November, 2014
Permanent Peace
See info at the end of this post for a free webinar, Thursday, December 4 at 6 pm Mountain Daylight TimeDo gratitude and peace go hand-in-hand or is it possible to experience one without the other?
This is the question I’m pondering as I get ready to prepare the Thanksgiving feast I will have with friends and family tomorrow.
My personal answer is that I believe we can feel and express gratitude and NOT feel peaceful inside – but by contrast, we CANNOT feel peaceful without feeling grateful at the same time. Make sense?
It should if you think about it. Here’s an example:
It’s easy to feel grateful for the things that we have in the moment – family, relationships, health, jobs, shelter, food, clean water and transportation to get to get to where we need to go. At the same time, it’s common for people to feel anxious about the future and losing any one of these things. In other words, it’s common to feel grateful for the present and to worry about the future. It’s also common to feel grateful about the present and to feel depressed about the past. When we live this way, gratitude can quickly wash away with the next wave to hit the shore.
BUT if you are truly at peace, deep peace, you are not sad about the past or worried about the future. In the present moment, the only moment we have, the backdrop of our experience is a feeling of gratitude for everything that has happened, and a knowingness that whatever the future brings, we can still choose to come from this inner place of peace.
In my film Sacred Journey of the Heart, I actually described this state of being grateful for the past and everything that happened to me, including a childhood of abuse. And I courageously ended the film saying that “my heart will lead the way”, to whatever the future had in store for me. But I really wasn’t at peace- not yet – because my brain actually did not know how to function this way!
Literally, my brain was hard-wired for hyper-vigilance, a state of being on guard for impending threats. My nervous system was locked in to a low grade anxiety that could spike to intense anxiety at a moment’s notice. My limbic system, the emotional part of our brain, was programmed for sadness that sometime tipped into low-grade depression. And a deep brain structure, called the cingulate gyrus, that is actually shaped like a loop, kept me wired into a pattern of rumination and worry about “what if….” And worst case scenarios – all so I could be prepared in case of danger.
As you undoubtedly know, this is in no way, connected to a state of inner peace. I was grateful, but I was not at peace.
If this sounds familiar, I can also tell you that there is a way out of this, and it is easy, relatively quick and it is lasting. The result is that state of being that I call Permanent Peace.
The problem is, you can’t get to Permanent Peace unless you can get at the underlying pattern that the brain defaults to in times of uncertainty and stress. For me, this is the Missing Link. It’s what I discovered in my 4 week Behavioral Relationship Entrainment program offered by Brain Tek, a cutting edge research group in California. I’m now certified to offer this to my clients which I’ve been doing for a few months with great results all the way around. Here is a typical comment after a client has been through the “un-wiring – re-wiring” brain/behavioral program:
“The Brain Tek program has been one of the most positive things I’ve done for myself. I am happier, more patient and less anxious. I’m more organized, and motivated and get more done in a day than I did in a week. I can’t thank Ronna enough for introducing me to Braintek.”
Katie J. LCSW
What is Permanent Peace?
I believe it’s an inner state grounded upon understanding, acceptance, and trust. For me personally, there is also a very prominent spiritual component to this that I practice in daily prayer and meditation. I am now able to consistently be in this deep inner place of peace, because my deep brain structures that reacted to past experiences are freed up. My higher cortical reasoning function, i.e. the frontal cortex of my brain, can now choose to be at peace, rather than run my response based on past patterns.
Permanent Peace includes:
- Freedom from anxiety, worry and rumination
- Alleviation of depression
- Elimination of fear (which I call “Familiar Energy Arising Repetitively”)
- Ability to enjoy the moment
- Staying focused on one’s core values and ethics
- Contributing to the betterment of other’s lives
- Equanimity in the face of the unknown
- Feeling connected to everyone and everything without identifying with it
In this state, gratitude is natural, it flows and it becomes the foundation for everyday life, not just a special day, a time of prayer or a response to something good happening. This is permanent peace, and it does surpass understanding. I do believe it is possible and I have experienced it in my life and seen it in the lives of others who dive in to the cause of anxiety, fear and depression – unwiring the deep brain structures so that our personal practices can direct the flow of our lives.
If you are interested in learning more, please join me on Thursday, December 4, 2014 at 6 pm Mountain time for more information about Brain Tek and the program that rewires your brain for Permanent Peace.
Title: BRE Program Presentation
Time: Thursday, December 4th at 6:00pm Mountain
Listening method: Phone + Web Simulcast
To attend, visit:
http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=62868234
Phone Number: 
(425) 440-5100
Pin Code: 339751#
Happy Thanksgiving and many blessings,
Ronna
A quick “go-to” strategy and a longer term, permanent “fix”
Have you ever prepared to confront someone who has said or done something that you need to address? If you reflect on a conflict-confrontation, you might recall how much time you spent thinking and rehearsing what you would say and you can probably remember the feelings you had around the event, including physiological sensations: nervousness, anxiety, sweaty palms, pounding heart, shortness of breath and queasy stomach. The physical signs are all related to the adrenal fight-flight response and it literally wears the body down with stress related hormones like cortisol.
Because of the intensity of the feelings, many of us have learned how to avoid most conflicts. Our “go-to” strategy is to just let IT go, to say “it’s ALL good”, and move on. This works sometimes because not all conflict is worth confronting.
But on big issues, there’s a cost to this caving in and not standing up for ourselves. And the cost encompasses many things: lower self-esteem, living in compromise, and sometimes loss of money.
Having experienced this myself and come out the other side, I know this is one of the most important life skills to master and to be at ease when dealing with conflict and standing up for myself!
Courage
Is there a quick fix for this? In my experience, yes and no. I have made a lot of progress in handling conflict over the years by utilizing cognitive and spiritual programs and techniques. I’ve done things like learn to tell myself to “stop”, take a breath and choose to let it go or to speak up. I’ve practiced the Sedona Method, an innovative system in which you ask yourself a series of questions. When an unwanted feeling comes up, you can release it using this method. This comes in handy when dealing with fear and anxiety over conflict. I’ve also tried other techniques such as EMDR, EFT, Psych-K and a whole alphabet soup list of things.
I’ve even become certified in and teach the very powerful and effective techniques of HeartMath and Radical Forgiveness. Like the others I’ve mentioned, these techniques work if you work with them.
I repeat: They all work. Yes, they do! But for me at least, they only worked temporarily and most of the time, it felt like pushing the same boulder up the same mountain. A lot of effort that resulted in me feeling tired, and then “letting it go”, eventually caving in.
So, bottom line and long term, at least from my perspective, the true answer was “no”, there was no quick fix or lasting solution for dealing with conflict.
That is until this year, 2014, when I learned that my conflict-avoidance, cave-in behavior was hard wired into my brain’s neuro-pathways. Now I can say that there IS a fix, and it’s relatively quick and it’s permanent!
My conclusion, based on experience, is that the missing link is the hard-wiring in a structure deep in the brain that contributes to resurfacing of old patterns. Cognitive and spiritual programs do not directly address the physiology of our brain. So what occurs is that while we can think our way through conflict, meditate, pray and spiritually understand what’s occurring, the underlying physiological wiring is still deeply embedded in the brain. Eventually we revert to this. This is why so many of us have tried multiple things that eventually give up on and may even find ourselves saying “nothing works”! You CAN unplug from this pattern!
Here is brain-based solution that you can test drive and begin to unwire old stress-based patterns in the privacy of your own home. It’s called Brain Tek Mobile Solutions and is an easy way to begin to release the brain-based stress response.
Click here for Brain Tek Solutions
I recommend listening to the Stress Relief Mobile Sound Therapy to calm your brain and then make better decision about dealing with conflict.
A more personalized approach is to explore the Behavioral Relationship Entrainment program that I offer through Brain Tek Institute. This has proven to be the missing link to easy and effective change that I have been searching for. It is proving to be the same thing for my clients that have gone through the program with me.
Last month I presented the BRE program in a webinar with Dr. Dennis Manness, it’s founder. BRE is an innovative and very unique sound-based protocol that literally re-boots your brain by rewiring neural pathways to more efficient and optimal thought-behavior patterns.
If you are interested in learning more, email me or stay tuned for the next free webinar on this topic in early December. The Brain Tek program is very different from brain-wave entrainment programs that you may have heard about. This new program that I’m certified to administer is individually tailored to create new neural pathways in your brain in 4 to 6 weeks, all in the comfort of your own home, as you listen to signals embedded in music that are tailored to address your particular issues. It’s the easiest and most effective process I have discovered or myself and am now sharing with my family, friends and clients. And, unlike any other program I’ve tried or taught, it exceeds expectations with the positive results!
