A few days ago, a client, Beth, called about issues in her business, mostly wanting it to grow faster. (I can relate, can’t you?) Beth is a music teacher in a private school by day, teaches private clients in voice and piano, and is also starting a life coaching practice. Like many of us, she is highly intuitive, and so she literally “sees” what her business is going to look like. Like all intuitives, she “sees” in the present, and couldn’t quite understand why what she sees clairvoyantly isn’t happening in the physical world right now.
Here is what my guides told me to tell her:
Peace (be centered, balanced, grounded, letting go of attachment to outcomes)
+ Patience (be focused in the present, because that is where all power is)
+ Positive attitude (know that what you want is possible, and is coming)
+ Persistence (keep taking action, keep holding the vision)
= Power to draw things to you Magnetize what you want!
I thought this was so good that I had to pass it on!
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Can money make you happy?
We all want to be happy. Happiness feels good and it improves your health – lowers your blood pressure, lowers your heart rate, and strengthens your immune system, so you’re sick less. And not only do you enjoy your life more, you actually live longer!
And most of us want to be wealthier. But here’s the question: Can money make you happy?
Well, yes and no.
It’s true that richer people are, on average, happier than poorer people. 45% of richest quarter of Americans are happy, compared with 33% of the poorest quarter.
But one extra dollar of income will make you happier if you are poorer than if you are wealthier – the poorer you are, the more that extra dollar of income increases your happiness. That makes sense, because if you’re hungry, a dollar buys food, where if you’re already fed and clothed and housed, you might not even notice that dollar.
In countries with per capita incomes of less than $20k/year, there is a strong association between income and happiness. e.g. people in Moldova (average income under $2k/yr) are significantly less happy than those in Hungary with average income around $10,000/year. But in countries with per capita incomes over $20k/yr (Italy, Japan, Norway, Netherlands, US, the average percentage of people who report themselves as “happy” or “satisfied” clusters between 80% and 95%. People in the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, and Canada all report being happier than those in the US, despite slightly lower per capita incomes. Also, happiness in the US and Britain haven’t increased since 1950, despite very real increases in real income per person.
Why?
Well, it depends on whom you compare yourself to:
Yes, money makes you happy if you are richer than those to whom you are comparing yourself.
No, money doesn’t make you happy, if you are poorer than those to whom you are comparing yourself.
The rich compare themselves to a group which generally includes people less well-off than they are, because most people are less well-off. while the poor will generally compare themselves to a group which includes people better off, because there are so many better off.
A study done at Harvard asked people, would you prefer to live in Word 1 or World 2, where in
World 1: you get 50k/yr, others get $25k
World 2: you get 100k/yr, others get $200k
A majority preferred World 1.
According to Richard Layard, in his book, Happiness, “People care greatly about their relative income, and they would be willing to accept a significant fall in living standards if they could move up compared with other people... A rise in other people’s income, relative to yours, hurts your happiness. One study suggests that if everyone else earns another 1%, your happiness falls by one-third as much as it would rise if you yourself earned an extra 1%. So if everybody’s income rose in step, your happiness would rise, but only 2/3 as much as it would if only your income was rising... Income is much more than a means to buy things. We also use our income, compared to others, as a measure of how we are valued by society and (if we’re not careful) a measure of how we value ourselves.”
So if you want to be happy, compare yourself to those who are doing worse than you. Your mother was right – think of the starving children in Africa.
And most of us want to be wealthier. But here’s the question: Can money make you happy?
Well, yes and no.
It’s true that richer people are, on average, happier than poorer people. 45% of richest quarter of Americans are happy, compared with 33% of the poorest quarter.
But one extra dollar of income will make you happier if you are poorer than if you are wealthier – the poorer you are, the more that extra dollar of income increases your happiness. That makes sense, because if you’re hungry, a dollar buys food, where if you’re already fed and clothed and housed, you might not even notice that dollar.
In countries with per capita incomes of less than $20k/year, there is a strong association between income and happiness. e.g. people in Moldova (average income under $2k/yr) are significantly less happy than those in Hungary with average income around $10,000/year. But in countries with per capita incomes over $20k/yr (Italy, Japan, Norway, Netherlands, US, the average percentage of people who report themselves as “happy” or “satisfied” clusters between 80% and 95%. People in the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, and Canada all report being happier than those in the US, despite slightly lower per capita incomes. Also, happiness in the US and Britain haven’t increased since 1950, despite very real increases in real income per person.
Why?
Well, it depends on whom you compare yourself to:
Yes, money makes you happy if you are richer than those to whom you are comparing yourself.
No, money doesn’t make you happy, if you are poorer than those to whom you are comparing yourself.
The rich compare themselves to a group which generally includes people less well-off than they are, because most people are less well-off. while the poor will generally compare themselves to a group which includes people better off, because there are so many better off.
A study done at Harvard asked people, would you prefer to live in Word 1 or World 2, where in
World 1: you get 50k/yr, others get $25k
World 2: you get 100k/yr, others get $200k
A majority preferred World 1.
According to Richard Layard, in his book, Happiness, “People care greatly about their relative income, and they would be willing to accept a significant fall in living standards if they could move up compared with other people... A rise in other people’s income, relative to yours, hurts your happiness. One study suggests that if everyone else earns another 1%, your happiness falls by one-third as much as it would rise if you yourself earned an extra 1%. So if everybody’s income rose in step, your happiness would rise, but only 2/3 as much as it would if only your income was rising... Income is much more than a means to buy things. We also use our income, compared to others, as a measure of how we are valued by society and (if we’re not careful) a measure of how we value ourselves.”
So if you want to be happy, compare yourself to those who are doing worse than you. Your mother was right – think of the starving children in Africa.
Shift your emotional state -- fast!
Did you ever feel crummy, and you didn’t quite know why, much less what to do about it?
Well, here’s what to do, in a few quick steps:
Be aware of your body. Notice your breathing – is it shallow or deep, high or in your belly? Is your heart pounding? Is there pain or tension anywhere? If so, where exactly is that?
2. What would you describe as the emotion related to the feelings in your body?
3. What caused that? Whatever pops into your head is the answer, no matter how little sense it makes. Is
this a present time issue, or one concerning the future or the past?
-- If it’s a present time issue, then you can do something about it now.
-- if it’s something about the future, you can affect it now.
-- If it’s something about the past, there are things you can do, but they’re a subject for a future email!
4. Ask yourself, “What can I do about that?”
-- If it’s a present time issue, then you can do something about it now. Either do it immediately, or write it
down so you remember it for a time when you can do it!
-- if it’s something about the future, you can affect it now.
-- If it’s something about the past, let it go.
5. Get to neutral immediately. Here are some good, quick techniques for that:
-- Take 5 long, slow, deep breaths, feeling your body relax with each exhalation.
-- Imagine a “grounding cord”, a cord growing down from the base of your spine into the very center of the
earth. “Watch” it in your mind as it wends its way down through the earth. Feel your feet rooting into
the earth.
-- Spend 5 minutes in a comfortable position, focusing on your heart, imagining some positive image
there, perhaps white light.
All of this can be done in just a few minutes. And each step gets faster the more you do it.
Well, here’s what to do, in a few quick steps:
Be aware of your body. Notice your breathing – is it shallow or deep, high or in your belly? Is your heart pounding? Is there pain or tension anywhere? If so, where exactly is that?
2. What would you describe as the emotion related to the feelings in your body?
3. What caused that? Whatever pops into your head is the answer, no matter how little sense it makes. Is
this a present time issue, or one concerning the future or the past?
-- If it’s a present time issue, then you can do something about it now.
-- if it’s something about the future, you can affect it now.
-- If it’s something about the past, there are things you can do, but they’re a subject for a future email!
4. Ask yourself, “What can I do about that?”
-- If it’s a present time issue, then you can do something about it now. Either do it immediately, or write it
down so you remember it for a time when you can do it!
-- if it’s something about the future, you can affect it now.
-- If it’s something about the past, let it go.
5. Get to neutral immediately. Here are some good, quick techniques for that:
-- Take 5 long, slow, deep breaths, feeling your body relax with each exhalation.
-- Imagine a “grounding cord”, a cord growing down from the base of your spine into the very center of the
earth. “Watch” it in your mind as it wends its way down through the earth. Feel your feet rooting into
the earth.
-- Spend 5 minutes in a comfortable position, focusing on your heart, imagining some positive image
there, perhaps white light.
All of this can be done in just a few minutes. And each step gets faster the more you do it.
My first podcast!
Thanks to a wonderful listener, Joseph Pinnock, I have a place to podcast. You CAN hear me now! at
http://20-248-b.onlinestoragesolution.com/ztux/Hollis%20n%20Dale.mp3
Have a listen to this 5 minute coaching session -- and with any luck, I'll be posting more soon!
Hollis
http://20-248-b.onlinestoragesolution.com/ztux/Hollis%20n%20Dale.mp3
Have a listen to this 5 minute coaching session -- and with any luck, I'll be posting more soon!
Hollis
Friday, April 21, 2006
Be careful what you think!
I know for myself the power of thought. At the age of 35, I grew an inch, largely through the power of visualization and affirmation. Yes, I did exercises, but I’d been doing them for 2 years before I started the affirmations, and didn’t grow one millimeter. And my posture was quite good to begin with, as I’d been a figure skater and dancer as a child and teen. At the same time, a friend completely eliminated her cataracts. Another friend accidentally cut herself very badly with a knife while chopping vegetables — so badly that she could see the bone. She decided that if she truly believed in the power of thought, she would meditate and visualize before she went to the hospital. And in 45 minutes of concentrated intention, the cut was completely healed, with only a tiny line to indicate there had ever been an accident. And yes, we all have witnesses. I could go on and on.
Affirmations can change your emotional state, as well. I was a very unhappy child, and have gradually gotten happier over my lifetime. But what changed it the most was an affirmation: My entire being is balanced, vital, healthy, loving and happy. I did the first part (My entire being is balance, vital and healthy) for 3 years, with no real change in my level of happiness. Then when I added the last part, I gradually became happy. Now I will often just kind of notice, that for absolutely no reason, I’m happy.
I bring all this up because I got a great email from another radio person, Wayne Kelly, AM deejay at KBS in Trail, BC. It’s so terrific that I include it in its entirety:
“I wouldn’t have believed if it didn’t happen to me!
“Last January I was working out with the Chicken Soup Guru, Mark Victor Hansen at the hotel gym we both stayed at. As we were working out, a new speaker (who is already super successful) came in to talk to Mark.
“She talked about many things including her new home in Banff, Alberta.
“She mentioned the architecture was so incredible, “you could just die.”
To which Mark quickly replied “live”.
“Then she was talking about her fence which was just featured in an outdoor magazine and again she mentioned that it’s so incredible you would die to see it.
Again Mark quickly shot back “Live”
“She said, “I know Live, but die is just an expression I use and I don’t mean anything by it.” Mark said that your subconscious doesn’t know the difference so you should always speak in positive statements.
“Why am I telling you this story?
“Well, I am a new kid when it comes to this new kind of positive programming, so I haven’t really bought into the ‘believe it and it will happen’ concept, until last Friday, when a HUGE light bulb exploded in my head.
“You see, I am proud to say I have perfect teeth. Not one cavity. I have always been very lucky. But about 18 months ago one of my teeth started causing me pain when I bit on it. They did X-Rays and found nothing so I lived with it. A couple of months ago I had another x-ray and they found a very tiny spot beneath the tooth and said looks like I will need a root canal. But the dentist didn’t understand why, as my teeth are perfect. Still he said we should get drilling, digging, and repairing soon.
“I waited and was baffled. I have talked with a few health professionals who were also confused as to why I’d need a root canal.
“Then came the choir and the lights from heaven!
“I was writing a friend an email and I wrote down a phrase I have used a thousand times. The phrase is, “I’d rather have a root canal than go watch the kick boxing tournament.
“Holy Cow!
“It struck me like lightening! I think I created the root canal problem because
of that phrase!
“Is it crazy or what?
“I am not 100%, but it is the only explanation I can come up with. Now the best
part is, since my discovery, I’ve been speaking out loud about my healthy teeth
and the pain seems to have gone away. (But I haven’t tried popcorn yet)
“I have since changed the phrase to, “I’d rather be a multi millionaire.”
Great thinking, Wayne!
Hollis
Affirmations can change your emotional state, as well. I was a very unhappy child, and have gradually gotten happier over my lifetime. But what changed it the most was an affirmation: My entire being is balanced, vital, healthy, loving and happy. I did the first part (My entire being is balance, vital and healthy) for 3 years, with no real change in my level of happiness. Then when I added the last part, I gradually became happy. Now I will often just kind of notice, that for absolutely no reason, I’m happy.
I bring all this up because I got a great email from another radio person, Wayne Kelly, AM deejay at KBS in Trail, BC. It’s so terrific that I include it in its entirety:
“I wouldn’t have believed if it didn’t happen to me!
“Last January I was working out with the Chicken Soup Guru, Mark Victor Hansen at the hotel gym we both stayed at. As we were working out, a new speaker (who is already super successful) came in to talk to Mark.
“She talked about many things including her new home in Banff, Alberta.
“She mentioned the architecture was so incredible, “you could just die.”
To which Mark quickly replied “live”.
“Then she was talking about her fence which was just featured in an outdoor magazine and again she mentioned that it’s so incredible you would die to see it.
Again Mark quickly shot back “Live”
“She said, “I know Live, but die is just an expression I use and I don’t mean anything by it.” Mark said that your subconscious doesn’t know the difference so you should always speak in positive statements.
“Why am I telling you this story?
“Well, I am a new kid when it comes to this new kind of positive programming, so I haven’t really bought into the ‘believe it and it will happen’ concept, until last Friday, when a HUGE light bulb exploded in my head.
“You see, I am proud to say I have perfect teeth. Not one cavity. I have always been very lucky. But about 18 months ago one of my teeth started causing me pain when I bit on it. They did X-Rays and found nothing so I lived with it. A couple of months ago I had another x-ray and they found a very tiny spot beneath the tooth and said looks like I will need a root canal. But the dentist didn’t understand why, as my teeth are perfect. Still he said we should get drilling, digging, and repairing soon.
“I waited and was baffled. I have talked with a few health professionals who were also confused as to why I’d need a root canal.
“Then came the choir and the lights from heaven!
“I was writing a friend an email and I wrote down a phrase I have used a thousand times. The phrase is, “I’d rather have a root canal than go watch the kick boxing tournament.
“Holy Cow!
“It struck me like lightening! I think I created the root canal problem because
of that phrase!
“Is it crazy or what?
“I am not 100%, but it is the only explanation I can come up with. Now the best
part is, since my discovery, I’ve been speaking out loud about my healthy teeth
and the pain seems to have gone away. (But I haven’t tried popcorn yet)
“I have since changed the phrase to, “I’d rather be a multi millionaire.”
Great thinking, Wayne!
Hollis
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Lies, LIes, Damned Lies
I typically avoid the political, but sometimes, public life offers lessons for each of us in private life. So this is NOT meant as a political commentary.
I don’t know about you, but I’m really tired of all the whoppers out there.
I’m outraged. And, unlike our President, I’m willing to take responsibility for the lying. The buck stops with me. Always.
If you believe we’re all one, then you have to say, how did I do this? Or at least, how did I let this happen?
We live in a culture where lies and lying are the norm, have become the norm. Where it’s okay to lie to people to save your own face, to “not hurt people’s feelings”. And then we say we’re telling the truth and become hypocrites on top of the lies.
My favorite lies lately have been the lies of George W. Bush:
“I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”
“Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.”
“Iraq . . . continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
There is a theory that leaders of an organization embody the culture of the people they lead. So when we see these outrages, we need to look at ourselves.
Where do we lie?
Where do we accept lies from others?
Where do we lie to ourselves?
What do we teach our children?
Ask yourself,
Where do I lie?
Where do I accept lies from others?
When do I accept lies from others? About certain subjects? At certain times? From certain people?
Do I speak up when I know someone is lying? Why not?
How am I lying to myself? When do I lie to myself? Why do I lie to myself?
When do I lie to others?
Why do I lie to others?
Under what circumstances do I lie to others?
When we let all these lies pass, we stop being able to tell the difference between lies and truth, and we begin to live in a fairy tale. Remember little red riding hood? Remember the wolf said he was grandma and almost ate little red riding hood? Well, our government has said there were WMDs, and it has eaten almost 2300 of our troops, not to mention over 200 others of the so-called coalition of the willing, and the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
Because how hypocritical is it to hold the government accountable for something you won’t hold yourself accountable for? Or something you won’t hold your friends, your coworkers, your family, accountable for?
We have to change the culture, and the culture is US. It means starting with ourselves. So pay attention to when you lie, ask yourself, why did I lie? Or better yet, why do I want to lie? Is it because you’re afraid of the consequences? Usually it is. So when you notice you are lying, ask yourself, ‘what am I afraid of?” then face that, and tell the truth. You’ll feel better, even if you have to accept the consequences, because you’ll know you did the right thing. And often, if you look at the consequences, they’re not all that bad. Or you can manage them, or you can tell the truth in a way that will minimize them, by emphasizing that you did the right thing by telling the truth.
Ghandi said, ‘be the change you wish to see in the world”. So if you want your government to stop lying to you, you HAVE to stop lying. You HAVE to stop accepting lies. That means personally, professionally and as a citizen. If you know your government is lying to you, complain. Be aware. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Call your Congressional representative. Call your Senator. Call the White House.
I don’t know about you, but I’m really tired of all the whoppers out there.
I’m outraged. And, unlike our President, I’m willing to take responsibility for the lying. The buck stops with me. Always.
If you believe we’re all one, then you have to say, how did I do this? Or at least, how did I let this happen?
We live in a culture where lies and lying are the norm, have become the norm. Where it’s okay to lie to people to save your own face, to “not hurt people’s feelings”. And then we say we’re telling the truth and become hypocrites on top of the lies.
My favorite lies lately have been the lies of George W. Bush:
“I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”
“Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.”
“Iraq . . . continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
There is a theory that leaders of an organization embody the culture of the people they lead. So when we see these outrages, we need to look at ourselves.
Where do we lie?
Where do we accept lies from others?
Where do we lie to ourselves?
What do we teach our children?
Ask yourself,
Where do I lie?
Where do I accept lies from others?
When do I accept lies from others? About certain subjects? At certain times? From certain people?
Do I speak up when I know someone is lying? Why not?
How am I lying to myself? When do I lie to myself? Why do I lie to myself?
When do I lie to others?
Why do I lie to others?
Under what circumstances do I lie to others?
When we let all these lies pass, we stop being able to tell the difference between lies and truth, and we begin to live in a fairy tale. Remember little red riding hood? Remember the wolf said he was grandma and almost ate little red riding hood? Well, our government has said there were WMDs, and it has eaten almost 2300 of our troops, not to mention over 200 others of the so-called coalition of the willing, and the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
Because how hypocritical is it to hold the government accountable for something you won’t hold yourself accountable for? Or something you won’t hold your friends, your coworkers, your family, accountable for?
We have to change the culture, and the culture is US. It means starting with ourselves. So pay attention to when you lie, ask yourself, why did I lie? Or better yet, why do I want to lie? Is it because you’re afraid of the consequences? Usually it is. So when you notice you are lying, ask yourself, ‘what am I afraid of?” then face that, and tell the truth. You’ll feel better, even if you have to accept the consequences, because you’ll know you did the right thing. And often, if you look at the consequences, they’re not all that bad. Or you can manage them, or you can tell the truth in a way that will minimize them, by emphasizing that you did the right thing by telling the truth.
Ghandi said, ‘be the change you wish to see in the world”. So if you want your government to stop lying to you, you HAVE to stop lying. You HAVE to stop accepting lies. That means personally, professionally and as a citizen. If you know your government is lying to you, complain. Be aware. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Call your Congressional representative. Call your Senator. Call the White House.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Are you feeling lucky?
Did you know there’s a structure to luck? There is! According to Prof. Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, who has studied it for 10 years, luck consists of:
- creating and noticing chance opportunities (being relaxed enough to notice them)
- listening to your intuition to make good choices
- create self-fulfilling prophecies by having positive expectations
- adopting a resilient attitude that turns bad luck into good
So what can you do to improve your luck?
1) be open to new experiences; change your routine
2) listen to your intuition/gut instincts/the still small voice within or pay attention to those images that flash by
3) visualize positive outcomes before you do something. e.g. see yourself making that shot, or having the negotiation go well
4) grattitude journal -- at the end of each day, write down at least 2 good things that happened
- creating and noticing chance opportunities (being relaxed enough to notice them)
- listening to your intuition to make good choices
- create self-fulfilling prophecies by having positive expectations
- adopting a resilient attitude that turns bad luck into good
So what can you do to improve your luck?
1) be open to new experiences; change your routine
2) listen to your intuition/gut instincts/the still small voice within or pay attention to those images that flash by
3) visualize positive outcomes before you do something. e.g. see yourself making that shot, or having the negotiation go well
4) grattitude journal -- at the end of each day, write down at least 2 good things that happened
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
How to have a great Valentine’s Day – Next Year
First, you can have a great Valentine's Day this year by just expressing your love for your friends and family. Make cards, make phone calls, give cookies that say "I love you". There are a thousand ways to say, "I love you" and one of them, or maybe several of them, will be right for you.
But I'm assuming that for you, having a great Valentine's day can means having a Valentine, having a great relationship with a great partner. So how do you create that in your life? You do it in 3 simple steps:
1. Know what you want in a mate and in a relationship:
- What have you liked in former mates/partners?
- What do you like about your friends?
- What have you like about your relationships?
- What do you like about your friends’ partners?
Take your time! Keep adding to the list ove the course of a week or so. External characteristics, like age, height, weight, or parental status, often come up first, but keep thinking. What qualities do you want? Kindness? Centeredness? Honesty? And how will you know that your potential partner has these qualities? And list the qualities even if they're not PC. The qualities are what YOU want, not what it's cool to want. If race or religion matters to you, then specify it.
Think of EVERYTHING you want. if you want someone who plays pool, or eats meat, or plays racquetball, add it to the list! Because the one thing you forget is the one thing that will be missing. If you want him or her to bring you coffee in bed in the morning, add it to the list.
2. What do I do about what I don’t want?
Turn it into a positive – "no drugs/ alcohol" becomes "clean and sober". Sometimes this takes a bit of thinking. When you say "non-smoker", do you mean someone who has never smoked, or an ex-smoker? Or do you say, someone who has always respected his/her body.
3. Boy, I sure want a lot – do I narrow it down?
Yes and no. Organize the list into 3 groups:
- Have to have, i.e. deal breaker
- Important, but if a couple are missing, I’ll deal with it
- Nice to have, but if most are missing, it’s okay
4. What do I do once I know what I want?
Turn the must have list into an affirmation, a positive, present tense statement of what you want, as if it already existed. It should include not only the description of your partner, but also a description of your relationship. Again, take your time with this, and know that the affirmation may shift over time. That's okay.
Do the affirmation every day.
Use the list, including the rest of the list, as a kind of screen – you’ll know if you want someone who is kind, and he snarls at dogs, or puts down your best friend, it’s probably a good one to pass on.
5. Ask yourself, "Who do I have to be to attract this person and relationship?" and then be that person.
But I'm assuming that for you, having a great Valentine's day can means having a Valentine, having a great relationship with a great partner. So how do you create that in your life? You do it in 3 simple steps:
1. Know what you want in a mate and in a relationship:
- What have you liked in former mates/partners?
- What do you like about your friends?
- What have you like about your relationships?
- What do you like about your friends’ partners?
Take your time! Keep adding to the list ove the course of a week or so. External characteristics, like age, height, weight, or parental status, often come up first, but keep thinking. What qualities do you want? Kindness? Centeredness? Honesty? And how will you know that your potential partner has these qualities? And list the qualities even if they're not PC. The qualities are what YOU want, not what it's cool to want. If race or religion matters to you, then specify it.
Think of EVERYTHING you want. if you want someone who plays pool, or eats meat, or plays racquetball, add it to the list! Because the one thing you forget is the one thing that will be missing. If you want him or her to bring you coffee in bed in the morning, add it to the list.
2. What do I do about what I don’t want?
Turn it into a positive – "no drugs/ alcohol" becomes "clean and sober". Sometimes this takes a bit of thinking. When you say "non-smoker", do you mean someone who has never smoked, or an ex-smoker? Or do you say, someone who has always respected his/her body.
3. Boy, I sure want a lot – do I narrow it down?
Yes and no. Organize the list into 3 groups:
- Have to have, i.e. deal breaker
- Important, but if a couple are missing, I’ll deal with it
- Nice to have, but if most are missing, it’s okay
4. What do I do once I know what I want?
Turn the must have list into an affirmation, a positive, present tense statement of what you want, as if it already existed. It should include not only the description of your partner, but also a description of your relationship. Again, take your time with this, and know that the affirmation may shift over time. That's okay.
Do the affirmation every day.
Use the list, including the rest of the list, as a kind of screen – you’ll know if you want someone who is kind, and he snarls at dogs, or puts down your best friend, it’s probably a good one to pass on.
5. Ask yourself, "Who do I have to be to attract this person and relationship?" and then be that person.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Satisfaction with Life Scale
Please rate the following 5 statements for yourself, on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is "not at all true", 4 is "moderately true" and 7 is "very true":
1) In most ways, my life is close to my ideal.
2) The conditions of my life are excellent.
3) I am satisfied with my life.
4) So far, I have gotten the important things I want in life.
5) If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.
Scoring:
31 - 35: extremely satisfied
26 - 30: very satisfied
21 - 25: slightly satisfied
20: neutral
15 - 19: slightly dissatisfied
10 - 14: dissatisfied
5 - 9: very dissatisfied
(Devised in 1980 by Univ. of Illinois psychologist Edward Diener, copied from Time Magazine)
1) In most ways, my life is close to my ideal.
2) The conditions of my life are excellent.
3) I am satisfied with my life.
4) So far, I have gotten the important things I want in life.
5) If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.
Scoring:
31 - 35: extremely satisfied
26 - 30: very satisfied
21 - 25: slightly satisfied
20: neutral
15 - 19: slightly dissatisfied
10 - 14: dissatisfied
5 - 9: very dissatisfied
(Devised in 1980 by Univ. of Illinois psychologist Edward Diener, copied from Time Magazine)
Do you know where you're going to?
There are basically two kinds of motivation. The first is “away from”, as in “get me out of here!” The second is “towards”, as in “I want that!”
Each has its place, that is, each is useful in certain circumstances. “Towards” is what you use when you decide you want a degree in some subject, or you want a date with that hottie. “Away from” is terrific in emergencies. It’s how you automatically get your hand out of the fire, or get away from the menacing guy with the knife. But even there, what do you do immediately after? You probably call 911 to get help. And that is a “towards” -- toward help, toward healing.
The problem comes when you only have one sort of motivation, especially when you only have “away from“. Don’t’ we all know a complainer who says (s)he’s going to leave that awful job, but then doesn’t because (s)he can’t figure out what to do instead?
Here’s why. When you only know you want to get away from something, you don’t know where you want to go. Think of your conscious mind as the driver of a car, with the unconscious as the car itself. The car has energy, and machinery and will take you where you want to go — but the driver has to decide where to go and how fast. The car doesn’t go anywhere on its own. If you hit the gas pedal and just tell it to get away from here — it can drive you into a ditch, or a wall. But if you steer it to the nearest McDonald’s, it will take you there. If you steer it to the Atlantic Ocean in New Jersey, it will take you there, too, even if you’re in San Francisco. So your conscious mind must have a “towards” mindset to get where you want to go.
Now, the unconscious has a motor, but it also has a fuel line that will block up of its own accord and starve the motor for fuel. The block here is usually fear, often fear of the unknown. This fear really is fear of losing safety or security. Why should the car use all that energy just to leave the nice, warm, dry garage? What’s in it for the car? (This is what people generally call “self-sabotage”. It isn’t self-sabotage at all, it’s that part of you wants to stay safe, which means sticking with the known.)
The key to getting the car to go it is to short circuit the fear (pardon the mixed metaphor — add a second fuel line?). Here are a few ways to do it:
1) Check – is fear reasonable? Sometimes that’s enough to work around it
2) Find ways to help the unconscious feel safe
a) get all the information you can by reading or asking others
b) visualize yourself doing it
c) try it out (why do you think so many infomercials offer “risk free” trials?)
d) make the positives/”towards” so great that the fear/”away from” doesn’t matter. If someone told you that you’d get
paid a million dollars to bungee jump one time – would you do it?
e) Ask yourself if the fear is really about what’s going on now. Many times it isn’t, but is instead about something
that happened in the past. If this is the case, sometimes just knowing that is enough to shift it, but sometimes you
need hypnotic help to do that. After all, you can’t fix the past by dealing with what’s going on today.
Be clear where you want to go and you can almost always get there!
Each has its place, that is, each is useful in certain circumstances. “Towards” is what you use when you decide you want a degree in some subject, or you want a date with that hottie. “Away from” is terrific in emergencies. It’s how you automatically get your hand out of the fire, or get away from the menacing guy with the knife. But even there, what do you do immediately after? You probably call 911 to get help. And that is a “towards” -- toward help, toward healing.
The problem comes when you only have one sort of motivation, especially when you only have “away from“. Don’t’ we all know a complainer who says (s)he’s going to leave that awful job, but then doesn’t because (s)he can’t figure out what to do instead?
Here’s why. When you only know you want to get away from something, you don’t know where you want to go. Think of your conscious mind as the driver of a car, with the unconscious as the car itself. The car has energy, and machinery and will take you where you want to go — but the driver has to decide where to go and how fast. The car doesn’t go anywhere on its own. If you hit the gas pedal and just tell it to get away from here — it can drive you into a ditch, or a wall. But if you steer it to the nearest McDonald’s, it will take you there. If you steer it to the Atlantic Ocean in New Jersey, it will take you there, too, even if you’re in San Francisco. So your conscious mind must have a “towards” mindset to get where you want to go.
Now, the unconscious has a motor, but it also has a fuel line that will block up of its own accord and starve the motor for fuel. The block here is usually fear, often fear of the unknown. This fear really is fear of losing safety or security. Why should the car use all that energy just to leave the nice, warm, dry garage? What’s in it for the car? (This is what people generally call “self-sabotage”. It isn’t self-sabotage at all, it’s that part of you wants to stay safe, which means sticking with the known.)
The key to getting the car to go it is to short circuit the fear (pardon the mixed metaphor — add a second fuel line?). Here are a few ways to do it:
1) Check – is fear reasonable? Sometimes that’s enough to work around it
2) Find ways to help the unconscious feel safe
a) get all the information you can by reading or asking others
b) visualize yourself doing it
c) try it out (why do you think so many infomercials offer “risk free” trials?)
d) make the positives/”towards” so great that the fear/”away from” doesn’t matter. If someone told you that you’d get
paid a million dollars to bungee jump one time – would you do it?
e) Ask yourself if the fear is really about what’s going on now. Many times it isn’t, but is instead about something
that happened in the past. If this is the case, sometimes just knowing that is enough to shift it, but sometimes you
need hypnotic help to do that. After all, you can’t fix the past by dealing with what’s going on today.
Be clear where you want to go and you can almost always get there!
Thursday, December 29, 2005
New Year's Resolutions are Stupid!
New Year's resolutions are stupid for 2 reasons:
First, they only work with the will, the conscious mind, which is maybe 10% of you.
Second, they are normally said, "This year, I'm going to..." Saying "I'm going to" puts whatever follows into the future, giving you the subliminal message not to do that now, but sometime in the future. The only time we can do anything is in the present, so telling yourself to do something in the future is a way of telling yourself not to do it.
What you should do instead is affirmation. An affirmation is a positive, present tense statement of what you want as if it already existed. It must be something you can control -- affirming that someone else will do something is useless. A simple delcarative statement works best. Affirmations are generally best when they are 7 - 11 words, according research cited by Paul Pearsall in his book, "Wishing Well".
So instead of saying, "This year, I'm going to get in shape", say, "I now enjoy exercising daily", which will have the effect of getting you in shape. The more specific you can be, the better, so "I now enjoy walking 3 miles a day and lifting weights 3 times a week" would be even better.
First, they only work with the will, the conscious mind, which is maybe 10% of you.
Second, they are normally said, "This year, I'm going to..." Saying "I'm going to" puts whatever follows into the future, giving you the subliminal message not to do that now, but sometime in the future. The only time we can do anything is in the present, so telling yourself to do something in the future is a way of telling yourself not to do it.
What you should do instead is affirmation. An affirmation is a positive, present tense statement of what you want as if it already existed. It must be something you can control -- affirming that someone else will do something is useless. A simple delcarative statement works best. Affirmations are generally best when they are 7 - 11 words, according research cited by Paul Pearsall in his book, "Wishing Well".
So instead of saying, "This year, I'm going to get in shape", say, "I now enjoy exercising daily", which will have the effect of getting you in shape. The more specific you can be, the better, so "I now enjoy walking 3 miles a day and lifting weights 3 times a week" would be even better.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Connectedness, priorities, synchronicity and Katrina
On August 29, as Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, I sent an email to a client of mine who lives in Biloxi, inquiring as to his well-being, and saying I’d send up a little prayer for his safety and that of his family, which includes a wife and 2 kids.
Yesterday morning, I was going to do a monologue for my radio show about setting priorities in our busy lives. It was probably useful for people to hear, and I will most likely use it next week, but I have to say, it isn’t anything terribly special. So right before the 5 AM show, I went down into my office to get my email, and found the following (name changed to protect privacy):
“What ever you did in that little prayer it worked. Just a mile south there
is total decimation. Sad stories of families who perished. One was a Air
Force Sergeant and his wife was found dead in the debris. When they looked
for their children they could not find them, a few days later they found
them dead in the trees near their house. My father had to go into his attic
to escape the rising water. I am very lucky considering all the people I
know who don't even have a house to go back too. My cousins live in north
Biloxi about a quarter mile from back bay, they all lived as a family
community and all their houses took up a city block. I went there and all
you see is the great oak trees, green grass, many clothes in the trees and
cleared city block, you see slabs and concrete pillars where houses once
stood. Way back north of their block you see the debris which was once
their house. It is really awful, it's like we live in a third world country,
having to forage for food, water and ice. I just got electricity back at my
house. I had some wind damage to my roof, down trees and fence. The water
came within a foot of my house. My sister had roof damage with water in her
house. My brother had roof damage because 5 trees hit his house causing
roof damage. The pictures and film on TV don't do it justice, seeing it up
close you see just pure decimation. One street I went down to get to my
cousins community there was debris stacked 15 feet high on both sides of the
street. Many of these homes in this neighborhood over a hundred years old
were destroyed. My great Grandfather built 8 of these houses in the early
19 hundred's and now they are gone. They stood after hurricane Camille (Also
a category 5 hurricane), but now there is no recognition of them. I am
housing some of my family, I am also trying to help my 77 year father
rebuild his life back. When you look you just don't know where to start.
His house still has mud and gunk in it. We salvaged a few things but left
the rest. He also lost both of his cars. He has a limited income, he did
have flood insurance but not enough to rebuild his house. We need to clean
everything out but the odor is so bad. I know I am rambling, sorry, it's a
lot to take in. I sometimes have survivors guilt. I'll make it and our
family will rebuild, we have our chin up and we're not going to let this
storm take our spirit, we will build stronger and better than ever before.
"Smith's never Quit". If you are interested I will send you pictures.”
What a lesson in priorities! Family, home, community. Much better than what I wrote.
And it just goes to show how closely connected we all are. Although at an energy level, we’re all one, it’s hard to remember that sometimes. But I am ONE person away from this disaster, and if you don’t personally know anyone there, you are now TWO people away from it. It’s no longer 6 degrees of separation — it’s 2, or maybe 3. So we need to support our extended family.
I’ve written back to Mr. Smith, asking for photos, and asking if there’s anything we can do from a distance that is not already being done. I’ll let you know what I hear. And if you haven’t made a donation to the charitable organizations that are working in the Gulf Coast, please do give what you can. I did.
Yesterday morning, I was going to do a monologue for my radio show about setting priorities in our busy lives. It was probably useful for people to hear, and I will most likely use it next week, but I have to say, it isn’t anything terribly special. So right before the 5 AM show, I went down into my office to get my email, and found the following (name changed to protect privacy):
“What ever you did in that little prayer it worked. Just a mile south there
is total decimation. Sad stories of families who perished. One was a Air
Force Sergeant and his wife was found dead in the debris. When they looked
for their children they could not find them, a few days later they found
them dead in the trees near their house. My father had to go into his attic
to escape the rising water. I am very lucky considering all the people I
know who don't even have a house to go back too. My cousins live in north
Biloxi about a quarter mile from back bay, they all lived as a family
community and all their houses took up a city block. I went there and all
you see is the great oak trees, green grass, many clothes in the trees and
cleared city block, you see slabs and concrete pillars where houses once
stood. Way back north of their block you see the debris which was once
their house. It is really awful, it's like we live in a third world country,
having to forage for food, water and ice. I just got electricity back at my
house. I had some wind damage to my roof, down trees and fence. The water
came within a foot of my house. My sister had roof damage with water in her
house. My brother had roof damage because 5 trees hit his house causing
roof damage. The pictures and film on TV don't do it justice, seeing it up
close you see just pure decimation. One street I went down to get to my
cousins community there was debris stacked 15 feet high on both sides of the
street. Many of these homes in this neighborhood over a hundred years old
were destroyed. My great Grandfather built 8 of these houses in the early
19 hundred's and now they are gone. They stood after hurricane Camille (Also
a category 5 hurricane), but now there is no recognition of them. I am
housing some of my family, I am also trying to help my 77 year father
rebuild his life back. When you look you just don't know where to start.
His house still has mud and gunk in it. We salvaged a few things but left
the rest. He also lost both of his cars. He has a limited income, he did
have flood insurance but not enough to rebuild his house. We need to clean
everything out but the odor is so bad. I know I am rambling, sorry, it's a
lot to take in. I sometimes have survivors guilt. I'll make it and our
family will rebuild, we have our chin up and we're not going to let this
storm take our spirit, we will build stronger and better than ever before.
"Smith's never Quit". If you are interested I will send you pictures.”
What a lesson in priorities! Family, home, community. Much better than what I wrote.
And it just goes to show how closely connected we all are. Although at an energy level, we’re all one, it’s hard to remember that sometimes. But I am ONE person away from this disaster, and if you don’t personally know anyone there, you are now TWO people away from it. It’s no longer 6 degrees of separation — it’s 2, or maybe 3. So we need to support our extended family.
I’ve written back to Mr. Smith, asking for photos, and asking if there’s anything we can do from a distance that is not already being done. I’ll let you know what I hear. And if you haven’t made a donation to the charitable organizations that are working in the Gulf Coast, please do give what you can. I did.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Ways to Donate to disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina
Here are a few links:
American Red Cross www.redcross.org
Salvation Army www.salvationarmy.org
Noahs Wish www.noahswish.org
I have not checked these out personally, but the Red Cross and Salvation have been there for us in disasters for many decades. Noah's Wish supports animals in natural disasters. Operation Blessing exists only to serve and support those in disasters. Please check them out for yourself before donating.
American Red Cross www.redcross.org
Salvation Army www.salvationarmy.org
Noahs Wish www.noahswish.org
I have not checked these out personally, but the Red Cross and Salvation have been there for us in disasters for many decades. Noah's Wish supports animals in natural disasters. Operation Blessing exists only to serve and support those in disasters. Please check them out for yourself before donating.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
How to deal with loss in 5 simple questions
I heard Peter Jennings died yesterday. Wow! That hit me somehow, and I didn’t know why. Now, I’d been watching him ever since I had my own TV, probably in the mid 80s, first for a quick update on the day’s news, and then just to see what version of the news America was getting. But I didn’t know him personally, so why was that a shock?
That got me thinking about loss.
Loss is a normal part of life. There are everyday losses, like when you throw away the garbage, or give away old clothes, and once in a lifetime losses, like when a parent dies, and everything in between, but they all have the same structure.
You have to lose something to make room for something new. This is obvious if you buy a new book and try to fit it into your overstuffed bookshelves.
It’s less obvious with relationships, and still true – there’s just not enough time for too many good friends. So you lose touch with some. Often it’s due to decreased proximity. One of you changes jobs or schools, or moves, and it isn’t as convenient, and you lose touch.
It’s also less obvious, but gaining something can mean losing something else. When your teenager gets his or her driver’s license, it’s a good thing in many ways - the teen gets mobility, some freedom, and you get a helper, since he or she can run errands for you, pick up a little sister, or go shopping alone. But you also can have a loss. You can lose closeness, because those moments in the car can be really great times to connect.
How do you cope with loss? As I see it, there are 5 questions to ask yourself:
1) What did you lose?
Identify it completely.
2) What was its value to you?
There are all kinds of values: monetary, emotional, practical, etc.
3) When did it go missing?
Be honest. You can lose something long before you note its passing.
4) What will you replace it with?
Sometimes you can replace it completely, sometimes not. Sometimes you can replace some of its valuable qualities, or some of its aspects, but not all.
5) How are still connected to it? How do you still have it?
We always have memories, and sometimes non-physical connections.
I’ll go through this with three examples, one each of a thing (the easiest), a person (the most complicated), and a symbol (the most universal).
Thing
Several years ago, I lost a watch. Now, this was not just any watch. It was a watch my great uncle gave my father when he went into the army at age 17 for WWII, which Dad gave me for my high school graduation. And it was on a lovely gold band, which was my college graduation present. Its value to me was practical, as it told time, monetary, as it was an antique on a heavy gold band, and sentimental, because of how it had come to me. It was a link to my past and to my family’s past.
It went missing a few days before I admitted it to myself. I was in a hurry, and just took out an old Timex I’d had since high school, and used that till I scoured the house and really couldn’t find it. So I had already found a substitute. And to be completely honest, I’d already learned of the Teslar watch, which strengthens one’s energy field, and wanted one, and felt guilty about buying a watch I didn’t need, as I already had this lovely one. (Be careful what you wish for!) So I replaced my Dad’s watch with a Teslar one.
I still am connected to it, because I can still “see” it on my wrist, if I take a second, since it was there almost 24 hours a day for over 30 years.
And really, it’s only a thing.
Person
My Dad, to whom I was quite close, died about a year and a half ago. What did I lose? I lost his hugs, access to his love, his advice and teaching, and the ability to experience things with him in the physical, and I lost some almost physical resonance with his body. For about the first 24 hours after he died, I felt really physically shaky, as if my body was looking for a genetic resonance it could no longer find.
When did I lose these things? Well, since we’d lived mostly apart since I was 13, I lost most of those hugs at that age. And obviously, since we weren’t together all that often, we couldn’t experience things together very often. His advice and teaching of me dwindled over the years, as I learned more, and as he respected me more, and knew I needed it less. And he’d been unable to give me any advice at all for the few months before he died. The resonance was lost, I guess, at the moment of his death.
While I can’t replace my father, because nothing can erase his imprint on me, and wouldn’t want to replace him, I do get great hugs and love from my husband, my family and many terrific friends. I get advice and teaching from a variety of people whom I respect in different fields. While the genetic resonance went away and hasn’t, and perhaps can’t be, replaced, I am still connected to Dad energetically or psychically. I hear him occasionally, at the oddest times, saying things only he would have said. So I know he’s there. If I can’t hear him more, it’s my lack of communication skills, not that he’s really gone. And if I concentrate, I can visualize him and feel his love, so we’re connected that way as well.
If you believe the soul is eternal, and I do, then the fact that I can’t communicate with him better is due only to my lack of communication skills. That’s something I can work on! And when I die, or change state to one more like his, then I expect the communication will get easier again. And when I miss him, I try my best to ask him to be with me so he can share my experience.
Symbol
So – back to Peter Jennings. When he died, what did I really lose? I lost the image of a person who showed up in my home with great regularity, that I trusted to sift through the vastness of world events and competently tell me what was important in a fair, reasonably impartial way. (Okay, I’m older now, more savvy, and less trusting, but this was still true, if a lot less true than 20 years ago.)
When did I lose it? He went off the air 4 months ago, in April. It was a little sad then, but I took no real notice.
With what did I replace it? A varied menu of reading on the internet, accompanied by the occasional watching of some network’s nightly news, to see what America is being told about the world today.
How am I still connected to it? In memories – images of Jennigs on that 25 hour around the world welcome to the millennium, for one.
And I think his death hit me because it’s a reminder of time passing, that the only constant is change.
That got me thinking about loss.
Loss is a normal part of life. There are everyday losses, like when you throw away the garbage, or give away old clothes, and once in a lifetime losses, like when a parent dies, and everything in between, but they all have the same structure.
You have to lose something to make room for something new. This is obvious if you buy a new book and try to fit it into your overstuffed bookshelves.
It’s less obvious with relationships, and still true – there’s just not enough time for too many good friends. So you lose touch with some. Often it’s due to decreased proximity. One of you changes jobs or schools, or moves, and it isn’t as convenient, and you lose touch.
It’s also less obvious, but gaining something can mean losing something else. When your teenager gets his or her driver’s license, it’s a good thing in many ways - the teen gets mobility, some freedom, and you get a helper, since he or she can run errands for you, pick up a little sister, or go shopping alone. But you also can have a loss. You can lose closeness, because those moments in the car can be really great times to connect.
How do you cope with loss? As I see it, there are 5 questions to ask yourself:
1) What did you lose?
Identify it completely.
2) What was its value to you?
There are all kinds of values: monetary, emotional, practical, etc.
3) When did it go missing?
Be honest. You can lose something long before you note its passing.
4) What will you replace it with?
Sometimes you can replace it completely, sometimes not. Sometimes you can replace some of its valuable qualities, or some of its aspects, but not all.
5) How are still connected to it? How do you still have it?
We always have memories, and sometimes non-physical connections.
I’ll go through this with three examples, one each of a thing (the easiest), a person (the most complicated), and a symbol (the most universal).
Thing
Several years ago, I lost a watch. Now, this was not just any watch. It was a watch my great uncle gave my father when he went into the army at age 17 for WWII, which Dad gave me for my high school graduation. And it was on a lovely gold band, which was my college graduation present. Its value to me was practical, as it told time, monetary, as it was an antique on a heavy gold band, and sentimental, because of how it had come to me. It was a link to my past and to my family’s past.
It went missing a few days before I admitted it to myself. I was in a hurry, and just took out an old Timex I’d had since high school, and used that till I scoured the house and really couldn’t find it. So I had already found a substitute. And to be completely honest, I’d already learned of the Teslar watch, which strengthens one’s energy field, and wanted one, and felt guilty about buying a watch I didn’t need, as I already had this lovely one. (Be careful what you wish for!) So I replaced my Dad’s watch with a Teslar one.
I still am connected to it, because I can still “see” it on my wrist, if I take a second, since it was there almost 24 hours a day for over 30 years.
And really, it’s only a thing.
Person
My Dad, to whom I was quite close, died about a year and a half ago. What did I lose? I lost his hugs, access to his love, his advice and teaching, and the ability to experience things with him in the physical, and I lost some almost physical resonance with his body. For about the first 24 hours after he died, I felt really physically shaky, as if my body was looking for a genetic resonance it could no longer find.
When did I lose these things? Well, since we’d lived mostly apart since I was 13, I lost most of those hugs at that age. And obviously, since we weren’t together all that often, we couldn’t experience things together very often. His advice and teaching of me dwindled over the years, as I learned more, and as he respected me more, and knew I needed it less. And he’d been unable to give me any advice at all for the few months before he died. The resonance was lost, I guess, at the moment of his death.
While I can’t replace my father, because nothing can erase his imprint on me, and wouldn’t want to replace him, I do get great hugs and love from my husband, my family and many terrific friends. I get advice and teaching from a variety of people whom I respect in different fields. While the genetic resonance went away and hasn’t, and perhaps can’t be, replaced, I am still connected to Dad energetically or psychically. I hear him occasionally, at the oddest times, saying things only he would have said. So I know he’s there. If I can’t hear him more, it’s my lack of communication skills, not that he’s really gone. And if I concentrate, I can visualize him and feel his love, so we’re connected that way as well.
If you believe the soul is eternal, and I do, then the fact that I can’t communicate with him better is due only to my lack of communication skills. That’s something I can work on! And when I die, or change state to one more like his, then I expect the communication will get easier again. And when I miss him, I try my best to ask him to be with me so he can share my experience.
Symbol
So – back to Peter Jennings. When he died, what did I really lose? I lost the image of a person who showed up in my home with great regularity, that I trusted to sift through the vastness of world events and competently tell me what was important in a fair, reasonably impartial way. (Okay, I’m older now, more savvy, and less trusting, but this was still true, if a lot less true than 20 years ago.)
When did I lose it? He went off the air 4 months ago, in April. It was a little sad then, but I took no real notice.
With what did I replace it? A varied menu of reading on the internet, accompanied by the occasional watching of some network’s nightly news, to see what America is being told about the world today.
How am I still connected to it? In memories – images of Jennigs on that 25 hour around the world welcome to the millennium, for one.
And I think his death hit me because it’s a reminder of time passing, that the only constant is change.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Free advice!
Well, 3 - 5 minutes worth, anyway!
A long time dream of mine is beginning to come true! I’m doing a weekly half hour radio show on Tuesdays at 5AM (Pacific time) on KEST. For those of you farther east, it’s a very manageable time: 8AM on the east coast, and 7AM in the Midwest.
This is a local San Francisco station, whose signal covers much of the Bay Area, so if you’re here and you’re away, please tune in to 1450AM. It is unfortunately not streaming on the web, so if you are outside the Bay Area, you can’t hear me on the air.
This is coaching. I am not doing readings on the air for two reasons:
1) It’s boring for the audience. When I used to hear psychics on the air, I’d be reading right along with them to see if what I got was different from what they got. Most people aren’t going to do that, so I don’t know that they really be interested.
3) I’d need both your first and last names, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do that. I have been told that on many stations, there’s a technical way around this, but not on the tiny station I’m on.
It’s a call in show — and I really need callers, as it’s new -- so call me with questions on relationships of all sorts (significant others, potential significant others, friends, people you work with, families, extended families, almost anything you can think of really concerns a relationship), business or career issues, life direction issues. There’s only one real requirement, which is that it must be YOUR issue, not someone else’s. If by some stroke of luck, the lines are busy, please just wait a few minutes and try again.
The number to call is
415-543-TALK (415-543-8255)
Again:
8 – 8:30 AM Eastern time
5 – 5:30 AM Pacific time
Call me! Let's talk!
A long time dream of mine is beginning to come true! I’m doing a weekly half hour radio show on Tuesdays at 5AM (Pacific time) on KEST. For those of you farther east, it’s a very manageable time: 8AM on the east coast, and 7AM in the Midwest.
This is a local San Francisco station, whose signal covers much of the Bay Area, so if you’re here and you’re away, please tune in to 1450AM. It is unfortunately not streaming on the web, so if you are outside the Bay Area, you can’t hear me on the air.
This is coaching. I am not doing readings on the air for two reasons:
1) It’s boring for the audience. When I used to hear psychics on the air, I’d be reading right along with them to see if what I got was different from what they got. Most people aren’t going to do that, so I don’t know that they really be interested.
3) I’d need both your first and last names, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do that. I have been told that on many stations, there’s a technical way around this, but not on the tiny station I’m on.
It’s a call in show — and I really need callers, as it’s new -- so call me with questions on relationships of all sorts (significant others, potential significant others, friends, people you work with, families, extended families, almost anything you can think of really concerns a relationship), business or career issues, life direction issues. There’s only one real requirement, which is that it must be YOUR issue, not someone else’s. If by some stroke of luck, the lines are busy, please just wait a few minutes and try again.
The number to call is
415-543-TALK (415-543-8255)
Again:
8 – 8:30 AM Eastern time
5 – 5:30 AM Pacific time
Call me! Let's talk!
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain - New York Times
If you've ever fallen in love, you know it makes you crazy. You know that for a time, it is the most important thing in the world, more important than sleeping or eating. Have people told you it was "all in your head"? Well, maybe it was all in your head, but not in the way you think.
This article from the NY Times describes cutting edge brain research, which shows that romantic love is separate and disctinct from sexual arousal, and much more like "food, warmth, craving for drugs".
Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: May 31, 2005
New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be mistaken for psychosis.
A new study suggests that an area of the brain known as the caudate is associated with passion.
Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of long-term commitment.
In an analysis of the images appearing today in The Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New Jersey argue that romantic love is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal.
It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.
The research helps explain why love produces such disparate emotions, from euphoria to anger to anxiety, and why it seems to become even more intense when it is withdrawn. In a separate, continuing experiment, the researchers are analyzing brain images from people who have been rejected by their lovers.
"When you're in the throes of this romantic love it's overwhelming, you're out of control, you're irrational, you're going to the gym at 6 a.m. every day - why? Because she's there," said Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and the co-author of the analysis. "And when rejected, some people contemplate stalking, homicide, suicide. This drive for romantic love can be stronger than the will to live."
Brain imaging technology cannot read people's minds, experts caution, and a phenomenon as many sided and socially influenced as love transcends simple computer graphics, like those produced by the technique used in the study, called functional M.R.I.
Still, said Dr. Hans Breiter, director of the Motivation and Emotion Neuroscience Collaboration at Massachusetts General Hospital, "I distrust about 95 percent of the M.R.I. literature and I would give this study an 'A'; it really moves the ball in terms of understanding infatuation love."
He added: "The findings fit nicely with a large, growing body of literature describing a generalized reward and aversion system in the brain, and put this intellectual construct of love directly onto the same axis as homeostatic rewards such as food, warmth, craving for drugs."
In the study, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Lucy Brown of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and Dr. Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, led a team that analyzed about 2,500 brain images from 17 college students who were in the first weeks or months of new love. The students looked at a picture of their beloved while an M.R.I. machine scanned their brains. The researchers then compared the images with others taken while the students looked at picture of an acquaintance.
Functional M.R.I. technology detects increases or decreases of blood flow in the brain, which reflect changes in neural activity.
In the study, a computer-generated map of particularly active areas showed hot spots deep in the brain, below conscious awareness, in areas called the caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental area, which communicate with each other as part of a circuit.
These areas are dense with cells that produce or receive a brain chemical called dopamine, which circulates actively when people desire or anticipate a reward. In studies of gamblers, cocaine users and even people playing computer games for small amounts of money, these dopamine sites become extremely active as people score or win, neuroscientists say.
Yet falling in love is among the most irrational of human behaviors, not merely a matter of satisfying a simple pleasure, or winning a reward. And the researchers found that one particular spot in the M.R.I. images, in the caudate nucleus, was especially active in people who scored highly on a questionnaire measuring passionate love.
This passion-related region was on the opposite side of the brain from another area that registers physical attractiveness, the researchers found, and appeared to be involved in longing, desire and the unexplainable tug that people feel toward one person, among many attractive alternative partners.
This distinction, between finding someone attractive and desiring him or her, between liking and wanting, "is all happening in an area of the mammalian brain that takes care of most basic functions, like eating, drinking, eye movements, all at an unconscious level, and I don't think anyone expected this part of the brain to be so specialized," Dr. Brown said.
The intoxication of new love mellows with time, of course, and the brain scan findings reflect some evidence of this change, Dr. Fisher said.
In an earlier functional M.R.I. study of romance, published in 2000, researchers at University College London monitored brain activity in young men and women who had been in relationships for about two years. The brain images, also taken while participants looked at photos of their beloved, showed activation in many of the same areas found in the new study - but significantly less so, in the region correlated with passionate love, she said.
In the new study, the researchers also saw individual differences in their group of smitten lovers, based on how long the participants had been in the relationships. Compared with the students who were in the first weeks of a new love, those who had been paired off for a year or more showed significantly more activity in an area of the brain linked to long-term commitment.
Last summer, scientists at Emory University in Atlanta reported that injecting a ratlike animal called a vole with a single gene turned promiscuous males into stay-at-home dads - by activating precisely the same area of the brain where researchers in the new study found increased activity over time.
"This is very suggestive of attachment processes taking place," Dr. Brown said. "You can almost imagine a time where instead of going to Match.com you could have a test to find out whether you're an attachment type or not."
One reason new love is so heart-stopping is the possibility, the ever-present fear, that the feeling may not be entirely requited, that the dream could suddenly end.
In a follow-up experiment, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Aron and Dr. Brown have carried out brain scans on 17 other young men and women who recently were dumped by their lovers. As in the new love study, the researchers compared two sets of images, one taken when the participants were looking at a photo of a friend, the other when looking at a picture of their ex.
Although they are still sorting through the images, the investigators have noticed one preliminary finding: increased activation in an area of the brain related to the region associated with passionate love. "It seems to suggest what the psychological literature, poetry and people have long noticed: that being dumped actually does heighten romantic love, a phenomenon I call frustration-attraction," Dr. Fisher said in an e-mail message.
One volunteer in the study was Suzanna Katz, 22, of New York, who suffered through a breakup with her boyfriend three years ago. Ms. Katz said she became hyperactive to distract herself after the split, but said she also had moments of almost physical withdrawal, as if weaning herself from a drug.
"It had little to do with him, but more with the fact that there was something there, inside myself, a hope, a knowledge that there's someone out there for you, and that you're capable of feeling this way, and suddenly I felt like that was being lost," she said in an interview.
And no wonder. In a series of studies, researchers have found that, among other processes, new love involves psychologically internalizing a lover, absorbing elements of the other person's opinions, hobbies, expressions, character, as well as sharing one's own. "The expansion of the self happens very rapidly, it's one of the most exhilarating experiences there is, and short of threatening our survival it is one thing that most motivates us," said Dr. Aron, of SUNY, a co-author of the study.
To lose all that, all at once, while still in love, plays havoc with the emotional, cognitive and deeper reward-driven areas of the brain. But the heightened activity in these areas inevitably settles down. And the circuits in the brain related to passion remain intact, the researchers say - intact and capable in time of flaring to life with someone new.
Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain - New York Times
This article from the NY Times describes cutting edge brain research, which shows that romantic love is separate and disctinct from sexual arousal, and much more like "food, warmth, craving for drugs".
Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: May 31, 2005
New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be mistaken for psychosis.
A new study suggests that an area of the brain known as the caudate is associated with passion.
Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of long-term commitment.
In an analysis of the images appearing today in The Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New Jersey argue that romantic love is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal.
It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.
The research helps explain why love produces such disparate emotions, from euphoria to anger to anxiety, and why it seems to become even more intense when it is withdrawn. In a separate, continuing experiment, the researchers are analyzing brain images from people who have been rejected by their lovers.
"When you're in the throes of this romantic love it's overwhelming, you're out of control, you're irrational, you're going to the gym at 6 a.m. every day - why? Because she's there," said Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and the co-author of the analysis. "And when rejected, some people contemplate stalking, homicide, suicide. This drive for romantic love can be stronger than the will to live."
Brain imaging technology cannot read people's minds, experts caution, and a phenomenon as many sided and socially influenced as love transcends simple computer graphics, like those produced by the technique used in the study, called functional M.R.I.
Still, said Dr. Hans Breiter, director of the Motivation and Emotion Neuroscience Collaboration at Massachusetts General Hospital, "I distrust about 95 percent of the M.R.I. literature and I would give this study an 'A'; it really moves the ball in terms of understanding infatuation love."
He added: "The findings fit nicely with a large, growing body of literature describing a generalized reward and aversion system in the brain, and put this intellectual construct of love directly onto the same axis as homeostatic rewards such as food, warmth, craving for drugs."
In the study, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Lucy Brown of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and Dr. Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, led a team that analyzed about 2,500 brain images from 17 college students who were in the first weeks or months of new love. The students looked at a picture of their beloved while an M.R.I. machine scanned their brains. The researchers then compared the images with others taken while the students looked at picture of an acquaintance.
Functional M.R.I. technology detects increases or decreases of blood flow in the brain, which reflect changes in neural activity.
In the study, a computer-generated map of particularly active areas showed hot spots deep in the brain, below conscious awareness, in areas called the caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental area, which communicate with each other as part of a circuit.
These areas are dense with cells that produce or receive a brain chemical called dopamine, which circulates actively when people desire or anticipate a reward. In studies of gamblers, cocaine users and even people playing computer games for small amounts of money, these dopamine sites become extremely active as people score or win, neuroscientists say.
Yet falling in love is among the most irrational of human behaviors, not merely a matter of satisfying a simple pleasure, or winning a reward. And the researchers found that one particular spot in the M.R.I. images, in the caudate nucleus, was especially active in people who scored highly on a questionnaire measuring passionate love.
This passion-related region was on the opposite side of the brain from another area that registers physical attractiveness, the researchers found, and appeared to be involved in longing, desire and the unexplainable tug that people feel toward one person, among many attractive alternative partners.
This distinction, between finding someone attractive and desiring him or her, between liking and wanting, "is all happening in an area of the mammalian brain that takes care of most basic functions, like eating, drinking, eye movements, all at an unconscious level, and I don't think anyone expected this part of the brain to be so specialized," Dr. Brown said.
The intoxication of new love mellows with time, of course, and the brain scan findings reflect some evidence of this change, Dr. Fisher said.
In an earlier functional M.R.I. study of romance, published in 2000, researchers at University College London monitored brain activity in young men and women who had been in relationships for about two years. The brain images, also taken while participants looked at photos of their beloved, showed activation in many of the same areas found in the new study - but significantly less so, in the region correlated with passionate love, she said.
In the new study, the researchers also saw individual differences in their group of smitten lovers, based on how long the participants had been in the relationships. Compared with the students who were in the first weeks of a new love, those who had been paired off for a year or more showed significantly more activity in an area of the brain linked to long-term commitment.
Last summer, scientists at Emory University in Atlanta reported that injecting a ratlike animal called a vole with a single gene turned promiscuous males into stay-at-home dads - by activating precisely the same area of the brain where researchers in the new study found increased activity over time.
"This is very suggestive of attachment processes taking place," Dr. Brown said. "You can almost imagine a time where instead of going to Match.com you could have a test to find out whether you're an attachment type or not."
One reason new love is so heart-stopping is the possibility, the ever-present fear, that the feeling may not be entirely requited, that the dream could suddenly end.
In a follow-up experiment, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Aron and Dr. Brown have carried out brain scans on 17 other young men and women who recently were dumped by their lovers. As in the new love study, the researchers compared two sets of images, one taken when the participants were looking at a photo of a friend, the other when looking at a picture of their ex.
Although they are still sorting through the images, the investigators have noticed one preliminary finding: increased activation in an area of the brain related to the region associated with passionate love. "It seems to suggest what the psychological literature, poetry and people have long noticed: that being dumped actually does heighten romantic love, a phenomenon I call frustration-attraction," Dr. Fisher said in an e-mail message.
One volunteer in the study was Suzanna Katz, 22, of New York, who suffered through a breakup with her boyfriend three years ago. Ms. Katz said she became hyperactive to distract herself after the split, but said she also had moments of almost physical withdrawal, as if weaning herself from a drug.
"It had little to do with him, but more with the fact that there was something there, inside myself, a hope, a knowledge that there's someone out there for you, and that you're capable of feeling this way, and suddenly I felt like that was being lost," she said in an interview.
And no wonder. In a series of studies, researchers have found that, among other processes, new love involves psychologically internalizing a lover, absorbing elements of the other person's opinions, hobbies, expressions, character, as well as sharing one's own. "The expansion of the self happens very rapidly, it's one of the most exhilarating experiences there is, and short of threatening our survival it is one thing that most motivates us," said Dr. Aron, of SUNY, a co-author of the study.
To lose all that, all at once, while still in love, plays havoc with the emotional, cognitive and deeper reward-driven areas of the brain. But the heightened activity in these areas inevitably settles down. And the circuits in the brain related to passion remain intact, the researchers say - intact and capable in time of flaring to life with someone new.
Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain - New York Times
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Monday, May 16, 2005
Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds
I have said for many years that the clairsenses (clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, clairolfaction, clairgustation, and telepathy) are natural and normal human abilities. Now scientists are proving it!
Hollis
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com Wed Apr 27,10:24 AM ET
Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and understand their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense debate in cognitive science.
Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root. We're all essentially mind readers, they say.
The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting.
Mirror neurons
In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque monkey when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the premotor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for planning movements. The cluster of cells fired not only when the monkey performed an action, but likewise when the monkey saw the same action performed by someone else. The cells responded the same way whether the monkey reached out to grasp a peanut, or merely watched in envy as another monkey or a human did.
Because the cells reflected the actions that the monkey observed in others, the neuroscientists named them "mirror neurons."
Later experiments confirmed the existence of mirror neurons in humans and revealed another surprise. In addition to mirroring actions, the cells reflected sensations and emotions.
"Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person's mental shoes," says Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. "In fact, with mirror neurons we do not have to pretend, we practically are in another person's mind."
Since their discovery, mirror neurons have been implicated in a broad range of phenomena, including certain mental disorders. Mirror neurons may help cognitive scientists explain how children develop a theory of mind (ToM), which is a child's understanding that others have minds similar to their own. Doing so may help shed light on autism, in which this type of understanding is often missing.
Theory theory
Over the years, cognitive scientists have come up with a number of theories to explain how ToM develops. The "theory theory" and "simulation theory" are currently two of the most popular.
Theory theory describes children as budding social scientists. The idea is that children collect evidence -- in the form of gestures and expressions -- and use their everyday understanding of people to develop theories that explain and predict the mental state of people they come in contact with.
Vittorio Gallese, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma in Italy and one of original discovers of mirror neurons, has another name for this theory: he calls it the "Vulcan Approach," in honor of the Star Trek protagonist Spock, who belonged to an alien race called the Vulcans who suppressed their emotions in favor of logic. Spock was often unable to understand the emotions that underlie human behavior.
Gallese himself prefers simulation theory over this Vulcan approach.
Natural mind readers
Simulation theory states that we are natural mind readers. We place ourselves in another person's "mental shoes," and use our own mind as a model for theirs.
Gallese contends that when we interact with someone, we do more than just observe the other person's behavior. He believes we create internal representations of their actions, sensations and emotions within ourselves, as if we are the ones that are moving, sensing and feeling.
Many scientists believe that mirror neurons embody the predictions of simulation theory. "We share with others not only the way they normally act or subjectively experience emotions and sensations, but also the neural circuits enabling those same actions, emotions and sensations: the mirror neuron systems," Gallese told LiveScience.
Gallese points out, however, that the two theories are not mutually exclusive. If the mirror neuron system is defective or damaged, and our ability to empathize is lost, the observe-and-guess method of theory theory may be the only option left. Some scientists suspect this is what happens in autistic people, whose mental disorder prevents them from understanding the intentions and motives of others.
Tests underway
The idea is that the mirror neuron systems of autistic individuals are somehow impaired or deficient, and that the resulting "mind-blindness" prevents them from simulating the experiences of others. For autistic individuals, experience is more observed than lived, and the emotional undercurrents that govern so much of our human behavior are inaccessible. They guess the mental states of others through explicit theorizing, but the end result is a list -- mechanical and impersonal -- of actions, gestures and expressions void of motive, intent, or emotion.
Several labs are now testing the hypothesis that autistic individuals have a mirror neuron deficit and cannot simulate the mental states of others.
One recent experiment by Hugo Theoret and colleagues at the University of Montreal showed that mirror neurons normally active during the observation of hand movements in non-autistic individuals are silent in those who have autism.
"You either simulate with mirror neurons, or the mental states of others are completely precluded to you," said Iacoboni.
For this full story, and links to other interesing information, please go to:
Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds - Yahoo! News
Hollis
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com Wed Apr 27,10:24 AM ET
Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and understand their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense debate in cognitive science.
Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root. We're all essentially mind readers, they say.
The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting.
Mirror neurons
In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque monkey when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the premotor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for planning movements. The cluster of cells fired not only when the monkey performed an action, but likewise when the monkey saw the same action performed by someone else. The cells responded the same way whether the monkey reached out to grasp a peanut, or merely watched in envy as another monkey or a human did.
Because the cells reflected the actions that the monkey observed in others, the neuroscientists named them "mirror neurons."
Later experiments confirmed the existence of mirror neurons in humans and revealed another surprise. In addition to mirroring actions, the cells reflected sensations and emotions.
"Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person's mental shoes," says Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. "In fact, with mirror neurons we do not have to pretend, we practically are in another person's mind."
Since their discovery, mirror neurons have been implicated in a broad range of phenomena, including certain mental disorders. Mirror neurons may help cognitive scientists explain how children develop a theory of mind (ToM), which is a child's understanding that others have minds similar to their own. Doing so may help shed light on autism, in which this type of understanding is often missing.
Theory theory
Over the years, cognitive scientists have come up with a number of theories to explain how ToM develops. The "theory theory" and "simulation theory" are currently two of the most popular.
Theory theory describes children as budding social scientists. The idea is that children collect evidence -- in the form of gestures and expressions -- and use their everyday understanding of people to develop theories that explain and predict the mental state of people they come in contact with.
Vittorio Gallese, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma in Italy and one of original discovers of mirror neurons, has another name for this theory: he calls it the "Vulcan Approach," in honor of the Star Trek protagonist Spock, who belonged to an alien race called the Vulcans who suppressed their emotions in favor of logic. Spock was often unable to understand the emotions that underlie human behavior.
Gallese himself prefers simulation theory over this Vulcan approach.
Natural mind readers
Simulation theory states that we are natural mind readers. We place ourselves in another person's "mental shoes," and use our own mind as a model for theirs.
Gallese contends that when we interact with someone, we do more than just observe the other person's behavior. He believes we create internal representations of their actions, sensations and emotions within ourselves, as if we are the ones that are moving, sensing and feeling.
Many scientists believe that mirror neurons embody the predictions of simulation theory. "We share with others not only the way they normally act or subjectively experience emotions and sensations, but also the neural circuits enabling those same actions, emotions and sensations: the mirror neuron systems," Gallese told LiveScience.
Gallese points out, however, that the two theories are not mutually exclusive. If the mirror neuron system is defective or damaged, and our ability to empathize is lost, the observe-and-guess method of theory theory may be the only option left. Some scientists suspect this is what happens in autistic people, whose mental disorder prevents them from understanding the intentions and motives of others.
Tests underway
The idea is that the mirror neuron systems of autistic individuals are somehow impaired or deficient, and that the resulting "mind-blindness" prevents them from simulating the experiences of others. For autistic individuals, experience is more observed than lived, and the emotional undercurrents that govern so much of our human behavior are inaccessible. They guess the mental states of others through explicit theorizing, but the end result is a list -- mechanical and impersonal -- of actions, gestures and expressions void of motive, intent, or emotion.
Several labs are now testing the hypothesis that autistic individuals have a mirror neuron deficit and cannot simulate the mental states of others.
One recent experiment by Hugo Theoret and colleagues at the University of Montreal showed that mirror neurons normally active during the observation of hand movements in non-autistic individuals are silent in those who have autism.
"You either simulate with mirror neurons, or the mental states of others are completely precluded to you," said Iacoboni.
For this full story, and links to other interesing information, please go to:
Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds - Yahoo! News
Thursday, May 05, 2005
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