Our Lizard Brain Robs Us of a Great Life

What the heck is our lizard brain?

We all have a lizard brain.  It is part metaphor and part science.  Scientifically speaking, it is two almond-shaped amygdala located deep in our heads that form a sort of mini-brain.

This mini-brain seems to take over when we are afraid, mad, aroused, hungry or out to get someone.  It is very primitive.  It has served to keep us alive as a species for a long time, but our lizard brain can also work against us.

It creates what Seth Godin calls the Resistance in his latest book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?  Our Resistance is a combination of fear, procrastination, anxiety and rationalization generated by our lizard brains to protect us, but these responses also often rob us of a great life.

How Our Lizard Brain Controls Us

Have you ever had a really great idea, but failed to act on it?  That’s the lizard brain doing its thang.  It holds us back.  It wants to keep us hidden, still, undetected and safe.  The lizard brain talks us into staying where life is comfortable.

Of course, as I’ve written before, comfort is not an option when you want to live life to the fullest.  You cannot live a great life hiding under a rock where it is safe.  You’ve got to get out and see what the world has to offer.  You’ve got to beat the lizard brain at its game.

Don’t get me wrong.  If you are in a real survival situation, the lizard brain can be your best friend.  It is programmed to keep you alive.  It is the part of your brain responsible for the actions you take without thinking during a true crisis.

The lizard brain is very good at what it does.  It has had years to perfect its technique.  Also, because it has been around for a long time, it is very powerful.  Don’t let its size fool you.  The lizard brain will take over if it feels threatened.  It has that kind of power.  It can virtually shutdown the rest of your brain and run the whole show itself if it thinks high stakes are in play.

This was a good thing when every day was a fight for survival, but in modern society, the lizard brain has a tendency to get in the way.

It doesn’t usually take over, but it whispers to us all the time.  You’ve got to recognize and call out the lizard brain when it tries to hold you back.

How to Start Recognizing the Lizard Brain

Recognizing the lizard brain when it starts speaking is the beginning of defeating it so you can obtain the really great life you desire.

When you have an idea, the lizard brain will tell you things like:

• People will laugh at you if you pursue that.
• This could get you fired.
• Nobody is going to pay you to do that.
• This is simply not good enough for other people.
• You don’t have the money to do it.
• You don’t have the experience to make it work.
• Let’s think about it for awhile to see how it looks next month.
• You are going to screw this up just like last time.
• You have it pretty good right where you are at so be careful.
• Other people are already doing this and they are probably better than you.

Have you ever heard any of these doubts in your head before?  That’s your lizard brain.  It can even push you to do some pretty bizarre things like Seth points out inThe doormat, the jerk and the lizard brain.

Again, the lizard brain’s mission is to keep you hidden where you aren’t likely to get eaten, but it tends to go a little overboard in playing it safe.  The lizard brain is paranoid.

Listening to the lizard brain will kill the genius inside you.  Shut it up so you can start being remarkable and living the life you really want.

The next time you hear your lizard brain holding you back, say it out loud.  Verbally state, “This is my lizard brain speaking and I’m not going to listen to it.”  Repeat, if necessary.  It might seem a little foolish, but it works.  This technique tends to make the lizard brain retreat which then gives you a window of opportunity to take a step toward a better life.

Don’t Let Your Lizard Brain Steal Another Minute

Why are you working so hard to bury your natural-born instincts?  I’ve never met someone who had no art in them, though it’s buried sometimes.  Markets are crying out.  We need you to stand up and be remarkable.  Be human.  Contribute.  Interact.  Take the risk that you might make someone upset with your initiative, innovation, and insight – it turns out that you’ll probably delight them instead.
~ Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

What if your lizard brain is wrong?  What if it really is paranoid?  What if you really do have genius ideas that people really need and that can make the world a better place?  I believe we all have this inside of us.  We can all become indispensable.  Yes, even regular people can be remarkable.

Your lizard brain does its best to keep you quiet, trudging along and doing your part as a cog in the machine.  It wants you to be average.  Mediocre.  That’s where thingsseem safe.  But are they really? 

A lot of people have lost “safe” jobs lately.  A lot of “safe” businesses have gone under.  A lot of people that were following the status quo have seen their lives turned completely upside down. 

Yet, there are others that are thriving.  They are the indispensable ones.  You may know or at least know of one or two of these people.  They have pushed on despitethe screaming lizard brain in their head.

The resistance tried to hold them back, but they didn’t let it.  They took the chance and it has paid off.

What will you do?

What Should We Do With Our Visions of Heaven—and Hell?

By John Horgan | November 27, 2012

Is heaven real? Eben Alexander thinks so. He is a neurosurgeon who learned his craft at Duke and honed it at Harvard. In 2008 he fell into a coma, his brain infected by bacterial meningitis. He emerged from the coma with memories of a fantastical adventure, during which he rode on a butterfly beside an angelic blue-eyed girl into “an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting.” InProof of Heaven (Simon and Schuster, 2012), his bestselling book about his experience, Alexander claims to have learned that “God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of personal existence but only a transition.”

In a cover story he wrote for NEWSWEEKand in an interview with The New York Times, Alexander sounds intelligent and sincere but a tad short on self-doubt. Pulling his rank as a neurologist, he insists that what he experienced must have been “real,” because during his coma his neo-cortex was completely “shut down” and “there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent.”

Absolutely no way? Really? As Martin Samuel, who heads Alexander’s former department at Harvard, tells The Times, “There is no way to know, in fact, that his neo-cortex was shut down. It sounds scientific, but it is an interpretation made after the fact.”

I understand why skeptics like biologist P.Z. Myers deride Alexander’s claims as “bullshit,” but I can’t dismiss them so easily. I’m fascinated by mystical experiences, so much so that I wrote a book about them, Rational Mysticism (Houghton Mifflin, 2003), from which I’ve drawn some of the material that follows. Many people conclude, as Alexander did, that their experiences revealed Ultimate Reality, God, whatever. The problem is that different people discover radically different Absolute Truths.

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, more than a century old and still the best book ever written on mysticism, psychologist William James described experiences, like Alexander’s, that revealed a loving, immortal spirit at the heart of existence. But James emphasized that some mystics have perceived absolute reality as terrifyingly alien, uncaring and meaningless. James called these visions “melancholic” or “diabolical.” James himself had at least one such vision, a kind of cosmic panic attack.

One mystical expert I interviewed, German psychologist Adolf Dittrich, told me that mystical visions–whether induced by trauma, drugs, meditation, hypnosis, sensory deprivation or other means–fall into three broad categories, or “dimensions.” Borrowing a phrase that Freud used to describe mystical experiences, Dittrich called the first dimension “oceanic boundlessness.” This is the classic blissful experience reported by Alexander and many other mystics, in which you feel yourself dissolving into some benign higher power.

Dittrich labeled the second dimension “dread of ego dissolution.” This is the classic “bad trip,” in which your self-dissolution is accompanied not by bliss but by negative emotions, ranging from mild uneasiness to full-blown terror. You think you are going insane, disintegrating, dying, and all of reality may be dying with you. Dittrich’s third dimension, “visionary restructuralization,” consists of more explicit hallucinations, ranging from abstract, kaleidoscopic images to elaborate dream-like narratives. Dittrich referred to these three dimensions as “heaven, hell and visions.”

During a drug trip in 1981, I experienced all three dimensions described by Dittrich. The trip occurred in early summer, just after I had finished my junior year of college. I had left my apartment in New York City to visit friends in suburban Connecticut. One of these friends, whom I’ll call Stan, was a psychedelic enthusiast with an unusual connection: a chemist who investigated psychotropic drugs for a defense contractor in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The chemist had recently given Stan a thimble’s worth of beige powder that was supposedly similar to LSD.*

One morning we each ingested about a matchhead-worth, a dose that Stan’s friend had recommended. Within a half hour, I felt as though a volcano was erupting within me. Sitting on a lawn, barely holding myself upright, I told Stan that I feared I had taken an overdose. Stan, who for some reason was less affected by the compound, tried to calm me down. Everything would be fine, he said; I should just relax and go with the experience. As Stan murmured reassuringly, his eyeballs exploded from their sockets, trailed by crimson streamers.

That was my last contact with external reality for almost twenty-four hours. Stan and a couple of friends whose help he enlisted told me later that during this period I was completely unresponsive to them, although they could with some difficulty move me about. For the most part I lay or sat quietly, staring into space. Occasionally I flailed about, raving, grunting or emitting other peculiar sounds. For a while I stuck my arms out and hissed like a five-year-old boy pretending to be a jet-fighter: “Fffffffffffffff!” My expressions tended toward extremes: beatific, enraged, terrified, lewd. Occasionally I furiously clawed holes in the lawn. My eyes were for the most part wide open, the pupils dilated to the rim. My companions said I never seemed to blink, even when particles of dirt from my excavations were visible on my eyeballs.

Subjectively, I was immersed in a visionary phantasmagoria. I became an amoeba, an antelope, a lion devouring the antelope, an ape man squatting on a savannah, an Egyptian queen, Adam and Eve, an old man and woman on a porch watching an eternal sunset. At some point, I attained a kind of lucidity, like a dreamer who realizes he’s dreaming. With a surge of power and exaltation, I realized that this is my creation, my cosmos, and I can do anything I like with it. I decided to pursue pleasure, pure pleasure, as far as it would take me. I became a bliss-seeking missile accelerating through an obsidian ether, shedding incandescent sparks, and the faster I flew, the brighter the sparks burned, the more exquisite was my rapture. This was probably when I was making the “fffffff” noise.

After eons of superluminal ecstasy, I decided that I wanted not pleasure but knowledge. I wanted to know why. I traveled backward through time, observing the births and lives and deaths of all creatures that have ever lived, human and non-human. I ventured into the future, too, watching as the Earth and then the entire cosmos was transformed into a vast grid of luminous circuitry, a computer dedicated to solving the riddle of its own existence. Yes, I became the Singularity! Before the term was even coined!

As my penetration of the past and future became indistinguishable, I became convinced that I was coming face to face with the ultimate origin and destiny of existence, which were one and the same. I felt overwhelming, blissful certainty that there is one entity, one consciousness, playing all the parts of this pageant, and there is no end to this creative consciousness, only infinite transformations.

At the same time, my astonishment that anything exists at all became unbearably acute. Why? I kept asking. Why creation? Why something rather than nothing?Finally I found myself alone, a disembodied voice in the darkness, asking, Why? And I realized that there would be, could be, no answer, because only I existed; there was nothing, no one, to answer me.

I felt overwhelmed with loneliness, and my ecstatic recognition of the improbability–no, impossibility–of my existence mutated into horror. I knew there was no reason for me to be. At any moment I might be swallowed up, forever, by this infinite darkness enveloping me. I might even bring about my own annihilation simply by imagining it; I created this world, and I could end it, forever. Recoiling from this confrontation with my own awful solitude and omnipotence, I felt myself disintegrating.

I awoke from this nightmarish trip convinced that I had discovered the secret of existence. There is a God, but He is not the omnipotent, loving God in Whom so many people have faith. Far from it. He’s totally nuts, crazed with fear of his own existential plight. In fact, God created this wondrous, pain-wracked world to distract Himself from his cosmic identity crisis. He suffers from a severe case of multiple-personality disorder, and we are the shards of His fractured psyche. Since then, I have found hints of this theology in Gnosticism, the Kabbalah and the writings of Nietzsche, Jung and Borges.

So which mystical visions should we believe? The heavenly, blissful ones, like Alexander’s, or the hellish ones, like mine? Or are both somehow true? The reasonable answer is: None of the above. The sensible, skeptical part of me knows that I was projecting my own fearful nihilism onto the universe, just as Alexander, a Christian, projected his yearnings. Our experiences were delusions brought about by aberrational brain states. The differences between our experiences—like the differences between our dreams–can be explained by our different backgrounds and personalities.

But another part of me is dissatisfied with this dismissal. My drug-induced visions possessed a mythical, archetypal quality that my dreams lack. The visions seemed not absurd and meaningless, like most of my dreams, but almost too meaningful. They seemed too artful—too laden with metaphorical and metaphysical significance—to be the products of my puny, personal brain. I felt as though I had left my individual mind behind and traveled into another, much more expansive realm. Alexander clearly feels the same way about his visions.

For the most part, I’m a hard-core materialist, but my experience—and those reported by Alexander and others—makes me suspect that our minds have untapped depths that conventional science cannot comprehend. And although I’ve reluctantly abandoned my neurotic-deity theology, I have an abiding sense of reality’s profound weirdness and improbability. What William James said in Varieties still holds true:

“Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness… No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded… [T]hey forbid our premature closing of accounts with reality.”

Let me ask you skeptics this: If scientists invented a technology—a drug or brain-stimulating device–that could safely induce a mystical experience, wouldn’t you seize that opportunity? Wouldn’t you like to see heaven, even if you don’t believe in it?

[*After hearing me describe this drug’s effects, Harvard psychologist John Halpern, an authority on psychedelics, guessed it was 3-quinuclidin-3-yl benzylate, otherwise known BZ, or an analog thereof. BZ is a potent hallucinogen developed as a chemical "incapacitant" by the U.S. Army in the 1950's. Although BZ was apparently never deployed, the Army stockpiled canisters of the drug through at least the early 1970's, when President Richard Nixon ordered the stockpiles destroyed. Whatever the drug I took was, I don't recommend it.]

About the Author: Every week, hockey-playing science writer John Horgan takes a puckish, provocative look at breaking science. A teacher at Stevens Institute of Technology, Horgan is the author of four books, including The End of Science (Addison Wesley, 1996) and The End of War (McSweeney's, 2012). Follow on Twitter @Horganism.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Why “I Don’t Have Time” is a Big Fat Lie

Why “I Don’t Have Time” is a Big Fat Lie

PUBLISHED ON 07/26/2012 

“I just don’t have enough time.”

We’ve all said it before.

We say “I don’t have time” when life gets busy or when we don’t want to feel guilty about skipping something:

• If we don’t have enough time to work out, it’s easier for us to be okay with wheezing after a flight of stairs.
• If we don’t have enough time to prepare healthy meals, it’s easier to accept our next unhealthy meal through a drive-thru window.
• If we don’t have enough time to clean the house, it’s easier to accept living in filth.
• If we don’t have time to apply for new jobs and make new connections,it’s easier to accept staying in a dead-end job.

By the end of today, “I don’ have time” will be erased from your vocabulary,Schwarzenegger-style!

It’s not a priority…

If you asked this Lego guy, he’d tell you that he’s so busy that he doesn’t have time to shave.  Liar!

Starting today, you are no longer allowed to utter the words: “I don’t have time.”

Instead, you will say, “It’s not a priority.”

I learned this tactic from this Wall-Street Journal article, and it has been monumental in changing my frame of mind.

Watch how quickly your perspective shifts when looking at life’s challenges this way:

• “I’d love to work out, I just don’t have time” becomes “exercising isn’t a priority.”
• “I’d love to eat healthier, but I don’t have time to cook” becomes “eating healthy isn’t a priority.”
• “I don’t have time to travel” becomes “traveling isn’t a priority.“

Suddenly, the excuse of time becomes an incredibly weak argument. Crap.

Stings a bit, huh?

The real truth

I can see you begging and pleading right now.

“Steve, these things ARE a priority, but there aren’t just enough hours in the day.”

As J.D. Roth, founder of Get Rich Slowly, simply stated during his talk at the World Domination Summit:

  “It’s not what we say is a priority, but what we actually DO that’s a priority.”

J.D. shared how he used to tell his friend, “oh I LOVE reading, I just don’t have time for it.” In reality, JD was just putting everything else in front of reading: watching TV, staying up late surfing the internet, and so on.  Once he realized how he was prioritizing his life, he started analyzing where his precious time was going.

How you choose to spend your time defines your priorities.  I spent all of 2011 telling myself that I wanted to learn a new language, but I never seem to find the time.  It wasn’t because I didn’t have enough time, it’s because I never made learning a new language a priority!  After lying to myself for a year, I just ordered a Portuguese phrase book from Amazon.com.

No seriously, I bought it just now, halfway through writing this article.

What are your priorities?

We have 168 hours in a week.

Time is our most precious resource.

Your priorities, whether you say so or not, are where you choose to spend those hours.  Make the most of them!  It’s amazing how much time you can find when you minimize the things that aren’t important to make room for the things that are.

Where do you spend your time?  Just like keeping a food journal can be eye-opening, try tracking your time over the next few days in 30-minute blocks. How much time do you spend on the computer, watching TV, etc?  I bet you’ll be surprised.

Suddenly…wild productivity appears!  

• The 10 hours of TV each week become less important.
• The late nights on Facebook and WoW become more apparent.
• The unproductive hours spent sitting at your desk, “working” without actually WORKING become clear.

It’s not what you say that’s important to you, it’s what you DO that’s important to you.  

I know you can get a great workout in 20 minutes, so I refuse to accept ANYBODY telling me that they don’t have time to work out.

I challenge you, starting today, to erase the phrase “I don’t have time” from your vocabulary.  Instead, say “it’s not a priority.”

And then decide what you actually want your priorities to be.  

Leave a comment with ONE thing you’ve been saying is a priority but hasn’t really been, and ONE step you’re going to take today to make that thing a real priority.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Portuguese to learn.

Tchau!

-Steve

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 04:30:00 GMT | By Liz Pulliam Weston, MSN Money

What it means to be rich

In our competitive culture, you may feel like a pauper compared with all the princes and princesses. But truly feeling rich is all about perspective.

What's it like to be rich?'

My friend was settling into her business-class seat on a flight to London when a man making his way to coach asked her that question.

The man seemed a little odd, she said, but he didn't sound hostile. Just curious. Still, she was caught off guard. Instead of ignoring the question or offering a non-answer — the usual approaches etiquette experts suggest when people ask rude questions about money — she told him honestly that she hadn't paid for the seat, a company had.

His bluntness and her unease show how loaded the term 'rich' can be. It can inspire awe and anger, admiration and envy, curiosity and contempt. 'Rich' implies a level of security and ease that many people, including those with a lot of money, don't actually feel.

So you might be interested to learn that if you're reading this sentence, you're probably rich. And no, I don't mean rich in friendships or health or family (although good for you if you are). I mean in material terms.

How can I say that? Well, think about the following:

• We may fret about the price of gas, but at least 85 per cent of the world's population doesn't own a car. (Source: WardsAuto)
• We may hate to pay the utility bill each month, but nearly one-quarter of the world lives without electricity and one-third doesn't have access to basic sanitation, such as a toilet. More than one billion people don't have adequate access to clean water. (Scientific American, 2006 United Nations Human Development Report)
• Even people below the low-income cut-off — which is about 9.4 per cent of the Canadian population -- are better off than the vast majority of humanity. Someone earning just US$11,000 a year, actually has more income than 87 per cent of the people on the planet. Nearly three billion people live on less than $2 a day, or $730 a year. (Index Mundi, GlobalRichList.com, the World Bank)
• You needed a household income of $366,717 to make it into the top one per cent of Canadian taxpayers in 2010. On the other hand, the Canadian median after-tax household income for families of two or more of $65,500 would put you in the top 0.9 per cent worldwide. (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, GlobalRichList.com)

Some of those statistics may surprise you. But they may not make you feel much richer.

That's because we don't tend to look down when we're assessing whether we're wealthy. We look up. If the people above us on the economic ladder can afford business-class seats on overseas flights, we may feel bad about our coach-class seats.

Of course, most of the world couldn't afford the cab fare to the airport, let alone an overseas flight. And those folks in business class may be fretting because they're not passengers on a private jet. (I'm not sure whom the private jet riders envy. Maybe billionaire Sir Richard Branson, with his rockets.)

'It's all a matter of perspective,' writes my friend Marla Fisher. 'When I go to Newport Beach [Calif.] and visit gorgeous homes with yachts, I feel poor. But when I go to Third World countries and see people living in mud shacks, I know we are rich because we live in a comfortable home with soft beds and plenty of food to eat and have a car to drive and the chance to go on vacation and attend nice clean schools.'

We also tend to look back. Our parents and grandparents may not have had easy financial lives. They may not have had all the stuff we have today. But they came up in a time of generally rising incomes. In the U.S., the median income adjusted for inflation still hasn't climbed back to its 1999 peak. For some, reduced expectations make it hard to feel rich.

'Rich' is a pretty squishy term, in any case. When I asked my Facebook fans what it would take for them to feel rich, some set the bar pretty high. For one gentleman, it was '$50 million in total assets and at least $10 million a year in net income.' Another wanted $5 million in the bank.

'I wouldn't feel rich even making $250,000 a year because I'd feel like that could end at any time and I'd be in danger of not meeting my nest egg goals,' he said.

Several said being rich would mean being having no debt. Some said they'd feel rich if they didn't have to work anymore. Others just wanted a job they could count on.

'I'd feel 'rich' if I were in a job that provided for my basic needs: rent, food, utilities, with a little extra for fun or a vacation sometimes,' one woman wrote. 'I'd feel richer if I knew the job was permanent and safe. I've been laid off more times in four years that I can really count anymore.'

Another woman put it succinctly: 'Rich is never having to stop and think if there's enough money in the bank account to pay for whatever is on the counter.'

Why should we ask ourselves this question? It's not a pointless exercise. Questioning and challenging our feelings about wealth can actually help us achieve some goals.

If your expectations are unrealistic, you probably won't create a plan that might get you ahead. If your goals are achievable, you might.

You aren't likely to be able to buy a professional sports team, for example, so starting to save for one is silly. You could, on the other hand, build up an emergency fund so you don't have to be quite so terrified of losing your job. You could contribute to a retirement plan, so someday you'll have the choice to stop working. You could start to pay down your debt, so you can free yourself of your lenders.

Small potatoes, you think? Perhaps. But small contributions over time can build up into real money -- money that can help you achieve the freedom, security and ease most of us associate with being rich.

Liz Weston is the Web's most-read personal-finance writer. She is the author of several books, most recently 'The 10 Commandments of Money: Survive and Thrive in the New Economy' 

The Lonely Wooden Pew

The Lonely Wooden Pew

This lonely wooden pew

Is where I sit and make my stand

I dream that I'm a warrior

Fighting at God's command

A thousand enormous battles

Are nothing for me to win

Because I trust in Christ my Savior

I've given everything to Him

Suddenly I'm awaken

By the sound of the preacher's voice

He says, No more Dreaming,

It's time to make a choice

It's time to take a stand

To become all God ordained

That even the smallest child

With Christ, shall surely reign

Then I heard another voice

Very quiet, it spoke to me

It reminded just how comfy

This wooden pew can be

That if I stand and fight

My dreaming will all end

By leaving this small pew

I might wind up just like Him

I ask, Who do you mean?

He says, The one that lost it all

That gave His life and died

To save man from their fall

To sit here in this pew

You can rest and give your tithe

You just listen and look good

Let others work and die

Then another appeared before me

It was a man with angel eyes,

My child, He spoke so gently,

It's for you I toiled and died

Do not listen to that deceiver

His fate's already set

But you my child I fear for

As you haven't decided yet

Remember that I Love you

I will protect you for all time

If you follow in my footsteps

You then are truly mine

It's time to stop your dreaming

And be the warrior I made in you

Up till now you've just been sitting

In a lonely wooden pew. 

Daniel Sweetnam

How to Be a Calmer Mom

By Good Housekeeping | Parenting – Mon, 1 Oct, 2012 3:34 PM EDT

Avoid mom meltdownsIf you've found yourself shrieking at your child - and regretting it - this advice is for you.

My husband, our two kids, and I were enjoying an idyllic trip to Hawaii, driving up the winding (and dangerous) Road to Hana and taking in the beauty of the cliffs and coastline. And then it happened. For no apparent reason, my son, then age 5, threw a water bottle from the backseat toward my husband, and it hit the windshield with a ferocious bang. By some miracle, we didn't crash, but we did lose control...big-time. Both my husband and I were ranting, raving, screaming, threatening: "Why would you do that? Don't you know we could have been killed? Here we are taking you on the vacation of a lifetime, and you throw a water bottle for no reason?" And on and on we went, spewing way more venom than our preschooler could ever deserve or even comprehend, for that matter.

Tears began rolling down our son's cheeks, and his lip quivered as he fought back sobs. After what I'm sure seemed like an eternity to him, we calmed down and continued on our way, and I tried to bury the incident in the back of my mind.

I had almost forgotten all about it when, a few weeks later, I replayed our Hawaii-trip video. There I was, recording a waterfall out the window of the car. I tucked the camera into its bag - accidentally leaving it still recording - and then the "water bottle incident" occurred. Though the screen was black, I heard my husband and myself screaming at our son, badgering him, shaming him.

Then it was my turn to fight back tears. How could I have freaked out like that in front of my kids, atmy kid? The rant sounded so much more vicious and vile than I remembered its having been, but there it was on tape - proof that I was the worst mother in the world. I may have erased that incident from the vacation video, but I don't think I'll ever be able to erase it from my memory.

Like it or not, most of us parents flip out in front of our dear children from time to time. Sometimes the anger is aimed at them, other times not, but it's almost always a deeply unsettling experience. Fortunately, there are simple - sometimes surprising - steps you can take to repair the damage, not to mention avoid meltdowns in the future.

The High Price of Losing It

First, recognize that regularly lashing out at or in front of your kids isn't par for the parenting course. It can do some very real damage to their psyches, says psychologist Matthew McKay, Ph.D., a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA, and coauthor of When Anger Hurts Your Kids. "Studies have shown that parents who express a lot of anger in front of their kids end up with less empathetic children. These kids are more aggressive and more depressed than peers from calmer families, and they perform worse in school. Anger has a way of undermining a kid's ability to adapt to the world," McKay says.

Gulp. And the younger the kid, the bigger the impact, experts say. "When children are little, you're their universe," says psychologist Robert Puff, Ph.D., author of Anger Work: How to Express Your Anger and Still Be Kind. "When you get angry, their world is shaken. By the time they get older, they have friends and other people in their lives to turn to, and that minimizes the impact." Also worth noting: The occasional, nonabusive freak-out is generally much less damaging than regular fireworks, which send a child the message that he or she is not safe and that there's something wrong with him, says McKay.

That said, kids can actually learn an important lesson from seeing you lose your temper and then regain your cool. "This provides an opportunity to show kids that we all get angry, but what really counts is how we repair things afterward," says McKay. Here, the step-by-steps for doing just that.

When You Shriek at Your Kids

Real-mom meltdown: When Jennifer*, of Huntington Beach, CA, went to visit Disneyland with her three kids, she didn't realize the "happiest place on Earth" would be the setting for one of her ugliest parenting moments. "It was a big outing for us, and the park was very hot and crowded that day," she recalls. "Two of my kids have cystic fibrosis and could use a special pass to bypass the lines. But my 13-year-old went and lost his. Out of nowhere, I yelled, 'You've got to be bleeping kidding me. What the hell is wrong with you?' Immediately, my son started to cry. He had never heard me swear or be so mean to him, and he was devastated. Everyone standing around us was looking at me in disgust. I had to keep apologizing. Tears were streaming down my face because I had obviously hurt him so much."

A University of New Hampshire study found that 90 percent of parents admitted to having hollered at their children, ages 2 to 12, within the course of a year (the other 10 percent must have either been angels or had selective memories). 

To avoid a scream-fest, try this trick: In that white-hot moment of anger, visualize your child as a baby, says Sandra P. Thomas, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and coauthor of Use Your Anger: A Woman's Guide to Empowerment. "Older kids and teens are not adorable like babies, and sometimes they can be very obnoxious," she explains. "When you remember them as the babies they once were, that can do some good."

So can taking a break. "If you're able, take a time-out and walk into another room, even if it's just for a minute or two," says psychologist Laura J. Petracek, Ph.D., author of The Anger Workbook for Women. The key here is getting some literal distance from the situation and recovering your sense of calm.

If your anger has already boiled over, the most important thing now is to own up to what you've done wrong. Don't give in to the temptation to blame your child for triggering your outburst. "Say, 'I am very disappointed at your carelessness, but I shouldn't have yelled like that. It was wrong for me to lose it in that way, and I'm very sorry,' " advises Thomas. (Tip: Don't overdo the apology - if you dwell on it, it can make a kid feel as if he's truly been victimized.) Then promise that you will try your best not to do it again, comfort your child as needed, and move on.

When You Spar With Your Spouse

Real-mom meltdown: Angie*, of Seattle, says life has been particularly stressful since her husband lost his job - and their arguments sometimes play out in front of daughter Lexi, age 3. "Just last night, I was yelling at him for not cleaning the house," she confesses. "Lexi came over, tugged on my shirt, and said, 'Be nice to Daddy.' The look in her eyes was one of terror; it stopped me in my tracks. We eventually made up and tried to assure her that Mommy and Daddy still loved each other, but I don't know if she bought it."

It can be devastating for a child to see her parents get furious with each other, warns Charles Spielberger, Ph.D., a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger at the University of South Florida. It's important to circle back quickly and do damage control. Don't try to explain the situation away by reciting a laundry list of ways in which your spouse provoked you - this will only further embroil your children in the drama and stress. "Instead, you might say, 'I was really mad at your dad earlier. We've talked about it, and we're working it out. People who live together get angry sometimes. We're sorry for yelling. We still love each other,' " Thomas recommends. Even if you still want to throttle your spouse, telling your kids you are smoothing things over will help ease their fears and make them feel more secure.

If you can, emphasize what you'll do differently next time, says Jerry Deffenbacher, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Colorado State University, who studies anger issues; this will help a child learn from the experience. For instance: "I was mad that your dad burned the garlic bread, but I apologize; I shouldn't have shouted at him like that. I was frazzled from a really hard day. Next time, we'll remember to set the kitchen timer when we use the oven."

Keep further comments to a minimum. Overexplain yourself, and you could wind up turning your kid into a mediator or therapist, cautions Puff. There's no need to drag her even deeper into your drama.

When You Argue With a Stranger

Real-mom meltdown: While Fiona*, of Detroit, was buckling her youngest son into his car seat after a trip to a bakery, an older driver pulled up near her and began honking. "He was screaming, 'Close your f--door!' without having given me any warning that I was blocking his spot. I raged right back, 'Can't you see I'm putting my baby in his car seat, you $%*#@?!' My tween in the backseat was pretty rattled by my outburst, and I felt horrible about it."

Your first instinct might be to apologize to your kids for having gotten mad - but don't. Everyone gets angry, so you shouldn't be sorry for having experienced this emotion. (This is especially important if you have daughters - girls from a young age are told they shouldn't show anger, says Puff, encouraging them to bottle up their feelings.)

Instead, tell the kids what set you off. Explains McKay: "You might say, 'That man said something that really hurt my feelings, and I got very upset.' " Next, apologize for how you expressed your anger. "Make sure they know that swearing - or whatever you did - was not the appropriate reaction," says Thomas. "Emphasize that you would never want them to act that way." Also say you are sorry if your outburst scared or embarrassed them. (Let's face it - it probably did.) Explain that you let your emotions get the best of you, and that you'll handle it better next time. And then comes the real challenge: making sure that you do.

Short-Circuiting Your Anger

To keep your cool going forward, follow these ground rules:

• Ask the right question When a child is being difficult and your temper is about to flare, follow this advice from McKay: Instead of thinking, Why is he doing this to me?, focus on the child; he's probably acting out for a reason. Is he hungry, bored, tired, or in need of attention? Try to meet his need instead of letting your anger get the best of you.
• Keep an anger journal that documents when you lose your cool. "Look for patterns - what time of day do you get angriest? Under what circumstances?" advises Deffenbacher. "Once you identify those anger 'flash points' in your life, brainstorm ways to minimize them." You can even get your kids in on the act: Say, "It irritates me when you ignore your chores - how can we make this a better situation?" By giving your kids a voice, you're empowering them to be part of the solution.
• Minimize marriage spats "In a calm moment, you and your spouse should agree to handle your next argument differently," Deffenbacher says. "Give yourselves permission to walk away if you're getting too angry in front of the kids. Develop a code word for when you are getting really mad, and let that signal that you'll discuss the issue later, in private, when you're calmer."
• Talk through your emotions out loud when you're with your kids and a stranger annoys you. "Say, 'Wow, that person just cut me off - how rude! But maybe there's an emergency she had to deal with, or she just didn't see me. Whatever the case, I'm not going to let it ruin my day,' " recommends Deffenbacher. By doing this, you're modeling how to handle life's everyday frustrations - and how to control your anger before it controls you.

-By Julie Taylor 

A lifetime-to-lifetime process

A lifetime-to-lifetime process

A Note from Neale... My dear friends... Last week in this space we began a discussion of the difference between being a ”seeker” of The Holy Experience and being an “explorer” of it. Continuing on that topic... Being an explorer of the full experience and knowing of life’s ultimate reality can often separate us from our family, friends, and peers, who wonder why we have not accepted the answers that they have found or accepted, and why we are not experiencing what they are experiencing. They may even make us “wrong” for being in a place of mind and spirit other than the place where they reside, and rather than honoring us for the bravery of our exploration, they may warn us against it, or even ridicule us for undertaking it. Siddhartha Gautama was an explorer. The son of a wealthy man who had been appointed the governor of a region in India, he left his father’s palace and separated himself from his own wife and child, forsaking all of his comfort and comforting familial relationships in order to explore and grok in fullness the True Nature of Life. Jesus of Nazareth was an explorer. He left his mother and his father and separated himself from his family and his society of origin in order that he might explore and know fully the True Nature of His Divine Being. The list of such human beings contains many names, some as widely known as those above and some not known at all, yet none any less committed to their exploration, and none any less sanctified. Your name could go on this list, as could mine. That can be our choice. Yet this you must know: it is not a choice that is made only once.Exploration of one’s Divine Nature is not like having one’s tonsils out. It is a moment-to-moment, day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year, life-long process. It is even more than that. It is a lifetime-to-lifetime process. It is the process of becoming that which one is exploring, and, in the very moment of becoming It, extending the exploration further. Here is a great and wondrous truth: The exploration of Divinity never ends—because Divinity Itself is endless. It is eternal and limitless and itexpands the moment Its awareness of Itself is complete. In this sense, Full Awareness is never possible, only the Illusion of it. And we will discuss this thing called “full awareness” here next week. Hugs and love,

Critical thinking

• What is critical thinking?
  • Am I a critical thinker?
• Developing critical thinking skills
  • Reading critically
  • Persuasion and argument
• Analysis of an argument
  • Assertion
  • Evidence
  • Assumptions
  • Reasoning
• Putting it all together
• Critical thinking tips

You use critical thinking skills every day - think about the process you go through when you buy a new piece of equipment, or choosing where to go on holiday. At university you need to use critical thinking skills in your reading, and demonstrate critical thinking skills in your writing.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking involves reading and writing critically. Reading critically means examining different points of view with an open and enquiring mind, evaluating your own position, and drawing conclusions as to whether a particular point of view is persuasive. Writing critically means presenting your conclusions in a clear and well-reasoned way to persuade others.

When you think critically, you:

• analyse - break things down
• synthesise - bring parts together in a coherent way
• evaluate - make judgements, based on sound evidence

15 Reasons to Run for Your Life

POST WRITTEN BY: MARC

15 Reasons to Run for Your Life

Don’t walk away from these situations, RUN!  Life is too precious not to.

Start running from…

1. People who keep hurting you. – Stop wondering why people keep hurting you.  Ask yourself, “Why am I continuously allowing this to happen?”  Speak up.  Stand up for yourself.  Sometimes we suffer, not because of the violence others inflict on us, but because of our own silence.  Read The Mastery of Love.
2. Love that lies. – If another person steals the heart of the person you love, be thankful that you learned the truth sooner rather than later.  Because their love was never true – true love can’t be stolen.  We have to accept the fact that some people are going to stay in our hearts for a long time, even if they don’t stay in our lives.
3. Procrastination. – Sometimes we ask questions not to seek answers but to affirm something our soul knows already.  You’re not doing yourself a favor by merely hearing the same answer from people over and over again.  It is accepting the truth, making a conscious change and finally moving on to other things that is your answer.  Give your soul a chance to explore the life you are meant to live.  Stop asking the same questions – at some point you have to make a decision and take action.
4. Impatience. – The principle part of faith is patience.  When we walk by faith there will be times when we hear and see nothing, and are tempted toaggravate a situation in the best effort to make things happen faster.  We are tempted to sway from being faithful and patient, and attempt to create more options for ourselves, without pausing long enough to notice what is.  A faithful mind requires a patient will.  Things will not always seem to move fast enough in your life, but they are usually moving as fast as they should be.  Read The Power of Now.
5. Superficial stereotyping. – If you judge others by their skin colour, their body size, and their outer beauty, you will miss EVERYTHING about who they really are.
6. Materialism. – No matter where life takes you, big cities or small towns, you will inevitably come across small minds – people who think they’re better than you – people who think that material possessions, dressing a certain way, driving a fancy car, etc. makes you a worthwhile human being.  But material things don’t matter.  What matters is having strength of character, integrity, and a sense of self-worth.  And if you’re lucky enough to have any of these things, never sell them.  Never sell yourself short.
7. Rushed relationships. – Don’t rush into any kind of relationship.  Work on yourself.  Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself.  Do this first and you will soon you will get the attention of the right people, and gradually attract them into your life.
8. The reckless expectation of perfection. – Don’t berate others for not being perfect.  Admire them for not being fake.  Even though you probably sometimes get confused, you don’t really want your friends and lovers to be perfect.  What you do want is people you can trust, who treat you right – people you can act silly with, who love being around you as much as you love being around them.
9. People who only tell you what you want to hear. – It’s so easy to believe someone when they’re telling you exactly what you want to hear.  But you have to watch what they do too.  Actions speak louder than words – actions speak the whole truth.
10. People who continuously overlook your worth. – You are not a back-up plan.  You are worth more than someone’s second choice.  You can’t force yourself to stop loving someone, but you can tell yourself that you deserve better.  Never settle for second best.  Always look out for number one.  Because you can’t expect to be someone else’s priority if you aren't your own.
11. Situations that force you to be someone you’re not. – In this crazy world that’s trying to make you like everyone else, the toughest battle you’ll ever have to fight is the battle to be yourself.  And as you’re fighting back, not everyone will like you.  Sometimes people will call you names because you’re “different.”  But that’s okay.  The things that make you different are the things that make YOU.
12. A long-term situation or routine that you hate. – It’s better to be a failure at something you love than to succeed at doing something you hate.  Don’t let someone who gave up on their dreams talk you out of going after yours.  The best thing you can do in life is follow your intuition.  Take risks.  Don’t just make the safe and easy choices because you’re afraid of what might happen.  If you do, nothing will ever happen. Read Quitter.
13. The easy-street mentality. – Most great things must be earned.  There is no elevator to success; you must take the stairs.  So forget how you feel and remember what you deserve.  Right NOW is always the best time to break out of your shell and show the world who you really are and what you’re really made of.  Chances must be taken, mistakes must be made, and lessons must be learned.  It might be an uphill climb, but when you reach that mountaintop it will be worth every ounce of blood, sweat and tears you put into it.
14. Self-doubt. – When you become your own best friend, life gets easier.  There is nothing to hold you back except you.  You are limited only by your imagination.  Rest in the knowledge that you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone’s heart but your own.
15. Negativity. – Sometimes life sucks.  Sometimes life gets so hard that you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.  Sometimes life is so stressful that all you want to do is cry.  But sometimes life is beautiful.  Sometimes life is so awesome that all you want to do is smile.  Sometimes you just have to stay positive, and push through the hard times.  Why?  Because life is worth it.  The good times are worth it.  You are worth it.