Joy To The World...

Image by Peggy Choucair from Pixabay

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

~George Bernard Shaw

The Power Of Words - A New Year's Resolution Based On Transformational Vocabulary

Wonder Woman inspirational power
& strength through words
~ art print by Marvin Blaine

I've been reading Anthony Robbins's inspiring book Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Financial Destiny!  It's a great book, though some examples are dated, and the basics of the content is applicable no matter what century we happen to be living in. Unless we've all turned into robots, but that's another problem altogether.

In any case, there's a section in this book that discusses the power of the word on our lives, and our ability to be happy and fulfill our self-chosen destiny thanks to it. This is because "words absolutely do filter and transform experience." For you see, "since words are our primary tool for interpretation or translation, the way we label our experience immediately changes the sensations produced in our nervous systems. You and I must realize that words do indeed create a biochemical effect."

In fact, in Words Can Change Your Brain, Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman state that "a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress." Negative words cause our brain to create fear-inducing, stress-related hormones, while positive words stimulate the frontal lobe of our brain, which is linked to logic and reason. The frontal lobe activation by the positive word(s) will, in turn, activate other parts of the brain, like the parietal lobe (responsible for how you view yourself), and the thalamus (responsible for how you view others and reality), so that we will start feeling better about ourselves, others around us, and basically our whole world.

Robbins used as an example how one of his friends inspired him to start using the word "peeved" whenever he started feeling angry about a situation. Just the use of that word (instead of potentially stronger words like "livid" or "enraged") automatically diffuses the situation emotionally-speaking, and therefore allows him to be open to more ways to solve the problem that's suddenly appeared because he's not flooding his brain and body with stress hormones.

But Robbins doesn't just stop there. Indeed, he posits that not only do the labels we apply to how we feel/what we think alter our emotions (with the goal being that we want to more relaxed and happier beings), but that the greater our vocabulary, the easier it is for us to do so.

To illustrate this point, Robbins mentions a study that had once been undertaken in a prison, where it was found that "when inmates experienced pain, one of the few ways they could communicate it was through physical action--their limited vocabulary limited their emotional range, channeling even the slightest feelings of discomfort into heightened levels of violent anger." So the better you are at labeling your emotions, the better you become at controlling your anger (and potentially your violence), and lessening the degree of the emotions while at the same time heightening the positive one.

In an online class I took (I'm all about self-empowerment these days), the teacher stressed the fact that you can choose to be happy, and the way to do that is to realize that your thoughts--shaped by your words--affect how you feel. So it's very important to use empowering words, ones that will make you feel good about yourself and your world, words of love, and encouragement, and inspiration.

And it works! It truly, really works! I'm not saying that it's always going to be easy, that we won't feel pain or sadness (like I said, we haven't yet "evolved" into machines), but it will certainly skew our life towards the more positive side of things. So my goal (or one of them anyways, but this one's at the top of my list) is to consistently choose to be happy, and build up my vocabulary so I can describe my emotions in more variegated ways.

I'm also hoping this will allow me to become a better writer over time.

So, what word(s) of power would you like to calibrate your life to in the coming weeks, months, or years?

If we want to change our lives and shape our destiny, we need to consciously select the words we're going to use, and we need to constantly strive to expand our level of choice.

~Anthony Robbins

Meditation Powers On The Brain

Art by dandingeroz

I am currently reading (among, possibly, 20 other books...yeah, I need to work on that) Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality, and though I'm still quite at the beginning, I already have so much food for thought!

The book talks about the science behind how our mind and thoughts can alter physical reality, starting with our own brain. As part of the intro on this topic, it brings up an article written by Tang, Hötzel, & Postner in 2015, which I'll partially transcribe down here for you.

The article talks about an astrophysicist/journalist, Phillips, who decided to check how meditation would affect his brain, and test it medically (to convince his skeptical self should there really be any major effects):

By Robert Voight/Adobe Stock

"After just two weeks of practicing mindfulness meditation, Phillips felt less stressed and more able to handle the challenges of his job and life.;He reported that he 'notices stress but doesn't get sucked into it.'
Eight weeks later, he [went back] for testing. ... They found that he was better at behavioral tasks, even though he showed diminished brain activity. ... [H]is brain had become more energy efficient. ... His memory tests also improved.
His reaction time to unexpected events had been cut by almost half a second. (...)
One of the brain regions the researchers measured the hippocampus, ... and the part of [it] responsible for regulation emotion in other parts of the brain. ... They found that the volume of nerve cells in th[at part of the hippocampus] had increased by 22.8%.
...Such brain reconfiguration is occasionally seen in young people whose brains are still growing, but it is rarely seen in adults. (...)
[There is an] accumulation of a large body of evidence [that has] identified neural growth in 'multiple brain regions...suggesting that the effects of meditation might involve large-scale brain networks.'"

So reading this, I of course totally want to try it out (especially if meditation will allow me to get less angry at, say, loud neighbors that keep me up all night, or help me stay focused on my writing). Despite being terrible at sitting for long periods of time with nothing to do but focus on my breathing and whatnot.

BUT...

The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli

Meditation is a double-edged sword.

Indeed, meditation can exacerbate problems instead of helping us overcome them, particularly if we are already suffering from certain mental or personality conditions.

So instead of calming us down, meditation could instead "trigger anxiety, depressive episodes, or flashbacks to past traumas," and turn one more aggressive. In worse cases, it can truly make you lose your mind entirely, lose yourself and your identity entirely as "the boundaries of [your] ego dissolve," and push you towards suicide.

So, yeah. There's that too.

All of this does prove that meditation changes your brain, but whether it's for the better is not necessarily a given. And with my kind of writer's mind, I think I need to be careful. So for now I think I'll stick to what I know works for me, which is what I like to call "active meditation" or exercise (which I definitely don't do enough of, quite frankly).

Still, it is fascinating to see how much of an influence our thoughts have on our body, is it not?

Additional Sources:
When Mindfulness Goes Wrong
What Mindfulness Gurus Don't Tell You: Meditation Has a Dark Side

Pleasure Vs. Happiness

I don't quite remember how I fell on this book (the joys of happenstance) by Robert H. Lustig, but The Hacking of the American Mind is turning out to be quite an interesting read (although it should change its title, because it certainly doesn't just apply to Americans)!

In it, he states that there are two clear definitions of the terms Pleasure and Happiness:

Pleasure, which comes from the French word plaisir, is a concept of reward:

1. It's immediate
2. It provides some level of excitement/amusement
3. It's dependent on circumstance
   

Happiness, on the other hand, is about being content, about well-being and human flourishing (aka physical and/or spiritual growth:

1. It's about life
2. It's not prone to acute changes in one's life (so no roller-coaster of emotions)
3. It's unrelated to circumstances--anyone can be happy!

These two states can certainly happen concurrently, but they also can affect one another in negative ways that I certainly hadn't always suspected (going all the way down to the molecular level of our brain!). In fact, "chronic excessive reward eventually leads to both addiction and depression," what Robert Lustig calls the twin epidemics, and therefore too much pleasure can actually prevent us from being happy.

For your (and my) ease, I've created a quick table of the 7 differences between reward (pleasure) and contentment (happiness) as expressed in The Hacking of the American Mind:

Note here that it's important to have some level of dopamine (it would actually be really bad not to), but it is addictive, whereas serotonin...isn't. On top of that, in terms of evolution, dopamine is

"stronger" than serotonin, or we'd still be cavemen (if still around at all) since dopamine is a hormone that keeps us motivated. But this also means that, if we're constantly releasing dopamine into our brains, we're effectively destroying our dopamine receptors...and our ability to feel happiness.*

Knowing this, it only makes the following fact all that scarier:

In his research and analysis, Robert Lustig has come to realize that "in the last half century, America and most of the Western world have become more and more unhappy, sicker, and broke as well. Marketing, media, and technology have capitalized on subverting our brain physiology to their advantage in order to veer us away from the pursuit of happiness to the pursuit of pleasure, which for them, of course equals the pursuit of profit."

"In fact, [these corporations'] recipes are continuing to improve: as the science of reward is elaborated and becomes more precise, new techniques in neuromarketing are now becoming mainstream. And as corporations have profited big from increased consumption of virtually everything with a price tag promising happiness, we have lost big-time. America has devolved from the aspirational, achievement-oriented "city on a hill" we once were, into the addicted and depressed society that we've now become.

Because we abdicated happiness for pleasure. 

Because we got cheap."

And you thought the world in Game of Thrones was bad**! 

In any case, after this intense intro, I'm very much looking forward to reading the rest of his book, including how indeed we did get hacked, and how we can claim our brains back (OK, this definitely sounds like a weird zombie movie now). I'll probably share a couple more nuggets as I go along :)

*OK, so this is highly simplified, and we have loads more hormones, but this doesn't make the above facts wrong either.

**I'm still crying that the last season won't come out till 2019, yes, yes, I too fall prey to this society of consumption, especially when it comes to stories...and sweets...and tea... Gah!

Just Three Little Letters: Y.E.S.

Today, I'm still going to rave to you about how great Creative Thinkering is by talking about an important concept mentioned in the book:

The power of thinking "YES!"

I don't know how many of you remember much of your time as a wee child, but if you can get your mind to go back that far, you may remember that, in those days, nothing seemed impossible!
Needed to fit those blocks into the appropriate holes? We wouldn't stop working on that till they were finally all in!
Needed to get on top of our parents' bed? We kept climbing up those covers until we finally found ourselves nestled between them!
Wanted to get those cookies? We kept finding ways to climb the furniture to get to them (or figure the easiest way to get someone else to bring them to you...like crying your lungs out)!

And that optimism lasted until adults started beating it into our heads that we couldn't do it, that we'd never would make it (whatever it might have been). As Michalko put it: Children, before they become educated, speak a different language, a language of inclusion, a language of "what is" and "what can be." That's very different from what many of us adults automatically say, such as  "I never would have thought of that," or "Not a bad insight."

However, should we choose to relinquish our defeatist or unenthusiastic attitude and revert to that happy outlook you had when a child, all you have to do is change your vocabulary into a positive one! Because "all language, feelings, and thoughts interact with each other, and the entire accumulation of those influences creates your output and behavior," so by changing the way you speak, "your thoughts and feelings will be changed as well" and you'll generally feel better and more upbeat :)

On Utilizing A Foreign Workforce

Jean Jaurès, French Socialist leader (1859-1914)

Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy reading and learning about economics and finance (among a plethora of other things, as I'm sure you've noticed).

Anyway, I fell upon this little quote (that I've translated from French for you), which I thought made for excellent food for thought. I think it's particularly interesting to note that this was said during a speech at the end of the 20th century...

What we do not want is for international capital to find its workforce in markets where it is the most degraded, humiliated, disparaged, to then throw it onto the French market, and to bring salaries around the world down to the level of those in countries where they are at their lowest. It is in that sense, and only in that sense, that we wish to protect the French workforce against the foreign labor, not, I repeat, out of a chauvinistic exclusivity, but to substitute international well-being to international misery.

~Jean Jaurès, speech "For a socialistic customs system" (Fr: "Pour un socialisme douanier"), February 17, 1894.

So, what are your thoughts on the subject?

Just Do It

Nike, goddess
of victory

Nike's motto is pretty straightforward, and I was reminded of how on-the-point it is when reading this really cool article today about some key ingredients necessary to be successful in life...  The one that really jumped to me was:

Successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do.

When it comes down to it, that's really what I need right now:  to just sit, write, and work on my art, vs. always going out with friends and partying, or relaxing after a long day's work like other people.  Because if I want to succeed with my writing, I need to work on it even when I don't feel like it.  Even if I've had 16-hour days.  Sleep?  Psha!  Who needs that?

What kind of sacrifice do you feel you need to make to get to your goal?

Lucky or Unlucky? You Choose.

Studies have been made to discern the difference between people who consider themselves lucky, and those who don’t (see Luck Factor).

Of course, chance does bear its weight of responsibility in the matter, however it turns out that a lot more has to do with your own way of viewing the world.

Professor Richard Wiseman has narrowed it down to a set of principles which can be summed up thusly:

1. Be open-minded: you’ll notice a lot more opportunities surrounding you which can give you a “chance” to progress in your endeavors, sometimes in a completely unexpected way. 
2. Trust your instinct (see a previous post as for a reason why) and try to remain relaxed.
3. Stay positive: even if you’re having a $*%&# time—those who remain positive persevere and don’t waste their time complaining over and over about their miserable state.

Conclusion? Don’t worry, be happy!


Note: Professor Wiseman also found that those who feel themselves lucky have a tendency to smile a lot more and make eye contact with people.

Ref: You make your own luck blogpost.

Good Luck? Bad Luck?

An old farmer used a horse to till his fields. One day, the horse ran away, and when the farmer's neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?
A week later, the horse returned with a herd of wild mares, and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, "Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?"
Then, when the farmer's son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell and broke his leg. Everyone agreed this was very bad luck. But the farmer's only reaction was, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?"
A week later, the army marched into the village and drafted all the young men they could find. When they saw the farmer's son with his broken leg, they let him stay behind. Good luck? Bad luck?

This is an ancient Chinese story I just read in Marci Shimoff's Happy for No Reason that a friend offered me for my last birthday (thanks Taka!).

This story has reminded me that who knows whether the things that happen to us are good or bad in the long run? Things may look bad at first, but it could be so something even better can happen afterward.

So I've decided to take Marci Shimoff's advice to look only for the good in every situation (or work up to that point, anyway). So yeah... *clears throat*

Studying for the Chartered Financial Analyst exam is GREAT, and will end up helping me loads when I have all sorts of non-profit organizations under my belt and a SUPER-AWESOMELY-GREAT writing career. Wait, let me rephrase that, I HAVE a SUPER-AWESOMELY-GREAT writing career! Yeah, I like the sound of that : )

If you were to apply this concept to yourself, what one thing would you change?