Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, Ph.D

Great, great book. I read these book years ago and am still influenced by it. I have read several other self development books and I see the common thread amongst various authors on this topic. I think this book presents the idea much more effectively. My opinion of course :)
Let me share a 3 to 5 minute tidbit from this book.
RADICAL ACCEPTANCE by Tara Brach, PhD

For many of us, feelings of deficiency are right around the corner. It doesn't take much-just hearing of someone else's accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work-to make us feel that we are not okay.
As a friend of mine put it, "Feeling that something is wrong with me is the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing.” When we experience our lives through this lens of personal insufficiency, we are imprisoned in what I call the trance of unworthiness. Trapped in this trance, we are unable to perceive the truth of who we really are.
We don't have to wait till our deathbed to realize what a waste of our precious lives it is to carry the belief that something is wrong with us. Yet because our habits of feeling insufficient are so strong, awakening from the trance involves not only inner resolve, but also an active training of the heart and mind.
Radical Acceptance reverses our habit of living at war with experiences that are unfamiliar, frightening or intense. It is the necessary antidote to years of neglecting ourselves, years of judging and treating ourselves harshly, years of rejecting this moment's experience. Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is. A moment of Radical Acceptance is a moment of genuine freedom.
The practice of Radical Acceptance runs at such crosscurrents to our culture of nonacceptance that it can be difficult to understand. Radical Acceptance is not resignation. Radical Acceptance does not mean defining ourselves by our limitations. It is not an excuse for withdrawal. Radical Acceptance is not self-indulgence. It does not make us passive.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
As author Storm Jameson puts it:
"There is only one world pressing against you at this minute. There is only 1 minute in which you are alive, this minute here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle."
(Do you see the connection between this post and the earlier post living in day-tight compartments? If in this minute we can let go of the past and the uncertainties of the future, we can enjoy the minute. You have to put in self effort to train your mind so you can live to the fullest. In this minute, just this minute can you enjoy what you are doing? If you are enjoying a cup of coffee now, can you focus your full attention to the coffee and enjoy every sip to the fullest? Taking baby steps is the way to get started. The journey of 1000 miles starts with a step. So find moments during your day, to just enjoy a minute here and a minute there. Train your mind to focus on each moment. It is your life, take charge).
Have a wonderful day. Bye for now

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie.

Dear Friends,

Past is history, future is a mystery, the present is a gift. Yeah present, gift get it? :) Enjoy your presents (BIG MESSAGE). Here are a couple of interesting titbits from this wonderful book. With my comments in braces () of course.

Seventy per cent of all patients who come to physicians could cure themselves if they got rid of their fears and worries.

Carnegie quotes a Dr Montague: "You do not get stomach ulcers from what you eat. You get ulcers from what is eating you."

(Worth thinking about? Many of our bodily symptoms are caused at the emotional level. The body follows where the mind leads. So learning to master your mind can help you alleviate so many bodily issues. I personally think it's due to the body/mind connection being broken or just weak. Your body gives you messages all the time but you just don't listen. In fact we have ignored the messages for so long that now we are not even aware we are getting messages from within. Messages such as:
'Time to eat'.  Our response 'Nope, I am too busy'.
'Take rest, you are tired'. Our response 'Are you kidding, I have tons of tasks to do'.
'Your ankle needs rest'. Our response 'It's just an ache. If I ignore it, it will go away'.
Sounds familiar?)


The first big idea in the book is 'LIVE IN "DAY_TIGHT COMPARTMENTS"
1. Do you tend to put off living in the present in order to worry about the future or yearn for some 'magical rose garden over the horizon'?

2. Do you sometimes embitter the present by regretting things that happened in the past - that are over and done with? (are you carrying the weight of your past on your shoulders. Imagine walking every moment of your life carrying a 100 lb weight on your head or shoulder? Learn techniques to let go of the past. Hypnotherapy can help.)

3. Do you get up in the morning determined to 'Seize the day' - to get the utmost out of the 24 hours? (Is a lion chasing you constantly?)

4. Can you get more out of life by 'living in day-tight compartments'? (Take a pause and reflect on this)

5. When will you start to do this? Next week?....Tomorrow?...Today?"

(Waiting for time does not help. Time will only bring more of what you have been getting already. If you have to change, you need to take POSITIVE steps RIGHT NOW. You are the creator of your future. It's only in the NOW that you can take action to create the future you desire. There are no magical pills to create the future you desire. You have to put in Self Effort and be persistent. But the important thing is to WORK SMART and NOT HARD. I truly believe success is not an accident. You may not like the success you have today but remember you created it, mostly subconsciouly with your beliefs.)

One of the quotes I like in the book is as follows:

'I spent 12 years working with cattle; yet I never saw a Jersey cow running a temperature because the pasture was burning from lack of rain or because of sleet and cold or  because her boy friend is paying too much attention to another heffer. The animals confront night, storms, and hunger calmly; so they never have nervous breakdowns or stomach ulcers, and they never go insame.'  - Dale Carnegie.

The Big Idea: "Shut the iron doors on the past and the future. Live in Day-Tight Compartments".

(Learn from your past, plan your future, but the present is the only moment where you can take ACTION).

Have a wonderful day. Bye for now.

Happy for No Reason

Recently I was reading 'Happy for No Reason' by Marc Shimoff. Great book, great ideas. Sharing some with you all. Also I am a fan of Dr Daniel Amen and really enjoyed reading his book 'Change your brain, Change your life' (I hope I remember the title correctly, if not, do forgive me, it is something along these lines). I have added my comments in parentheses (Karuna's comments).

o   Our minds-made up of our thoughts, beliefs and self-talk. Our mind is  always ‘on’. According to scientists, we  have about 60,000 thoughts a day. That’s one thought per second during every waking hour. No wonder we’re so tired at the end of the day! (Talk about overload. Now be nice to yourself when you are tired :)

o   And what’s even more startling is that of those 60,000 thoughts, 95% are the same thoughts you had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Your mind is like a record player playing the same record over and over again…Talk about being stuck in a rut… (Yeah, and you expect your life to change. Can the music change if the record is the same?)

o   Still that wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the next statistic; for the average person, 80% of those habitual thoughts are negative. That means that every day most people have more than 45,000 negative thoughts… Dr Daniel Amen, a world-renowned psychiatrist and brain imaging specialist, calls them automatic negative thoughts, or ANTs.”

      

      (Great analogy in his book. If you are at a picnic and 1 or 2 ants crawl up your arm, you will just brush them off. If 5 to 6 ants crawl up, you will be irritated as you brush them off. But if 10 to 15 ants crawled up, you will get up and find another picnic spot. Get the point?  Become aware of the ANTS (Automatic Negative Thoughts) happening in your mind and stop them before they multiply. Find something that helps you to stop these ANTS !)

o   Time to get some (organic, of course) ANT spray and clear out our minds, eh?!? (Sounds easy but repetition is the key to Mastery)

Now off ANTs and to another new idea.

VELCRO VS. TEFLON 

o   We’re still hard-wired the same way: we pay more attention to the negative than to the positive. As the psychologist and brain researcher Dr Rick Hanson explained, our brains are ‘Velcro for negativity and Teflon for positivity’. Our negative experiences stick to us like Velcro, while our positive experiences slide right off us like Teflon. In fact, researchers have found that it takes numerous positive experiences to overcome a single negative one! Unfortunately, this wiring turns out to be disastrous for our happiness.”  (Learn to focus on the positives in your life and have them stick like Velcro. Slide off the negatives like Teflon. Learn from the negatives and then let them free).

I came to know of so many great self development books from Philosopher Notes.  Great job by Brian Johnson and his friends. Share and grow.

That's my titbit for today. Keep having fun and spreading the smile.

Understanding our brain

Hello everyone. Today is such a beautiful day here in California. Bright and sunny. It going to be in the 70's this entire week. Sounds wonderful. Am sorry to hear about the flooding in the midwest. Weather patterns are changing in so many places in the world. Is it global warming or cooling. Hmmm!

Do you know how you brain works? I mean functionally and not the science of nerves, tissues etc. Understanding this might help you understand yourself better and why it is difficult to change yourselves. So a small lesson follows.

There are several components to the brain. In layman terms, we have the outer layer of our mind, the conscious mind. This is the mind we are most aware of during waking hours. It is supposed to be roughly 10% to 12% of our total brain power. This is the mind that takes in input from the environment (TV, Radio, Books, talking to people etc), analyzes the inputs and at times takes decisions. Based on research we use probably 5% to 6% of this mind only.

Underneath the conscious layer are several layers of the mind. For simplicity I cam calling all these layers as subconscious mind. This is roughly 90% of our brain power. For most of us, these layers of mind are beyond our control. There are various functions performed by these deeper layers of the mind. These are:

1. Automatic processes in our body such as circulation of blood, digestion of food, secretion of harmones etc etc. There are some indian gurus who can control their heart beat, blood pressure etc but for most of us these are automatic processes.

2. All our experiences since childhood and all emotions attached to the experiences are stored in the subconscious layers of the mind. Have you noticed when you meet a long lost friend after decades, all the emotions and feelings for that person surfaces to our conscious mind? We may not have thought of that person in years yet all our feelings are stored deep in our mind. There are people who carry revenge and hatred for decades and decades in their mind. All the stored negative energy affects us.

3. All our beliefs and values by which we live our life are also stored at the subconscious level. These impact our analyzing and decision making at the conscious mind. This is right, that is wrong, this is the correct behavior, that should not be done etc etc are all based on our beliefs and values. Since each one of us have differing beliefs and values, we all judge things differently.

4. Our habits are part of the deeper layers of the mind also. They are programmed and stored there and our habits prompt us to behave in a certain manner. You may not be aware of the many habits you have cultivated. Start noticing. You may realize you wear your clothes in a fixed order everyday, you like to start your day brushing your teeth, you like to eat in a fixed order etc etc. Habits are good, they structure our lives and allow us to go on without having to make a decision on everything. However habits that limit the quality of our life need changing.

5. Our behavior is mostly a product of our experiences, our beliefs and values, our habits. The same situation will evoke different behaviors from many people.

6. Your fears and phobias are stored at the subconsious mind. Your fears are a result of your experiences and phobias are fears due to unknown reasons. You were bit by a dog when you were small and now you have a fear of dogs. No amount of rationalization and statistics can remove your fear because the subconscious mind does not rationalize.

You must be wondering why this discussion on brains. Well, if we want to change something in your life such as habits or your self limiting beliefs (I am not good enough, I am not capable of..., I can never be slim, and so on) you need to learn how to access that deeper layer of the mind where this information is stored, to change things. If you try to change using just the conscious mind it is extremely difficult. You can apply will power to change but unless you can sustain will power for a looooog period of time, you will slip back into old habits, old behaviors. The subscious mind is 7 to 8 times stronger than the conscious mind and so it always wins.

Now if you can learn techniques to access the deeper layers of the mind and make changes directly in those layers, than you don't need conscious mind and will power at all to live your life differently. You can reprogram yourselves by going directly to the area of the mind where your self limiting beliefs are stored and change them there. Once you change your belief (such as believing I can become slimmer and fit) than you subscious mind will help you to live your life by the new belief.

Let's take the case of wanting to lose weight. Obesity is a big problem now. In fact World Health Organization predicts that obesity will the the 2nd largest illness in the world after Heart disease. Whoooo!

So you want to lose weight. You know you have to change some habits and behaviors and most likely some beliefs to lose weight and more importantly to maintain the weight loss. You can diet and lose weight but if you have not changed the underlying old programs in your mind, you will slip back into old habits very soon after your diet is over. Now your body will store more fat since it does not know when you might strave it again. And the yo-you will continue, lose weight, put on weight, another diet, again put on weight. Sounds familiar?

Now if you can change your beliefs about food and get the same pleasure and enjoyment out of healthy food that you get out of junk food, then you will automatically desire and eat healthy food only. Just like you crave and enjoy junk food (you believe subconsciously and consciously that the junk food taste so good) because of your existings beliefs, you will start eating and enjoying healthy food based on new beliefs. Isn't this approach better than using will power to eat healthy food and hating the healthy food?

You can change your beliefs about exercise and start enjoying exercising. Once the beliefs, habits are changed, your behavior will reflect the new beliefs and habits.

Bottom line, learn techniques to help you change your deeper layers of mind to change your life and expand the quality of your life. You are in charge of your life. You can change and improve.

Both meditation and self hypnosis provide access to deeper layers of the mind. I used to meditate for years and it took me years to learn to get into meditative state. But learning hypnosis is much easier and faster. Hypnosis is a state of focused concentration and a very natural state for the body. We slip in and out of hypnosis many many times during the day. You are watching a TV program and totally engrossed in the program, you are in hypnosis. Learn how you can use this focused state of concentration to access deeper layers of your mind and start changing your life. Read more at http://www.kjhypnotherapycenter.com/.

I hope you enjoyed the article. Have a great day.

Relationship Issues

Have you noticed how many people today have issues in relationships with their family, colleagues, friends, partners, spouses, kids etc etc. Why is this happening. How can we enhance the quality of our relationships, build better and longer lasting relationships, understand others better and tailor our behavior accordingly?

In my private practice as a certified Hypnotherapist, nearly 80% of the clients I see have issues in this area. They come for other issues but along the line I nearly always find relationship issues. So I started reading up more, researching and listening. And I discovered some fascinating facts about people. I realize we all have relationship personalities. These personalities are developed based on complex blend of childhood patterns of observing behavior between our caregivers, cultural influences, genetics, perceptions etc etc. But bottom line there are distinct relationship personalities. Each personality has its strenghts snd weaknesses (yeah, what's new about this :), there are pros and cons to everything, right?).

I am fascinated by the research done by Dr Kappas who founded the Hypnosis Motivation Institute and legalized Hypnotherapy as a professional job in the US. Understanding our relationship personality really works AWESOME in helping us understand not only our behavior but the behavior of the other person in our relationship. We can use our differences to bring magic and mystery in our relationships and use our similarities to facilitate change.

I am conducting classes in Bay Area, CA, to share these wonderful insights about our relationship personalities and help us all have healthier relationships and make this world a better place to live in. Yup, improve our emotional and mental health simultaneously. Information on the classes can be obtained at http://www.kjHypnoTherapyCenter.com and click on Classes. The workshop is 1.5 hours on Mar 21st, 2010 from 10:00AM to 11:30AM. You pay only $25.00 if you find the class useful, otherwise you pay nothing, it is FREE!

Looking forward to sharing and growing, expanding our mind and life.