Mind Stretching - Exercising Flexibility
November 14, 2023
Flexibility is the capacity to bend without breaking, as well as a continual willingness to change or be changed in order to accommodate new circumstances. People with flexible minds are open to shifting their course when necessary or useful; they are not overly attached to things going the way they had planned. This enables them to take advantage of opportunities that a more rigid person would miss out on. It can also make life a lot more fun. When we are flexible, we allow for situations we could not have planned, and so the world continues to surprise and delight us.
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The Ease Of Being In Flow
October 30, 2023
Have you ever experienced moments when everything seemed to just flow? Moments when you didn’t have to struggle or fight or force things to happen? It’s as if there were a giant hand holding a magic wand a few paces ahead of you at every step, magically shifting circumstances so that everything goes your way.
As a writer, I’m keenly aware of “the flow.” It usually means the difference between my words spilling smoothly and effortlessly onto the page, or each word being wrung stiltedly and painfully from my resistant mind.
The flow seems to happen spontaneously most of the time. We might be working, running errands, doing chores around the house, or even just kicking back and watching television. Whatever we’re doing, we realize that we feel good. Calm, relaxed, alert, happy - we are in a state of non-resistance. We’re not struggling with errant emotions or frustrated desires. We simply feel in tune with the rhythm of life.
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Getting Rid of the ‘Pink Panther’ Cloud of Doubt
October 26, 2023
Do you remember the old Pink Panther cartoon where he would walk around all sad and the rain cloud would follow him everywhere? Anywhere he would walk, that rain cloud would only rain on him. Do you ever feel like that?
I liken this rain cloud of the Pink Panther as our own personal ‘Rain Cloud of Doubt’. Doubt can get the best of you and leave you in a state of insecurity. Sometimes its difficult to get rid of that doubt and lack of confidence, however with a new technique, perhaps you can overcome this and move forward with strength and belief in your ability to conquer whatever is in your path.
What is Doubt anyway? Is it fear of failure? Is it fear of not being accepted by others?
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Meditation Found To Increase Brain Size
October 4, 2023
People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don’t. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.
In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That’s intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.
“Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being,” says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. “These findings are consistent with other studies that demonstrated increased thickness of music areas in the brains of musicians, and visual and motor areas in the brains of jugglers. In other words, the structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice.”
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