Several years ago one of the members of our Toastmaster’s Group gave a speech that told the audience that not only do we have brain cells in our brains (of course!) but we also have brain cells in our hearts and guts as well.

I’ve since learned that he was almost (but not quite) right about that.  According Steven Novella, M.D. in the NeurologicaBlog, what many have actually confused is that brain cells and or neurons are the same. According to Dr. Novella they are not because of where and how the cells are located and most importantly how they function. Dr. Novella says, “There is a certain flavor of misconception that occurs when a cultural belief intersects a scientific factoid that superficially seems to support the belief. A powerful meme emerges to the effect of – science now proves what we have known/believed all along. Gurus latch onto this idea to provide apparent credibility to their mysticism. The media eats it up.”  Although I am not a doctor nor a student of neurology I can understand what Dr. Novella is saying and concur with his information.

With that said.  To me, our paying attention to the cells that communicate information to us kinesthetically is the most important piece to take away rather than whether those cells are brain cells (so they directly interact with our thinking brain) or neurons that relay information within our body to keep it running smoothly.  W H A T E V E R.   In my mind, the most important thing is for us to pay attention to our minds and bodies and listen to them. Information is being sent to us in all kinds of ways by our body all the time.

I would encourage Dr. Novella and other scientific thinkers to embrace the idea that, as he terms it, “mystical metaphors” and science can sit quite comfortably with each other in the same space.  It’s all about the language of how we communicate what we are experiencing to each other. So, if Dr. Novella and I were to get into a friendly chat over a cup of proper tea, I wouldn’t say to him what are your heart or mind thinking  and conveying to you but rather, do you notice if your body expresses feeling in a certain locale (heart expanding or constricting, guts tightening or loosening) when you experience certain incidents in your day-to-day life.  All of this information is connected and useful and worthy of finding a common road for sharing information with each other.

What is your brain and body telling you?

Thought for the Day:  Could you be preventing an interesting idea from taking root in your awareness about the world around you because of how it is conveyed to you?

Helpful Hint for Being Human:  We humans (dare I say all life on this planet Earth) are a glorious combination of so many things that we still have yet to uncover much less discover.  Be willing to keep an open mind for learning new ideas and find ways to transfer what you’ve learned that inspires other to consider what you have to say.

One of my favorite quotes by Light Worker Paxton Robey is, “There is nothing outside of us but a mirror.” And if you’ve ever delved into the study of our minds and something as basic as how we see things via those instruments we call eyeballs that sit in the front of our face and relay messages back to the computer we call our brains, the easier it is to see the point of view that really all that we see, hear and experience outside of ourselves (whatever ourself is) is simply reflections back to ourselves of what we are experiencing.

So, gentle reader, why on Earth would I begin an article entitled, “Our Elderly: The Last Unappreciated Frontier?” with a paragraph about brains and mirror reflections?  Because as my brain sees and interprets how much of humanity–at least the culture in which I live today—views the elderly either not all, or, if at all, in a very shallow insipid low waters of perception along the shoreline of our thinking and feeling minds.  Our elderly really are an untapped gold mine just waiting for us to see beyond the mirror reflections of our beliefs (or disbeliefs).

Let me ask you to consider this, according to www.usgs.gov up to 60% of the human adult body is water.  Can you imagine that we silly humans spend so much time worried, fearful, concerned, fretting, and anxious about how the outside surface (skin) of the vessel we call our body (which is more than half composed of water) looks that we turn away and dismiss that last unappreciated frontier of humanity which is full of wisdom, perspective, humor, stories, love, answers, ideas and more. In fact, for many of us, exploring that frontier could be as simple as having a conversation with the next elderly person who crosses your path and being curious about what you may discover.

Thought for the day:  What prejudices, judgements and beliefs might you harbor way down below that is preventing you from surfacing the overflow of wealth from the elderly in your world?

Helpful Hint for being human: We’re ALL going to be part of the elderly someday (unless we check out before hand). Can you imagine how fulfilling it would/will be too be not only respected, honored and appreciated for living a life well-done but to be asked to give our every last drop of experience to help others coming up behind us on their life path.

Is there a place that you frequent often to get (written) information about the world around you ?  Are you confident that the writing is honest, ethical, fact-checked and not to mention well-written?  So much has happened over the last 5-10 years in the world of journalism and reporting, what with magazines and papers trimming staff or shutting down much less the onslaught of millions of wanna-be-reporters blogging their opinions, that I’m not as confident about the written word as I used to be.

And, in my humble opinion, I come from a background of having worked at one of the most well-written and fact-checked national magazines, TexasMonthly (TM).  Some of the U.S.’ best journalists either cut their teeth at the magazine or were regular contributors such as Lawrence Wright, Stephen Harrigan,  Joe Nick Patoski, Mimi Schwartz and Skip Hollandsworth to name a few.  For every piece written in TM, its readers could be confident that extensive and exhaustive research was done.  Facts were checked and re-checked.  And each of these writers have a gift of pulling the reader deep into their story, making us grab on to the edges of the pages and hang on for the ride all the way to the satisfying end.  Many of the writers who I knew from my time at TexasMonthly continue to write and also enjoy multi-faceted brilliant careers in screenwriting, broadcasting, speaking and teaching.

My hope is that there is a crop of writers out there who have the talent, wisdom, tenacity and perseverance to investigate and report back to us in an engaging and well-written manner like these great writers who have gone before them.  The world needs writers who can sift through the myriad of noise out there and focus in on what is happening so that they can help us to understand our world better.

Thought for the Day:  Where do you go to get information about what is happening in the world? Do you believe and trust it? Why?

Helpful Hints for Being Human: Recognizing the greatness around us through the written word can help us find the greatness within ourselves.

Most of us probably believe we at least know what our opinions are about most things in life and also feel pretty confident about how we see things.  Yet, if you’re like me, given the right circumstances you might find out that you don’t know more than you realized you didn’t know.  How does that saying go from college philosophy classes,  something along the lines of “we know what we know” and maybe “we know what we don’t know” but only if we’re really paying attention will “we not know what we don’t know.”

You can imagine my amazement while working on a social media evaluation project to discover that I have many more definite opinions than I realized.  Perhaps this opportunity revealed itself because in this project instead of weaving through various social media only to land upon that which really sparks my interest I am required to spend time on each post and to evaluate them.  For example, because I am such a huge animal lover and nature lover you would think (I certainly did!) that I would want to watch or read every video or post that had animals involved wouldn’t you?  As it turns out, that part of me that is all about justice really has some definite opinions about what type of animal videos, memes, jpgs are out there and specifically what is okay and what is not. Like a video going around that shows a mama giraffe giving birth in the zoo with all the people on the other side of her cage watching her walk around with her baby’s hooves sticking out and even a zookeeper following her with a video camera as she goes through the birthing process.  It is true that if I happened upon the same situation whilst on an African Safari (photography of course) and I could observe a giraffe giving birth like this without being obvious (think Jane Goodall) I would watch and be fascinated but this incident struck me as being particularly garish since this normally wild beast was imprisoned and because it was surrounded by predators (yes dear people, in the wild, certainly around such a vulnerable time we would be considered predators I’m almost certain) the video was painful to even just see the still of what it was without even viewing the content.

Thought for the Day: Wonder if something like social media, which many of us may judge to be just hitting the surface of life, when looked upon more deeply can help us to learn unexpected things about ourselves and others?

Helpful Hints for Being Human: It’s a good thing for us to open up our minds and hearts for new information about ourselves and others because it’s possible that there may be a whole lot out there that we don’t know that we don’t know!

I’m sure someone (probably many someones) have come up with a more elegant way (see IONS article by Michael A. Jawer) of describing this particular manner of extra sensing that I have, but as my mind is want to do, my imagination has its own unique way of visualizing what it feels like when some extra sensory something “pops” open inside of me . The pop usually happens when I’m talking with someone about a person, pet or thing they care about.  In a matter of seconds, I feel flooded with a “knowing” about the subject of their concern and also a perspective about how said subject experiences life.  Thank God this usually happens with someone who knows me pretty well so that my sudden 3-D understanding doesn’t freak them out. Still, there have been a few times when it’s happened with someone who I don’t know very well. Like the time members of a group I belonged to had gotten together for a meeting to turn over responsibilities from older to newer members of the group. During the comfortable, easy chit-chat at the beginning, one of the Dad’s began talking about his son and spontaneously I was able to add in affirmations about what he was saying and include his son’s perspective.  It’s a good thing this Dad shares my same faith tradition and has a fairly open mind because he was pretty amazed that I “knew” his son so well without really knowing him.  Call it what you may, but I think that’s an example of when my pop-open-window ESP goes into effect.

Most likely there is all kinds of evidence that can support whatever is the most comfortable theory you have for explaining this phenomena of knowing.  Use whatever works best for you. The point of my sharing this with you is not only because I think it’s way freaking cool and fun when it happens but also for me to remember and in turn help you to remember that it’s important for us to ask permission first if we may share what we are sensing.  Really, it’s just good manners and might help you to not freak out others as often as you might otherwise.

Thought for the Day:  All kinds of special “gifts” come to us and can be used through us to help ourselves and others.  Hopefully, we can recognize them as gifts so that we can respect them for what they are and their effect upon ourselves and others.

Helpful Hint for Being Human:  We have just begun to crawl towards the edge of our awareness of what it means to be human.  Keep an open mind and embrace the everyday miracles of being us.

Before any of you ask let me say,  no I am not a Quantum Physicist,  but I have read, experienced and studied about energy and humans from BIO-100 onwards through reading various articles by scientists and or researchers such as those at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (see Ken Smith ) and I’ve put two and two together that we’re all made up of some form of energy.  When I speak of energy what I am referring to is that quality of  our being that communicates so much information whether it be at the molecular or quark level.

In other words, that “spark of our being.”

What is making me think of such a heady topic as the one about humans being made of energy you may wonder Dear Reader? Social Media.  Or even more what I have experienced over and over again through digital communication that I have not heard or read very many people talk about and that is the “energy” that can be picked up digitally.  I have no idea how that works (yet, but I’m investigating so please do share with me if you have some info on this) but I believe we humans do pick up and give energetic signals through our various digital media.  Think of it as being a very sophisticated communication tool that is expressed from us energetically,  at some particle level perhaps, and that each of us are constantly giving and receiving many times throughout the day. Hmmm.  Sure does cause me to pause and wonder about how I respond and react digitally.  And about that digital thumbprint. I bet someday, somewhere an AI will be able to “read” what I’m writing about here today and we’ll all just be amazed at how much we didn’t know about ourselves.

Thought for the Day: If we are all made of energy and if energy weaves in and out through various properties in ourselves and all that is material then perhaps we really are all connected and if so, how are we disciplining ourselves for this interaction and connection with each other?

Helpful Hint for Being Human: Breathe deeply and be still with all that is, there you will find peace within the surrender and acceptance of who you are.

It’s a wonder any of us ever actually choose to get married, much less decide that we’re in love with another person and want to have a relationship with them.  Let’s face it, according to a  2011 Pew Research marriage survey, marriage is at an all time low in America at 51% of adults getting married. Pew goes on to say that,   Having a successful marriage is “one of the most important things” in life for 36% of adults, according to a 2011 Pew Research survey. An additional 48% said it is “very important but not the most” important.”

Later this afternoon, I’ll be interviewing Marcia “Naomi” Berger who is known globally as the Marriage Maven, about her latest book, “Marriage Meetings for lasting love: 30 Minutes a Week to the Relationship You’ve Always Wanted” on BTR’s Hope42Day.    When the publicist first sent me Naomi’s book I was at once interested to have a guest who could offer tools to my listeners about having a good marriage but also hesitant because “I’ve already been there and done that…hasn’t everybody?”

But, no, not all of us have created a vehicle that cultivates and supports a loving marriage for the long haul. That’s why many of us are still Googling to find the answers and why my friend and fellow web radio host Psychic Tee has a clamoring of listeners calling in to her shows, especially when she offers advice and readings about love and marriage.

For the record, there should be a special award given to my husband for sticking it out with me as we muddled through the first decade of our marriage.  Along the way we learned to remember not to take each other for granted and not to throw things at each other (physically or verbally).  24 years later, we have found lots of ways to enjoy each other and be grateful for our time.  Thankfully, we’ve always seemed to find ways to make each other laugh. For example, I wish I could secretly take a video of David dancing to the theme song from the TV Show Castle (which he does every time we watch it and makes me laugh every time) but you’ll just have to click on the hyperlinked Castle and imagine it for yourself.

Listen to what Marriage Maven Naomi Berger has to say about Marriage Meetings  and keep in mind, all good things come to those with patience and the willingness to work on themselves!

If you’ve been living in the past couple of decades then, more than likely, just like me, you’ve experienced the over all cultural phenomena of heightened fear in many aspects of your life with a big impact hitting your job or career.

On Friday, June 29, 2012 at 12:30pm CST I’ll be interviewing a highly regarded writer, speaker and management consultant, Judith M. Bardwick, Ph.D. on BTR’ Hope42Day.  In her book and subsequent talks and info-sessions, Judy shares about the psychological recession behind the changing work force (especially in the U.S.).

Here’s an excerpt about  fear from the book, “The prolonged, sustained fear that is characteristic of a Psychological Recession assures that good news will be discounted while bad news is accepted as the stuff of reality. The tragedy is that focusing on fears only reinforces them.  In understandable but irrational ways, people who are frightened move ever forward toward panic. In this way, a Psychological Recession is self-fulfilling.”

This got me to thinking about my days in the world of recruiting technical experts for long-term contracts.  In the late 90’s as we headed toward Y2K (for those of you who live under rocks, this was when the techno world was mainly run by mainframes and the uproar was all about the dates not being programmed to be able to turn over to 20 from 19 (1999 to 2000) we were flying high.  There was so much work to be done that we could not find people fast enough. Then there was a brief respite with client-server technology (remember that?) being the latest and greatest movement since the mainframe and like a creeping tidal wave, the internet took off and the rest as we know it is history.  There was a lot of fear in those days because the work world was being turned ass over tea kettle from brick and mortar to dot.com.  The psychology of how historically held institutions turned over the usual way of doing business to the new way—because of the impact of technology — from banking to real estate undergoing changes in fascinating (and frightening) ways.

I believe what allowed so much change to happen so quickly was FEAR.  Many people feared all the new technology taking place because they did not understand it. Then all that new technology coupled with the bright young minds stepping  up to leadership posts that would have taken years for previous generations to hold, had many reacting out of sheer fear.

Here we are a handful of years down the road from the great American recession and many countries undergoing their own radical changes (because, yeah, like they say, we are all connected!) and lot’s of people are scared, scared, scared.  The good news is that if you don’t want to be one of the mass who is steeping themselves in fear, anger, and dark perspectives of what life is all about….this is a most excellent time to put on that wet suit of confidence, trust and an open mind so that you can surf this huge wave of fear (maybe even have a whole lot of fun while you’re doing it) and come out on the other side to lead us to another way of doing and looking at how we do business (and live in the world).  I think that is how great leaders are created.  I think there is a whole lot of opportunity for smart people who understand humans and the psychology of business.

How will you see the world today?

I think so.  One of the little meditation books that I read every morning is, “Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much” by Anne Wilson Schaef. For June 24, Anne shared that “she saw and accepted the negative and delighted in whatever positive there was.”  Consequently, graduate school was not difficult for her nor had work ever been.   The quote for the day by Victoria Lincoln said:

This is the art of courage: to see things as they are and still believe that the victory lies not with those who avoid the bad, but those who taste, in living awareness, every drop of good.

Granted, there have been moments in my life as Lynn that I have completely flown over any facts based in reality and glossed out very negative consequences of choices I had made trying to force a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  But that’s not what I’m talking about today.  I’m coming from where I understand that Anne Wilson Schaef meant in that I’ve done the homework of life and I can see the goodness all around and through it.

Take the internet for instance.  For the first time in history, we humans are able to communicate with each other far and wide about anything (unless we’re  behind an internet wall as in some countries, but even than there are those who are figuring out how to work around it).  I hear from many quadrants of my life that all the information available to us is overwhelming and that there is so much negativity being uncovered.  Especially in the broadcast media.  If you believe like some of my friends who tend towards conspiracies (which, by the way, may be good to listen to with an open mind because you never know what morsels could be real…), at least in the United States, all the wealth is owned by 12 families.

How we see life is really all about where we put our focus.  Another infamously obvious statement but I’ll admit to you that there are times when I don’t pay attention where I’m putting my focus until I find myself down a dark winding path that I don’t want to be on.

Friday I interviewed mystic counselor, Paxton Robey on Hope42Day.    I first met Paxton and his wife, Anne, back in the mid-90’s and am as grateful to hear what he has to share today as I was then.  Talk about a realistic, but optimistic (and definitely mystic!) view of life!  Take a listen.

What can you feel realistically optimistic about today?

Earth Angel by Cynthia Stibolt

If you enjoy animals as much as I do, you’re probably  sharing some kind of space with them such as  your home, your office or a retreat.  When I’m blogging from my home office, I’m often surrounded by our three dogs; Reality, an 11 year old Black Lab, Paul, a four-year old Aussie mix and George, a one-year old Aussie mix.  My pack follows me from room-to-room all day, every day to the point that I try to let them know when I’m just going to the kitchen to make a quick cup of expresso and will be right back so they don’t have to get up from their comfortable nap positions to accompany me. In fact I communicate with them often about where I’m going, what’s going on in my world, even who I’m talking with on the phone (especially if it’s their Grammy who they love!) and most especially if where I’m going or what I’m doing will have an effect on their world.

Reality, Paul and George in the kitchen

I’ve communicated with my animals by talking to them and/or “sending pictures” to them for so many years that I forget that not everybody who loves and enjoys animals does.  It’s been my experience through the animal communication process that the level and breadth of their intelligence and ability to communicate is as wide and varied as, well, people.    When I meet animal friends of friends, I am often struck by how much their animal “knows”.   It is shocking to me that so many times the human involved has no idea the level of awareness that their animal friend has about their world and the human(s) they share it with.

Recently, a good friend of mine had to uproot her longtime home (landlord made everyone move out of their apartments so that they could be redone) and after tireless searching finally found one of the only apartments left to rent in Austin (well, okay, the kind of apartment community that she would want) and landed into a situation where she could have her cat, but the cat could never go outside.  It’s in the contract. This friend’s cat, Gilda, has been an indoor/outdoor cat since she was a babe and is used to roaming about the apartment complex freely, befriending humans and cats alike.  She is very affectionate and loves my friend greatly (always goes to sleep near her pillow with her paw outstretched so as to touch my friend somewhere on her body while in sleep).  My friend is totally distraught because Gilda is protesting loudly about being inside to the point that she has been let out sometimes only to come back either bitten by a neighborhood cat or soaking wet from falling in the pool.  Understandably, it is difficult for my friend to adjust to their new apartment much less come home after a 12-hour medical shift to a Houdini cat who will use whatever method works to escape from an open door.

As my friend told me this story, weeping because the only solution she could see was to find Gilda a good home where she could be an indoor/outdoor cat, I asked her if she had told Gilda all of what was going on.  Had she told her about the move and why they had to move. Had she told her about looking everywhere for the kind of apartment community they enjoyed and after finally finding one, learning they did not allow cats to go outside? She allowed that she had kind of talked with Gilda, but not to the depth I had suggested.   I immediately thought of a long time friend, Leta Worthington, who is a well-respected animal communicator (http://www.herbsandanimals.com/) and recommended that this friend contact her to initiate communication between said friend and her cat.  I also encouraged her to bring Gilda into the conversation that very night, with everything that had gone on and ask her if she would prefer living with another good person so she could be indoor/outdoor or if she would  be okay living inside for at least a year until they could find a better space for both of them.

My sense is that Gilda loves my friend so much that she will agree to stay for a finite period of time.  I also sensed that Gilda did not understand all the changes that had been going on in their lives over the past couple of months and really needed to be told so that she could make choices.  My experience of most cats are that although they’re  independent they’re also very practical and will be honest about what their preferences are by what makes the most sense to them.

We humans have so many issues with communicating with each other that it may seem that we have not time or bandwidth left in our brains to think about communicating with animals—-but when we do make time we just might discover that this new form of communication can help us out in more ways than we could have even imagined.

Gorgeous Gilda Gazing Up from the Sink