Sunday Family Humour 2nd January

Personal Advancement

Free Entertainment and Family Fun Every Sunday

Quickstep

Continued from last week

11 - Extra-sensitive

Once our awareness has blossomed, and we are receiving a variety of inputs, then we will find that some of these new inputs hit particularly tender areas, and result in our intense feelings of guilt or disappointment.

We must not allow ourselves to make mountains out of molehills. New sights of reality cause much of this guilt, and we are unable to understand why we had been unaware of them before.

This is in itself a mind-opening realisation - the realisation that we generate our own guilt out of nothing, as a result of new awareness. Whenever this guilt builds up to interfere with our normal meditations, then we take a few deep breaths, and blow them onto the "over-sensitive-due-to-rebirth" situation.

Can We Unlearn The Fear That Creates Our Reality?

December 15th, 2021

By Josh Richardson

Guest writer for Wake Up World

Imagination is a wonderful thing. Emotions are often a result of the mind telling us stories without our direction over the outcome. When we imagine any fear repeatedly in a safe environment, soon our phobia, and our brain’s response to it, begins to subside.

That’s the takeaway of a brain imaging study led by CU Boulder and Icahn School of Medicine researchers, suggesting that imagination can be a powerful tool in helping people with fear and anxiety-related disorders overcome them.

“This research confirms that imagination is a neurological reality that can impact our brains and bodies in ways that matter for our wellbeing,” said Tor Wager, director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at CU Boulder and co-senior author of the paper, published in the journal Neuron.

Being afraid of the unknown is not a new concept. From birth to death we’ve been trained to fear everything for a very long time. The dangers of modern life have a stranglehold on people’s imaginations. Sociologists call the phenomenon a risk society, describing cultures increasingly preoccupied with threats to safety, both real and perceived, but most definitely imagined.

Our ability to judge risk is sophisticated, and instinctual decisions often serve us well. But when something doesn’t quite seem to sync up, gut to head, then it’s time to pause and at least question what’s causing the discrepancy.

Neurolinguistic programming, emulating psychosis, television, advertising, the illusion of terrorism and several other remarkable concepts affect every facet of our lives and our world at the expense of our health, safety and security.

About one in three people in the United States have anxiety disorders, including phobias, and 8 percent have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Since the 1950s, clinicians have used “exposure therapy” as a first-line treatment, asking patients to face their fears–real or imagined–in a safe, controlled setting. Anecdotally, results have been positive.

But until now, very little has been known about how such methods impact the brain or how imagination neurologically compares to real-life exposure.

“These novel findings bridge a long-standing gap between clinical practice and cognitive neuroscience,” said lead author Marianne Cumella Reddan, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU Boulder. “This is the first neuroscience study to show that imagining a threat can actually alter the way it is represented in the brain.”

Measuring The Minds-Eye

For the study, 68 healthy participants were trained to associate a sound with an uncomfortable, but not painful, electric shock. Then, they were divided into three groups and either exposed to the same threatening sound, asked to “play the sound in their head,” or asked to imagine pleasant bird and rain sounds–all without experiencing further shocks.

The researchers measured brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Sensors on the skin measured how the body responded.

In the groups that imagined and heard the threatening sounds, brain activity was remarkably similar, with the auditory cortex (which processes sound), the nucleus accumbens (which is associated with reward learning) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (associated with risk and aversion) all lighting up.

After repeated exposure without the accompanying shock, the subjects in both the real and imagined threat groups experienced what is known as “extinction,” where the formerly fear-inducing stimulus no longer ignited a fear response.

Essentially, the brain had unlearned to be afraid.

“Statistically, real and imagined exposure to the threat were not different at the whole brain level, and imagination worked just as well,” said Reddan.

Notably, the group that imagined birds and rain sounds showed different brain reactions, and their fear response to the sound persisted.

“I think a lot of people assume that the way to reduce fear or negative emotion is to imagine something good. In fact, what might be more effective is exactly the opposite: imagining the threat, but without the negative consequences,” said Wager.

Unlearning Fear

Previous research has shown that imagining an act can activate and strengthen regions of the brain involved in its real-life execution, improving performance. For instance, imagining playing piano can boost neuronal connections in regions related to the fingers. Research also shows it’s possible to update our memories, inserting new details.

The new study suggests that imagination may be a more powerful tool than previously believed for updating those memories.

“If you have a memory that is no longer useful for you or is crippling you, you can use imagination to tap into it, change it and re-consolidate it, updating the way you think about and experience something,” said Reddan, stressing that something as simple as imagining a single tone tapped into a complex network of brain circuits.

She notes that there was much more variance in brain activity in the group that imagined the tone versus the ones who really heard it, suggesting that those with a more vivid imagination may experience greater brain changes when simulating something in their mind’s eye.

As imagination becomes a more common tool among clinicians, more research is necessary, they write.

For now, Wager advises, pay attention to what you imagine.

“Manage your imagination and what you permit yourself to imagine. You can use imagination constructively to shape what your brain learns from experience.”

Or, as writer and philosopher Mary Baker Eddy put it, “Stand porter at the door of thought.”

Rights of Passage on the Spiritual Path

Encountering Spiritual “Initiations”

December 15th, 2021

By Open

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

There will be times on the path where you’re presented with vital opportunities for accelerated evolutionary growth. They are windows of possibility where your soul is wanting to expand into a new conscious existence. The Universe presents a cauldron of alchemical change, where you’re tested emotionally, physically and mentally to your threshold and beyond.

It’s like a new flower, breaking through tough surface layers. By pathfinders who’ve endured them, they’ve become known as ‘initiations’. They are the most earth-shattering, bone-shaking you will encounter. It pays to know something about them, to make sense of what’s going on…

Surrendering to the Soul

Your inner configuration of consciousness creates the exact outer circumstances of your life. Based on the degree of soul infusion, determines how aligned that reality will be. If there’s still a lot of identity, ego or karmic filters, then you’ll create varying degrees of disharmony, frustration and lack of fulfillment. And so as a result of these feelings, there’s then encouragement and motivation to reconfigure your existence by going within and unfolding new aspects of being – it’s the only way to truly change the outer.

There’s still a huge amount of talk in the spiritual mainstream and motivational circles about ‘manifesting the reality you want’. The approach is to envision, then intentionally bring into being, that which you desire. It is an approach that is fatally flawed. The soul will ultimately find a way through with an entirely different agenda: that of evolutionary growth and self-actualisation through unbounded self expression. Here is the real secret, the profound joy.

Intentional manifestation may work for a while, but ultimately, as the bubble bursts, there’s a surrendering once more to the soul’s rightful journey. And initially, as you work to infuse soul, making that your aim, it’s going feel pretty expansive and at times blissful – because of the letting go, the surrender. But that’s far from the end of the story, because the inner reality needs to then infuse into the outer, so as to create a congruent reflection. And this is where initiations take place.

In the Corridor of Change

There comes the point of Realignment on the path. I’ve spoken of it in the 5GATEWAYS Documentary. It is where there’s realisation that only surrendering to the soul’s calling can lead to fulfillment in life. It’s not an intellectual shift; rather a kind of ‘breaking down sobbing of surrender’ –

“I will not do another thing until I can feel it coming from my soul!”

It’s at this point that you open the doorway to the superhighway of spiritual growth, and with that, accelerating initiations. The soul will work to merge your consciousness through your being and into the outer reality. But in so doing, it’s going to hit not only your blockages and distortions of the old bodymind consciousness, but then also the imbalances and disharmony in the outer world you’ve created. Thus begins a near constant confrontation with the old reality. This is the point where many seekers on the path turn back. I’ve witnessed it countless times: it becomes too intense to persist. There’s a loss of trust, and as the inner density gets churned up, it becomes exceptionally hard to hear your divine guidance mechanism. It becomes all too easy to slip into denial and accept a lesser existence.

But this is not the time to stop! It’s the perfect time to remember exactly why you’re doing it. If you don’t persist, that window of opportunity will close, and it can take time to reconfigure and re-open. One fundamental truth can help you to persist:

There is absolutely nothing going on but self-realisation. And so if you hit inner density and it wants to break you down internally, let it happen. You’re breaking the inner ties into the old consciousness. It’s not going to be easy: it may mean the ending of a relationship where you’ve spent many years together, where ties have to be unbound; it may mean leaving a career or general living situation with no certainty of what is to come next. The path is definitely not all love and light!

Abandoned and Cast Adrift in Confusion: Key Signs of an Initiation

An initiation often feels like you’ve been abandoned, cast adrift in confusion as if the Universe is having some great cosmic joke at your expense. It will make it easier to know the key signs you’re actually undertaking one… Key signs of an Initiation:

You’re beset with near constant patterns of outer confrontation in your life

Things don’t want to work in the ways they used to – everything seems to be breaking down
Where previously your internal guidance mechanism worked well for you, now it’s hard to figure out even the simplest of choices
Emotionally you’re pushed to the limit; physically your body aches; intellectually the mind struggles to make sense
It becomes exceptionally hard to trust what you know in the heart to be true – the outer world keeps reflecting the old consciousness

Relationships, careers and general living circumstances are all challenged.

When I’ve encountered these myself on the path, it kind of feels like the metamorphosis of a butterfly: you enter into a ‘chrysalis phase’, where everything internal feels like it’s turning to mush – prior to the resplendent new form coming through. (Here’s a video on what it feels like to Unleash Your Cosmic Self)

Facilitating the Process

So crucially, if you find yourself encountering a phase in your life like something I’ve described, you could well be engaged in an initiation. It is not about making it easier! It is not about immediately dropping the pain like proverbial hot coals and turning away! It’s about walking courageously right into the jaws of it. But you can make the process more manageable. Here’s how… Making Initiations Manageable:

Turn completely into it. Don’t reject or push the hardship away.

Don’t try to fix the outer world with some quick or expediently comfortable solution.
Don’t back away. Instead, go right into the very heart of it. Let it churn you up and break you down.
Keep looking for the internal tightness, whether it be physical, emotional, mental or karmic – express into it, let the pain and anguish come through you.
Then, when you’ve normalised in this internal tsunami of uncertainty – when the ‘boat’ has righted itself – look for a new aspect of beingness that wants to come through and light the path forwards.
Commit wholeheartedly to the new pathway.

Watch and celebrate as the new reality takes shape.

(Here’s a video on how to Breakthrough Subconscious Tightness)

In this Fierce Embrace, even the Gods speak of God

So, there will come times on the path where you enter such a cauldron of profound alchemical change. If my sharing has helped you recognise that happening, then I encourage you to persist, to head right into the jaws of uncertainty. Because in so doing, you’ll experience the most extraordinary expansion possible and your new life will literally take off! It’s certainly not for everyone, but if you’re drawn to this text, and got this far, I’m certain you have what it takes to breakthrough. So go for it!…

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God or many gods. I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned. If you know despair or can see it in others. I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand. I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living falling toward the center of your longing. I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat. I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God. — David Whyte

Not Alone

Above all, remember, that even if you feel alone, you are not. There is constant support from higher evolved consciousness in the ether all around you, those who will know exactly what you’re going through. But they’re not here to take the pain away, they’re not here to find the solution for you. They’re here to hold the space and help you grow through it, by illuminating that which you now need to work with in yourself. Everybody hurts sometimes. And you are not alone. (Join the Openhand Community…Engage with Starsouls just like you)

If you think you might be encountering an initiation of intense transformation on the path, the work in our Ascension Academy can help you…

Openhand Ascension Academy

In loving support

Open

This plandemic provides time to upgrade your way of thinking, and this book is perfect to get you started on a new path and a new way of looking at life.

A gentle suck on the red pill.

"I read it in one sitting. Great concepts. It’s a high level overview of enlightenment, hence “quickstep”. Definitely left me wanting more... I will continue on my journey to enlighten myself. "

Click to see Amazon deals of the day

To receive the weekly link to the latest Sunday Family Humour

please send an email to dgwest7@gmail.com saying

Subscribe Sunday Family Humour.

No costs, nothing else needed. Welcome and thank you

How Fear Makes You Sick

By Lissa Rankin MD

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

You’re afraid to start your own business because you might fail.

You’re afraid to go to the doctor because she might find something wrong.

You’re afraid to get married because you might wind up divorced.

You’re afraid to travel to Africa because Africa can be so dangerous.

You’re afraid to do what you love because it might not pay the bills.

You’re afraid to ask out the object of your affection because you might get rejected.

You’re afraid to go for that first kiss.

You’re afraid to take guitar lessons because you might suck.

You’re afraid to quit your soul-sucking job because you might never find another one.

You’re afraid to retire because you might not have enough money.

You’re afraid to buy your dream home because you might not be able to make the mortgage.

You’re afraid to take French lessons because it might mean you’ll actually have to go to France.

You’re afraid to let them see you cry because they might think you’re unprofessional.

You’re afraid to let them see the real you because they might not like you.

Fear Is Everywhere

It surrounds us. Many of us are completely ruled by it, moment by moment, day after day. We’re panicked rats, racing around in a maze while being chased by dragons. Life is scary.

But did you know that, even more so than smoking or boozing it up or eating fried food or being a couch potato, fear is bad for your health?

There. Now you have something else to be afraid of. (Just kidding.)

Seriously, though, we experience fear for a reason. It’s meant to protect us, so that when we’re being chased by a cave bear, our fear response triggers the body’s “fight or flight” mode and we’re better able to outrun the bear.

But I have news for you, darling. There is no cave bear. It’s all in your mind. Well… really, it’s all in your body. Here’s how.

The Body’s Stress Response

Your lizard brain is a computer that can’t tell the difference between a cave bear chasing you and less life-threatening fears. When your brain registers the emotion of fear – whether it’s fear of being rejected by the one you love, fear of quitting your job, or fear of losing money – it trips a switch that triggers the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, activating the hypothalamus and releasing corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) into the nervous system. CRF stimulates the pituitary gland, causing it to secrete prolactin, growth hormone, and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which stimulate the adrenal gland and cause it to release cortisol, which is responsible for helping the body maintain homeostasis when the brain experiences fear and assumes that a threat – like the cave bear – is a clear and present danger.

When you’re scared, your lizard brain also turns on the sympathetic nervous system (the “fight-or-flight” response), causing the adrenal glands to release epinephrine and norepinephrine, which increase pulse, blood pressure, and affect other physiological responses. The secretion of these hormones leads to a variety of metabolic changes all over the body.

Blood vessels traveling to the gastrointestinal tract, hands, and feet constrict, while vessels traveling to the heart, large muscle groups, and brain dilate, preferentially shunting blood to the organs that will help you get out of dodge in an emergency. Your pupils dilate so more light can get in. Metabolism speeds up in order to jolt you with a boost of energy by breaking down fat stores and liberating glucose into the blood stream. Your respiratory rate increases and your bronchi dilate, allowing more oxygen in, and your muscles become tense and ready to sprint away from the cave bear.

Stomach acid increases and digestive enzymes decrease, often leading to esophageal contractions, diarrhea, or constipation. Cortisol suppresses your immune system to reduce the inflammation that would accompany any wounds the attacking cave bear might inflict. Reproduction gets shut off (sex is a luxury when there’s a cave bear around!)

There Is No Cave Bear

Basically, if you’re getting attacked by a cave bear, your body ignores sleeping, digesting, and reproducing, while it focuses on running, breathing, thinking, and delivering oxygen and energy wherever it deems it necessary in order to keep you safe. When you’re scared about losing money, getting rejected, or failing at a professional venture, the body doesn’t realize that there is no cave bear. It just flips on the physiological stress response, and over time, when this stress response is repetitively triggered, nature’s biological response winds up actually doing more harm than good.

Here’s The Kicker

When your body is in the stress response, it can’t repair itself. Bodily functions break down every day, but they can only repair themselves when the body is in a state of physiological relaxation. When the stress response is repetitively triggered, organs get damaged and the body can’t fix them. The cancer cells we naturally make, which usually get blasted away by the immune system, are allowed to proliferate. The effects of chronic wear-and-tear on the human body take their toll, and we wind up sick.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The body knows how to relax with a scientifically proven counterbalancing relaxation response. (For more details, read Dr. Herbert Bensen’s bestselling book The Relaxation Response). When the conscious forebrain thinks and feels positive thoughts, things like love, connection, intimacy, pleasure, and hope, the fearful emotions dissipate, and the hypothalamus stops triggering the stress responses. When you feel optimistic and hopeful, loved and supported, in the flow in your professional or creative life, spiritually tapped in, or sexually connected to another person, the relaxation response takes the place of the stress response.

Fear predisposes you to illness and makes recovery difficult.

Love, faith, and pleasure are preventative medicine and highly effective treatment.

When the body relaxes, the sympathetic nervous system shuts off. Cortisol and adrenaline, which damage the body over time, drop. The parasympathetic nervous system takes over. The immune system flips back on. And the body can go about its natural self-repair process.

Voila! Your mind can heal your body, and it’s not some New Age metaphysical thing. It’s simple physiology.

The Fear Cure

This is what my next book (the one after Mind Over Medicine which came out out May 2013) is all about. Hay House just offered me a book deal for my next book, The Fear Cure: Cultivating Courage As Medicine For The Body, Mind & Soul. So stay tuned for more about this topic! I’m heading to Lake Tahoe this weekend to research and write this next book, so you can be sure there will be many future blog posts about how we can live more fearlessly and love more fully.

Are You Afraid?

Do you live in a state of fear? If so, I feel you. I was once like that, until I learned how to transform my fear into faith. (You can read more about how I did that here.)

How do you handle your fear? Has fear resulted in illness in your body? Tell us your story.

Trying to live fearlessly,

Lissa

Amazon Pet Supplies

For more donation options, see here

https://sites.google.com/site/sundayfamilyhumour8/donation-options

Did you enjoy this week's issue?

Please donate if you can

Donate to Sunday Family Humour

- thank you

(if you have any difficulty, such as can't find your US State,

click here for detailed screen-shots)