"...When we become physically ill or
have an injury, we are generally quick to
respond. We take over the counter medications,
apply cold compresses, take vitamin C, and
seek out medical attention, if needed. In
general, we also take steps to ensure ongoing
good physical health when we are feeling
fine. We try to eat right, take vitamin supplements,
get enough sleep and incorporate activity
and exercise into ..."
"...The flow of energy in the chakras
and body meridians can have an impact on the health of your
organs. If the energy flows through your body smoothly,
then your organs stay healthy.
If the energy gets blocked or there is too
much energy in one part of your body, dis-ease
can result. Basically, dis-ease shows up in the
human energy fieldbefore dis-ease shows up in your physical
body.
Something else that is interesting to note
is that each organ operates at a particular
frequency.If an organ vibrates at a frequency that
is lower than normal for it, dis-ease results.
Trust building activities help people to
develop mutual respect, openness, understanding,
and empathy, as well as helping to develop
communication and teamwork skills ....
(Please click the graphic to see this article)
Incoming college students rate emotional
health at record low, annual survey finds The American Freshman: National Norms for
Fall 2010
The family structure is strained under the weight of the time, and work it takes for income to generate from a website. People don't have the ability to understand what 'working on the internet' is. The "internet" isn't a tangible workplace. The stresses are many ..." ... to this article ...
First-year college students' self-ratings
of their emotional health dropped to record
low levels in 2010, according to the CIRP
Freshman Survey, UCLA's annual survey
of the nation's entering students at
four-year colleges and universities. The
survey, part of the Cooperative Institutional
Research Program (CIRP), is administered nationally by the
Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA's Graduate School of Education &
Information Studies.
Only 51.9 percent of students reported that
their emotional health was in the "highest
10 percent" or "above average,"
a drop of 3.4 percentage points from 2009
and a significant decline from the 63.6 percent
who placed themselves in those categories
when self-ratings of emotional health were
first measured in 1985.
Female students were far less likely to report
high levels of emotional health than male
students (45.9 percent versus 59.1 percent),
a 13.2 percentage-point difference. Women
were also more than twice as likely as men
to feel frequently "overwhelmed by all
I had to do" as high-school seniors.
While students' perceived emotional health
took a downturn, their drive to achieve and
their academic abilities are trending upward.
More students than ever before (71.2 percent)
rated their academic abilities as "above
average" or in the "highest 10
percent," and 75.8 percent rated their
drive to achieve in the same terms.
Often considered positive traits, high levels
of drive to achieve and academic ability
could also contribute to students' feelings
of stress, said John H. Pryor, lead author
of the report and director of CIRP.
"Stress is a major concern when dealing
with college students," he said. "If
students are arriving in college already
overwhelmed and with lower reserves of emotional
health, faculty, deans and administrators
should expect to see more consequences of
stress, such as higher levels of poor judgment around time management, alcohol consumption and academic motivation."
Financial concerns still abound
The challenging economic landscape continues
to influence students' college experiences.
The proportion of students using loans to
help pay for college remains high, at 53.1
percent, and more students reported receiving
grants and scholarships than at any point
since 2001 — 73.4 percent, a 3.4 percentage-point
increase over 2009.
"The increasing cost of higher education
poses a significant barrier to college access
for today's students," said Sylvia
Hurtado, co-author of the report and director
of the Higher Education Research Institute.
"Students and families are now charged
with the task of becoming more resourceful
and strategic in finding new and creative
ways to pay for college."
The survey documented the continuing effect
of the economy, with unemployment on the
rise for students' parents. The percentage
of students reporting that their fathers
were unemployed (4.9 percent) was at an all-time
high, and the percentage reporting unemployed
mothers (8.6 percent) also continued to increase.
Students are weighing their preferences along
with considerations regarding the net costs
of attending particular colleges.
The survey also revealed that an increasing number
of students are focused on the value that
a college degree confers. In fact, more students
than ever before (72.7 percent) indicated
that "the chief benefit of college is
that it increases one's earning power."
This belief is in line with policymakers'
efforts to advocate for pubic investment
in higher education as a means to stimulate
the economy.
Political views on gay rights and raising
taxes
Students expressed views on a variety of
public policy issues, some of which transcended
party lines.
In recent years, students have demonstrated
increasing support for the rights of gays
and lesbians, specifically regarding legal
marital status for same-sex couples. This
year, in a new question on the survey, more
than three-quarters of entering first-year
students expressed support for the legal
right for gays and lesbians to adopt children,
with 48.0 percent agreeing strongly and 28.5
percent agreeing somewhat.
"I am heartened to learn about students'
overwhelming support for extending equal
rights and dignity to gays and lesbians,"
said Carol Schneider, president of the Association
of American Colleges and Universities. "Students'
willingness to engage different perspectives
and experiences is a virtual precondition
for their own intellectual development in
college and one of higher education's
most important contributions to the future
of a just and diverse democracy." Economic concerns also seem to have influenced
students' political views. An overwhelming
64.0 percent of students agreed that wealthy
people should pay more taxes than they do
now. This figure has been on the rise since
2002, when it was at 50.1 percent.
Nearly one-third of students agreed that
"The federal government should raise
taxes to help reduce the deficit," the
highest percentage reported since this question
was first asked 25 years ago. On this particular
issue, students' opinions differed according
to their political orientation. Students
who considered themselves liberal were twice
as likely to support raising taxes to reduce
the deficit as those who identified as conservative
(45.7 percent versus 21.2 percent).
College freshmen at a glance:
Fewer students than ever before are reporting
above-average emotional health.
Students feel increasingly overwhelmed before
entering college; twice as many female students
report feeling this way.
Record high numbers of students believe the
chief benefit of college is that it increases
earning power.
More than three-quarters of students support
gays' and lesbians' right to adopt
children.
The 2010 Freshman Norms report is based on
the responses of 201,818 first-time, full-time
students at 279 of the nation's baccalaureate
colleges and universities. The data have
been statistically adjusted to reflect the
responses of the 1.5 million first-time,
full-time students entering four-year colleges
and universities as first-year students in
2010. Since 1966, the first year the survey
was conducted, more than 15 million students
have completed CIRP surveys at 1,900 colleges
and universities. The CIRP Freshman Survey
is the largest and longest-running survey
of American college students.
To view a summary or to order a copy of the
monograph "The American Freshman: National
Norms Fall 2010" (J.H. Pryor, S. Hurtado,
L. DeAngelo, L. Palucki Blake and S. Tran),
visit www.heri.ucla.edu.
The Higher Education Research Institute is widely regarded as one of the premier
research and policy organizations on postsecondary
education in the country. Housed in the UCLA
Graduate School of Education & Information
Studies, the institute serves as an interdisciplinary
center for research, evaluation, information,
policy studies and research training in postsecondary
education. Visit www.heri.ucla.edu for more news and follow our blog.
(Please click on the heading to this full
text and source)
Emotional Intelligence
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to
identify and manage your own emotions and
the emotions of others. It is generally said
to include three skills:
Emotional awareness, including the ability
to identify your own emotions and those of
others;
The ability to harness emotions and apply
them to tasks like thinking and problems
solving;
The ability to manage emotions, including
the ability to regulate your own emotions,
and the ability to cheer up or calm down
another person.
(Please click the heading to this full
text and source)
Defining Emotional Intelligence (EI) and
Emotional Quotient (EQ)
Emotional Intelligence, or EI, describes
an ability or capacity to perceive, assess,
and manage the emotions of one's self,
and of others. Our EQ, or Emotional Quotient,
is how one measures Emotional Intelligence.
Emotions have the potential to get in the
way of our most important business and personal
relationships. According to John Kotter of
Harvard Business School: “Because of
the furious pace of change in business today,
difficult to manage relationships sabotage
more business than anything else - it is
not a question of strategy that gets us into
trouble; it is a question of emotions.”
Is EI Important to Leadership Development
and Performance?
Research tracking over 160 high performing
individuals in a variety of industries and
job levels revealed that emotional intelligence
was two times more important in contributing
to excellence than intellect and expertise
alone.
EI Training Develops more Effective Managers
and First Line Supervisors
Supervisors in a manufacturing plant received
training in emotional intelligence competencies
to help raise their EI skills in areas such
as how to listen better and help employees
resolve problems on their own, how to empower
and inspire others, and how to become more effective personal leaders.
After training:
lost-time accidents were reduced by 50 percent
formal grievances were reduced from an average
of 15 per year to 3 per year
the plant exceeded productivity goals by
$250,000 (Pesuric & Byham,1996).
In another manufacturing plant where supervisors
received similar emotional intelligence training:
production increased 17 percent.
there was no such increase in production
for a group of matched supervisors who were
not given emotional intelligence training
(Porras & Anderson, 1981)
Training in EI Competencies Develops Stronger
Leaders
The following chart depicts the number of
times those individuals who became president
or CEO displayed emotionally intelligent
competencies, compared with those who were
passed over.
EQ Competencies
Frequency Shown
Self-control
7X
Empathy
3X
Teamwork
2.5X
Self-confidence
2X
Achievement Orientation
2X
Cognitive Competencies
Frequency Shown
Analytical Thinking
1.2X
Conceptual Thinking
1.5X
*Although those who became president or CEO
showed cognitive competencies more frequently
than those passed over, this difference was
not significant.
Can Profitability be Attributed to Emotional
intelligence?
Not only does emotional intelligence greatly contribute
to job performance and leadership skills, it has also been found to increase profits.
The following chart shows the relationship
between emotional intelligence (EI) competencies
with a high enough emotional quotient (EQ)
to positively affect performance (based on
360 data), and the amount of profit generated
at a multinational services firm per year
per partner.
>As the chart shows, self-regulation appears
to have the greatest impact on profit generation.
Emotional Intelligence’s (EI’s)
Impact on Leadership Performance - Examples
The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence
Training
The following 14 points build a case for
how Emotional Intelligence contributes to
the bottom line in organizations. More
The Business Case for Selecting for EI -
The Power of Positive Thinkers by Jill Neimark (Reprint from Success Magazine)
Robert Dell should have been crushed. Two
years ago, the meat-packing plant where he
worked closed on a half hour's notice.
"Severance?" asks the blond, 47-year-old Dell, who is married with two children.
More
(Please click the heading to this full
text and source)
"...refers to a combination of conventional
medical treatments and therapies, as well
as alternative medical therapies. It uses
the best of both approaches, usually starting
with the least invasive, least toxic treatments.
If these do not work to solve the problem,
then more aggressive medical therapies are
tried.
This approach is sometime referred to as “CAM” for short. Treatment combinations
for example might be something like drug
therapy combined with acupuncture, chemotherapy
supported by nutrition, or the use of ..."
" ...Colour is used in ways such as visualising certain coloured rays in treatment of a patient who is known
to have a certain illness, etc. It can be
used in the form of passing sunlight through
panes of coloured glass or filters and by
using coloured lamps. Another method used
to obtain the colour for therapy is by putting
water in coloured, clear containers out in
the sun and allowing the sun's rays to
pass through the coloured glass into the
water, then the water is sipped. Leave the
containers out in the sun for 2 hours only
and bring them in before midday.
Some healers like to use the visualised coloured rays only but some like to help keep the colour
energies around the patient also by keeping
the colour in the food they eat, the clothes
they wear and the colour of their surroundings. ...." ... to this page ...
"...I am so proud of my sister-in-law.
She is doing such a wonderful job taking care of her mom. My mother-in-law is in the process of dying.
My husband, our daughter and I are here at
the house right now; and we were here last
night for several hours. My sister-in-law,
Lourie, phoned us yesterday to tell us that
mom may not last the week, and then she said
- possibly not the night. She lasted through
the night and seems better today (that is
a 'relative' better) - less congestion,
better breathing.
It seems that hospice didn't tell Laurie
everything she needed to know to help. Hospice
isn't communicating with mom's doctor.
There should have been a suction machine
ordered, and a nebulizer - for congestion.
They gave Laurie mouth sticks, with the sponges
on the end, to clear my mom-in-law's
mouth out, when the congestion - (mucas)
got too bad. Today the doctor said that she
could ask hospice for a nebulizer and a suction
machine. So that should be in the process
of being ordered and coming to the house.
My mother-in-law is 80 years old - sometimes
that's old, sometimes not...." ... to this article ...
The Power of Positive Thinkers
By Jill Neimark (Reprint from Success Magazine)
Robert Dell should have been crushed. Two years ago, the meat-packing plant where
he worked closed on a half hour’s notice.
"Severance?" asks the blond, 47-year-old
Dell, who is married with two children. "I
got what was in my wallet." Within weeks
he had traded in his butcher’s apron
for a business suit. He then applied for a sales position at
Metropolitan Life. "It never occurred
to me that I didn’t know how to sell,"
explains Dell, who last year joined other
top sellers in the Leader’s Club at
Met Life.
By most standards, Dell was an average Joe.
He’d been punching time clocks for
26 years, as his father did before him. He
hadn’t sold so much as a glass of lemonade
when he was a kid, and when he took the standard
insurance industry certification test, he
barely passed. So how did Met Life recognize
the supersalesman in the sausage stuffer?
Dell possessed one trait that made up for
everything he lacked: relentless optimism.
Just before Dell lost his job, Martin Seligman, a psychologist
at the University of Pennsylvania, had convinced
Met Life to launch a highly original pilot
program to hire new recruits. Management’s
best predictor of success, Seligman argued,
is the employee’s level of optimism. Met Life was intrigued, but wondered whether
tests could really recognize and measure
optimism.
So Seligman sold them on his 20- minute written
exam to identify upbeat people. Met Life
used it to test 15,000 recruits – many
of whom failed the industry exam the first
time around. If these novice salesmen performed,
the insurance carrier would agree to expand
the program. Within months, the recruits
were dramatically outselling those hired
using the traditional way. Since then, Met
Life has commissioned Seligman to sift through
20,000 other applicants to identify the optimists.
By next year, Seligman estimates this new
hiring practice to boost revenues $10 million.
Seligman demonstrated that people tend to "learn" helpless and hopeless
behavior after suffering a series of bad
events. Later, he discovered that if you
change a pessimist’s outlook on the
events that befall him, you can help him become an optimist.
Seligman’s research shows the power
of self-fulfilling prophecies. The way a
person explains events in his life, Seligman
says, can predict and determine his future.
Those who believed they are masters of their
fate are more likely to succeed than those
who attribute events to forces beyond their
control. Seligman’s tests contain 12
hypothetical and open-ended situations, from
the tragic to the mundane, that provide clues
to the test taker’s personality. For
example: "Your mate walks out of the
room, slamming the door," says Seligman.
"How do you explain that? Very simply,
a pessimist might say, ‘I’m unlovable,’
while an optimist would think it’s
no big deal, saying something like, ‘Everyone
gets in bad moods.’" In short,
optimists see themselves in control of events,
or at least not at the mercy of events. Pessimists, like characters in a Kafka novel,
feel victimized by events and powerless to
do anything about them. Due to Seligman’s
work, it is now possible to quantify whether
an individual is an optimist or a pessimist.
Seligman calls this kind of attribution "explanatory
style." The test, the Seligman Attributional
Style Questionnaire (SASQ), dissects a person's
explanatory style from three directions to reveal how he/she
views events:
Stable. Does a person see events as controllable?
Or does he feel life is out of his control?
Take two people whose investments in the
stock market have just doubled. An optimist
would call it a smart move, a success. A
pessimist would say it's just a stroke
of luck, like winning the lottery. If, on
the other hand, a stock suddenly plummets,
the optimist would deem it a fluke. To the
pessimist, it could not have happened any
other way.
Global. The optimist feels his windfall is general proof
that he's a success in life. He may sometimes
even give the event more weight than it truly
merits. But to the pessimist, it's just
an isolated case of luck. With a bad event,
however, the tables turn dramatically. Optimists dismiss each as an isolated occurrence,
while for pessimists a bad event casts a
dark, depressing shadow over their lives.
Internal. Optimists shrug off the bad and internalize
the good. Pessimists attribute the good to
outside forces and the bad to themselves.
Of course, there are times reality is so
clear-cut that optimists and pessimists will
give the same response. In years when the
job market is tough, for instance, Seligman
has found that both optimists and pessimists
will cite the lean market as the cause of
the hypothetical event, "You have been
unsuccessful in looking for a job."
At Met Life, Bob Dell doesn't get deflated
by rejection. That allows him to push ahead
with new prospects, his enthusiasm unabated.
"This week I got a 'no' from
a guy I'd been working on for three and
a half months," he explains. "But
I didn't get depressed about it. The
client isn't rejecting me personally."
In the next breath, Dell takes full credit
for successful sales: "I have a good,
substantial client list. I got it through
prospecting, and I work very hard to maintain
it. These people would never deal with someone
they had no faith in. If I sell, it's
because they're accepting me."
His answers are absolutely consistent with
his performance on the SASQ, though he can
barely recall the questionnaire. Dell invariably
separated himself from bad events, like rejections,
but he instantly internalizes good events
as proof of his skills and diligence and
how well his life is going.
Seligman's broad studies of explanatory
style show the remarkable impact optimism
has on achievement and well-being.
Longevity. In a retrospective study of 34 healthy Hall
of Fame baseball players who played between
1900 and 1950, optimists lived significantly
longer.
Good Health. Among 99 Harvard University graduates who
were also World War II vets and have had
physical examinations every five years since
graduation, the men who were optimists at
25 were significantly healthier at 65 than
the pessimists.
Peak Performance. Seligman analyzed the explanatory styles
of members of several professional baseball
teams and found that optimists regularly
surpassed expectations. That is, optimistic
teams built momentum, developing a kind of
synergy that helped them beat the point spreads.
This makes a good case for staffing a company
with optimists.
Persistence. Pessimists give up, optimists persevere.
In contrast to pessimists, Seligman found,
even children who are optimists keep trying
something until they master it. And these
tendencies can last a lifetime. As adults
in the work force, pessimists are twice as likely to quit
their jobs as optimists.
Risk taking. Because optimists have unflagging faith
in their abilities, they're more likely
to take risks.
"It's not reality itself that's
the problem," Seligman concludes from
his studies. "We all suffer tragic realities,
but it's how you see reality that makes
the difference." We all interpret events
and develop a point of view about life, which
in turn colors the way we approach the future.
This is why optimists like Robert Dell 'stay
with it' and outsell others with a more
pessimistic explanatory style. Met Life -
along with hundreds of other companies have
benefited - dramatically reducing turnover,
improving performance and creating a more
resilient workforce since implementing the
SASQ. The results speak for themselves.
Seligman had never intended to study optimists.
Back in 1966, he developed a novel theory
of depression. People, he felt, taught themselves
to be depressed. They learned to feel helpless,
out of control. In a series of studies, Seligman
and his colleagues found that when rats were
repeatedly exposed to painful and inescapable
electric shocks, they'd stop struggling
to get away. They "learned" that
attempts to escape, they wouldn't even
try. They would lie there as if they were
helpless.
For the next 10 years, Seligman searched
for insights into "learned helplessness."
He began to question why some people became
pessimists while others resisted and didn't
become helpless no matter what happened to
them. That's when he started to investigate
optimists.
Then, on a flight to Philadelphia in 1983,
John Leslie, an ebullient 60-year-old businessman,
sparked Seligman's interest in business.
"It was one of those airplane conversations,"
Seligman remembers. "I told him about
my studies and he said, 'Have you ever
thought of the applications to business?
I'm talking about people who think they
can walk on water.' Learned hopefulness.
I'd never thought of that before."
Leslie was right. Optimism does indeed have
an impact on everything from business to
war. By analyzing an explanatory style, you
can help determine just how far someone's
going to go. Take President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Seligman found that Johnson's decisions
during the Vietnam War were strongly foreshadowed
by his explanatory style. Seligman analyzed
10 press-conference transcripts and found
that the two made right after Johnson became
president showed he had "an average
explanatory style." But transcripts
made right before the bold and controversial
Gulf and Tonkin resolution and during the
period when Johnson sharply escalated the
war showed his explanatory style to be "wildly
optimistic," which correlates with high-risk
behavior. Later, in press conferences given
right before his decision not to run for
president again, his style had veered toward
depression and passivity.
Seligman's most controversial assertion
is that explanatory style - which is simply
a belief style - can be changed. Even depressed
people can reshape their explanatory styles
and learn to believe in their own power to
mold the future. In a study of clinically
depressed patients, Seligman discovered that
12 weeks of cognitive therapy (reframing
a person's approach to the world) worked
better than drugs because the change endured.
"They were less vulnerable to depression
the next time something bad happened,"
explains Seligman.
Managers can use a similar process to nurture
an employee's optimism. They can present
alternative explanations for bad events.
Their feedback can help people understand
the cause-and-effect relationship between
their efforts and results, good or bad. The
message: They are in control of events that
shape their lives. Constant reinforcement
is important. How often? Anytime a manager
talks to a subordinate. The process should
become second nature.
Consider how the founder of cognitive therapy,
Aaron Beck, helped transform one woman's
feelings of hopelessness. A first-year graduate
student came to him with a paper from another
psychology class after getting a C. She was
discouraged and wanted to drop out of school.
So they sat down and thought of some other
explanations for the C. One interpretation
was that she wasn't a bad student - the
class average was a C - but that she just
needed to work harder. When she called the
professor, that was the explanation he gave.
But can you change your style just by changing
the words you use to explain events? That's
where Seligman's theory takes the biggest
leap, and where other psychologists take
issue with him. According to Suzanne Ouellette
Kobasa, a psychology professor in the Graduate
School at City University of New York, whose
studies on executive stress have been widely
cited: "I don't think it's easy
for someone to make a complete personality
change. A basic shift has to occur first.
You can't 'reprogram' a person
unless he wants it."
Indeed, says Seligman, it's far better for managers to hire
optimists for positions with a risk of high
rejection, such as sales. They tend to perform
better. Seligman discovered they outsold
pessimists by 37 percent in their first two
years. For Richard Calogero, a management
consultant at Met Life, the greatest benefit
of optimism is its infectiousness. "We have a high turnover rate in this
business," he says. "So the more
optimists we have, the more pessimists we
can convert. A bright future becomes of a
self-fulfilling prophecy."
At a recent insurance industry convention,
Seligman's tests were the hot topic.
Since then, over 50 companies have asked
Met Life for more information on them.
Curiously, Seligman has never used this theory
to examine his own success. "I'm
really blind to my own style. I could go
back to my teenage diaries and analyze them,"
he says, "but frankly, I've locked
the things up." Seligman doesn't
want to know. But then, neither does insurance
salesman Dell. Today he's thinking about
just how to capture the sale that slipped
through his fingers yesterday.
(Please click the heading to the
full text and source)
Every thought and emotion you have constantly
contributes to the state of your overall
health. Scientists have now proven that being kind
boosts your immune system. Can you believe
it, isn’t that amazing? But of course
we already knew that didn’t we? The
body mirrors the mind perfectly; so what
takes place in the mind, takes place in the
body, thus the mind- body connection.
When we experience an emotion, a chemical
reaction takes place within our body. An
emotion is felt and a corresponding hormone
is released. For example when we feel stressed
our body releases adrenaline into our system
to help cope with it. Alternatively when
we feel joyous our body releases endorphins
which provide a sense of satisfaction and
well being. It is this chemical release that
connects the mind to the body and impacts
our health.
The chemicals released into our system attach
to our cells by way of receptors. All cells
have receptors and are therefore capable
of connecting with the hormones from every
emotion we feel. When the chemical attaches
to the cell, it sends a signal into the cell
that in turn creates a biochemical event
inside the cell. Enough of the heavy stuff though, basically
what that means is it changes the state of
the cell and therefore changes you internally.
We as human beings have an enormous array
of emotions we feel continuously, whether
we are aware of it on a conscious level or
not. All emotions have a charge that we feel
as positive or negative. Moment by moment
we are releasing emotional charges into our
bodies and most often unaware that we are
feeling anything at all. In society as a
whole, we have become so totally disconnected
from our emotions.
When we experience any of the positive emotions
such as happiness, joy, passion, inspiration,
harmony, trust, optimism, freedom, appreciation,
empowerment, peace, enthusiasm, jubilation
or love, our bodies are in a state of homeostasis
which is physiological equilibrium within
our bodies involving a balance of functions
and chemical composition. Basically our whole
body is in balance and we feel amazing.
However reoccurrence of negative emotions such as
boredom, anger, frustration, grief, disappointment,
blame, worry, stress, loneliness, abandonment,
sadness, fear, hate, rage, disillusionment,
depression, anguish, resentment or guilt
leave our body in a state of ill-health because
of the way the cell is altered. From negative emotions comes a decline in
our health.
Negative emotions are toxic to our cells
and therefore our whole body. For example
when we suffer from too much stress in our
body, we experience an enormous amount of
cortisol which has a detrimental consequence
on how we feel physically. We may encounter
such symptoms as muscle tightness, back/head aches, liver dysfunction,
sluggish bowels, fatigue, inadequate kidney
performance and eventually may be a casualty
of heart attack or stroke. Then we feel miserable
physically, and consequently we feel negative
emotionally and so you can see how the cycle
can escalate. This is how dis-ease originates
in the body.
In a nutshell, the more you feel positive
emotions, the healthier you will be! Your
emotions determine your health and that is
the bottom line. Think of a time you felt
a negative emotion, how did your body react?
Slumped shoulders, head down, tears, a sense
of heaviness, shaking, tension, heart palpitations.
This is how your body reflects your mind.
What happens in the mind, happens in the
body. I love what Louise Hay says in regard
to skeptics of the mind-body connection;
“Anyone who does not believe in the
mind-body connection has never had a sexual
fantasy.” Oh how she has the ability
to get her point across.
Think of how your body reacts to positive
emotions; a sense of lightness, smiles all
round, shoulders back, posture straight,
glowing face, a full state of relaxation.
Positive emotions allow us to feel good physically,
mentally and emotionally. The more we feel
good, the more we feel good. So here is a
perfect reason why we would endeavour to
live our life from a place of happiness.
Yes, I know what you are thinking; we all
encounter events and situations that provoke
us to feel bad and I acknowledge it is all
part of our human evolution. But this is
where the desire for positive emotions is
derived; us experiencing the polarity of
the negative. To have the desire to be happy
comes from knowing what it feels like to
be unhappy. Having the desire for safety
is from the feeling of being unsafe and scared.
I am not saying you never have a negative
emotion ever again, I am saying that we have
the ability to take control and not fall
victim to our emotions.
When you feel a negative emotion there are
a couple of ways to change how you feel.
Firstly, acknowledging how you feel and being
in acceptance of it will take the power away
from it; and you will begin to feel it dissipate.
Don’t ignore it or try to make it go
away, this gives more power to it. So when you are feeling angry, acknowledge
it and allow yourself to be angry rather
than trying to push the anger away. Don’t
punish yourself by thinking you shouldn’t
feel a certain way, that will lead to repression
of emotions.
Acceptance of what emotion you are experiencing,
frees you from feeling that way anymore and
allows the emotion to move through you instead
of being stuck in you; therefore allowing
room for more positive emotions to enter.
The acceptance of the emotion is already
exchanging a positive emotion instead of
the anger. Now your anger is gone, you can
put your attention into a more positive effect.
You can choose to feel positive about the
same situation because you are seeing it
through the eyes of a different emotion.
Secondly, if you are still feeling powerless to negative
emotions, it is vital that you release them
by expressing yourself. Expression can be
in the form of talking to someone about it
or writing it down in a journal, either way,
the emotion is leaving your body and that
is what is needed here. Rid your body of
the harmful emotion by expressing it fully
by words or pen. Unexpressed negative emotions cause
sickness in the body. They block the flow
of energy and cause a buildup of toxic cells
creating incessant fatigue problems, illness
and disease.
Long term emotional trauma stored in the
body can cause serious disease such as cancer
and the like. We repress our uncomfortable
emotions in many ways including masking them
by taking drugs (legal and illegal) or alcohol,
overeating, excessive working, spending money
(commonly known as retail therapy), obsessive
sexual habits or even extreme exercising.
These habits can turn into addictions and
only serve to disguise the emotions within.
These addictions enable you to numb the pain
of the emotion so you don’t feel anymore.
So many times we see an obese personlose weight only to regain it again because the core
issue of why the weight was there in the
first place has not been resolved. In some instances they may lose weight,
keep it off, but will fall prey to a new
addiction to seek the same numbness until
they are willing to look within for the cause.
This process is known as being detached from
your emotions, although just because you
are ignoring their presence, doesn’t mean they do not exist. They
are still causing major toxicity from within.
The sooner you attend to hurt in the past,
the healthier you will be.
If you are unsure of how to resolve past
issues, seek advice from the experts. You may decide to leave
bygones be bygones or sweep past hurt under
the carpet so you don’t feel the pain
of it again, but for the sake of your long
term health and freedom of mind, resolution
of emotional trauma is absolutely essential.
Releasing past hurts is such a feeling of
freedom and as I said before, it allows much
more room to fill yourself up with the ‘feel
good’ stuff.
In my practice I have found that those who
choose resolution of deep- rooted emotional
pain are able to move forward with a new
passion and vigor for life. They have the
ability to paint their future with the brush
of freedom because they have released what
it is that has been holding them back. They
are able to step forward with newly recreated
dreams on a bigger and more abundant scale.
Removing these self-sabotaging blocks allows
processing on a physical, mental and emotional
level all at once. It can also transpire
at a subconscious level so you may not even
be aware of what is being accomplished behind
the scenes. So much can be achieved in a
small amount of time. Years of cycling through
the same patterns can be modified in a moment.
Emotional potentiality is not a new concept
for humanity to embrace; however being disconnected
from it is the cause of the decline in our
health.
So how do we strengthen our immune system by
being kind? When I heard Dr. Wayne Dyer state
this, I was absolutely blown away because
scientists have now proven what I have always
felt in my heart. Whenever you give an act
of kindness to another, the recipient encounters a strong
emotion within. This emotion, as stated earlier,
causes a chemical reaction inside the body
by way of serotonin. Serotonin is the hormone
that makes us feel phenomenal. So when someone
gives you a gift, that welling up of emotion
you feel inside is from the serotonin. It
is this hormone that strengthens our immune
system and therefore our state of health.
But not only does the recipient increase
their levels of serotonin, so does the giver
because when you give in kindness, you also
feel the emotional connection between the
two of you and therefore release your serotonin
accordingly. So you are both boosting your
immune system at the same time. In this moment
of kindness, the connection you feel is on
a heart level, it is a connection of love
between two souls. This is grace!
But if that isn’t amazing enough, when
an individual simply observes this act of
kindness, they also feel the act of love
and it boosts their immune system as well.
So if you don’t want to be kind yourself,
you can always just watch someone else do
it and get the same result. So you can see
where this is all going. Just by being kind,
everyone around you benefits and gets a stronger,
healthier mind and body. Wow, how awesome
is that? So being kind and feeling good makes
you healthy!
So what you can do on a daily basis from
a conscious perspective is to declare that
you are the controlling factor in your health
by seeing the positive instead of the negative;
seeing the good instead of the bad. It is
possible, but it is a choice, you can perceive
things in a ‘feel good’ way.
Tar you brush with the paint of love. Every
single thing you encounter has an emotional
reading to it. As the powerful human being
that you are, you can override and change
the way you think and feel about everything.
Choose to see the endless beauty in situations,
rather than the ugliness; face each day with
passion instead of dreading what is in store.
Embrace the opportunity to spend time alone
and be out in nature rather than dwelling
on the fact you have to mow the lawn, notice
the beauty in the snake rather than feel
the fear. See the love in everyone and know
we are all connected by the Divine, infinite
intelligence that we all embody within. ‘When
you change the way you look at things, the
things you look at change.’ –
Dr Wayne Dyer.
Permanent change means we need to abandon
an old way of doing something and recreate
a new and more effective way. Our common
misconception is in believing all things
happen automatically within our body. Now
we have the understanding, knowledge and
therefore the power to realise we are all
in total control of creating our health.
We now know how to give birth to optimal
health. It originates from our state of mind
and our wondrous emotions are the key. It
doesn’t matter how well you eat, exercise
and look after your body physically, if your
cells can’t receive the nutrients and
benefits because of emotional blockages,
you will not become healthy for long.
As you think, so shall you be. Mind becomes
matter. So when you change your thought,
you change the way you feel about any given
situation. Thinking a positive thought enables
a corresponding ‘feel good’ emotion. Raising your consciousness allows you to
think and feel positively more of the time,
naturally creating a healthy mind, body and
soul. When your health is in an optimum state,
the possibilities you create for yourself
are endless. Change your thought, change
your emotion and create the life you desire.
Change your emotion, change your cells and
be the complete and utter picture of health.
..."
(Please click the heading to this full
text and source)
There are four key waysto strengthen the connection between your
body, mind and soul. They are:
Listening to your intuition;
Listening to your body;
Deep breathing; and
Posture Integration.
1 - Listening to Your Body
The body is the barometer of the mind and
soul. Your body will tell you if you are
in or out of flow with its natural rhythms.
These messages come to us in the form of
pain, discomfort, stiffness, heaviness and
the list of unpleasant sensations goes on.
The state of your body, mind and soul is
reflected in your:
Body shape - its size and distribution of muscle and
fatty tissue;
Body posture - the bone structure; and
Bodily function - the health of individual organs and blood
flow.
Even without the presence of pain or illness,
you can see so much from the state of your
body. At ease, the body's natural state
is to be firm yet flexible with suitable
tissue covering a well balanced bone structure.
At dis-ease, the body becomes either frail
and thin or rigid and fat which can then
cause distortion of the bone structure. To
find out more about what your body can tell
you, go to Psychosomatic Healing.
2 - Listening to Your Intuition
Until you experience it, intuition can seem
like an abstract concept that only gurus
can achieve. It's really not that way
at all. But one thing is certain: listening to your intuition takes practise.
What exactly is intuition?
Intuition is how our soul communicates with us. It is an essential part of balancing the
body, mind and soul because it guides us to do things that are in our
our best interests (remember, the soul knows best). So when
we are listening to our intuition, we are
guided through life with ease and grace.
Without hearing the voice of our soul, life
can be unnecessarily difficult and confusing.
(For more 'soul wisdom' go to Soul Balance)
Intuition comes into our awareness as a feeling. Many people make the mistake of thinking
it comes as a direct, explicit thought in
our minds. But intuition is more subtle as
its language is emotion, not thought. This
is why we call it our 'gut feeling'.
The quandary arises when we need guidance
from our intuition but there is no sign of
a gut feeling. And most people don't
know what to do next. There are practical
strategies that we can apply that strengthen
our connection with our intuition.
One effective way to strengthen intuition
is to be guided by what makes you feel good. It sounds impossibly simple but the soul
communicates by triggering emotions - good
or bad. When we are going in the right direction
according to our soul's plan, we are
happy and content. When we are not doing
something that is in our 'highest good'
(that is, when the soul 'approves'),
life is a struggle and doesn't feel good
at all. Without intuition, we struggle to
find harmony in our body, mind and soul.
Be aware that sometimes it's not what
we are doing that makes us feel bad, it's
how we perceive what we are doing. For example,
a child may not like going to school but
is that because they 'should' be
doing something else or simply because they
resist the lessons they have to learn at
school (like discipline, focus, making friends
etc). Try it, trial-and-error style, and
you'll find what works for you. ...
(Please click the heading to this text
and source)
"Tears are a symbol of life, a part of who we are
and what we feel. They live in us and
through us. They represent us and reside
in our pain. This symbol of and representation
of sadness can appear anytime."
"Unexpressed tears do not go away; their
sadness resides in our bodies and souls."
"Feelings are neither good or bad, they
just are". I'm certain that many
of you have heard this statement. Why then
do the majority believe that some feelings
are good and some are bad. Why are we afraid to feel our feelings? We know little about our emotions or feelings
and even less about how to live with them,
deal with them and process them out of our
bodies.
Please click on any heading or picture graphic
to get to the next page or topic. Enjoy!
"...Until you experience it, intuition
can seem like an abstract concept that only
gurus can achieve. It's really not that
way at all. But one thing is certain: listening
to your intuition takes practise.
What exactly is intuition?
Intuition is how our soul communicates with
us. It is an essential part of balancing the
body, mind and soul because it guides us
to do things that are in our our best interests..."
... see this below ...
"...Female students were far less likely
to report high levels of emotional health
than male students (45.9 percent versus 59.1
percent), a 13.2 percentage-point difference.
Women were also more than twice as likely
as men to feel frequently "overwhelmed
by all I had to do" as high-school seniors.
..." this article below..
"...research shows the power of self-fulfilling
prophecies. The
way a person explains events
in his life, Seligman says, can predict and
determine his future.
Those who believed
they are masters of their fate are more likely
to succeed than those who attribute events
to forces beyond their control. Seligman’s
tests contain 12 hypothetical and open-ended
situations, from the tragic to the mundane,
that provide clues to the test taker’s
personality. For example: "Your mate
walks out of the room, slamming the door,"
says Seligman. "How do you explain that?
Very simply, a pessimist might say, ‘I’m
unlovable,’ while an optimist would
think it’s no big deal, saying something
like, ‘Everyone gets in bad moods.’"
In short, optimists see themselves in control
of events, or at least not at the mercy of
events. Pessimists, like characters in a
Kafka novel, feel victimized by events and
powerless to do anything about them. Due
to Seligman’s work, it is now possible
to quantify whether an individual is an optimist
or a pessimist. Seligman calls this kind
of attribution "explanatory style."
The test, the Seligman Attributional Style
Questionnaire (SASQ), dissects a person's
explanatory style from three directions to
reveal how he/she views events: ...".. see this text below...
"...There have been several studies
of what goes on in the brain when someone
is in love. A well-known one was performed
by Helen Fisher — an anthropologist from Rutgers University,
and collaborators in 2002-3. She has written
many books and articles on the subject. Using
functional magnetic resonance imaging machines
(fMRIs) they analyzed more than 3,000 brain
scans from 18 recently smitten college students.
The images map blood flow in the brain. The
idea is that whenever a certain part of the
brain is active — the local neurons
are buzzing — the flow of ... "
... see this below ...
When in love, your brain tends to focus affection
towards a single person.
No, this is not a cheesy discourse into the
complexities of heartbreak. What I want to
touch upon today is the science of love,
that is, if science can say anything about
this unique feeling of elation that often
makes reasonable people do unreasonable (good
and bad) things.
There have been several studies of what goes
on in the brain when someone is in love.
A well-known one was performed by Helen Fisher — an anthropologist from Rutgers University,
and collaborators in 2002-3. She has written
many books and articles on the subject. Using
functional magnetic resonance imaging machines
(fMRIs) they analyzed more than 3,000 brain
scans from 18 recently smitten college students.
The images map blood flow in the brain. The
idea is that whenever a certain part of the
brain is active — the local neurons
are buzzing — the flow of blood there
is enhanced to supply oxygen. So, more blood
means more action. Coupling this information
with the specific details of where the action
is happening, neuroscientists can actually
pinpoint the most important chemicals being
sprinkled during the activity spikes. In
other words, the maps won’t tell you
exactly what chemical is related to what
feeling, but they can tell you what chemicals
participate as the brain feels love.
The results were remarkable. As Fisher ...
(Please click the arrow to the full text
and source)
Before I received all of this wonderful knowledge
about anti-inflammatory foods, my life was
full of unexplained aches, pain, and weight
gain.
I came to know that I was deficient in foods
that provided fiber and omega-3 essential
fatty acids. They boost the function of our
immune system. Therefore I was always in
a state of low grade inflammation.
The foods that will appear on this list are
what I call whole foods.
Whole foods are a factory of vitamins, minerals,
nutrients, and phytochemicals.
Our body needs all of these foods for good
cell to cell communication..." ... to this page ...
Lassi, A Delicious Probiotic "...The herbal lassi is truly a special lassi for people like
IT professionals and high profile managers
whose life time job is more of a brain work
which needs a continuous free flow of oxygen
to the brain through uninterrupted blood
supply.
The amount of blood and oxygen required for
brain teasing jobs is normally very high
and that really increases the job of the
heart to pump more and more blood to the
brain."... to this article ...
"...you change your style just by changing
the words you use to explain events? That's
where Seligman's theory takes the biggest
leap, and where other psychologists take
issue with him. According to Suzanne Ouellette
Kobasa, a psychology professor in the Graduate
School at City University of New York, whose
studies on executive stress have been widely
cited: "I don't think it's easy
for someone to make a complete personality
change. A basic shift has to occur first.
You can't 'reprogram' a person
unless he wants it."
Indeed, says Seligman, it's far better for managers to hire
optimists for positions with a risk of high
rejection, such as sales. They tend to perform
better. Seligman discovered they outsold
pessimists by 37 percent in their first two
years. For Richard Calogero, a management
consultant at Met Life, the greatest benefit
of optimism is its infectiousness..."
Spirituality can offer many benefits to your
life, both emotionally and physically. Developing
your spiritual life can give you a sense
of purpose and help you figure out where
you are most passionate in your professional,
social, and personal life. Some studies show
that positive beliefs can comfort you and
improve your health. People who have taken
time to develop their spiritual life are
also likely to better understand their needs.
