Articles with explanations, tips and additional resources - The PATH²

Quiet your body and mind to hear the whisper of your heart

4/3/2013

This Electronic Age is one of hyper-stimulation, which often leads to technostress.

Our minds were built with a tendency to roam back to the past and ahead to the future, grabbing fistfuls of random information from the thought atmosphere along the way. That’s nothing new.

But due to the relatively recent availability of 24/7 Internet access via the array of digital devices many of us have, we are constantly exposing ourselves to an endless supply of increasingly vivid sensory stimulation.

With a helping hand from caffeine, the world's most widely used psychoactive substance, our mind's appetite for stimulation has grown increasingly voracious and difficult to tame.

We have faster, longer and more intense cycles of information consumption. Our mental activity is nearly incessant and leaves residual internal background noise that means more and more of us are losing the ability to turn the volume down and enjoy inner peace and quiet.

Long ago, our ancestors identified this problem and also developed a solution: seclusion and quiet contemplation. Wise people have been relying on it for centuries as a way to slow the world down to a manageable speed, clear out a crowded mind and gain clarity and insight. And it works as well now as it has in the past.

Unplug from the world whizzing around you for a short time and enjoy the experience of a self-imposed power outage. Turn off your phone. Yes, it does have an off button. It’s the one that looks unused. Let the caffeine wear off (as a bonus, the next coffee or soda you drink will feel extra strong). This will help quiet your mind.

Then listen for the silence underlying all the sounds around and within you. You will be able to hear the whisper of your heart. It’s a sweet sound. And it carries a very nice message that’s worth listening to.

Try it and tell me what you hear.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

The mind is a tool with its inherent limitations. Its domain is relative reality. Go beyond the mind to know absolute reality.

4/1/2013

“I think therefore I am.” – René Descartes

Descartes wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t totally right, either. You are much more than you think.

Thinking is a function of the intellect and we are capable of much more.

We’d all agree that an open mind is a good thing, right?

The more open it is, the wider our view of the world and the richer our experiences.

The extreme of an open mind is meditation. Meditation is not the process of sitting cross-legged with eyes closed. It’s the result of the process of opening your mind.

Sometimes we think the world is full of darkness. But that’s because we have our hands covering our eyes. As we spread our fingers a little light makes it through, but the view between them is obscured and confusing. Meditation is a view of the world that we attain when all obstructions are removed.

BODY – MIND --> SPIRIT

Top 5 positive actions to increase your happiness

3/27/2013

"The pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal." The United Nations

From The Happy Planet Index

Connect with loved ones. Spending time sharing in other people's lives and allowing them to share in yours satisfies our innate human need for positive social interaction.
Be physically active, especially outdoors. Fresh air and vigorous movement rejuvenates the body and releases hormones that improve mood.
Notice. Heightening your awareness of the present moment helps draws your attention to the numerous little blessings you're graced with that otherwise go overlooked.
Keep learning. Do this all life long. There's strong evidence that curiosity, not even necessarily formal learning, helps maintain mental health, particularly as we age.
Give. Altruism in all its forms - thoughts, words and actions - is pound-for-pound the greatest investment you can make in your happiness. Read my recent post about all the benefits here.

Do you like to be happy? Would you like to live in a happier world? Then join the tribe that's ushering in that new reality. And . . .

Watch Nic Mark’s TED talk about the Happy Planet Index and why it's advancing the movement to replace Gross Domestic Product with Gross National Happiness as the standard by which our nations set development policy and judge progress.

Read the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's remarks about the urgent need to replace our singularly economic standard of development and progress with a humanitarian standard that acknowledges the basic human need and desire to love the lives we live.

Follow The PATH² to attaining total health and happiness.

Nothing rewards greater than selfless service

3/24/2013

We all know that it’s important to help others. But perhaps you aren’t aware of how good helping others can be for you.

First of all, the kind of behavior I’m referring to isn’t just any kind that happens to benefit someone else; it’s called altruism. Altruistic behavior is characterized by a person’s intent to perform an act designed to benefit someone or something other than him or her self. You can also call it selfless service, volunteerism, or karma yoga if you like.

Performing random (or planned) acts of kindness is good for or a variety of reasons, some of them perhaps surprising.

Broadly speaking, selfless service increases quality of life across the board. Sociologists found that volunteer work enhances six aspects of personal wellbeing: happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, sense of control over life, physical health and depression.

Here’s a review of 20 years of scientific research showing that altruistic behavior produces health benefits (click).

Basically, our brains are designed and built to enjoy helping others. Neuroscientists found an old (by evolutionary standards) pleasure center in the brain that makes us feel physically good to do something unexpected and kind for someone else. In fact, it's the same part of the brain activated by food and sex!

Selfless service also satisfies our craving for positive social interaction. However great or small, the recognition we receive upon carrying out an act of kindness increases our feeling of connectedness. The UN surveyed the effects of volunteerism on global society and concluded, “Our own well-being is intrinsically linked to what we contribute to the lives of others.” (You should read Chapter 8 of the report.)

Altruism is how we act upon the intuition that somehow we’re all part of the same team. Interestingly, giving aid can be even more beneficial than receiving it. In this way, life was designed to be a win-win situation.

People who spend some of their time selflessly giving to others are more likely to report being happy.

Try the giving experiment for yourself. Maybe start small. Put a few quarters in someone’s expired parking meter or let someone go in front of you when both of your cars are tied at stop signs. Even a smile and a sweet thought to a passing stranger counts, “I hope you feel loved today.” Or just go big. Donate your hair to Locks of Love or offer to babysit for a veteran so he or she can have a fun night out. Here are some other ideas from RandomActsofKindness.org.

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt

Body – Mind – Spirit

Gratitude is a magnet for future blessings

3/20/2013

No matter how good or bad life seems to be going, someone in the world has it better than us and someone has it worse.

Gratitude is simply a choice to focus on the positive aspects of our lives and be thankful.

What we focus on tends to expand. So every time we express gratitude for a blessing, however small it may be, we attract another and experience greater happiness.

Although we know intuitively that expressing gratitude makes us feel good, there is actually a great deal of research and scholarly writing about the positive correlation between gratitude and well-being. Check it out here, if you're interested.

In addition to attracting more blessings to ourselves, gratitude makes us more inclined to help others.

One of many beautiful examples of the pay-it-forward attitude is The Giving Pledge started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. We may not normally associate billionaires with generosity, but this group of more than 100 has promised to give the majority of their fortunes to charity.

Even if we don’t have Bill’s billions, we all have something to be grateful for and something to share with others.

Pause right now and consider this: do you ever have to worry about not having enough food or clothing? Do you ever lack shelter to keep you dry and warm? Are you not safe from danger, unless you go out of you way to pursue it? Are you not free to go where you want and do almost anything you can imagine?

All you have to do is read the news or go for a drive to see people who don’t have some or many of these “ordinary” blessings. In reality, there are legions of less fortunate people and you are probably a walking winning lottery ticket. Compared to what your life could be and what many people’s lives are, you’ve already hit the jackpot.

When we recognize that we have so much, even if it’s just the bare necessities and civil rights, it’s hard not to want to share something with those who aren’t as fortunate.

Simply put, gratitude benefits everyone, especially you.

Gratitude is so important to the pursuit of attaining total health and happiness that it forms the foundation of The PATH²’s mission statement; "If you have something wonderful in your life, you have an obligation to share it with others."

Body – Mind – Spirit

Be more than a bundle of habits. Over 95% of each thought we think, word we speak, and action we perform comes from the habit function of the subconscious mind.

3/17/2013

Much of our day-to-day follows a routine.

We do the same things, in the same ways, in the same places, and with the same people. We know our routines so well that we can carry them out without thinking too hard, if at all.

We are creatures of habit.

Habits are automatic reactions to repeating situations. They are formed by our responses to stimulus that repeats with great frequency or intensity. Combine frequency and intensity and you have brainwashing: the fastest way to form the deepest habits. Whatever stimulus enters the mind with the greatest combination of frequency and intensity forms a habit out of our initial responses, whether it's for better or for worse.

The habit function of the subconscious mind is an efficiency mechanism that frees up limited working memory (i.e. conscious awareness) allowing us to learn complex mental and physical tasks. Our subconscious recognizes familiar situations, recalls our most common responses to them and initiates the response as an automatic reaction . . . all without expending much conscious mental effort. We can drive in traffic and type text messages at the same time without crashing because we’ve done both a million times. If we were doing either for the first time we probably would be in trouble.

However, the habit function is a double-edged sword. Although useful, it can also have an unfavorable impact on our lives because unfortunately it has no ability to judge a good habit from a bad one. This is where you – as in your conscious awareness – enter the picture.

A bad habit usually forms one of two ways; we either put ourselves in bad environments that offer little personal benefit, so that any response is still probably not a very good response, or we choose poor responses to benign situations and then don’t bother to learn the error of our ways.

If the eminent psychologist William James was correct and ninety-nine hundredths, or possibly nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual- from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night – then it’d be worth our while to make sure we form good ones.

So put yourself in healthy environments, expose yourself to stimuli that encourage your happiness, and try hard to choose the most positive responses to the situations you find yourself and you're guaranteeing that the habits you form will be positive ones. As go our habits, so go our lives.

Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit is a science-laden, yet readable discussion of the dominance of habit in our lives and a nice contemporary compliment to William James’ work. I recommend it if you’re interested in learning more about why your life is the way it is and how you can make it even better.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

Motivation: Life is a CBA

3/12/2013

If change is the only constant, motivation is the force that influences change in a positive direction.

Motivation is necessary to do anything new, contrary to the status quo, or for a prolonged period of time.

By far the most powerful source of motivation is within us. Other people and surrounding circumstances can influence our thoughts and feelings, but ultimately the choice of when and how to act is ours alone.

This innate motivation arises when you identify more benefits (good thoughts and feelings about the future) than costs. Often, this cost-to-benefit analysis (CBA) is done partially or wholly in the subconscious mind. However, when you bring the process into the light of conscious awareness you will see that’s exactly how motivation works.

If you have identified a change you want to bring about, first figure out the costs and benefits before your ego writes a check your will power or ability can’t cash. If the costs of change outnumber or outweigh the benefits, or if the benefits only marginally exceed the costs, then you have to improve the situation to avoid a failed effort or a scantly rewarded success.

Get creative and develop a more compelling forecast by searching for additional costs or benefits or by finding new ways of valuing existing ones. When your CBA of a new endeavor generates some excitement within you, or better still passion, your chances of a successful outcome are promising. When the risk appears worth the reward, take it.

You may have to reassess your CBA if you begin to feel that your initial assessment has run its course. For instance, once the initial excitement and novelty of making the effort to get fit and healthy wears off you’ll have to find either new benefits or costs, such as realizing that nothing worth a lot can be obtained for a little or that poor health and fitness will become very expensive further down the line.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

Make big decisions with your heart and have your mind manifest them – the world may say you’re crazy, but it’s the only way to fulfillment

3/11/2013

Fulfillment is a state we experience when our heart's desires are met. Aligning our minds with our hearts produces deep satisfaction because we’re devoting our lives to shaping the world in the image of what we cherish

The heart and the mind are complementary parts of a system that can create a life full of contentment. Like the story of a lame man and a blind man helping each other cross a busy road, the heart can see the way to fulfillment and the mind can take you there. The heart needs the mind to manifest its vision and the mind needs the heart to intelligently guide its efforts.

Search your heart for the answer to the following question: What matters most to you?

I’ve posted the Values Hierarchy Exercise on the Downloads page to help you answer this. You can also directly download it by clicking here.

Only you can answer this question, because your values are just that – yours. However, the company you keep and those who know you best can help you answer the next question you must ask yourself – what talents and skills do you have? Ability is largely objective and by asking the opinion of those you respect and those who know you well you, a picture of your individual talents and skills should begin to emerge. Your talents and skills reflect your capacity to manifest your heart's vision.
Next, reflect on how you routinely spend your time in light of the previous questions.

If there’s a disparity between the things you value most and the amount of time you devote to them, your heart and your mind aren’t working together as closely as they could be. If this is the case, the upside is that your quality of life can get better than it already is.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

Respond, don’t react – a conscious response provides an advantage over an automatic reaction

3/6/2013

Reactions are automatic behaviors that come from the habit function of the subconscious mind. They are triggered by a subconscious recognition of present circumstances resembling past experiences. Reactions are useful because they are nearly instantaneous and they free up working memory allowing us to perform complex mental processes and actions. The drawback is that they are slow to adapt to the unique aspects of the present situation and as a result they can become obsolete.

In contrast, responses are deliberate. They come from the conscious mind as a result of thoughtful consideration of the present circumstances. Responses have an advantage over reactions because they are unconstrained by past experiences. They provide us with the freedom to consider how the present is different from the past. The awareness of unique aspects of the present moment yields the opportunity to step out of past patterns of behavior and replace them with better ways of being here and now.

Reflect on challenging situations that you face on a regular basis, like traffic or an irritating coworker, and try to come up with a new response that makes them less bothersome. If you can’t come up with a way to turn an apparently negative situation into a positive one, try substituting indifference; for example, how you would react to a tree you pass on your way down the road. Then practice anticipating these situations and implementing your new, improved responses.

The process of reevaluating your reactions and improving them through substitution with conscious responses has applications throughout life because almost everything you think, say, and do is a reaction controlled by the habit function of your subconscious mind. By reclaiming your present from the limitations of your past you can literally remake your life for the better.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

Life is largely the result of the decisions we’ve made – most decisions appear trivial

2/27/2013

While there are only a handful of really BIG decisions for each of us to make in life, the countless tiny decisions we make on a day-t0-day basis are just as significant. Tiny decisions are like snowflakes, really good ones can float you along like a skier gliding through powder and bad ones can bury you in an avalanche that you triggered.

The life situation you find yourself in right now is largely the result of all the decisions you’ve made in the past.

It’s true that we have little control over many of the events that occur in our lives, and the temptation to say that our lives have been dealt to us is always present. But we can’t give into that temptation because it’s helpless, passive and self-defeating.

Powerful, resourceful people focus instead on what they are able to control. You can control your actions, your speech, and even your thoughts to a surprisingly great extent. The way you do that is by exercising choice.

This has enormous implications, which can’t all be discussed in a short blog post. So for now I’ll just address one, extremely practical example.

The most frequently occurring decision you are offered by life is how to respond to the circumstances that you are in at any given moment … like NOW, for instance.

It’s easy to entirely forget that this choice even exists. When that happens, your choice is one of omission; in other words, you react according to a pattern of past behavior, or habit. The disadvantage of this is that a past reaction, even one that served you well many times before, may be inappropriate for you now.

In contrast, by noticing and consciously exercising your ability to choose a response unconstrained by the past you maximize the opportunity to make the moment serve your best interests.

As a side note, this is all part of the broader subject of cause and effect. Every moment is both an effect of the moment preceding it and a cause of the moment that follows. In this way, your reaction or response to the events occurring around you is effected by those events and at the same time a cause of the outcome of your interaction with those events. But I digress …

Recognize that your behavior – what you do, say, and think – is an ongoing opportunity to make good choices. Ask yourself whether you’re consistently making the kinds of choices that are in your best interests. You might be surprised to find that the answer is often "no." But once you've identified this you can begin reversing the pattern by simply paying attention and responding better. Then you’ll see that choice is a magic wand that you can wave to create the life you desire out of thin air.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

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