Balancing the Mind

Hi and welcome,

It was great to see the response to my initial email. There obviously is a desire to change and to influence the world around us in a positive way. You must also, at some level realize how powerful you are in all of this and that – just like our brains – we are only using a small percentage of this power. We will be finding out more about this in the coming weeks. Welcome aboard.

I ask, in the beginning that you bear with me for the first number of sessions if they seem a little vague in their purpose or maybe covering ground you already know. When I look at the list of people here, we are all at a different place and we need to get on the same page.

I will try to keep each session as brief as possible. Our worlds have become so busy with things to do, that I understand and respect your time commitments.

My goal is to show you that fundamental change is not about changing the world around you. The core of change comes from within. When you change yourself from the inside, you will see a dramatic shift in the outside. And as I said in my initial email, I will use science, philosophy, logic and proven principles that are embraced by many in our fields of higher education to help you see the truth.

First, I would like to briefly revisit the two videos you watched last week. The first with Dr. Bruce Lipton talked about how a “change in mind” will bring back the “garden” that is the natural healthy state of our world. Dr. Jill Bolte Tailor – a video that many of you found inspiring – also showed that our left and right hemispheres – as one of you put it – are surprisingly completely separate and that when you shut one down you get a completely different perspective on reality.

I think you will agree that our universe strives for balance. Our ecosystems are the healthiest when they are balanced. We are healthiest when our bodies are in balance, when our diets are well-balanced, and we strive for work/life balance. Even our businesses use a “balance” sheet.

But we have become an unbalanced, “left-brain” centric world. (the language of our left brain is logic, numbers, graphs, computing, judging). We have so overdeveloped the left hemisphere in our brain that if we can’t measure it, quantify it, put it in a process, systematize it, memorize it, substantiate it, formulate it, then it doesn’t fit in our business world. Even our education systems, continually under budget pressures, look to cutting music and the arts – the language of the right brain, in order to save money, and retain the subjects where logic, memorization, formulas and computing are the main focus (maths and sciences).

Yet research time-and-time again show that children that take music and the arts learn better and faster because they are using both sides of the brain. Harvard, a few years ago, came out and said that the two most important practices for today’s business professionals are meditation and intuition – and they are both inter-related and they are both right brain.

Our geniuses such as Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and Leonardo da Vinci are said to have been this way because of “whole-mind” thinking. They approached everything with balanced thinking. Inspiration and intuition created their ideas – from the right brain and then logic (left side) helped them to formulate their brilliant theories and inventions.

Left Brain

Logical

Sequential

Rational

Analytical

Objective

Computation determines what’s right

Looks at parts


Right Brain

Random

Intuitive, creativity & inspiration

Holistic

Synthesizing

Subjective

Gut feeling for what’s right

Looks at wholes – big picture

They have studied yogis’ minds for years and have discovered they have significantly more neural passageways between the left and right hemispheres than the rest of us. They have studied meditators at our universities for years and have discovered that as we meditate we build more of these neuro- passageways and therefore improve our balanced or whole mind thinking.

Here is what has happened to most of us. With the increased dependence on our left brain, the brain activity in this hemisphere – logically – has increased. We all except now that thanks to Quantum Physics, at the sub-atomic level we are pure energy. Science can measure this frequency and identify the various frequencies in the body. They use ECGs. EKGs, EEGs, MRIs etc. to do this.
The brain frequencies of each state are as follows:

Beta (awake state) 14hz - 30hz
Alpha (relaxed, super creative and learning state) 8hz - 14hz
Theta (dream sleep) 4hz - 8hz
Delta (dreamless sleep) 0.5hz - 4 hz


The left brain is where most of our day-to-day living experience comes from. This is where our to-do-lists come from, our worry about being on time, finishing reports, writing proposals, thoughts about our next important meeting, how people see us, judging ourselves, the inner chatter that sabotages most of us, talks down to us, minimizes who we are and sends us self-defeating messages, or as Dr. Jill Bolte Tailor said in the video – the 30 years of baggage that disappeared when her left brain shut down.

This increased activity raises our vibrational frequency in the Beta range where many, if not most of us, are operating at the dangerously high end of the Beta frequency the entire time (30hz). Living at this level increases stress on our biological systems that eventually manifests in emotional disorders, sleep deprivation (because our minds cannot shut down) and even physical disease begins to manifest. This imbalance creates stress and impacts on out thinking.

If you begin a 20 minute practice of meditation each day, it won’t take long before you begin to see a significant difference.

Deepak Chopra – a well known doctor, author, entrepreneur, spiritual teacher, who sits on many boards of large businesses today once said, “What if I told you that if you did an exercise 20 minutes every morning and every evening you would be healthier, richer, more successful in your career, have a happier marriage, more friends, and feel more satisfied with life, would you do it?” Of course, your answer would be yes, and what he was talking about was meditation.

Here are some of the benefits of meditation.

• Builds confidence.
• Reduces anxiety.
• Brings clarity to thinking and determination of priorities.
• Increases creative thinking, inspiration and intuition.
• Increases serotonin which influences sleep, moods and behavior.
• Increases energy, strength and vigour.
• Helps keep blood pressure normal.
• Creates a feeling of deep relaxation and general feeling of well-being.
• Increases concentration and strengthens the mind.
• Helps reduce heart disease.
• Helps with weight loss.

If you practice regularly, the benefits of meditation will promote a sense of calm and control, you’ll feel far more relaxed and happy. Your ability to concentrate will be greater. You won’t become stressed about things and you’ll feel more peaceful and relaxed about everything. One of the greatest benefits of meditation is learning to go with the flow and things that used to irritate you simply become insignificant.

“Thus meditating you will no longer strive to build yourself up in your prejudices, but forgetting self, you will remember only that you are seeking the truth.” – James Allen

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to begin a practice of meditation. You can find many great books and CDs on meditation at the library. Youtube is full of short meditations you can use. If you already meditate, congratulations – you know first hand what I am saying. If you can increase your meditation time, you will increase the benefits. Or maybe you would like to try some different techniques. Contact me and we can share our experiences and talk about other meditative practices.

That’s all for this week. I seriously want you to consider a regular meditation practice. It is the first step to changing you and your world. It is a practice that most personal development programs include – although they may call it something else. It is a practice that most of us say we don’t have time for. I believe this comes from a belief that is part of our cultural conditioning, that diminishes our importance and tells us it is more important to “give ourselves away” to our careers, our businesses, our families and “not be selfish.” But I submit if you do this for yourself, then you will find you have more to give to everything and everyone else, and the quality of your efforts will be better and you will feel more empowered and ultimately, as you will see in the coming weeks, you will begin to change your world for the better and change the world for people around you.

Have a great week. See you next week.
Best always,
Ken

Here's a video that will help you feel good about yourself and your day. Turn up your speakers and enjoy. /