Author Archive
Have you ever gotten to the end of the day and thrown yourself on the couch and wondered “What did I do today? How did the day go by so fast?” This is a hallmark statement of an over-busy life. I’ve had a few of those recently. And it was as if the universe had honed in on this issue for me when I received a slew of emails from people that started, “I know how super-busy you are but…. “
This gave me a pause. One that I was over-due in taking! Because I had gotten into a whirlwind of activity, some of it creative, some of it habit-driven multi-tasking and some of it related to an old avoidance pattern.
When I started looking into the issue, I came across this interesting chart:
This poll from yougov.com shows that 59% of people being polled consider themselves to be busy and over 1/3 of the people polled felt guilty or anxious if they were not busy! Uh-oh! When I got honest with myself, I had to admit that I can easily slip into the feeling of “not-enough” if I really slow down! So underneath a lot of busy-ness, can be feelings of unworthiness or the desire for perfectionism. That’s what I’m referring to when I mention an old avoidance pattern.
If we have some vestiges of unworthiness or perfectionism, they will tend to crop their heads up from time to time when we start slipping into busy-ness.
Obviously, keeping busy then becomes a defense pattern to avoid these feelings and being not-busy results in guilt and anxiety! And it’s true, guilt feels like a shadow on the heart- this is not a clear heart at all!
So rather than diving in to change my busy-pattern right away, I took my own advice from my last blog (“When not to change your life…. Now), and just observed myself for a few days. But the more I observed myself in my over-busy-ness, the more I slowed down naturally, remembering to breath more consciously, to pay attention to what I was doing, and to enjoy the little things in life.
I also realized my upbringing with a strong mid-western work ethic had caught up with me again. Don’t get me wrong, having a good work ethic is important but some of us got a big dose of guilt with the message. My grandparents were farmers and spent long days working in the fields. When we wanted to laze about on the weekends, we always got a lecture about some aspect of the value of work, sometimes peppered with words like “good-for-nothing” and “low-down lazy dogs” to describe people who didn’t work hard enough.
Guilt and Fear mixed all together: Snakes in the field:
The summer that I was 13 years old, my parents decided we needed to spend some time working on our grandparent’s farm in Wyoming in order to learn the value of work. So my 15 year old sister and I would get dropped off in the beet fields at 6 am to hoe weeds all morning. This was in the days before cell phones. The only problem was that the beet fields were filled with rattlesnakes because it was such a dry season that year. We finally got out of our weeding job after I nearly sat on a baby rattlesnake next to the irrigation ditch!
We spent the rest of the summer painting outbuildings. It seemed that whatever we did, someone else was always working longer and harder than us, so my sister and I would find ways to goof off while no one was looking! A few times we got caught up and received a dose of “lazy kid” guilt. I’m sure a lot of you have had similar experiences.
The key thing today, is this pattern of guilt for being not-busy will drive periodic times of over busy-ness. The first step then, is bringing it up to consciousness again~
Banish Guilt- Create from a Clear Heart!
This is the way “Creating from a Clear Heart” program works. The first step is being conscious and the rest of the steps flow from here.
The steps of the Clear Heart process are:
C- Conscious – Choosing to bring consciousness to a situation or emotion
L- Light Heartedness – Learning to cultivate and activate a sense of light-heartedness
E- Empowerment – Emancipating old patterns and habits by taking empowered action
A – Appreciation – Acknowledging your appreciation for what is occurring
R- Responsible – Restoring appropriate balance between heart/brain resulting in responsible thoughts, feelings and actions
In the recorded broadcast of the Clear Heart Program, I discussed the 90/10 and 10/90 equation relationship between the heart and the brain. An optimal energy equation is 90% heart/ 10% brain. As I described in the webinar, this equation correlates to our physiology where 90% of the signals through our vagus nerve travel UP from the heart to the brain and only 10% of the signals go DOWN from brain to heart.
Out of stress and over-busy-ness, most of us are operating energetically in the inverse 0r 10% heart and 90% brain.
When we learn how to correct this imbalance, we can easily choose to slow-down our pace and our breathing. We then end up being more present and flowing and capable of amping-up life’s pleasures in all things! And we easily let go of old feelings from the past that related to unworthiness and the drive to perfectionism.
For example, writing this article could be stressful and feel like “work I HAVE to do”. But I am experiencing it as a flowing, easy energy grounded in appreciation and enjoyment.
So in this way, I am not busy, I am present and enjoying what I am doing this very moment. Likewise, with my work with clients, I am not busy when I am present in a session. I am focused on being present and I am appreciating the privilege of connecting with another person’s heart, hopes, challenges and dreams.
To schedule a Clear Heart Session with me or to view the rebroadcast of The Clear Heart Program, contact me at ronna@modernmastery.com
When our Work and our Worth get Entangled… Part 2 of Creating from the Clear Heart Series.
If you’d like to learn more about the process of Creating from the Clear Heart, please email me for the code and PIN for my free webinar replay! ronna@modernmastery.com
I get about 5 to 6 emails a day from experts on some topic related to “how to change my life”. This is a result of placing a high value on growth and consciousness, spirituality and the pursuit of excellence in my personal and professional life. Because of this, I’ve signed up for lots of newsletters, telesummits and workshops over the years. Many of the emails are focused on what others think may be wrong with me and “how to fix it”! About one week into the New Year, I received this presumptuous email from a “guru” that really turned me off.
Here’s what it said: From a self-help leader: “Hi Ronna! You seem to be a little bit confused about exactly what your mission is here on planet Earth. I would like to offer a bit of help.” Wow! I didn’t think I was confused… not even a “little bit”! I know exactly why I am here and I believe that everyone knows this in their hearts. In fact, my youngest child asked me when he was 5 years old, “Mom, Why I am here?” He really meant it in the BIG way, and not related to why we were in a particular room in the house. I told him: “Why don’t you sit down and get quiet, and ask yourself this question.” He did. After about 15 seconds, he jumped up and said: “I am here to help parents and kids love each other.” As the saying goes…. From the mouths of babes oft comes great wisdom.
This leads me to Part 2 of the article I posted on 1-31-2015. My previous blog is entitled: “When Love and Control Get Confused”. The same process that I described in that article is present if someone is struggling with life purpose. Underneath this struggle, invariably is an entanglement with work and worth. When our Work and our Worth get confused or entangled, we can be assured that we are not creating from a clear heart. Instead, we are going about our work from an underlying place of fear. Or to say it another way, we are creating from a place of the head and a list of “should’s”… such as, “I should stay at the job that I dislike because I might not get a better one… I should be responsible… I should do what’s expected of me… I should play it safe and stay with the known.”
Another factor that is often “at work” in this issue is creating from a common misconception: believing that the work we do in the world, determines our worth. In the webinar on February 12th, I will share with you how I untangled from this common fallacy in 2014…. It was a challenging process, like many of life’s most important lessons. The backdrop of this lesson was that someone I trusted attempted to take everything, and I mean every “thing” that I had worked to create in my adult life. I will share what happened in 2014 during the call. And because of the sensitive nature of what I will share with you, I may not rebroadcast the webinar, so if you are interested, be sure to tune in! (see details below.)
Back to my son’s wisdom at age 5: I believe that we each have this clarity and that we don’t need someone else to help us remember what we have forgotten (if we have!) As adults, the process of remembering our purpose can be a bit more involved than it is for children who are free of mental clutter, responsibilities and obligations. But the process of tapping into profound insight is the same. But before we can “Change” or do something differently, I believe that we owe it to ourselves to STOP trying to change and first accept where we are now. However, acceptance alone is not the key ingredient. The key ingredient is understanding the purpose that is served by being exactly where we are – whether it’s financial, health, relationship, career, social connections, or just basic dissatisfaction with our lives in general.
Growth not change
I believe that life is all about growth. However, growth does not always lead to change. Some growth creates the wisdom to stay where we are and how we are because we see the value in what we have created. The key word here is wisdom.
In my experience, only when I quit trying to change, was lasting change really possible. In essence, I grew rather than changed. There is a big difference between these two things.
One of the first steps in my life-transition coaching, is to guide clients through a “deep dive” process into the 360 degree review I created and outlined in my film, Sacred Journey of the Heart. I came up with this process to help clients observe the clues all around them which always reflect the deeper meaning about why things are the way they are. When we take the time to actually do this, vs stop trying to change the way things are, awareness and insight bursts through and from here, lasting change is possible.
The same 3 factors I described in my previous article are at work in untangling our work from our worth. http://sacredjourneyoftheheart.com/blog/?p=236
So what impels us to grow? I’ve heard the concept of “divine discontent”. This is the idea that it is our discontent that drives us to align with a deeper heart-space and a higher spiritual purpose. According to this idea, our shortcomings lead us to change. And the desire to change is driven by unhappiness, dissatisfaction and disconnect from something essential.
In my years of coaching and counseling, I’ve discovered that trying to change from a foundation of discontent, leads to more of the same. Why? Because we are trying to create something new, from a basis of the old. It would be like trying to plant a garden in a fallow patch of earth.
My suggestion is to allow yourself to be motivated to grow by accepting and understanding where you are now. If you feel out of sync with your work, you may want to explore my Clear Heart process.
Here are some signs of an entanglement with work and worth:
- Conflicts with people at work that are distracting and disruptive
- Getting annoyed with your boss and co-workers
- Feeling exhausted at the end of the day
- Believing that you are not in the right line of work
- Trying to convince yourself that you are working at a certain job because you have to
- Believing that your work reflects upon your worthiness
The question again is: Why do we do this and accept these conditions? The answer is the same as in my previous article. Many of us grew up believing that work and worthiness are inextricably woven together. And if we believe this on any level, we then think that we need to change our work in order to change our lives.
I presented a free webinar on The Clear Heart Program on 2-12. The replay of the event is available by request: ronna@modernmastery.com
Happy Heart Month!
Ronna
Untangling the energy of love from the fear of control
(webinar info below- February 11, 2015 at 6 pm Mountain)
by Ronna Prince, HeartMath & Radical Forgiveness Coach, Brain Tek Practitioner and Filmmaker, Sacred Journey of the HeartHave you ever found yourself in a tense situation with a loved one, family or friend that was frustrating or annoying? Did you feel like whatever you said was misinterpreted, ignored or rebuffed? Or has a loved one suggested something to you that set you on edge, leaving you feeling criticized or attacked.
This happened to me a while ago, when my loved one suggested I do something different to improve my sleep patterns. It was a simple suggestion but I found myself feeling annoyed, criticized and rejected. I even had a few imaginary conversations with him to practice what I was going to say -you know, “give him a piece of my mind!” Then Whoa! I had an aha moment… I realized that he was suggesting this to me because he loves me, not because he was trying to control me. (Any by the way, when you want to give someone a “piece of your mind”, it is invariably connected to shutting off a chunk of your heart!)
The reality is that a person who loves us is always “involved” with us on many levels…. and being invOLVEd contains the letters “IN LOVE”! So how did I confuse his loving involvement with control? And even more importantly, how could I EVOLve my consciousness of this issue without LOVE? Well, the answer is, I couldn’t. It was time to make a different, clear-hearted choice.
Choose an open heart
A KEY to making the choice to give and receive from a clear heart is learning to untangle the emotion and expression love from a deeply seated fear of being controlled by a loved one. The truth is that love and fear cannot reside in the same space- so in my view, this is the most important relationship issue to heal.
No fear- only love
Here are some signs of an entanglement with love and fear of control:
- Petty arguments that repeat over and over and are not resolved with love
- Getting annoyed when you are asked to do something small for a loved one (such as “Will you please pick up my dry cleaning on the way home?” or “Would you mind mailing this letter for me?”)
- Putting off or avoiding physical intimacy, including no longer holding hands or giving neck and back rubs or neglecting to just touching your loved one in passing
- Not listening with your full attention when your loved one is talking to you
- Feeling resentment when your loved one makes suggestions about something you could do differently or better
- Saying nasty little things in your head about your loved one
- Faking your actions or reactions in any way at all.
The question is: Why do we do this? Just looking at the list, it seems obvious that these are relationship busters and petty behaviors that we should have grown out of when we grew up!
Image from Sacred Journey of the Heart film
But the problem is, many of us never really grew up understanding that love does not mean control! We experienced a lot of things our parents did to us or for us, as controlling us. For the most part, this is a healthy part of growing up with parents who had reasonable rules and good personal boundaries. But if there were some unhealthy connections between love and control, we most likely have carried these into our significant relationships. Over time, our behaviors will crop up in insidious ways to undermine the foundation of our primary love relationships as adults.
So what is the solution? It is learning to untangle the reality of love from a fear of being controlled by a loved one.
Here are a few suggestions to begin the process of “untanglement” – this leads to what I call “A Clear Heart”. Because if your heart is cluttered with fear of being controlled by someone who is simply trying to love you, you are pushing away the very thing that can heal you. (And by the way, I love the topic of quantum entanglement in relationship! The idea is that at all times, we are with exactly the right person to mirror a greater whole that consists of two parts coming together in a “spooky dance”!)
Clear hearts- more light
I have defined 3 categories that are all involved in the process of letting go of entanglement and 4 ways to change the resulting patterns:
Cognitive: these are a series of questions to ask yourself from a Clear Heart space. I will share some examples below. This “Clear Heart” practice involves using your thoughts and emotions, largely based on things that you already know. This process can begin the journey of relationship healing.. but it only gets you so far because most of the entanglement occurs at a subconscious, unconscious AND physiological levels. Emotional love-control entanglement is deeply rooted in learned behaviors and belief systems imposed on you before you were able to make your own decisions. So the next two categories are where the real transformation happens.
Spiritual: In order to untangle love and control issues at a deeper level, I believe that engaging in a spiritual practice is very important. If you realize that you have been impacted by unhealthy beliefs around love and control, spiritual practices such as meditation and prayer are essential to evolve beyond the little self or the ego. I also practice the 5 steps of Radical Forgiveness and live a RF-based lifestyle. Radical Forgiveness is a powerful system developed by Colin Tipping that “busts” your victim stories and provides you with a step-by-step process of empowerment. (see link below for a recorded webinar during which I discuss how RF works.)
Physiological: I use two more powerful modalities that address the two places that our emotions and thoughts about things get entangled: our heart and our brain. Without learning how to consciously manage these two important organs, we get limited results with cognitive and spiritual practices. These two modalities are HeartMath tools and techniques and Brain Tek’s Behavioral Relationship Entrainment Program. (Both of these are discussed in detail in earlier blog posts.) The good news is that both of these practices are effective, easy and convenient to learn and to use on a regular basis in the privacy of your own home. With the HeartMath practices, you learn how to harness the physiological power of your heart to decrease stress, increase a genuine connection with yourself and others and develop creative heart-based solutions to any situation.
But for me, the real “missing link” has been in the physiological neural wiring in the brain. If your brain is wired through repetition and conditioning to interpret events as dangerous, controlling or fearful, no amount of cognitive processing, spiritual practice or heart coherence activity can over-ride a deep-brain based pattern. What Brain Tek’s program does, is to free up stuck neural patterns and create more effective neural connections so that you CAN consistently and effectively put all the other techniques in to practice.
If you are interested in learning about exactly how this works and hearing about the real results I have experienced with myself and my clients, watch this webinar presentation I offered last month.
Breaking Free Webinar: Radical Forgiveness, HeartMath and Brain Tek
I am offering a 20% discount on the 6 week BRE program for the first 3 people who sign up for the program. It is easy, effective, lasting and life-changing! Contact me at: ronna@modernmastery.com
The Clear Heart Practice: Questions to Untangle love from fear
Before entering into the clear heart practice, I do a short meditation and an innovative heart-connection that I’ve developed over the years. I will be sharing this specific technique in a free webinar in February (See below for details).
Sample questions in the Clear Heart Practice:
- Am I open to receiving love or am I blocking love out of fear?
- Is my loved one really trying to control me or is he/she simply loving me and trying to help?
- What am I afraid will happen if I do what is being asked of me?
- Do I need to be right more than I desire to be loved? – a popularized phrase but very powerful in the context of the Clear Heart practice.
- What is stopping me from reaching out to my loved one?
- Am I willing to let go of fear of rejection and put this into application?
- Am I willing to own my projections and love the part of myself that is afraid of not being worthy of love? (a Key Radical Forgiveness principal).
These questions are just one way to begin to untangle old patterns and open to love from the clear heart. Join me in learning more about the integration of these practices!
Title: Creating from a Clear Heart
Date & Time: Wednesday, February 11th at 6:00pm Mountain
Attend by Phone: (audio only)
Guest pin code: 339751#
Primary dial in number: (425) 440-5100
Secondary dial in number: (619) 471-1669
Full list of dial in Numbers:
http://InstantTeleseminar.com/Local/?eventid=65380800
Event Page: (Audio with Power Point slides!)
http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=65380800
Happy Heart Month!
Interested in learning more on this topic? Join my 1 hour webinar – info below.
How often have you heard someone tell you, when contemplating what to do about an issue, to “just let it go”? Or have you found yourself saying, “I just have to let this go..” and then realizing later that the issue, person or thing is still there, lurking around the corner? Or even more obvious, you find yourself facing another situation just like the one you gotten out of! I’ve seen this with my clients and experienced it myself, in relationships, work related projects, issues of health like the recurring 10 pound weight loss and gain. This pattern reminds me of the French saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
After spending some time immersed in the pattern of “letting go” and having it crop up again, I finally got to the core of this issue that underpins a lot of repeating experience. And I call that getting to the core of the 5 W’s of Letting Go and Holding Dear. And these are not the journalistic – who, what, when, where and why questions! Those are just facts that fall into place after the foundational “W”s are solidified.
The Foundational 5 “W”s in the Art of Letting Go and the Act of Holding Dear
Wisdom
Worthiness
Wholeness
Wealth
Well-Being
I am going to delve into each one of these during my webinar on 1-21, 2015 during which I will share with you the specifics of how to work with these 5 energies or states of being.
But before we get to that next week, I have listed below the 5 surefire ways of having something we want to let go of, happen again (i.e. what not to do) and 5 reliable ways to ensure that we expand upon the things that we hold dear to our hearts. It looks like a simple list, but it’s an empowering starting process to become more clear and conscious about what we are creating in 2015.
| How to ineffectively let go – i.e. bring it on again! | How to truly let it go – a new beginning: |
| Letting go without learning the lesson | What have I learned? How did I grow from this situation? |
| Letting go without realizing the gift | What is the gift In what happened? What happened for me, vs “to me”. |
| Letting go with blame, regret or shame | How did I contribute to this situation? Have I truly forgiven those involved? |
| Letting go with conditions | Am I holding onto conditions such as “I will let go only if I’m sure it won’t happen again.” |
| Letting go with the spiritual bypass (or cop-out) of “it’s all good” | Have I allowed myself to feel my true feelings around the situation – or have I stuffed and denied how I feel? |
About mid-way through 2014, I started using this new technique and tool for myself… and in doing so, I shifted out of some old patterns that continued to clear and in late December 2014, completely ended. I have never been so excited about a New Year as I am in January 2015!
I invite you to join me to create from a new platform in 2015!
Title: The Art of Letting Go
Time: Wednesday, January 21st at 5:00pm Mountain
Listening method: Phone + Web Simulcast
To attend, visit:
http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=64448400
Phone Number: (425) 440-5100
Pin Code: 339751#
Are you ready for the holidays or are you like me, doing last minute shopping and meal planning? In the midst of last minute activities, it seems like I’m bombarded by “last chance” emails, ads and signs everywhere I look. Today, I’m pondering “last chances” – of which there really are very few in life, and “second chances” – what we gift to ourselves and others when make new choices.
When you think about it for a minute, there are truly very few things in life that are last chances…. But if we end up missing a last chance at something important, it can be really hard to let go of feelings of regret and move on… and in looking back, we can easily end up missing second chances that are right there in front of us now. In this article, I’ll share with you 3 ways to shift out of last chanc-ing.
The problem with last chance thinking and acting is twofold and it runs on a very powerful emotion-based program.
Here is the problem with last-chances: 1) they prey on our tendency toward impulsivity, bypassing the higher-brain processes of reason and logic and, 2) they pull at our heart-strings, typically in ways that deplete our energy… as in “I should do x, y, or z, or else….”
This is because “last chances” are tied into old wired-in emotional patterns of fear and regret. Fear and regret are very powerful because they keep us looking backward at the past and/or lock us into anxiety about the future never presenting us with an opportunity again.
When we dissect it this way, it’s easy to see how dysfunctional last chance thinking and acting really is!
Here is a personal example I just experienced. My younger brother, John, today is happy, well-adjusted, employed and in a committed relationship. Five years ago, he was homeless, alone and literally wandering in the desert in Arizona. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. He had been missing for about 3 years. The last time I saw him was in 2007 when I left him at a rehab center for indigent people. He had spiraled into alcoholism after our mom died in 2002 and his wife left him. He had run out of “one last chances” with me as I had learned how to stop enabling his addiction.
A few years later in 2010, I was playing the Radical Forgiveness game called “Satori” that is featured in my film, Sacred Journey of the Heart. Satori is a board game created by Colin Tipping, that takes the players through all 5 steps of Radical Forgiveness that I depict in the film. Playing the game results in reframing issues to a new perspective that literally shifts reality in small and sometimes huge ways.
Each player “randomly” selects an issue from a stack of cards and plays the game around that particular issue. The card I picked for the game that day in 2010 was “Alcohol and Drugs have affected your life” and the context was Family. So obviously, I was being led to dive deep into Radical Forgiveness about my brother John’s alcoholism. It was one of the toughest games of Satori I ever played. Through the process, I was able to look at how I still blamed myself for not doing enough for him, not just through his addiction, but when we were growing up and I was trying to fill in for an absent dad and a stressed out mom who had gone to back to school to get her master’s degree after her divorce. I was able to shift into a new perspective about the events around his addiction and see what the experience did “for” me vs “to” me. It helped me untangle my lack of self-forgiveness and enter into deep forgiveness for my brother and through him, for myself.
Literally 10 days after I played the Satori game in August 2010, my brother was found in the desert, brought back to our hometown in the Midwest and entered into a very strict rehab program. All he had to his name was a change of clothes. He didn’t even have an ID card. Less than 10% of the people entering the rehab program complete it. My brother was one of the successful graduates.
Today, he is sober, he has rebuilt his life, he has a good job and he is living in a committed and happy relationship. It is a miracle that was built on radical forgiveness, his hard work, the support of many people and the second chance he received to start again.
The other day he called to ask me for a recipe of one of our mom’s favorite holiday breakfast casseroles. I told him it was in the 3-ring binder book that my mom gave to each one of us before she died. The book contained her favorite recipes, favorite poems and the original artwork and poetry she created as she was dying from brain cancer. It was a gift we all cherished because it contained so many fond memories and her expressions of love which came through her cooking, poetry and art.
John reminded me that he had lost the book of our mom’s precious gift. I said to myself, “Ah! That’s right! He had literally lost every single thing he owned from his past.”
Of course, I emailed him the recipe right away but in that moment, I knew what to give my brother this Christmas. One by one, I copied each page from the 3 ring binder book from our mother. The recipes are in black and white, the artwork and poetry are in color – about 250 pieces of paper and several hours of my time were spent in gratitude that my mom left us such an amazing gift. And in deep gratitude that my brother had not at all “lost” this part of his past: the legacy of love from our mom that I could give back to him.
I believe that there are always second chances for love. Radical Forgiveness opened my heart in 2010 and I got my brother back. And my brother is getting the gift from our mother back!
I’ve continued my exploration of emotions and the brain, the heart and the mind since 2010. I’ve discovered that doing the HeartMath program, Voyage to Heart Intelligence, activates the power of our hearts and creates many second chances for love and great moment-to-moment connections with the present moment.
And my latest discovery, Brain Tek’s brain wave entrainment program, caps it all off by unwiring stuck pathways in the brain that tend to resurface during stressful times. Brain Tek’s personalized sound therapies literally create new pathways in the brain that end worry, rumination, anxiety and procrastination.
I will be comparing all three programs next Monday, December 29th 2014 at 5 pm Mountain time. My primary focus will be Brain Tek – if you’ve missed my other free webinars, here’s your second chance to learn how to permanently change old patterns and give yourself the gift of living in the present!
For information on how to join the free webinar email: ronna@sacredjourneyoftheheart.com
Happy Holidays!
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!
Less than 4 weeks to Optimism, Peace and Contentment
At the end of this article is information about a free teleconference on October 7, 2014 at 6 pm Pacific Time to learn more about this topic.
Excerpt from Sacred Journey of the Heart, Chapter 3. Tracy Roman, former attorney-turned- activist” for social change: “I know what my day’s going to look like tomorrow, and the next day and the next. Am I happy? And when the honest answer was no, then what am I fearing by making a change?”
Have you ever been so stressed out about a situation that that everything you’ve ever learned in managing day-to-day life went out the window? Or have you ever found yourself worrying and ruminating, creating more stress and anxiety for yourself and not know how to stop the “mind chatter” cycle?
Mind Chatter
That’s exactly what happened to me this past Spring and since then, I’ve found what I’m personally calling the “Holy Grail” of inner peace and optimism.
I have been on the search for the “Holy Grail” for years, trying one thing after another. A new process would work for a time but then old thoughts and behaviors would creep back in. At some “basic level”, I was a life-long pessimist, ruminator, worry-wart and anxiety-addict. Talk about frustration! Even after producing a full-length film and learning about heart-based living from some of the best experts on the planet, I kept default-programming into my old patterns.
So back in late May, I found myself in the middle of a very stressful situation that triggered every one of my old programs about struggle, self-worth and powerlessness. The details are not important other than to share with you that everything I learned, teach and share went out the window for me. Nothing worked. Not Radical Forgiveness, not Heart-based Coherence, not tapping (EFT), not Psych-K or any other cognitive-spiritual based modalities that had proven effective in the past.
I was discussing my frustration with one of my colleagues and she suggested that I try a new brain-based technology. I was in the throes of pessimism and the first thing out of my mouth was “I’ve already done it –and it didn’t work!” AKA, “been-there-done-that syndrome.” Next, I told her I was tired of trying new things and had come to the conclusion that I had to give up the fight and keep up my outer façade of “It’s All Good”. After all, if I just kept on “acting as if….”, maybe someday I would wake up a changed and better, sunnier person. Maybe just like Gweneth Paltrow, the latest icon of:
It’s all good?
My colleague patiently explained to me that the program she was referring to is different than the brainwave entrainment therapies that everyone is talking about. The program she shared with me is based on individualized treatment of a person’s neurological brain lobe-specific wiring. The protocol looks at behaviors (not brain waves) and traces them back to the hard-wired brain lobe that runs the program. The therapy literally re-routes the neural pathways so that permanent behavioral change can take place. After hesitating for a few days, I had the insight that it was time to invest in myself, rather than to invest in my default position of pessimism and doubt.
It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. In a matter of a few weeks, I had an entirely new outlook on life, my old default patterns were wiped out and I was sleeping through the night. And even better, I had week by week scientifically verified progress reports on exactly what was happening in my brain!
I found out that 3 lobes of my brain were the “Default Directors” that took over the show when I became stressed. These 3 areas of the brain are: the basal ganglia, the cingulate gyrus and the limbic system. These are parts of the brain that deal with repetitive thought patterns, regulating emotion, memory formation and storage, pain processing and habit formation. What happened under stress, was my frontal cortex, the higher thinking process and executive decision maker, went off-line. And the wired in programming took over.
A wired, tired brain
I finally understood why the other processes I had learned worked only up to a certain point. Cognitive and spiritual practices alone, were not effective in over-riding my brain-based wired-in patterns that were memorized over a lifetime of repetition. I am convinced that this is why so many people end up feeling WORSE after engaging in a “positive thinking” program, or a Spiritual healing practice that is supposed to work wonders. Yes, these things work, but only so far and more often than not, they go out the window when faced with a major life issue.
I am excited to share with you that I am now a certified Practitioner of Brain Tek Institute’s Behavioral Entrainment Program (BRE). I am able to provide this program to anyone in the world with high-speed internet access and stereo headphones. In 4 to 6 weeks, we will be able to re-wire your neural pathways using proprietary signals that effortlessly change your brain back to optimal functioning. This is NOT brainwave entrainment. It is very different.
I started offering this to my clients a few months ago and it has been nothing short of phenomenal to witness their results, week-by-week, as they have become free of anxiety, depression, worry, brain fog, memory issues and many physical symptoms like chronic pain, headaches and insomnia. Every single person is leaping for joy and experiencing significant progress that is verifiable.
Leaping for Joy!
My own progress continues to hold steady. The major stressor that sent me down this path is still going on, but I choose when to think about it and I no longer worry about worst-case-scenario. In other words, I have a renewed sense of enjoyment in life and for the first time, my optimistic outlook on life is permanent, not just a fleeting state based on outside circumstances.
I’m still a big fan of the heart, don’t get me wrong! I still use HeartMath’s Inner Balance® and emWave2® and I whole-heartedly believe and know that the electro-magnetic field of the heart is by far the strongest one in the body. I know the heart connects us all and sends signals into the field around us that can be measured and felt by others. But if the brain is mis-wired, the heart-field is clouded with the emotional baggage we are unconsciously broadcasting every moment. And that’s what draws to us, the undesirable situations that create stress – in frustrating loop that results in being stuck on a fence. There is a way out and it is easy and fast.
If you would like to learn more, please join me on a free teleconference on October 7, 2014 at 6 pm Pacific Time. You must register to attend. Once you register, you will receive a confirmation email with a dial-in number and PIN. I will be raffling two sound protocols: one at the beginning of the call and one at the end. You must be present during the call to win a prize! Email for registration: Ronna@sacredjourneyoftheheart.com
If you are like me and don’t want to wait, please email me and I will send you all the information about BRE right away.
Here’s my new closing:
Heart-felt and Brain-Balanced Gratitude!
Free Conference call to learn more about this topic: See end of article for info.
If you’ve ever felt that you are stuck in the “same-old, same-old” routine, it may be time to leap out of the rut and into something entirely new! I found myself in just that place in late Spring when certain things in my life and business had gotten stagnant and stuck. I felt sort of like this cow:
Stuck on a fence
Knowing that I have a tendency “rock the boat” big-time and end up in deep water, I decided it was time to find an easier pathway to creating change without bringing on a perfect storm in my life! Read the rest of this entry
5 Heart Warming C’s: Curiosity, Circulation, Correlation, Coherence, Commitment
“It’s time to lift the spirit of depression of each one around us….to melt the ice in the heart of humanity”.
This is one of my favorite lines in Sacred Journey of the Heart film, spoken by Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, nicknamed “Uncle”, a Greenland Eskimo-Kalaallit Elder and shaman. Uncle is a passionate advocate for indigenous and environmental issues that impact us all. At the heart of it all, according to Uncle, is a world-wide disconnect from our hearts and heart of earth itself. I concur.
As I’ve learned from the Institute of HeartMath, our heart is the key organ that regulates the synchronization of the body as a whole. If you haven’t seen the film, you will enjoy the evidence presented by Dr. Rollin McCraty, HeartMath’s lead scientist and Gregg Braden, NYT best-selling author and researcher that transforms our understanding about the power of the heart. They also provide astounding evidence that there IS a collective heart, and an undeniable connection between the human heart and the earth.
Graphic from Sacred Journey of the Heart© Read the rest of this entry