature you love. You may feel this in any number of ways. The feeling of love may become a sort of energetic cloud that envelops both of you, or you may feel it as a sort of elastic band between you and your creature, or you may feel your creature radiating love back to you in another way. (This is why I earlier suggested a physical creature, rather than a memory -- it's hard to feel love radiating off a memory.)

So, how do you have more love in your life? You create it yourself, with your intention.

Should those Word screens be blue?

And maybe the Excel screens should be red. Looks like people are more creative on a blue background and more accurate on a red one, though this may be an oversimplification:

Color Study Looks at Effects of Red and Blue - NYTimes.com

My Word screen was already blue. I did it because it's easier on my eyes. I'm going to try the red for Excel, too -- typing accuracy is not my strong suit.

Is there anything positve about the economic situation?

A friend wrote this. There may, in fact, be a silver lining to the economic black cloud. It's generally best to look on the bright side, while acknowledging reality, so I thought I'd post the link.

On Psychic Etiquette

The human senses register millions of pieces of information every second, so many that we can't possibly process them all consciously -- and many of then we can't even process at an unconscious level. These bits of information, processed beneath the level of conscious awareness, constitute intuition or the psychic senses. (See Malcom Gladwell's "Blink" for a great discussion of this.)

You can choose where to focus your attention, however. And as you begin to open up psychically, you have to have guidelines for the responsible use of your abilities. Here are my rules for what is fair game (you can choose your own):

1. Things that concern me.
2. Things that other people ask me to look at that concern them.
   

For me, all else is off limits -- it is not clairvoyance, but clairvoyeurism, rather like being a psychic peeping Tom. If no one asks me to look, I don't look.

I do know some people have a lot of natural psychic or intuitive ability, and don't know how to manage it, and 'see' or feel stuff for other people all the time. These people (usually women) are so overwhelmed by the information that they get, that they either can't function, or shut the abilities down entirely. And often, before they shut down the abilities, they have the experience of telling someone something they saw, and being made wrong for having seen it.

Shutting down seems a shame to me, because we are given these gifts as a natural part of our existence, and not using what you have is like tying your dominant arm behind your back. Then you don't have your arm available for your own betterment or protection, and you don't have it available to help others who want to be helped. (If you are one of these people, I can help. Call me at 888-4-hollis.)

Grandma was right!

My grandmother (and her daughter, my mother) used a lot of common sayings. Here are 3 of her favorites:

1. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
2. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
3. Don't dignify that with an answer. (For someone saying something mean.)

If everyone lived by #1, the world would be a much nicer place. TV might be a bit more boring, though.

Most of us over the age of 21 (the age of 10? 8?) have learned this, to at least some degree. We have learned not to say to someone, "You have a big butt", but rather "That isn't the most flattering outfit." I'm told by friends who grew up in the South, that when women there want to be catty (or perhaps along with the cattiness), they say, "Bless her heart". I do think that's much more positive, asking for a blessing for the person whom you dislike, to help him/her see the light, change his/her ways, etc.

#2 really hit home this week, as I began to delete blog post comments that showed up in my email box without reading them. Why read something I knew was going to be vile, just from the subject? And you can't influence someone without reaching him or her.

#3 is about not giving energy to the negative. What you focus on, expands. I choose to focus on the positive. This is also why I've chosen to hide the comments. Why leave the vile stuff out in the open? (And it doesn't seem possible to publish some comments and not others, and even if it were possible, that would be way too much work, and focusing on the negative.)

To Natalie

Thank you very much for your clear explanation and civil tone. May your open heart help heal many others!

I did do as you asked.

Thank you again!

More Lessons from Wife Swap (& its aftermath)

So I posted the item below on Saturday afternoon, and began to get hate mail. Most of it was gratuitously vile, while a few people struck a reasonable tone and made good points. To the reasonable among you, thank you. To those who just used the comments to vent their anger, has it occurred to you that perhaps praying for open hearts (Stephen's, yours, mine, heck, the entire world's) might be a more productive use of your time and energy?

Here's what I've learned from this:

• The power of prime time television - I wasn't on the show; all I did was write a blog post about it. And yet my blog has gotten more hits in the last 2 days than in the last 6 months combined.
  
• The power of controversy - A radio talent manager told me years ago that you get better ratings by stirring up controversy than by being nice. (He's the person who convinced Dr. Laura to air her real comments rather than what he called, "happy talk" -- and the rating soared.) Wow, was he right.
  
• What you put out comes back to you, amplified - While I didn't say anything mean, I am apparently guilty by association. Stephen said mean things on screen, and so that energy comes back at him, his family and me, just for writing about it.
• People are willing to judge someone based on very little evidence - Obviously, they are willing to condemn a man's entire life and being based on part of 42 minutes of (edited) television. And of course, they know him better than people who have met him. Does anyone remember "judge not, lest ye be judged"?
  
• Once people have made up their minds, they don't want to hear anything that contradicts their judgment - Heaven forbid you should bring up a different side of the issue.
• A 'public' figure is not viewed as human - People apparently feel it is fine to say horrible things to people they have never met. They say things I'm sure they would never say to a friend or family member -- or even a stranger -- to his or her face. I'm an adult, and I can take it, but I'm beginning to feel sorry for the teenagers on American Idol, who must get all sorts of crap, at a time in their lives when they're very vulnerable. Therefore...
• If you are going to be 'public', you'd better have pretty thick skin. - The problem with this is that people who develop such thick skin then begin to ignore the negative comments and surround themselves with people they feel they can trust. If those people are sycophants, that 'public' figure begins to live in an isolated, unrealistic bubble.
  
• Loyalty is not valued - To say something positive about someone who is out of favor is not viewed as loyalty, but as being vile, or stupid.
  
• Listener, viewer, reader beware: freedom of speech does not mean you have to tell the truth, let alone be civil - I've read that it's illegal to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, unless there is, in fact, a fire. But is is fine to threaten publicly, and to lie about the facts on the air. Of course, I should have learned this from the media darlings who make their living by spreading lies that feed hatred, but I get it at a deeper level now.
  

(And as for those of you who said, 'if you were psychic, you would have warned them' -- hey, no one asked me!)