Science of the SpiritS


Book 2

The disease of living too fast: 'Americanitis'

Julie Beck
The Atlantic
Fri, 11 Mar 2016 16:55 UTC
Busy
How a 19th-century nervous condition shaped the way modern Americans think about health and happiness

In the decades after the Civil War, a lot of things were changing in the (re-)United States. The late 19th century and early 20th saw a huge increase in the country's population (nearly 200 percent between 1860 and 1910) mostly due to immigration, and that population was becoming ever more urban as people moved to cities to seek their fortunes—including women, more of whom were getting college educations and jobs outside the home. Cars and planes were introduced to the public; telephones and telegraphs proliferated. Modern society was full of new wonders—or, seen differently, new things to be anxious about.

In his 1871 book Wear and Tear, or Hints for the Overworked, the physician S. Weir Mitchell fretted: "Have we lived too fast?"

Comment: The dis-ease of being busy
What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?

How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just... be?

Somewhere we read, "The unexamined life is not worth living... for a human." How are we supposed to live, to examine, to be, to become, to be fully human when we are so busy?

This disease of being "busy" (and let's call it what it is, the dis-ease of being busy, when we are never at ease) is spiritually destructive to our health and wellbeing. It saps our ability to be fully present with those we love the most in our families, and keeps us from forming the kind of community that we all so desperately crave.

Since the 1950s, we have had so many new technological innovations that we thought (or were promised) would make our lives easier, faster, simpler. Yet, we have no more "free" or leisurely time today than we did decades ago.


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Candle

Clearing trauma from the body with breathwork

Robin Lee
upliftconnect.com
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 23:43 UTC
breathwork
This is the first time. I'm in a geodesic dome (a partial spherical structure based on a network of great circles) in the backyard of a vintage store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn aptly named Narnia. I close my eyes gently, and follow directions.

Guided by a presence, a voice, that seems omniscient in the moment, I breathe all of the things I dare not speak about into a visceral hurricane at the base of my being.

The echoes of my belly, the hollows and molecules of my sacral space, become flooded with feeling. I feel deeply all of the unsaid words and best-left-lost experiences rising with the flow of inhale, inhale, exhale. Sacral, heart, exhale.

Moving the mass in harmony with breath. A dance between fear and surrender, a simple act taking over all action and leaving me with a simple, tingling, letting go.

Comment: Learn more about the amazing benefits of diaphragmatic breathing exercises.
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  • Release repressed emotions and mental blockages
  • Rejuvenate and Detoxify your body and mind
Éiriú Eolas removes the barriers that stand between you and True Peace, Happiness, and ultimately a successful, fulfilling life.


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Hearts

Antidote to loneliness is not a numbers game but the feeling of closeness

Kira Asatrya
PsychCentral
Fri, 11 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
loneliness
I'm somebody who's struggled with feelings of loneliness my whole life. It's a big part of why I decided to become a relationship coach. I wanted to understand why some of my relationships felt more substantial than others. I wanted to understand why sometimes I relished being alone, yet other times being alone evoked feelings of profound sadness.

The question I wanted to answer was this: what makes some relationships feel better than others? It was a mystery I was determined to figure out.

I have always been somebody who constantly alternated between desiring to be alone, which I now know is classic introvert behavior, and desiring to be with others. The thing was, I only wanted to be with others in a very particular way. I didn't want to chit-chat, mingle, or even party. I wanted to feel warmth radiating between me and the other person. I wanted to feel safe and comfortable. I wanted to feel close.

If my relationship with someone didn't have that element of closeness, it tended to make me feel more isolated than just being alone. For this reason, I found most of the advice out there about how to overcome loneliness profoundly unhelpful. "Put yourself out there more!" the experts exclaimed. "Relationships are a numbers game... get enough acquaintances and you'll eventually find good friendships." That sounded reasonable enough. But it felt... exhausting.

I simply didn't buy the idea that the best route out of loneliness is to play a numbers game. Most of us already have people in our lives with whom we feel that spark of connection, we just don't know how to properly fan the flames. We don't know how to move from casually interacting with someone to becoming close.

Comment: The unpleasant feelings of loneliness are subjective; researchers have found loneliness is not about the amount of time one spends with other people or alone. It is related more to quality of relationships, rather than quantity.

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Christmas Tree

The special intelligence of plants

Christina Sarich
Waking Times
Fri, 11 Mar 2016 19:56 UTC
plant
"Even atoms possess a certain measure of intelligence." ~ Thomas Edison

"To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness, we must try to understand the senses and what they can tell us about the ravishing world we have the privilege to inhabit." ~ Diane Ackerman

Michal Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, has pointed out that for the longest time, even mentioning that plants could be intelligent was a quick way to being labeled a 'whacko,' but it turns out plants can learn, communicate, and even feel. They can also see, smell, and remember. This is definitely not news the biotechnology industry wants highlighted.

Do Plants Have 'Brains'?

In an emerging field called plant neurobiology, a bit of a misnomer since plants don't have neurons or brains, we learn that people who play music for their plants or understand that our actions can affect a plant's nutrition, for example, are not 'whackos' at all.

Comment: For more on plant intelligence see:

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People 2

New study links wisdom to meditation

Derrick Broze
Activist Post
Sat, 12 Mar 2016 15:40 UTC
meditation
A new study has found an association between meditation and wisdom.

Researchers with the University of Chicago's Department of Psychology have found that meditation, and physical practices such as ballet, might lead to increased wisdom. The study, "The Relationship between Mental and Somatic Practices and Wisdom," was published in PLOS ONE.

The researchers gave 298 participants a survey that asked about their experiences practicing meditation, the Alexander Technique (a method for improving posture, balance, coordination, and movement), the Feldenkrais Method (a form of somatic education that seeks to improve movement and physical function, reduce pain, and increase self-awareness), and classical ballet. The participants also answered psychological exams related to various elements of wisdom, such as empathy and anxiety.

Comment: Want to know more about meditation? The Éiriú Eolas Stress Control, Healing and Rejuvenation Program is a form of breathing and meditation techniques designed to be informative, effective and life changing! Interested in learning more about the numerous benefits of a breathing and meditation program like Éiriú Eolas? Check out the program here and try it today!

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Light Saber

Acting responsibly is a power that opens possibilities in our lives

Sarah Newman, MA
PsychCentral
Wed, 09 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
responsibility
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." — William Shakespeare
We all know someone who chronically avoids responsibility. Things just happen to them — nothing they did contributed to their circumstances. They were late because there was traffic, not because they didn't leave earlier. They didn't drop the ball at work; nobody else stepped up either. Someone "just stopped talking" to them; it has nothing to do with them being a bad friend.

These people have an external locus of control, meaning they don't feel they can influence the environmental factors that affect their lives. It's just simply luck. Their lives are determined by fate.

In reality, our locus of control is somewhere in between internal and external. We can't control everything and it's an exercise in futility to try. But we aren't helpless and our actions actually carry a considerable amount of weight. In fact taking responsibility — keeping our promises, fulfilling our duties, and owning the decisions we make — opens up a wide array of possibilities in our lives. Responsibility is power, so it's a wonder why anyone would avoid it.

Comment:

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Info

Higher wisdom is linked to a form of dance and ancient traditional practices


Psy Blog
Thu, 10 Mar 2016 21:03 UTC
Brain
Higher wisdom is correlated with these diverse activities. Classical ballet has been linked to increased wisdom by a new study. The research also confirmed that many varieties of meditation are linked to greater wisdom. The link, the researcher shows, is down to how meditation reduces anxiety.

Comment: See also: The proven health benefits of meditation

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Heart - Black

Like attracts like: Narcissists tend to form friendships with other narcissists

Lizette Borreli
Medical Daily
Wed, 09 Mar 2016 19:38 UTC
narcissist dark triad
© Pexels, Public DomainWhen it comes to narcissistic friendships, does “like attract like” or do “opposites attract?
Take a look at your circle of friends. Chances are some of your friends are loud while you are quiet, others are funny but you're serious. Friends don't tend to share your personality traits — unless, of course, you're a narcissist. A recent study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests narcissists tend to form friendships with other narcissists due to shared personality traits.

"There is evidence that narcissists are even more tolerant of others' narcissistic traits (e.g., bossy aggressive, arrogant, selfish) when they possess these characteristics themselves... based on their positive self-view and tendency to be less repelled by narcissistic traits," wrote the authors, in the study.

Researchers from Humbolt University in Germany gathered 290 pairs of best friends and asked them to fill out measurements of psychology's Dark Triad, three personality traits, including narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathology, which all have a malevolent connotation, and the Big Five — extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. For each personality, its profile similarity and how much it depended on Dark Triad personality traits were determined. The researchers were able to see if personalities, good and bad, clumped together between best friends.

Comment: Andrew Lobaczewski had something similar to say in reference to psychopaths, in his masterwork Political Ponerology.
They learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to them. They also become conscious of being different from the world of those other people surrounding them.
Although narcissists generally don't produce the the same scale of destruction as full-blown psychopathy, they are still capable of doing a fair amount of damage in human relationships.

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Info

Anxious people have completely different perceptions of the world

Lecia Bushak
medicaldaily.com
Thu, 03 Mar 2016 15:56 UTC
anxious brain
© Pixabay, public domainPeople who suffer from anxiety find it harder to distinguish between stressful stimuli and neutral ones, putting them on high-alert.
The brains of anxiety sufferers may have completely different wiring than people who don't have the mental disorder, according to a new study out of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. People with an anxiety disorder may have already felt somewhat like a worrisome outsider to the average laid-back person, but the research backs this up by delving into the brain mechanisms that make them feel "different."

It turns out that something known as overgeneralization is to blame for the unique brain of anxiety sufferers. Humans and animals are wired to respond to stressful stimuli or potential dangers as a survival mechanism, but overgeneralization occurs when a person can't differentiate from a stressful stimuli and a neutral, non-stressful one.

Comment: Additional information about lifestyle changes that can help cure anxiety:

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Books

Mental flexibility improved by reading and writing literature


Psy Blog
Wed, 09 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
Reading
Some types of reading may help people suffering from depression. Writing which challenges the reader to think more deeply could boost mental flexibility, new research finds. People who read poetry and other texts that required them to re-evaluate the meaning showed fascinating changes to patterns of activation in the brain. Greater mental flexibility — which these patterns suggested — allows people to better adapt their thoughts and behaviors to evolving situations. Rather than always being guided by habits, people with greater mental flexibility are better at seeking out new solutions.

Comment: Professor Philip Davis provides important information in how to rewire the brain.

See also: Recording and rewinding our thoughts -- is it possible?

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