How to Tame Our Worry Mind and Shift From Hypervigilance to Higher Vigilance

I sometimes call my new kitten Buddha-Pest because at times he has the serenity of a Buddha, but at other times he is a pest -- nipping, biting, and digging his claws into anything that moves! This is much like my mind, which at times rests in a sublime state of peace and acceptance, and at other times pesters me with gnawing, clawing worry thoughts, like, "What's that ache? What's that twinge? Why am I so tired? Could it be the cancer is back!?"

I wish I could rest in a Buddha-full state of serenity all the time, but ever since I was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, my mind is ever alert for danger. That's what the lower reptilian brain does -- its prime directive is survival and avoiding harm. For that reason, according to Rick Hanson, author of the book Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, painful experiences are more easily and deeply imprinted in our brains than pleasurable ones. He explains: "There is an innate negativity bias of the brain, whose unfortunate default setting is to be Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones."

Here's an example: A few weeks ago I saw a three-foot snake on the nature path behind my house. It was patiently poised beside a gopher hole, so I'm assuming it was a gopher snake; nevertheless, it was a SNAKE! And it was BIG! I haven't been back there since...until today. I walked along the path, vigilantly scanning for snakes, seeing twigs, and even shadows of branches, as snakes. Even though I was surrounded by beautiful nature, all I could envision was snakes! I sadly realized, "Every time I walk here now I will be looking for snakes." The same is true with cancer -- with each minor ache and pain and fatigue...my mind leaps to cancer.

Buddhists call this "the pain of pain" -- the initial pain is unavoidable, but the reaction to that pain, the fear and resistance to it, is self-inflicted. The challenge is to get free of the pain of pain, to let go of negative reactions, because those reactions and perceptions are what cause the greatest suffering.

My goal is to walk along life's path and see the beautiful flowers, the blue sky, the mountains, instead of imagining twigs as snakes and twinges as cancer. I want to be higher-vigilant instead of hyper-vigilant -- to see life from the higher perspective of my soul, where I remember that I am an eternal being, where I know that cancer is my great teacher, life enhancer, and burr under my saddle that woke me up and keeps me awake!

Fortunately, the higher brain has neuroplasticity, which is the ability to learn from experience and imprint the positive new learning. But in order for this to happen, research shows that the new belief and feeling needs to be repeated many, many times. Fear is an easy neural pathway to go down. Faith needs to be repeated over and over again. Therefore, whenever fear appears, I remind myself, "What's the truth? The truth is that right now I am safe. Right now all is well. Right now is all there is." I breathe a big, deep breath, really feeling and letting in this belief.

Rick Hansen says we need to hold the desired thought and feeling for about 30 seconds so that it can imprint in our memory. We need to bathe in it for a bit, feel it fully, and generate excitement about it, because the longer it's held in awareness, and the more stimulating it is, the more it will increase neurons firing and wiring together into new neural structures.

I am passionately intent on firing and wiring beautiful, Buddha-full neural pathways in my brain -- pathways where a snake is just a snake, simply another of God's creatures, and a twinge is just twinge, reminding me to breathe and shift from hyper-vigilance to higher-vigilance, and cancer is just a kick in the can, waking me up to my true self.

Is your mind a Buddha-pest, serene at times but pestering you with habitual, hyper-vigilant worry thoughts? I invite you to shift into higher vigilance and fire and wire up some new, positive, life-enhancing neural pathways!

Janet Jacobsen, author of the book, Oh No, Not Another 'Growth' Opportunity! An Inspirational Cancer Journey With Humor, Heart, and Healing

If you or someone you know is coping with cancer or other life challenges, you can read more of Janet Jacobsen's FREE, inspirational, entertaining, and informative essays, as well as the first 4 chapters of her book, at to http://enlightenink.com/

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Transforming Anxiety Using Heartmath

I'm on a Heartmath theme at the moment; dropping down into your heart really is hugely healing. It's changing the way I feel and the way I approach life as well. Clearing my heartwall was step one, these exercises are solidifying the changes.

Anxiety is rampant today; persistent anxiety can quickly change into an anxiety disorder. Heartmath's solution is about harnessing the way the brain and the heart communicate, and being able to release the patterns that the brain automatically defaults to as a way of coping, even if it's dysfunctional.

A maladaptive pattern can form in the brain, causing you to feel familiar with things like worry and anxiety, and when you're not anxious you feel there's something wrong, you're uncomfortable. This is how habits are formed.

Heartmath helps to recorrect by intervening and recalibrating the brain through easy heart-focused techniques, so a new reference pattern is formed, one the brain tries to match with outside references. This becomes the new baseline on how to be.

Overidentifying and overcaring is the most common cause of anxiety. We all know what not caring about something feels like, but overcaring saps your energy to the point that you are out of balance. Passion for something is not the same as overcaring. Overcaring is anxiousness and the situation loses its real meaning.

Caring is programmed into our DNA, but when it's not managed properly and we overidentify, then overcaring turns into anxiety.

Close on the heels of overcaring is overattachment. You care so much that you are overly attached to the outcome, to a person, to a situation. You become obsessive.

Heartmath exercises will work on changing the default pattern of your brain from anxiousness to being calm and serene. You will feel resistance doing these exercises because it feels normal to go to that place of worry and overcare.

Remember it's not the problem that drains you, it's the significance you have attracted to it. So the idea is to start to siphon off some of that accumulated energy that has been stored.

One way to do that is to breathe love in through your heart and out through your solar plexus for about 30 seconds. Your brain may want to pull you back into worrying as it feels natural. Just keep going.

Something I found really helpful is an exercise called heart soaking. I place the issue that's bothering me in front of my heart and soak it with love.

Once you've tried a few of these techniques, go back to the situation and see if it looks different. Have you been able to bring yourself back to a normal level of caring?

Kate Strong is a psychic/healer and specialises in Soul Healing and Relationship Readings. Please contact her at http://www.katestrong.com/

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Is Work-Life Balance a Pipe Dream for Women in Business?

If you looked up to working mom Kate Redding as a role model, (Kate is played by Sarah Jessica Parker in the film I don't know how she does it), I suspect you'd come to the conclusion that work-life balance is a pipe dream. Kate does a fantastic job taking on responsibility for everything and everyone, leaving little time to do anything for herself. Just watching the film tired me out! But does it have to be that way? Are there no alternatives if you decide on a career AND a family?

At a recent women's networking event I was horrified when I heard that one of top tips for getting ahead was to "work harder than your male colleagues, partner, husband, or brother." Really? Is this what we are teaching the up and coming women in business today? Aren't we creating this burden for ourselves by promulgating such superwoman behavior? It's not about working harder. It's about working smarter and focusing on a few critical things that matter in building a career. Since we're not superwomen, we're only humans, promoting such behavior as goal surely results in a lack of work-life balance.

Work-life balance is NOT a pipe dream, but there are 3 key ingredients which are often overlooked in making this aspiration a reality:

1. Keep yourself motivated and challenged

WorkingMothers.com 2010 survey Career vs Paycheck revealed that a working mother was happy in all aspects of her life when she had a high level of job satisfaction. It's worth noting that job satisfaction was highly correlated to a meaningful career or job - it wasn't just about the money. Once we lose the buzz we get from our careers, the whole work-life dynamic falls apart.

How many women do you know who come back from maternity leave, feel side-lined, and subsequently give up. "What's the point?" they begin to wonder. If they're going to leave precious little ones in someone else's care, the job has got to turn them on. I remember one day when my elderly neighbor saw me coming home from work and how amazed she seemed that I was chirpy and energetic after such a long day in the city. The secret? I felt challenged in my corporate career - the things I was learning made life very interesting.

2. Map out a routine for maximizing your individual level of performance

Organize your easy and tough tasks and challenges around those peak performance times. Tackle the tough challenges when you feel at your best. For me it's the first thing in the morning. My confidence and patience levels are up and my head is clear.

I learned this by trial and error and being aware of how productive I was (or not as the case may be) at which times. There's a key piece missing here. In order to be at your peak at work, you also need to figure out how much exercise and other activity you need to do (and how to make it happen) to keep your enthusiasm up at work. What do you really like to do in your personal time that re-energises you. There's so much focus on time management. It's misplaced. We need to be focusing on managing our energy rather than our time.

3. Think Like a Business Owner

Point 2 leads really nicely into this point. At the end of the day, what does a good manager really care about? That's right, performance. I recently gave a talk about how important it is to invest and enrich in both the personal and professional dimensions of our lives, highlighting that it's having both parts that can help you achieve optimal performance in each. Huh? Simply put, by having a varied life you avoid getting burned out, whether it's caring for an elderly parent, hyper kids or a demanding career.

Dipping in out of both lives makes you appreciate each life and the benefits it brings. At the end of my talk an eager member of the audience asked, "But Christine, if I tell my boss how important my personal life is, he or she won't get it, they won't care." I replied, "Well your boss may or may not care, but that's not the point. As your manager, your boss expects you to organize your life so you can be at your best. That's YOUR responsibility. Your boss wants to know where you are on your projects."

The best rule of thumb to use when thinking about how to blend our increasingly complex professional and personal lives is to think like a business owner. A business owner wants you to be as productive as you can and to manage your life to achieve this. Working 24 x 7, losing your enthusiasm, creativity and motivation isn't good for you and it's not good for the business.

Work-life balance is not a pipe dream. Like anything though, you've got to be strategic and focus on the most important parts or you'll get lost in the detail.

As a former MD in Fixed Income, wife and mother of three Christine offers practical strategies on how to get the most out of your work and life. Her recently published book 'Step Aside Super Woman: Career & Family is for Any Woman' offers time-tested advice on how to create work-life balance. She is an accomplished international speaker and has been featured by the London Evening Standard, Women in Banking & Finance Magazine, Computer Weekly, WDRC 1360 AM, and many others.

Christine Brown-Quinn together with her business partner Jacqueline Frost are firm believers in sharing their hard-earned success strategies with professional business women. With over 40 years' combined business experience in the financial services industry, they established Women in Business Superseries to response to the challenges that many women still face in the current business environment. To join as a guest on the next Women in Business webinar, email christine@wibconsulting.com

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Stop Worrying So Much By Using Brainwave Entrainment

Why do you worry so much?

Worry is a nag. It works hard to make you feel uneasy and troubled. It harasses you until you are weighted down with distress.

And most of the time, it's totally useless.

It only hurts you.

Unrelenting fears and doubts paralyze you, suck the very life out of you, all of which have no redeeming value in your life.

Signs Worrying Is Getting The Best Of You

You can't stop thinking about what appears to be a problem, causing you great anxiety.Your mind goes over and over every detail, trying to find a solution.You worry on top of worry, that you'll overlook an answer.You think if you keep going over it, whatever it is you are worried about, won't be so frightening.Your mind plays a game of what if? with you...changing the facts and the scenario.Worrying releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline in excess.Stress hormones flood the body and start changing your well-being.You start eating for comfort to take away some of the worry. Unfortunately, you will be eating foods high in carbohydrates and will throw your blood sugars off. You'll be hungry no matter how much you eat. The more worried you are, the more you may eat.Anxious thoughts are fueled by what you believe to be true, not necessarily by what is true.You see no solution to the trigger of your worry.You feel that worrying protects you, so it perpetuates itself, over and over again.You may get irritable with others because they can't see why it's important for you to keep thinking things out.You may become impatient for the outcome.Worrying affects your sleep. You'll either be sleeping too much or not at all.You may use worry as a reason to be irresponsible with other areas of your life. You're just too busy worrying to do what you need to do like be in a relationship or take care of your bills.Your stomach acts up and if you already have something like irritable bowel syndrome, it will feel worse when you are in a state of worry.You'll feel out of control, unless you are worrying. You may feel that if you don't worry, something even worse than the problem, will happen.You may experience depression because you can't see your way through the problem.You spend too much time in your head.

You've got to stop worrying, you know that, but focusing on the fact that you need to stop worrying, only reinforces your anxious thoughts.

Brainwave entrainment can release you from your stuck thought patterns, by changing your brainwave frequency. Once out of that frequency, your mind will be better able to process your worry, from a different perspective, and the anxiety about it will diminish. From this new place, you will be better able to come up with solutions. You will be able to ask yourself if there is anything you can do to solve your problem, and if there isn't, come to accept it and detach.

If there is a solution, you'll come up with one.

If the problem is bogus, you'll see that too.

You don't have to worry so much about things. Most of what you worry about isn't even real.

Worrying makes you old.

Stop worrying so much.

Do you want to strengthen your brain and experience peak performance in all areas of your life?

Take advantage of the technology used by leading minds in the medical, scientific, business, and space field on a daily basis.

Download your FREE eBook "Brainwave Entrainment: Easy Even For The Lazy Dog" available now at the Waverider Emporium website.

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Steps To Reduce Your Stress Levels - Be Responsible

The majority of us are aware of the fact that being under stress over prolonged periods can be quite detrimental to our health. Many of us will know of someone who has suffered a heart attack or suffers with panic bought about by anxiety which are all symptoms of stress, as well as a multitude of other health issues. However, even though we're aware of how dangerous to our health stress can actually be, we still appear to embrace it as though we can't live without huge amounts of it in our lives. To 'Be Responsible' is what I consider to be the first step in reducing our stress levels. Not only that but I believe that being responsible is also the first step to overcoming all past issues.

Writing this in words gives the appearance that I make it sound so easy, however my belief is quite the opposite. What we are responsible for is how we felt at that time and how we chose to deal with the situation. To suddenly accept that you are responsible for how you dealt with all of the misfortunate events from your past and upto your present is an extremely bitter pill to swallow, and the reason why is because of the amount of emphasis that we give to the problem being down to someone or something else. I must clarify at this point that most unfortunate events could not happen in our lives had we not made the decision to be in the situation in the first place, regardless of what it is we're confronted with. However some unfortunate events like loss of a relative or loved one through death, though we have no control over the event we do have control over how we feel about it. The act of giving responsibility itself is like a form of self-hypnosis and I'll use relationships as an example: more often than not many of us enter a relationship because we need someone to make us feel better about ourselves, so we submit the responsibility to the next good thing to come along. Whether it's just someone to have around, a compliment for the way we dress or the things we do, a cuddle when we feel down or if it's someone to listen to the misfortunes we've experienced in our day, we build our relationships based on what we can get from them as opposed to what we can give.

The problem arises when we feel we are no longer getting what we want from our relationships and this is the point at which being responsible is clearly on the back seat. It's highly unlikely that when we feel let down by our relationships, we are looking at our own actions, more likely looking at our partners. Because we place so much emphasis on what we're getting, the moment we believe we're not getting, which more often than not is not getting enough rather than not getting at all, we begin to look for reasons to support our belief of not getting which often materialises as fault finding and nit-picking. Before we know it we're engaging in full blown rows with our partners or not speaking at all which can last for hours, even days, without even considering the amount of stress we're surrounding ourselves with and the fact that it could all be over in a flash had we been able to take responsibility for ourselves and the situation.

I refer to self-hypnosis because we kind of hypnotise ourselves to only see them as the problem and ultimately them as the solution. With this self-hypnosis comes the inability to see ourselves as the problem. The bottom line is if someone does something that we don't like then it's not a matter of them doing it wrong, more a matter of it not being to our liking. At this point we should think about our own actions with regard to what we must do to re-dress the balance and make ourselves feel better in that moment. What we often tend to do is attempt to make our partners recognise the fact that we're not happy and it's them that must do something to change that. In reality I don't think that many of us deep down want to believe that we are doing anything wrong and the act of self-hypnosis leads us to believe that everything we do is right, therefore there is no need to look at our own actions.

Many of us will have seen people getting hypnotised at functions or shows and the effects of the hypnosis is the subject being unable to carry out certain obvious tasks or they do things they believe to be normal, when the rest of us can clearly see that they are not. In reality the hypnotist is just a guide and the subjects actually hypnotise themselves. Taking this into account, the idea of hypnotising ourselves to not see our own actions seems more than just a possibility, and to suddenly have the ability to look at our own actions with a view of taking responsibility requires a lot of will power.

To take responsibility is not to take the blame for the failing relationship but to take responsibility for how we feel about it. If we take this on board then we realise the last thing we want to do is assist in creating an environment that increases stress levels and instead try to reduce them. This is something we have complete control over if we choose it, whereas giving someone else the responsibility means we have no control and if we have no control then we are at their mercy. Now we begin to see how unresolved issues of the past become a burden on our minds. We carry the burden in the hope that who or whatever we hold responsible will eventually free us from our load and make us feel better. To decide to take responsibility is the first step and taking responsibility gives our lives a whole new perspective. Since we've hypnotised ourselves to not take responsibility, then we must de-hypnotise ourselves by restoring the belief that we are responsible. When we begin to believe and see that we are responsible we naturally begin to put steps into place to ensure that we only get the best for ourselves secondly, though firstly we must try to give the best of ourselves because in truth, how many of us believe we should be getting the best if we're incapable of giving it?

On the other hand, if we find ourselves on the receiving end and are being blamed for problems arising, knowing that we are responsible is to know that we have a choice whether to feel angry or not. Getting angry is another way of saying "It's not my fault. I don't have to stand for this!", which is the beginning of the fall-out and the point that both people in the relationship begin airing their stresses, each expecting the other to relieve them from their stress. When the arguments begin, each person in the relationship has made the decision to be stressed rather than to relieve it.

When we take responsibility as being the first major step towards reducing stress levels, each time we have a thought of past events that we'd previously relinquished responsibility of, we begin attaching the thought that we are responsible for how we felt and in knowing this, the burden begins to get lighter and we begin to think of the past as less of an issue. I believe the most important thing we must learn from our past is how we felt emotionally about events followed by how we chose to deal with them. In remembering how we felt, we then recognise the situations that surround our present and set about trying to resolve issues that increase stress levels as quickly as possible, simply by being aware of how we felt about them in the past.

If you would like to read more on my steps to reduce your stress levels then please follow this link http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=I_Reid or subscribe to receive a notification by email whenever a new article has been added. If you are experiencing heightened stress levels and would like more help, advice, information and free giveaways then please follow this link: http://www.stress-gone.info/

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Shape Your Life Up: Tell Yourself the (Desired) Truth!

Ack!! Your computer is acting up-again-and despite hitting "escape" and every other "get-me-outta-here" key you can think of, you're in frozen hell. "I hate this computer!" you mutter. Your co-worker glances over at you, "That's what you always say. Maybe you should try talking pretty to it." You snort, "Right! And the computer can hear me and will suddenly unlock itself. I'll bet you still believe in Santa Claus." Your co-worker shrugs: "Works for me."

You grumble and groan, finally give up and shut your computer off, knowing you'll lose the last three pages you so meticulously labored over. Later, on your way home, you decide to stop off at the market. "Not that I'll be able to find a good parking spot" you mumble, "Not in this rain." Five complete rounds of the parking lot later, you jam your car into a too-small space all the way at the far end, under a tree you're certain will drop sticky goo all over the car, and trudge into the market. Wet. You left your umbrella at home. "Figures," you snarl.

Sure enough, there are a couple of sticky goo blobs on the windshield, you wrestle your dripping bags into the car and bang your knee as you sidle into your seat. By the time you get home, you're not fit company for anyone. Not even your cat, much less your spouse and kids.

What happened here? Is your life destined to be no more than a series of irritating events? Well, maybe yes and maybe no. It all depends on what you're willing to tell yourself about whatever is going on. Because whatever you tell yourself is what will shape your perception, and perception is what determines action.

Before you say "I have no idea what you're talking about" and hit delete, read on just a little further. It will all become clear.

Minds are funny things. They respond to suggestion, which is actually direction. When you say "I hate my computer!" your mind looks for things to hate about your computer. When you say "I won't be able to find a good parking spot," your mind rushes to obey. It does that by focusing your attention on those things that will fulfill your own prophecy.

With your computer, it doesn't occur to you to ask Mike down the hall, generally thought of as pretty computer-savvy, for his help because your attention is locked (just like your computer) on "hit a key and get out of this." At the parking lot, your attention is fixated on "won't find a parking place" so you don't see the customer slip into her car, ready to exit. You forgot your umbrella because you repeatedly say to yourself "I always forget my umbrella," which your mind promptly acknowledged by focusing your attention on locating your keys and away from the umbrella stand as you headed out the door.

Your mind is, at all times, a willing servant. All you need to do is give it different direction.

Say to yourself, "Things always work out well for me" and deliberately focus your attention on what is working out well for you. Your mind will get the hint after a while, and start looking for how things are working out well for you. Over time, you will see more and more ways in which things are working out well for you, and they will work out well for you much more of the time. You've changed what you are able to perceive in what's around you.

Say to yourself, "My computer is great" and make the effort to think of the many ways in which you enjoy your computer. Sure enough, your mind will catch the drift and you'll soon find you have thoughts that support your enjoyment of your computer: like thinking of Mike next time your computer crashes. "I always find the perfect parking spot for me," repeated with genuine enthusiasm will orient your mind to perceiving opportunities for good parking spots.

The key to working with your mind is to talk to yourself genuinely, believing that what you are telling yourself will soon be true, just like when you said "I hate my computer" you said it with gusto, totally believing you did hate your computer.

Train yourself to talk differently, positively, to yourself, and you'll be amazed at just how quickly your mind responds, and how your experience of your life shifts into a much happier, more successful place.

Noelle C. Nelson, Ph.D. is a nationally respected psychologist, author, seminar leader and legal consultant. A business trial consultant for nearly 20 years, Dr. Nelson works closely with attorneys, management and corporate executives so they present a persuasive and credible case before a judge and jury. Dr. Nelson's books include The Power of Appreciation in Business (MindLab Publishing) and The Power of Appreciation in Everyday Life (Insomniac Press). http://www.noellenelson.com/.

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