How the Human Mind Works

To reduce the severity of his seizures, Joe had the bridge between his left and right cerebral hemisphers (the corpus callosum) severed. As a result, his left and right brains no longer communicated through that pathway. Here's what happens as a result:

Who Are We? Stroke Victim's Revelations!

Having a brother with schizophrenia, Dr Jill Bolte-Taylor chose to become a brain scientist in an effort to find the reasons for brain disorders. On December 10, 1996, Dr. Bolte-Taylor had her own brain disorder to contend with. This TED video describes what happened in Dr. Bolte-Taylor's perception of the world when a blood vessel burst in her left brain hemisphere.

This video is a moving account of the higher states of perception afforded by the human brain.

The Brain That Changes Itself

An astonishing new science called "neuroplasticity" is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. In this revolutionary look at the brain, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., provides an introduction to both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed.

Psychiatrist and researcher Dr Doidge travelled around the United States to meet the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed - people whose mental limitations or brain damage were previoiusly seen as unalterable, and whose conditions had long been dismissed as hopeless.

We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole; a woman labelled retarded who cured her deficits with brain exercises and now cures those of others; blind people who learn to see; learning disorders cured; IQs raised; ageing brains rejuvenated; stroke patients recovering their faculties; children with cerebral palsy learning to move more gracefully; entrenched depression disappearing; and lifelong character traits changed.

Doidge takes us into terrain that might seem fantastic. We learn that our thoughts can switch our genes on and off, altering our brain anatomy. We learn how people of average intelligence can, with brain exercises, improve their cognition and perception, develop muscle strength, or learn to play a musical instrument - simply by imagining doing so.

Using personal stories from the heart of this neuroplasticity revolution, Dr Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.

I highly recommend this book - if not for yourself, but perhaps someone close to you needs this information....

The Field by Lynne McTaggart

The Field
This is the seminal work of the New Age, and one which provides a scientific explanation for psychic phenomena such as ESP, spiritual healing and remote viewing.
It explains that everything is connected by the Zero Point Field (ZPF), a sea of energy that reconciles mind with matter, classic science with quantum physics, and science with religion.
The ZPF is “a cobweb of energy exchange”, as Lynne describes it, and she calls on numerous quantum physicists to provide an impressive canon of research data and discoveries to support the theory.
The Field has inspired thousands of people from various walks of life, including religious leaders, physicists, healers and, most important of all, those who have been seeking scientific evidence for their innate sense that they are not separate, and that they do not live in isolation from others and the earth.

The Heart's Intuitive Intelligence

The Spiritual Heart -- is in a way a little like a smart phone, invisibly connecting us to a large network of information. It is through an unseen energy that the heart emits that humans are profoundly connected to all living things. The energy of the heart literally links us to each other. Every person's heart contributes to a 'collective field environment.' This short video explains the importance of this connection and how we each add to this collective energy field. The energetic field of the heart even connects us with the earth itself.

The Institute of HeartMath (http://www.heartmath.org) is helping provide a more comprehensive picture of this connection between all living things through a special science-based project called the Global Coherence Initiative (http:///www.glcoherence.org.) They hope to help explain the mysteries of this connection between people and the earth...and even the sun. Scientists at the Institute of HeartMath (IHM) have already conducted extensive research on the power of heart, the heart/brain connection, heart intelligence and practical intuition. Whether personal relationships, social connections, or even the global community - we are all connected through a field of electromagnetic energy. Increasing individual awareness of what we bring to this field environment could be the key to creating a sustainable future, a future that we can be proud to have helped create. Learn more about this research, http://www.heartmath.org

Gregg Braden on Consciousness

Gregg Braden takes us on a short trip through consciousness that connects our feelings and our mass reality.

The Subconscious and Conscious Mind

Bruce Lipton describes how the subconscious mind controls 95% of how our circumstances manifest. Bruce covers how we can reprogram our subconscious to not be victims in the reality we perceive.

A Look at The Work of Byron Katie

Byron Katie just wants you to be happy. She doesn't know you, but she believes she can help you find your happiness, and countless of her fans and followers would agree. She also thinks that helping you find happiness goes a long way in solving the myriad problems in the world. She's been on Oprah. Tony Robbins is a fan and incorporates her work into his own teachings. Her methods are remarkably simple; she only asks that you question your own thoughts and that you accept reality for what it really is. You will wonder why you never thought of it.

An unusual woman with an unusual name, Byron Katie is leading a revolution of the mind. Although she might never identify it as such, she is espousing a form of meta-cognition, a way of thinking about thinking. Are your thoughts a true reflection of the reality around you, or do they come unbidden from your unconscious? Can you trust what your own mind tells you? Byron Katie would say no. She would ask you to question each thought as it comes, to mull it over and put it to the test. And then she would ask you to take that further, to ponder the opposite of that thought, and whether that "turnaround," in fact, might be a truer version of reality. This process she calls "The Work."

The Work: I had the opportunity to see Byron Katie speak in person at the Omega Institute NYC Conference, and I have also been reading her book I Need Your Love -- Is That True?. Both were eye-opening, I might even say life-changing, experiences for me. The Work is a series of four questions that you apply to each stressful, unhappy, or counterproductive thought that comes into your mind. Take, for example, the thought "I am such a pushover," which you might have after being taken advantage of by someone you love or trust.

Is it true? This is only a simple yes or no question, either I am a pushover or I am not ­-- in objective reality without adding my own filters and biases.

Can you absolutely know that it is true? This is also a yes or no question but requires more thinking. Who is to say what constitutes being "a pushover"? Perhaps being a pushover to one person is seeking or receiving just the right amount of guidance to another. If I cannot definitively say that it is true, then the answer is no.

How do you react -- what happens -- when you believe that thought? How does this thought make me feel and behave? If I worry that I am easily manipulated, I may beat myself up in my relationships and unnecessarily put walls up. I criticize myself. And I begin to resent the other person because I can't put my guard down around them.

Who would you be without the thought? If that thought never existed, how would I feel and behave? If I never had to worry about being a pushover, I could live more freely. I wouldn't put my guard up in my relationships, and I would allow myself to be vulnerable and who I really am. I would feel better about myself.

The Turnaround: Now comes the point where Byron Katie asks you to take the opposite of your thought and mull it over. One turnaround might be: "I am not at all a pushover." Is this any truer than the original statement? Can I think of any examples in which this is true? Another turnaround might be that my spouse/partner/parent/coworker is the one who is a pushover. In this way, I could come to see that everyone can be manipulated at times, and that this is normal. I can see that I am not "such" a pushover at all, and that I am letting the fear of being controlled actually control me. I can begin to let these thoughts go and no longer criticize myself or others. And so the stress associated with the thought of being such a pushover would no longer exist.

What Bryon Katie is offering is a method of self-inquiry that allows us to free ourselves from the anger and negativity we feel when we accept our thoughts, unquestioned, as true. We cause much of our own suffering by believing what our minds tell us. If we can see that certain thoughts are the cause of our own unhappiness, we can begin to let go and be free of them. Questioning these thoughts, putting them to the test of The Work, is a form of enlightenment. If the unexamined life is not worth living, perhaps the unexamined thought is not worth thinking.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephan-spencer/happiness-tips_b_1739238.html