According to polls, there’s a 50-50 chance you have had at least one spiritual experience — an overpowering feeling that you’ve touched God, or another dimension of reality.

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This schematic shows the brain regions (green) from which the outcome of a participant's decision can be predicted before it is made. Courtesy John-Dylan Haynes.

You may think you decided to read this story — but in fact, your brain made the decision long before you knew about it.

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Here is another article that appeared today in " Neuromarketing"

Some people worked it out; others did not. The significant point, though, was that the EEG predicted who would fall where. Those volunteers who went on to have an insight… had had different brainwave activity from those who never got it. In the right frontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with shifting mental states, there was an increase in high-frequency gamma waves (those with 47-48 cycles a second). Moreover, the difference was noticeable up to eight seconds before the volunteer realised he had found the solution. Dr Sheth thinks this may be capturing the “transformational thought” (the light-bulb moment, as it were) in action, before the brain’s “owner” is consciously aware of it. [Emphasis added. From The Economist – Incognito – Evidence mounts that brains decide before their owners know about it

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I get a lot of questions from people about how to get actual real world results from the Law Of Attraction. It's not so difficult to manifest an empty parking space or a beneficial coincidence, but it takes something more to manifest the bigger things like first class travel, houses, cars, jobs, relationships, health and material wealth.

There are a small percentage of people who regularly and consistently manifest the big things. I call these people Power Manifestors.

Over the years, I've noticed that the more I developed certain qualities within myself, the more powerful I became at manifesting the bigger things regularly and consistently. I've put together a list for you of some of the traits that helped me become a Power Manifestor. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but the four traits below are the most fundamental to making the Law Of Attraction work for you more often…

TRAIT #1: BEING IN FLOW
Here's a powerful metaphor for you. Have you ever watched a river flow from the top of a mountain down to the sea? If you have, you'll have noticed that the river always seems to take the path of least resistance to reach the sea. It will find the most effortless way to get down the mountain. You won't find a river trying to flow uphill!

Your life can flow like a river too, always seeking the most effortless path to your destiny. When your life begins to flow, your problems that once seemed insurmountable, naturally work themselves out as your life leads you on the path of least resistance to success.

So, what is flow? The best definition I have ever heard is from a great book called 'The Power Of Flow' by Charlene Belitz and Meg Lundstrom: "Flow is the natural, effortless unfolding of our life in a way that moves us toward wholeness and harmony."

Have you had times when your obstacles suddenly disappeared, one after another? When you felt you were in the right place at the right time and events in your life came together in a beneficial way? That's when you were in the flow. So, what does flow have to do with the law of attraction or manifesting? EVERYTHING!

You see, until you find your flow, you will not be able to consistently work the Law Of Attraction to your advantage and will find yourself struggling to see real world results from your visualization efforts. Like many others, your manifesting will be limited to empty parking spaces…

How can you get into your flow? Power Manifestors regularly do activities that keep them in flow. One of the easiest ways to step into your flow is to do the things that bring you joy and do these things often. For example, I love taking a week off and riding my motorcycle somewhere exotic, like Africa or Central Europe, camping on the side of the road and living out of a backpack with just a few pairs of clothes and a laptop.

Whenever I go away on a trip like this (I make sure I get away at least once a month), magical things begin happening in my life. It's almost as if the joy of the open road and the wind in my hair blows away any negativity I might have collected and my attraction abilities increase tenfold.

Here's another example of a flow state. Have you ever had the experience of time speeding up or slowing down? That's a good indicator that you are in a flow state. Take a moment and write down what you were doing when you had these experiences? Was it a hobby, a sport, an activity at work? Are you doing these activities as much as you would like to? If not, make a commitment to yourself to do these activities more often.

By Bruce Muzik : Click to read full article

Like many fields of therapy that deal with emotional problems, anger on the surface seems to be nothing more than an exasperated emotion. A person gets mad and we assume either he has anger management issues or there was something legitimate that elicited the response.

Even in people who have difficulty managing anger, there is usually something that triggers it, no matter how irrational the trigger might be perceived. So in this article, we are going to talk about all the different cause of anger and the many ways it is elicited in people.

However, we are not going to talk about the obvious causes, like someone violating your personal space or possession or something bad happening. We can all agree that these are all valid reasons, even for a person who rarely gets angry, to become angry.

Instead, we are going to focus on the not so obvious triggers; those that set us off without us really being aware as to why. These are the unseen, hidden reasons we don't realize that get us heated, livid, and outraged.

Listed below are 6 of the more common unseen cause of anger that can throw us into a fiery emotional state and a brief discussion of each. By seeing what sets you off, you can be more level-headed when similar circumstances arise, allowing you to have a better grasp of the feelings.

1. Overwhelmed

Getting overwhelmed is one of the main cause of anger. It is seen in people who have difficulty handling the day-to-day stresses in their lives. They lack the ability to deal with stress, which causes them to get overwhelmed. These overwhelming feeling make them feel trapped and unsure of what to do, so they lash out.

These people easily shout and blow their top at someone or something because that's the only way they know how to release the build-up of the overwhelmed feelings.

2. Retaliatory

Retaliating at a person who is angry at you is another cause of anger. The reaction is a direct response to someone getting angry at you. That is, you get heated for no other reason than the mere fact someone else is mad at you.

This is no doubt a defense mechanism reaction to another person's frustration with you, which you threatens your well being, especially if you believe there is no cause or reason for the other person to be mad at you.

If you are the type who gets defensive or offended easily, you more than likely retaliate against people who are angry at you by you getting angry yourself. The problem here is, when two retaliatory angry people get into it with each other, the confrontation can and tends to escalate into something dangerous really fast.

3. Paranoid

Paranoia can also be a source of anger in people, specially those that feel they are being taken advantage of. These people don't necessarily need to be taken advantage of to trigger anger, they just need to feel as though they are.

It is normal for anyone to get upset if someone is trying to take advantage of you, but paranoid people go too far. When a they see a sign, any sign, whether or not it is rational, that suggests someone is trying to pull a fast one on them, they defend themselves against the hurt feelings by erupting into anger.

These people usually have trust issues and low self-esteem, which causes them to get easily offended and insulted by other people's actions, which they express through anger.

4. Threatened

Being threatened is a huge trigger for people. This is usually exhibited when an action or setting goes against or "threatens" someone. The threat could be anything. It could be a person, circumstance, or event that jeopardizes what someone has planned or what they want to have happen.

That someone will get angry for two reasons. First, they will get upset for not getting what they want, and second, they will use anger as a way to flex their muscle to take back control over the situation. Their anger is a way to communicate to the party causing the threat that something is amiss which requires immediate attention and/or remedy.

5. Judgmental

Getting judgmental is another trigger that can spark anger. When you judge someone or some situation, your judgment can easily get you all worked up. Prejudice people are the most guilty of this. They often pre-judge people and circumstances, and when their pre-judgment is mean and spiteful, it is but natural that temper and rage consumes them.

6. Chronic

There is nothing that triggers chronically angry people to be annoyed, irritated, or mad. They are just unrelentingly angry and look for any and every reason to be so. They find reasons in their lives, with themselves, with the people around them, and the whole world in general.

Chronically angry people have no definite cause for feeling the way they do. They, more or less, are addicted to the feeling of anger, so they remain in that state for no apparent reason at all.

Now that you have seen some of the unseen and lesser know cause of anger that put us into a fumingly heated state of mind, review them in detail and figure out which of them elicit anger in you.

Are you easily overwhelmed, do you needlessly get defensive, do you have trust issues, do you get angry when things don't go your way, are you unreasonably judgmental, or are you just chronically angry with no legitimate cause for your ill state?

Once you know what sets you off, learn ways to cope with it. Find an outlet that neither harms you or others. Deep breathing, Emotional Freedom Technique, and exercising are some of the many useful anger management tips that can help you in managing anger. Also, there are some anger management tips that teach you how to release tension and calm yourself through meditation.

Remember, you may not be able to completely change a person or a situation, but what you can change is the way that you deal with your feelings by learning how to react positively to it and not letting it get the better of you.

Mike C.Powers

"Man is a creature of habit."

This simple statement is deceptively profound. Most people's lives are comprised of a collection of habits that dictate many of their physical, emotional and mental actions and reactions. Depending on the level of conscious awareness you invest in a habit's creation, habits can either enslave you, turning you into a mindless automaton, or free you to pursue creative, joyful activities that enhance and give meaning to your life. Most people have a mixture of good and bad habits.

Habit is defined as an acquired behavior pattern followed until it has become almost involuntary. Habits can be good or bad, productive or non-productive. Good habits lead to skills, such as learning to ride a bicycle. They also save you time and energy by automating the performance of desirable actions. Brushing your teeth or driving a car are examples. These acquired behavior patterns free your mind from having to concentrate, as would be required of unfamiliar actions.

Bad habits predispose you to undesirable outcomes. Excessive drinking, smoking, drug use and overeating are examples of bad habits that can harm your body and impair your judgment, aside from wasting your time.

Common sense tells us that you want to replace bad habits with good ones, which is the basis of all self-development and evolution. But as almost everyone who has ever tried to quit smoking will tell you, this is not always as easy as it would seem.

Smokers are addicted to nicotine. But according to modern brain science, all habits induce emotional states that produce chemicals in your brain. Consequently, you become addicted to the chemicals secreted by your brain no matter what kind of habit you create!

With every thought or action you undertake, you create electrical pathways in your brain. As Joseph Dispenza says in the movie What the Bleep do We Know?, "neurons which fire together, wire together." Repetition etches these patterns more deeply into your brain.

To replace a bad habit with a good one, you need to break the association with your emotions and the chemicals you've grown accustomed to, and rewire your brain. This requires concentration and will.

If you are unaware or unwilling to acknowledge your non-productive habit, you will have a hard time replacing it. If you are not convinced a particular habit is bad for you, you will have no incentive to change it. But, if you are aware of your unwanted habit and are willing to devote your attention to it, then it can be changed. Deeply focused concentration, such as during a visualization exercise, increases the potency of your thoughts and more deeply affects your brain's rewiring.

Remember, it took regular action to install your unwanted habit – possibly over the course of several lifetimes – so it will take regular action to undo it. This is where your will comes in.

You strengthen your will, as well as your habit, with repetition. Every time you consciously reject the urge to give in to your bad habit, you strengthen your will. Every time you consciously undertake an action to install a new, positive habit, it becomes easier. This is how you rewire your brain and overcome your addictions.

When these habits are of a positive nature, this self-reinforcing cycle produces positive results, but the contrary is also true. This demonstrates a principle that Jesus taught, "For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath."

In other words, consciously acting to install positive habits strengthens your will and further attracts more like experiences. Giving in to bad habits, weakens your will, not only making it harder to install good habits, but doing so may cause you to lose what good habits you already had. Can there be any better reason to develop your will and consciously establish positive habits?

The development of good habits is meant to improve your life, free you from the grip of negative habits and attract even more positive experiences to you. At the same time, always remember to be guided by wisdom and not convention. You should strive to perform good actions based on your own inner wisdom and conscious choice, not based on convention – not even good habits. This is the ultimate freedom.

By Edwin Harkness Spina She is an award-winning author and speaker.

David sat in front of me at one of my five-day intensive workshops. A successful businessman with a wife and two grown children, David believed that he was not good enough.

“I’m insufficient,” he said. “I’m inadequate.”

I looked at this kind man and felt deep sadness for him. He did not know who he was.

“Why do you believe that?” I asked.

“I didn’t do well in school, and I’ve made lots of mistakes in my life.”

“So you are basing your worth on your performance, right?”

“Of course.”

David could not conceive of any other way of defining his worth other than through his performance – which he never saw as good enough.

I asked David to look inside – at the essence of himself – and tell me what he sees. All he saw was emptiness.

“David, please close your eyes. Now imagine a wonderful being who loves you very much. Who comes to mind?”

“My grandfather. He died when I was young, but he really loved me.”

“Good. Now imagine that you are seeing yourself through the eyes of your grandfather. What does your grandfather see when he looks at you?”

“He sees a bright and creative little boy, who is very kind and caring. A loving little boy. A little boy who is funny and likes to laugh, and likes to make other people laugh.”

“Is there anything wrong with this little boy? Anything inadequate or insufficient?”

“Oh no! He is a wonderful little boy.”

“David, this is who you really are. You are not your performance. Your performance will come and go and at some point you might retire and not perform at all. Yet that does not mean that you are, therefore, worthless. Your worth is in who you are, not in what you do. Your worth in intrinsic.”

David realized that, because of his highly critical and rejecting parents, he had always been trying to prove himself and always came up short in their eyes. As a result of seeing himself as unworthy and inadequate, he did not treat himself well. He treated himself the way his parents had treated him – with criticism and neglect. He was always trying to take care of everyone else, but rarely thought about taking care of himself. He was constantly abandoning himself emotionally, just as he had been emotionally abandoned by his parents.

“David, if you chose to see yourself as your grandfather saw you rather than how your parents saw you, how would you feel about yourself and how would you treat yourself?”

“I’ve just been thinking about that. I just realized that I treat my dog better than I treat myself! I would never judge my dog the way I judge myself.”

“So what would you do differently if you saw yourself the way your grandfather sees you?”

“I would stop judging myself as insufficient and inadequate. I’m a really good person. I am not at all insufficient or inadequate as a person. And I choose my friends based on who they are as people – not on their performance. So I obviously value the very qualities that I possess!”

“What else would you do if you really valued who you are?”

“I would listen to my own feelings and take care of my own needs instead of taking care of everyone else’s feelings and needs. I would no longer see it as selfish to take care of myself instead of taking care of everyone else. I would be at least as attentive to myself as I am to my dog!”

David was glowing. He was discovering who he really is, not who he thought he was.

People often think that their worth – who they really are – is based on looks and performance. Yet these qualities are transitory. What is real and eternal is who you are in your heart and soul. If you shift your definition of your worth from outer to inner, you will stop trying to prove yourself. You will know that you are already a beautiful being, totally deserving of love.

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

This past full moon and lunar eclipse were very powerful for me. I experienced the energies quite intensely. The night before and after the full moon I couldn't sleep at all. I experienced all the pent up emotions I carried within me. A major illumination finally occurred to me concerning a situation I repeatedly attract in my life. I realized I attract people that will tell or show me in various ways that I am not good enough. I have struggled with low self esteem throughout my life. I receive this message from people that I care about and it hurts me so deeply. I saw that the reason I keep getting this message that I am not worthy of being treated good is because I don't value myself enough or feel I am worthy.

In that moment I was able to reclaim my inner power and truly know that I am worthy of love. I must once and for all stop allowing people, even those I care about, to treat me poorly. It is time for me to stand up for my needs and set boundaries. The messages I have been receiving where others have told me or done things to show me I'm not good enough, have been there to show me that this is not true. When I can really love and value myself, no matter what others say or do, they will no longer effect me in the same way because I won't own it.

I sense that because I haven't truly felt that I deserve love, respect and kindness that when someone would say or do something to hurt me it would penetrate my being and I would feel the pain and affirm that somehow I don't deserve to be valued. Once I completely realize that I no longer wish to experience this mirroring effect in the way that I am treated that I will never attract situations and people that will treat me in this way.

The thing is, so many people show me so much love, kindness and respect. I am learning how to accept love and truly believe that I am worthy of it. I feel with this awareness I can really see that when those I care for do and say things that send me the wrong message, I don't need to own it. In essence they are actually not feeling good about themselves and projecting it onto me. It doesn't mean that I have to believe it or accept the message.

The solar eclipse on January 26, followed two weeks later with the intense full moon energies and lunar eclipse has magnified our issues and brought them to the forefront for us to see and heal them. We are being challenged to go to the next level of conscious awareness so we can clear the issues that have been holding us back from experiencing love and intimacy.

It takes a brave person to face their shadow side and come to terms with patterns that don't belong in the new energy. The message I am getting is that we need to feel our feelings and express ourselves. Upon that realization I cried. I hadn't cried in probably over a year or more. No matter how much I have wanted to cry it has been bottled up inside of me. The tears were a release. We have been suppressing and not feeling what is inside of us. We can't move forward if we are stuck in the past or continuing a pattern that doesn't serve us.

In many instances we have been denying our feelings. We don't want to deal with the fear, anger, resentment, sadness, loneliness, or anxiety we've been feeling. Rather than acknowledging that it is there we pretend it isn't, this way if it is out of sight, it is out of mind. Many think it is not spiritual to feel these emotions so they will pretend they are not there. We are humans for goodness sakes! We are spiritual beings having a human experience and we are being shown that now is the time to feel what is inside of us.

In the moment that I really understood what has been happening with me, I really saw what I have allowed to occur in my life, and experienced the feelings, I was able to transmute it and move past it. I am understanding that when I get these negative messages about myself I can recognize it for what it is and not own it.

We are meant to feel. Our society has become about doing and not feeling. It is time to change that. We need to learn to be in the present moment and allow ourselves to experience pleasure, happiness and love. If we want to fix what is wrong in our lives and world we must realize we have strayed away from feeling.

It can be scary to feel. I think we may wonder if we start feeling our emotions we might go crazy and go on some rampage since they've been bottled up for so long! If we express our anger or fear it might overwhelm and consume us. I truly believe it is safe to show whatever emotion we are experiencing as long as it is in a healthy and productive way. Holding it in is much more dangerous. It leads to illness, anger and imbalance.

In order to experience true intimacy in our relationships we need to allow our emotions to be expressed. When we take a chance to express love to another we risk opening up and revealing our vulnerable and tender side. We must take a risk of getting hurt and rejected. Without opening up we never get the opportunity to experience love, affection, pleasure and true intimacy.

We are being challenged to look deep within ourselves and confront what is there. I had to face my low self esteem issues, feeling not good enough or worthy of love. As we heal our shadow side, we transmute the lower energies that hold us back from loving. We are being guided into the new energy by metamorphizing into who we really are, so we may experience what we really want in our lives. The tears I cried were not only those of sadness and frustration, what I was experiencing is a realization, hey, I am worthy, just because I carried around these feelings since childhood I've outgrown them.

As we acknowledge and accept our shadow side, experience the pent up feelings, and process the awareness, we can then release the issues and let go of those feelings once and for all, and move on to opportunities to give and receive all the wonderful things meant for us.

By Stefanie Miller

Does stress damage the brain? In the March 1st issue of Biological Psychiatry a paper by Tibor Hajszan and colleagues provides an important new chapter to this question.

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“Pranav Veera, 6, can recite the names of the U.S. presidents in the order they served in office. He can say the alphabet backward. Give him a date back to 2000, and he’ll tell you the day of the week . . .”

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Social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.

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Can money make us happy if we spend it on the right purchases? A new psychology study suggests that buying life experiences rather than material possessions leads to greater happiness for both the consumer and those around them.

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The rules of quantum mechanics are turning up everywhere these days, and may be behind the efficiency of photosynthesis, the accuracy of our sense of smell, and even the source of our conscious mind.

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