Manifest Intent

60 Minutes recently ran a feature on "Why bad habits are hard to break." The video covers some of the newest neuro-news available on addictions, based on the work of Dr. Nora Volkow, the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The video is very informative if you have not seen the show. CBS does not allow embedding, so please click the title link above.

Cut Too Short

San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, 43, shocked the San Diego area and sports' world with his suicide, May 2, 2012.  To many, likely all, this was a senseless loss of a beloved son, brother, father, relative, friend, human, a local hero, a philanthropist and sports phenomenon.  How many people were jealous of Junior before this tragedy? How many are now, I wonder?

Ultimately,  no one really knows what drives a person to take their own life or how a person can feel death at their own hands is their only option.  I am unable to fathom what brings a person to that very dark point.  Considering that concept makes me very sad... sad that any one could ever feel so alone and hopeless... sad for the devastated loved ones left behind with so many unanswered questions... sad for all that could have been... the possibilities gone forever.

I believed until fairly recently I had lived the majority of my life not personally knowing anyone that had performed the act or those left behind that had been effected by a suicide. Not true! Not long ago I recalled a grade school acquaintance, Laura, whose mother committed suicide. I doubt she was truly the only person I knew, but she was the only one close to my circle of friends.

As an adult, I am all too aware of relatives, friends and neighbors that either did end their lives prematurely or were very close to that precipice, making me sadder yet. Not so sad that I entered the dark space of mind to even broach the topic, but sad that I was near and neither they nor I reached out. Although unaware of their situation, I still feel guilty that I did not do more.  How could I?

Only in one instance was I made aware in advance by a third party. Only then was I able to take action, hoping to make a difference without being obvious that I was in the loop. Did I make a difference? I do not know. I hope so, but I am untrained in these matters. I desperately want to think perhaps one iota of my caring, my actions, my love, made the tiniest difference! The person is making their way through life today. I hope they will for as long as their life is naturally intended... hopefully a very long time. I hope they will always remember they are loved and that someone cares.

As for Laura's mother,  So's cuz, Blanca, Dennis, Jessi, Junior and all the others who felt no other options existed, rest easy. Your earthly troubles are over. We wish you had let someone ... anyone ... know just how badly you felt. We wish you had allowed someone help ease your pain and suffering whatever the cause, no matter how horrific or unbearable it seemed.  Helped you move beyond darkness and pain into a place of all possibilities. Those of us left behind must make our way through grief, loss and life without any real understanding and perhaps feeling great guilt for many reasons the rest of our days. Life is just too short as it is to cut it any shorter!

A public Celebration of Life for Junior Seau will be held Friday, May 11, 2012, and is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, CA. Admission and parking will be free and on a first-come, first-served basis. Due to the projected turnout, public transportation is highly recommended. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Junior Seau Foundation are encouraged. The foundation is located at 5275 Market St., Suite B, San Diego, CA 92114. Donations also can be made online at juniorseau.org. Junior's spirit will live on through good works.

If you or someone you know is considering committing suicide, call or tell someone, anyone, but preferably a counselor, pastor, teacher, parent, doctor, etc.  Or go to http://suicidehotlines.com/ to find an organization in your state, or call National Suicide Hotlines USA, Toll-Free / 24 hours a day / 7 days a week at:
1-800-SUICIDE       /  1-800-784-2433

1-800-273-TALK  /    1-800-273-8255

1-800-799-4TTY (4889) /  Hotline for hearing impaired

Helpful information for possibly spotting the signs and helping someone suicidal:
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/suicide_prevention.htm

If you feel suicide is  your only path, reach out! Ask for help! Please, please I beg you! allow someone help you get beyond your darkest moments into ones of hope and light again. While you may feel this is impossible right now, there is always hope. And, there will always be someone who cares about you, too, whether you know them or not.

A couple weeks ago (mid-April), The Wall Street Journal featured an article extolling the great benefits of medical hypnotherapy.

See! Told you so....   ; )

By Katherine Harmon | April 24, 2012  in Scientific American
Although cocaine makes people feel more alert and on top of things in the moment, it can leave users vulnerable to a much slower brain in the long run. A new study shows that chronic use ages key parts of the brain at an accelerated rate. The findings were published online April 24 in Molecular Psychiatry.

Regular cocaine users often experience early cognitive decline and brain atrophy, and the new findings show how these users are, indeed, actually losing gray matter in their brain much faster than people who don’t take the drug.

It's another FREE Online Event featuring 20 of the world's leading EFT and Tapping Experts in this year's Summit.

Monday, May 7, 2012 to Wednesday, May 16, 2012

 It just keeps getting better and better every year! So join Jessica Ortner for this stellar line-up of speakers and topics!

When you register you're also going to get immediate access to:

      * 3 Bonus Interviews on Tapping with Nick Ortner, Carol Look and David Feinstein that will explain this powerful technique (exactly how to do it), the science behind why it works and how you can quickly and easily implement this technique in to your life.

inhaled
honeysuckle fragrance
door creak
raindrops fell
wet road sound
dog bark
phone rang
clock tick
fan turn
heart beat
blinked
eye pain
cat purr
bird laugh
car horn
clouds pass
S.O. cough
emu drumbeat
random thought
in that moment...
exhaled

Scientific American (web exclusives, April 2012 issue) covers a 1983 study on perceived stress by including the study's self-assessment test,  a gauge of  perceived stress and physical signs of tension.

"A Periodic Stress Meter Ask yourself this set of simple questions every few weeks to help gauge how much damaging stress you are experiencing"

The Stress Meter section accompanies a new Scientific American article entitled: This is Your Brain in Meltdown. The portion of the article available to the general public can be found here: YOUR BRAIN ON STRESS: How We Lose It. This portion features graphics depicting a stressed and non-stressed brain and describes what occurs.

Here is the short story about stress:
Stress has been associated with causing sleep disorders,  obesity, heart disease, strokes, dementia/Alzheimer's disease, cancer, colds, autoimmune disorders (chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, IBS, etc.), skin diseases, premature aging, depression, general fatigue, anger issues, PTS/PTSD, stomach disorders, asthma, family problems, Crohn's disease, etc. The complete list is not even known at this point.

All of the above health issues can be helped, alleviated or prevented entirely  by daily practice of meditation and self-hypnosis as a program of stress management. I recommend both because hypnosis and meditation work on different parts of the brain. Covering more brain substrates will work to create a more healthy and balanced brain function in a shorter amount of time. 

With hypnosis, a trigger can be created for instant recall of your relaxed state in moments of need during extreme stress.
This alone can be the difference between life and death in some instances. The personal triggeris a big advantage over meditation, where people normally have to stop and prepare to meditate, except in the case of mindfulness meditation where the breath is the focus. Combining these two features the breath focus of mindfulness and the personal trigger of self-hypnosis can go a very long way in creating permanent wellness and ease in living!

All forgiveness must begin with the self first. Forgiving others is so very easy in comparison. Please find it within yourself, your heart, to pledge at least $1 or the price of one cup of coffee you'd buy today, to help fund this most important project. Thank you!

While mulling over possible (and quick) topics for this blog, I decided upon the topic of spontaneous remissions. I have been doing research for a good part of the day on different medical topics, yet nothing stood out for a topic here. Once I centered myself and said a quick prayer, I knew what to do. A neighbor and friend had surgery for cancer today. She first told me about her diagnosis a few weeks back. She was understandably very upset and worried. I offered to help in any way possible, including hypnosis, but she has not accepted to date. I did provide some cognitive tips and instructions on how to do a self healing visualization. 

When I saw her just a week ago, she told me she did not visualize at all, but worked at maintaining a positive attitude.  My friend believes in the medical system and that is good. We have to do what is right for our own self.

I also told her of two people I knew that healed their own cancers, one by prayer and the other by visualization and meditation. I do not know if she held much stock in my "stories", but they are true. I believe we can heal ourselves more often than not.

"Spontaneous Remission An Annotated Bibliography by Caryle Hirschberg and Brendan O'Regan
In 1993, the Institute of Noetic Sciences published Spontaneous Remission: An Annotated Bibliography. In this work, the authors, Caryle Hirshberg and the late Brendan O'Regan, defined spontaneous remission as "the disappearance, complete or incomplete, of a disease or cancer without medical treatment or treatment that is considered inadequate to produce the resulting disappearance of disease symptoms or tumor."

Because there was no standard reference for the field of spontaneous remission before that time, the first task of the Remission Project at IONS was to catalogue the world’s medical literature on the subject. As a result, it assembled the largest databse of medically reported cases of spontaneous remission in the world, with more than 3,500 references from more than 800 journals in 20 different languages.

While the authors believe that the phenomenon of remission is relatively rare, the data from their research suggest that it may not be as rare as previously believed. It appears that the impression of rarity is at least partly an artifact of underreporting, but research shows there has been an increase in the number of cases reported in the last few decades."