In these moments, you need a fast, effective method to chill the heck out. This simple exercise can calm you down and eliminate stress in three minutes or less.

A Stealth Breathing Technique Used by Navy Seals and First Responders

The best thing about this breathing technique is that no one will even know you’re doing it.

It is used by first responders, Navy Seals, and people who are regularly under massive amounts of stress because it has a direct, palpable, and positive effect on the way their nervous systems function.

If you were to pick someone up in an ambulance from one of those LA traffic pile-ups, you don’t have time to freak out. Maybe they won’t live. You have seconds sometimes, to make smart choices that could possibly keep them breathing long enough to get them to a hospital.

Every fiber of your being has evolved over time to signal danger. This is part of your body’s fight-or-flight response.

Counter-Acting the Fight or Flight Response   

When faced with danger or any perceived threat, you instinctively default to two choices: run or fight.

A cascade of chemical reactions occurs the minute a stressful situation presents itself. This is how the body mobilizes its resources to deal with a threat. It doesn’t matter if it is a lion about to pounce on you – as our ancestors had to deal with – or that one last email that finally breaks you. Your natural response to stress will be the same – until you learn how to interrupt it.

The sympathetic nervous systems will trigger the adrenal glands to release catecholamines, which include adrenaline and noradrenaline. This causes your heart to pound, your blood pressure to rise, you’re your breathing rate to speed up.

Your pupils may dilate, and your skin may flush. In extreme stress, your muscles tense up – literally preparing you to run away from the dangerous trigger.

Modern-day triggers are so varied and pervasive, we are almost never in a state of calm.

After a stressful event, it can take up to 45 minutes for your body to return to homeostasis.

That’s why a simple breathing exercise can literally save your life, and retrain you to face stressful situations like a seasoned, meditating monk instead of a raging lunatic.

Cynthia Stonnington, chair of the department of psychiatry and psychology at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, says she introduces people to breathwork because “many people find benefit, no one reports side effects, and it’s something that engages the patient in their recovery with actively doing something.”

Breathwork is in fact, so useful, that one study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2017 found that patients with major depression who practiced deep breathing methods for three months had significantly reduced symptoms as compared to those who did not.

Another study found that our breathing is so closely linked to our emotional state, that changing it can practically negate anxiety completely.

How it Works

Sometimes called box-breathing, you can really use any form of deep, present and conscious breathing to change your physiological response to stress.

Most of us breathe in an unconscious, stress-promoting way. Here’s what happens when you breathe deeply, and correctly for just a few minutes:

• An exhale that is longer than your inhale (deep breathing) causes the vagus nerve which runs from the neck down through your diaphragm to relay a message to your brain to turn up your parasympathetic nervous system and turn down your sympathetic nervous system – the part of your nervous system responsible for rest, relaxation, peace, and digestion.
• This counter-acts the adrenal-dump and flight or fight response.
• Your brain is freed to make smart choices based on relaxed concentration, a state known as Alpha that is seen on EEG scans as neural oscillations in the frequency range of 5–12.5 Hz arising from synchronous and coherent (in phase or constructive) brain activity.
• Alpha waves caused by a deep-breathing pattern create a positive feedback loop that restores harmony between your mind and body.
• This brainwave state is also indicative of those “aha” or “eureka” moments of a compelling new idea, or insane creativity. They allow you to literally create something out of nothing. And when do you need to do that most often? When you are faced with a challenging or stressful situation!

How to Do It

You can start with a box breath and expand into larger inhale-exhale ratios.

A box breath is a simple inhale to the count of four, using your diaphragm. You then exhale for a slow count of four.

Be sure you expand your lungs completely, and fill them as much as you can. If your shoulders are shrugging into your ears, you are likely doing a “stress-breath” which only keeps you in the fight-or-flight stage. This is a shallow breath that we normally do when we are agitated or depressed.

Your stomach should expand, not just your lungs. This is because your diaphragm is moving down into your belly to allow your lungs to expand more fully.

Once you can do this, you will change the ratio. You will start with a 4:8 inhale to exhale ratio, and then move to 8:16, 10:20, 22:44, or even 30:80 etc.

If you want some real inspiration for deep breathing, check out this video of the famous yogi, B.K.S. Iyengar, conducting one of the longest exhales ever.

You don’t have to be this advanced to get all the benefits of deep breathing, though. Simply have enough awareness to take control of your breath the next time a stressful situation arises, and you’ll be feeling less anxious, and calmer.

It’s that simple. You can breathe yourself into peace, in three minutes or less.

Déjà Rêvé translated from the French means “already dreamed.” It’s a form of precognition that many people have experienced – just like déjà vu. Or, is it just another trick of the mind?

Freud, Jung and the Subconscious, Unconscious & Superconscious Mind

Before we dive a little deeper into déjà rêvé and déjà vu, among many psychic phenomenon, it is helpful to understand some of the prevailing models of the mind.

Psychologist, Sigmund Freud, for instance, imagined in the 1900s that our minds contained information divided into three groups:

• The unconscious mind: 30 – 40%
• The subconscious mind: 50 – 60%
• The conscious mind: 10%

Closely related to Freud’s concept of mind is Carl Jung’s, since he was taught by Freud, and later diverged from some of Freud’s theories to develop his own. Jung estimated that our mind is divided further into another category he called the Superconscious Mind. This has also been called the “Collective Unconscious,” “Divine Mind,” “One Mind,” “The Source,” or even “God.” It essentially represents Infinite Wisdom, or the organizing force which creates all of the Universe – which we so often forget that we are not just a part of, but that we ARE.

Jung did extensive research on dreams, memories, and reflections, including precognitive or psychic experiences, including déjà vu and déjà rêvé.

Distinguishing Between a Precognitive Dream and Déjà Rêvé

Let’s look closer now at the distinctions between these psychic (or simply consciousness) phenomenon. Déjà rêvé is when you have the sense that you have dreamed something before, when it is happening in real life, even though you don’t recall a specific instance of being somewhere, doing something, or talking to a specific person.

This is slightly different than a precognitive dream. In a precognitive dream, you simply dream of something that indicates an instance of interaction or experience in the future, and then you later experience that very same “cognitive” act in real life – so the dream told you what would happen before it did.

Examples of this abound in human history. As Ian Wilson explains in a paper on Déjà rêvé,

“President Abraham Lincoln, weeks before his assassination, dreamt of his death. Author Mark Twain had a dream involving the death of his brother Henry weeks before Henry would die in a riverboat accident, with remarkable and uncanny detail in regard to the funeral that followed. British painter David Mandell dreamt three times of planes crashing into the twin towers. In 1996 he painted a picture of such a dream and had it time-stamped in a photograph using his bank’s clock. . .”

Some studies indicate that déjà rêvé is not a psychic experience, but a trick of the mind. In a recently released paper titled Déjà vu: An Illusion of Prediction, cognitive psychologists from Colorado State University explain that déjà vu is simply a memory phenomenon — one that can be recreated in a lab. The abstract explains,

“Despite recent scientific advances, a remaining puzzle is the purported association between déjà vu and feelings of premonition. Building on research showing that déjà vu can be driven by an unrecalled memory of a past experience that relates to the current situation, we sought evidence of memory-based predictive ability during déjà vu states. Déjà vu did not lead to above-chance ability to predict the next turn in a navigational path resembling a previously experienced but unrecalled path (although such resemblance increased reports of déjà vu). However, déjà vu states were accompanied by increased feelings of knowing the direction of the next turn. The results suggest that feelings of premonition during déjà vu occur and can be illusory. Metacognitive bias brought on by the state itself may explain the peculiar association between déjà vu and the feeling of premonition.”

However, other studies have a different take on experiences like déjà vu and déjà rêvé.

Dr. David Ryback also conducted a survey in his publication “Dreams That Came True” with an 8.8% frequency with regards to precognitive dreams. Ryback has also suggested that we can alter reality by having lucid precognitive dreams. He even puts forth that physical reality is a dream-training simulator.

Even philosopher Aristotle skeptically debated precognitive dreams in his paper written in 350 BCE called, “On Prophesying by Dreams.”

What is startlingly strange with déjà rêvé though is that they seem to have a direct and relative relationship with physical reality. If this is true, we need to start asking bigger questions – like what are the origins of “reality”?

Reality Can Be Altered with DreamTime

When we couple this emerging information with the latest advances in quantum physics, we can start to understand how all psychic experiences are quite probably just an expansion of our abilities to alter reality, and to experience it in multiple time-frames. If time isn’t real, and “reality” can be altered with our dreamtime, then who is to say that we haven’t all experienced everything before, and therefore have dreams of being somewhere before or having the very same conversation with a friend?

Ancient tribes from Australia to North and South America, and all across the globe are familiar with “Dream Time.” They knew that the world is not the “thing,” and therefore we can change it with our consciousness.

An acknowledgement of something beyond Cosmic time, and the acceptance of Infinite Consciousness change everything. Scientists can say that déjà vu and déjà rêvé are tricks of the mind, but it is possible that they are the results of expanding consciousness – and a direct link to Jung’s Superconscious Mind.

Image: stefano carniccio/Shutterstock.

The Buddha taught that detachment, one of the disciplines on the Noble Path, also called ariyasaavaka, is not a physical act of withdrawal or even a form of austerity. Though the Buddha teaches of a “non-action which is an integral part of the Right Way,” if it is taken out of context it can give the impression that we should develop a lack of concern for others, and that we should live without truly feeling or expressing our emotions – cutting ourselves off from life.

These type of misinterpretations are sadly common, since there are not always direct translations from the Paali language into English.

This form of “detachment” is an erroneous understanding of the Buddha’s message. Master Hanh states that to truly let go we must learn to love more completely. Non-attachment only happens when our love for another extends beyond our own personal expectations of gain, or our anticipation of a specific, desired outcome.

Hanh describes four forms of complete detachment, which surprisingly, aren’t about holing yourself up in a cave and ignoring everyone who has broken your heart, or ignoring your lust or desire for a romantic interest. This is not detachment. Letting go, means diving in. For example:

Maitri (Not the Love You Know)

Hanh describes the importance of Maitri, not love as we normally understand in a Westernized use of the word. He states,

“The first aspect of true love is maitri (metta, in Pali), the intention and capacity to offer joy and happiness. To develop that capacity, we have to practice looking and listening deeply so that we know what to do and what not to do to make others happy. If you offer your beloved something she does not need, that is not maitri. You have to see her real situation or what you offer might bring her unhappiness.”

In other words, your detachment may come in accepting that certain things you would normally do to make another person feel loved and appreciated may not be what the person you are actively loving now, needs. Instead of forcing that behavior on another person, with an egoic intent to “please” them, you simply detach from that need in yourself, and truly observe what makes another person feel comfortable, safe, and happy.

Hanh further explains,

“We have to use language more carefully. “Love” is a beautiful word; we have to restore its meaning. The word “maitri” has roots in the word mitra which means friend. In Buddhism, the primary meaning of love is friendship.”

Karuna (Compassion)

The next form of true detachment is compassion. When we let go, we don’t stop offering a compassionate touch, word, or deed to help someone who is in pain. We also don’t expect to take their hurt or pain away. Compassion contains deep concern, though. It is not aloofness It is not isolation from others.

The Buddha smiles because he understands why pain and suffering exist, and because he also knows how to transform it. You become more deeply involved in life when you become detached form the outcome, but this does not mean you don’t participate fully – even in others’ pain.

Gratitude and Joy

In truly letting go you practice gratitude. Mudita, or joy arises when we are overcome with gratitude for all that we have, such that we no longer cling to some other longed-for result. The Buddha’s definition of joy is more like “Unselfish joy.” It means that we don’t only find happiness when something good happens to us, but when others find happiness.

If you’ve ever had to say goodbye to a love or friend so that they could continue on their life’s path – one that may not have continued to intertwine with your own – you may have felt pain when they found someone new to love, or made a new friend that seemed to take your place. This is not true detachment. Joy arises when you find happiness even when others find joy – and it has little or nothing to do with you.

Upeksha (Equanimity)

Master Hanh describes the final quality of true love which sheds inordinate light on the true process of letting go.

He states,

“The fourth element of true love is upeksha, which means equanimity, non-attachment, nondiscrimination, even-mindedness, or letting go. Upa means “over,” and iksha means “to look.” You climb the mountain to be able to look over the whole situation, not bound by one side or the other. If your love has attachment, discrimination, prejudice, or clinging in it, it is not true love.

People who do not understand Buddhism sometimes think upeksha means indifference, but true equanimity is neither cold nor indifferent. If you have more than one child, they are all your children. Upeksha does not mean that you don’t love. You love in a way that all your children receive your love, without discrimination.”

Hanh explains that without this quality our love tends to become possessive – a stomping ground of the ego. We try to put our beloved in our pocket and carry them with us, when they are more like the wind, or a butterfly, or a stream, needing to move and flow, or risk dying. This is not love, this is destruction.

For love to be true love, it must have elements of compassion, joy, and equanimity – and this is truly letting go.

The Art of Letting Go is Artless

The real secret is that letting go is not an art, it is an allowing, a being. A non-attached relationship is healthy, strong and filled with effortless love, kindness and compassion. It is completely selfless because your sense of ‘self’ is no longer asserted in every situation. If you want to truly let go, you’ve got to love more, not less. This is the most common misunderstanding about this priceless teaching of the Buddha.

Featured Image: Photo © Unified Buddhist Church.

The heart’s physical importance not to be underestimated, it supports life, sending the blood of life to the tree-like limbs of our vascular system – but this is an overly simplistic view of what the heart is capable of.

Gregg Braden’s latest research elaborates on the ancient technique of using the heart as an intelligent organ.

The heart’s intelligence has been ignored for far too long. What we’ve learned about the heart’s wisdom, however, in the past several years through the Heart Math Institute and through the research of psychologists, neurobiologists, and res-surfaced wisdom teachings from our ancient past – should inspire everyone to look at the heart in a completely new way.

For those who are not used to using their innate intelligence – that is their intuition — tuning into the heart for answers to the most profound and difficult questions they could possibly drum up might seem ridiculous. Why ask the heart whether to stay in a relationship that is challenging, or even if you should go through with a medical procedure?

It might seem ignorant or even haphazard to ask the heart questions like these, but it has wisdom that the intellect cannot match. Here’s why:

The heart does not send information through an egoic filter.

The heart knows your past, your present, and your future. Its intelligence does not care about your egoic constructs. The heart simply speaks from a completely neutral place.

You can think of it like a close friend who has your best interest at heart, and who does not care about making themselves look good in your eyes.

Hridaya

There is an ancient term that does not have a direct English translation that describes this intelligence of the heart. Hridaya, is the energy which is contained within the heart chakra. This is not just the physical heart, but the spiritual heart. It contains the intelligence of God, or the transcendental mind.

The word comes from the Sanskrit language, and the closest meaning to English would be something like this:

Hrid = center

Ayam = this

Thus, the spiritual heart always brings you to your center. It will not veer away from your highest self, always taking in a 360-degree (and beyond) view of any situation you could possibly face.

The yogi Bhagavan wrote once to explain this spiritual heart in more detail:

“Just as there is a cosmic center from which the whole universe arises and has its being and functions with the power or the directing energy emanating therefrom, so also is there a center within the frame of the physical body wherein we have our being. This center in the human body is in no way different from the cosmic center. It is this center in us that is called the Hridaya, the seat of Pure Consciousness, realized as Existence, Knowledge and Bliss. This is really what we call the seat of God in us.”

Conversely the mind-brain thinks of our past experiences, our past erroneous beliefs assigned to those experiences, and takes all sorts of twists and turns through a conceptual landscape that we’ve created to give us a “right” answer to life’s deep questions.

A Zen Buddhist can also describe what happens when we think with the head (brain) instead of the heart.

We place a fog – a type of perceptual overlay on top of a situation and then add an emotional investment. We call this “real,” but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Yet, we think we have to obtain a siddhi (great accomplishment or miracle) in order to obtain supernormal wisdom or intelligence. So, we go on trusting the false perceptions of the mind-brain.

The Neuro-Biology of the Heart

Moreover, if we were to look at the simple neuro-biology of the heart – there are many more fibers leading from the heart to the brain than from the brain to the heart. This means – as Gregg Braden recently pointed out in a Gaia talk – that there is much more communication being sent to the brain then being received from it.

As the HeartMath Institute explains, the heart also begins beating in the unborn fetus before the brain has even been formed, a process scientists call autorhythmic.

We humans also form an emotional brain long before a rational one, and the heart has its own independent complex nervous system known as “the brain in the heart.”

The heart can also create a level of coherence in the body just through its rhythm, which regulates all its systems, and corrects even diseased cells.

And finally, the electromagnetic field of the heart is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the brain, and permeates every cell in the body. The magnetic component is approximately 5000 times stronger than the brain’s magnetic field and can be detected several feet away from the body with sensitive magnetometers.

How to Think with the Heart’s Wisdom

Here’s what Braden suggests to help us learn to tap into the heart’s massive wisdom: 

1. Focus on the heart (and heart chakra). This sends a signal to the heart that you seek its intelligence.
2. Slow your breathing. This sends another signal to your body that you seek higher intelligence, and not that of the normally stressed, and freaked out ego. Deep breathing calms the nervous system and quiets the brain.
3. Conjure a sense of gratitude, compassion, or love. These are the feelings which trigger an activation of the heart’s energy.
4. Ask your heart a question. The question should be brief and to the point.
5. Everyone will experience the heart’s intelligence a bit differently. You may feel butterflies in your gut, a warm sensation growing around your body, or tingling in your fingertips. You may not feel any bodily sensations, but have a clear, short answer that comes through your mind. Know that it likely won’t need a long-drawn out story to “justify” its wisdom. The heart speaks directly and clearly. If it isn’t try this process again to let your body know that you seek the intelligence of the heart and not the ego.
6. Practice makes perfect. The more often you do this, the easier it will be to tap into the seat of pure consciousness – the Hridaya.

Please republish this article freely with credit to The Mind Unleashed, Johanna Bassols, and with all links intact.

By: Johanna Bassols

Johanna Bassols is the creator of the Soul Reprogramming Method and founder of the Healers of the Light Academy.

As an empath, even more so than in “regular” folks, taking on other people’s emotions can be exhausting. Just walking down a hallway of a well-populated building, you may take on anger, fear, jealousy, fear, and any number of emotions which stick to you like glue, and even feel like your own. You may absorb these emotional states subconsciously, but feel them viscerally.

In extreme cases, these absorbed emotions can make an empath physically sick. Oddly, an empath does this automatically. Others among us, learned to simply ignore their own needs as a coping method in families that demanded they be “grown-up” or responsible for themselves prematurely.

If you are care-taking for someone who is sick or addicted, or it is your job to be a compass for a big group of people as part of your career, you may feel even more emotionally depleted, even though deep down you want to care for others.

A lack of healthy boundaries can cause us to say yes to every “opportunity” which arises, whether it’s social, personal, or business-related, and then either exhaust ourselves by trying to do too much while carrying a great amount of resentment, or simply “check out” and leave everyone hanging after we’ve over-committed.

Empaths are Connectors and Conduits

As an empath, you are a conduit and a connector. Much of this happens below your conscious awareness, but many empaths or sensitives are acutely aware that they feel others feelings as if they were theirs. This differs from sympathy where we may be familiar with what someone may be going through.

As an empath, we are wired to experience grief, pain, joy, hurt, and love at the extreme ends of the spectrum. It is more than an intellectual experience of another’s feelings, thoughts or attitudes. It is not simply a vicarious experience of these things. The empath experiences another’s pain, literally as their own.

This “skill,” though some may not yet see it as a strength, and rather a weakness, is what allows us to have an impeccable ability to transcend the “other” syndrome which plagues the modern world. We are the opposite of the psychotic or psychopath, who feels nothing, and has no capacity for empathy, and therefore can inflict devastating pain – as he feels no sense of moral grief, or personal responsibility.

A psychotic is detached from reality, and an empath experiences it in high-definition. In the same way that a psychotic is more likely to be a danger to society, due to their inability to relate to others’ feelings, an empath is in danger of losing themselves because they relate so completely.

Because empaths experience emotions so powerfully, they are more likely to have little tolerance for greed, usury, negativity, meanness, and other shadow qualities of the human psyche. They are simply more sensitive to them, and so, boundary making becomes an act of life-saving. If they don’t establish clear boundaries, then then lose themselves, quite literally, in another’s emotional battles and wars.

Five Ways to Tell If You Have Healthy Boundaries in Place

For everyone, including empaths, we can usually tell if we lack healthy boundaries, a signifier of healthy self-esteem, by our actions:

• Do people expect you to drop everything you are doing at a moment’s notice to give them your full attention?
• Do you answer your phone or email no matter what is going on in your life?
• Do you receive praise and acceptance for the things you do for others, or are they largely ignored, perhaps even ridiculed?
• How do you usually feel after spending time with friends and family in your life? Are you passionate and empowered, or do you feel emotionally drained?
• Do you always say yes, even when you aren’t sure you want to do something?

Empowerment Through Boundary Making

The first thing you can do to start setting healthy boundaries is listen to your inner yes and no. If you aren’t sure if something is a “yes,” or “no” because you have become clouded by ignoring your own desires, and are constantly absorbing other people’s emotional baggage, take some time to be alone and ask yourself, “is this my stuff?” Am I doing what I want to be doing, or am I doing someone’s heavy lifting, feeling their emotions for them, instead of allowing them to sift through them, and learn from the lessons those emotions bring?

If you’re inner compass isn’t sure if you should spend time with someone or create a little space, make sure you don’t decide what to do when you are stressed, but notice over time how they make you feel. This is an indicator if you are absorbing their emotions, and that you may need to create a buffer zone between yourself and the other person. If you are feeling exhausted, depressed, or chaotic consistently around another person, this is a big alarm going off that they may not need to be in your life.

Cut Energetic Cords Without Cutting Out the Relationship

You can also cut energetic chords with someone without cutting them out of your life.  There are good attachments and attachments which don’t serve your continued growth. If you aren’t sure whether there is an energetic chord between you and someone else, sit and experience your emotions regarding them when they are not present. This will tell you what you need to know. Caroline Myss talks about how to cut chords extensively in her work.

Increase Your Self Care

Self-care is bigger than taking care of what you eat and how often you get to the gym. Self-care honors you just as much as others. You give your own well-being just as much importance as your care-taking of others. Self-care can include giving yourself the space and time to decide if something is right for you, and giving yourself permission to do what you want to do even if it upsets others – like not attending a party, or refusing to be the executor of someone’s will.

Tell Your Workaholic to Chill Out 

As empaths, your work is never done. This also makes boundary setting absolutely vital to your own physical, energetic, emotional, and spiritual health. If you are constantly fixing other’s problems, or even your own due to neglect of boundaries, it’s time to teach yourself to slow down. Work less. Play more. On purpose.

Don’t Numb Out

An empath can’t really numb out, but they can temporarily check out, only to feel all the emotions they’ve absorbed from others come back in a tumultuous tidal wave later on. When you are feeling overwhelmed, it may mean that you need to temporarily reset your boundaries with someone, allowing them to get closer to you at a later date.

Stay Grounded

Literally. Walk on the earth. Let it absorb some of those heavier emotions you’ve sucked up like a Hoover vacuum. Grounding can help to reset the energy system and realign the chakras so that you can face another day of energetic super-sensitivity all over again.

Just Let Go

Let this mantra become your best-friend, “I choose to let go of what isn’t mine.” If you have been in the habit of taking everything on, letting go can feel scary or even unnatural. Once you’ve discovered you’ve been picking up other people’s emotions and have lacked healthy boundaries, forgive yourself, and them, and let it go. Focus on your own breath and your own body and start anew. You are a processor and amplifier of energy, but you need to consistently clear out and give up all the energy you’ve absorbed. Boundaries will help you when you need “me-time” to off-load.

Images: Source, Source, Source, Source, Source, Source

Featured image: Source

1. If You Don’t Make a Specific Goal, Don’t Complain When Your Dreams Remain Unrealized

So many people lament that they haven’t achieved their goals, but they never truly make them. That is, they may wish for some vague outcome, but they don’t get specific enough about what they want. The subconscious mind doesn’t understand inference or ambiguity – and since its running your life, you may want to get really specific — as in write it down!

2. Be Realistic

The subconscious mind also needs to believe that the affirmations you say or think are possible. If you are barely squeaking by in a minimum wage job, you’re out of shape, and your love life is a mess, your subconscious mind is likely to reject affirmations that state, “I am a millionaire,” or “I’m beautiful to everyone I meet.” It isn’t that these things are not possible for you – they are. However, to achieve success, you must start with smaller goals, and build up to the bigger ones. Unless of course, you can commit to radical life-changes that would help these big goals come to pass.

More often, though – you’ll notice that people make incremental steps toward fulfilling their dreams, because they need to build confidence in their own abilities to make them happen. The subconscious seeks proof of your affirmations before it integrates them into a new belief system. The subconscious mind also records your successes, and then rewards you with a belief in bigger dreams as you make progress toward your goals.

3. Be Curious Instead of Critical

Trying to understand why things are the way they are or curiously thinking of a solution is how hundreds of people became multi-millionaires. The post-it note might be one of the simplest inventions ever created – but we must admit, we all need a note that sticks to something, like all the time. The person who invented sticky notes was curious about human behavior and found a solution to a problem. If you are simply critical, you’ll never stumble on your own million-dollar idea.

This also applies to relationships, and your potential to learn more about yourself and your partner through a curious mind-set. By switching your outlook to one of introspection or wonder, you’ll be less likely to emotionally over-react to another person’s behavior. This empowers you to make informed choices when dealing with them, instead of just reacting.

Alexis Robin has more advice about changing your mind to change your life.

4. Get Emotional

The subconscious mind does not respond to rote. Although the “fake it until you make it” trick may help get you into an emotional state, you need to feel excited, motivated, and charged energetically to make affirmations work for you. Simply saying, “I’m peaceful and prosperous” a million times without any feeling won’t make it so.

5. Use the Comparative Voice

Another way to get your subconscious mind to buy into your desired new belief system is to use comparatives. Simply stating, “I am confident” may not help you to achieve that goal as fast as, “I am becoming more confident every day.” It is likely you can believe in that statement, too, which means it will manifest in your life more easily.

6. Stop Trying to Be Perfect at Everything

If you keep trying to be perfect at everything you’ll never get fantastic at the things that matter. We all come into this world with a different set of gifts. Not everything is going to light you up and make you want to jump out of bed in the morning – but that’s o.k.!

Instead of pushing a Sysiphian boulder up a hill when you do certain unsavory tasks, outsource them to people who do get excited about doing those things. There are folks who love to do taxes, organize closets, plan meals, clean your house, decorate, get you physically fit, and a whole list of additional tasks that keep you from focusing on being better at something that means something to your soul. Free up your energy for more important tasks by giving another person a chance to do what you’re not great at, but that they love.

7. Stop Ignoring What Your Body is Trying to Tell You

We have profound wisdom locked up within our own bodies – which respond to just about every stimulus imaginable in a completely honest way. If you detest doing a certain thing day-in-day out. Your body will tell you. It will tense up. It will cause you to breathe shallowly, and crouch in to a small shape to avoid the pain that your infinite intelligence anticipates.

Conversely, when we are acting in alignment with our higher selves, the body will also speak. It will tell you when you are getting close to realizing your dreams. It will also signal you when you are coming into contact with people who can help you reach those lofty goals, and it will even tell you if the decision you are about to make is right or wrong. Pay attention to those messages. They don’t lie. You can try to just sit and pay attention to the messages of the body in meditation, noticing sensations that arise, or try kinetic muscle testing.

8. Make Friends with Suffering

Akshay Nanavati, life coach, author, and creator of Fearvana says, “Whether it’s for financial, spiritual, physical, or mental success, my first tip to my clients is to build a positive relationship with suffering. I have had clients that have struggled with PTSD, anxiety, depression, stress, and fear and they’re usually surprised when the first thing I tell them is ‘Great!’ The point is not to get rid of any of these as they are not ‘bad’ emotions despite what we have been led to believe. Instead, embrace them, harness them, and leverage them to work for you.”

9. When You Are Stuck, Pushing Harder Won’t Help

Einstein’s quote about not solving problems with the same mind that created them comes to mind here. Lisa Barrington says that when we feel stuck in a problem we can’t figure out, it’s the perfect time to put it aside for a moment. Pick up a new hobby like knitting or water-coloring. Go for a walk outside. The mind works stuff out better when you aren’t forcing it into the same pathways that got you into the predicament in the first place.

10. Be Open to Changing Your Life Purpose

Life coach, Allan Santos tells a friend in a podcast that finding your life purpose can sometimes be surprising. If you’ve been something most of your life, and you’ve even been exceptionally good at it, trying something new when your soul calls you to it requires an open mind. You may be called to do something you never would have imagined yourself doing, but in the end, you’ll be perfect for it. He personally transitioned from being a classical musician to being a life coach.

This article (10 Million-Dollar Tips from Top Life Coaches on How to Make Life Easier) is a free and open source and can be re-published anywhere with proper attribution to the author and Themindunleashed.com.

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We do not end after our physical bodies shrivel and turn to ash. The body dies, but the soul does not. This part of us continues on in the form of our astral bodies, called the Devaloka or Second World. Without going into the myriad philosophical descriptions of the Second World, this is where the remains of our person – our soul – decides what to do next.

The Astral & Causal Bodies

The memories of the soul are carried within the astral body. This is distinct from the causal body, and the physical body.

Paramahansa Yogandanda says in his book, Karma and Reincarnation,

“The physical body contains, hidden, two other bodies, the astral body and the spiritual (idea) body.  If a pint of salt water is put into a jug and corked, and this then is placed into another larger jar and corked, and these two jars are put finally into a third, larger jar and corked, and these three jars are then placed into the ocean, the salt water in the inner jars cannot mingle with the sea water when the outer most jar is broken.

“All the three imprisoning jars must be broken to allow the water to merge back into the ocean. Likewise, the physical body has the astral body and the ideational body, or causal body within it; the soul is encased finally, within the idea body and corked with ignorance.”

Therefore, the physical body is not yet free when we die. There are still layers of our previous experience which must be shrugged off.

Out-of-body experiences, and near-death-occurrences are usually the memory of the experiences of the astral body when it re-enters physical form.

These have even been described scientifically, and photographed using fMRI imaging.  Andra M. Smith and Claude Messierwere from the University of Ottawa described one subject’s ability [to experience their astral body] in their paper, published in Frontiers of Human Neuroscience:

“She was able to see herself rotating in the air above her body, lying flat, and rolling along the horizontal plane. She reported sometimes watching herself move from above but remained aware of her unmoving “real” body. The participant reported no particular emotions linked to the experience.”

In other words, our astral bodies having “an experience” is just business as usual.

Understanding the difference between the causal and the astral bodies can help us to understand the phenomenon of reincarnation.

The soul, which is the pure reflection of Spirit, appears on the causal plane, not the astral plan.

The soul’s astral desires which encase and limit it allow for the astral body to exist (as in Yogananda’s metaphor). Those desires must still be worked out on the astral plane. When the soul’s journey upon the astral plane achieves its natural end, the astral body is shed and the soul rises for rest to the causal plane there to re-incarnate back to the astral plane if there still any astral desires.

Once the soul has shed all physical and astral desires it moves to the causal plane, known as the bliss plane, at which the only remaining “desire” is the separateness of the pure Soul from Spirit. The soul can merge back to God easily from the casual plane, and no longer needs to reincarnate into physical form. We literally step into the physical according tot these rules.

Reincarnation and Karma

Adi Shankaracharya, a post-Vedic philosopher in his commentary on the Brahma Sutras, says the actions of the soul go infinitely far back (some might call this karma):

“For although the activity of the soul is not independent, yet the soul does act. The Lord [Infinite Oragnizing Principle of the Multiverse] indeed causes it to act, but it acts itself. Moreover, the Lord in causing it to act now has regard to its former efforts, and he caused it to act in a former existence, having regards to its previous efforts in that existence; a regression against which, considering the eternity of Samsara, no objection can be raised.”

Translation – the soul chooses what life to incarnate into next, as it has an infinite number of lessons based on its previous choices which it desires to learn, thereby lessening the cycles of additional rebirth into material form before returning to the Infinite from which it came. The soul chooses certain lessons, even difficult and painful ones, because if they do not, the lesson will remain, to be learned at some future time within the soul’s cycle of life and death.

This is also why a soul may remember its previous lifetimes, people, places it has lived and more. They are carried with them beyond the physical brain.

In “Have We Really Lived Before?”, Michael C. Pollack, Ph.D., CCHT describes a lower back pain, which grew steadily worse over the years and limited his activities. He suggests a possible reason for this recurring pain:

“I discovered that I had lived at least three prior lifetimes in which I had been killed by being knifed or speared in the low back. After processing and healing the past life experiences, my back began to heal.”

Divine Grace

Divine Grace makes these lessons as palatable as possible, while still making sure that the lessons we choose to learn have every opportunity to be embraced fully. Divine Grace overrides the laws of karma, and even reincarnation.

Edgar Cayce explained,

“The law of grace supersedes the law of karma. If at one point we realize that we have done wrong and have truly learned our lesson, we may find ourselves dealing with the intervention of grace. This is when we can ‘dodge’ the corrective action of karma because we have come to realize that what we have done is wrong, and we go to work fixing this. However, grace is not an excuse to avoid our responsibilities and make up for them later. It only comes to us when we have truly gained understanding, and we move to use that understanding in our lives.

“Awareness of grace can come to us when we are facing a difficult situation and we call out for help. At that moment, it may feel as if someone has lifted an enormous weight off our shoulders, or we feel as if everything is going to be all right. It can come to us at a time when we feel down and suddenly we find the strength to continue, or in a moment of inspiration. Opening ourselves to grace can make our paths easier to travel.”

In summary, we are not our physical bodies. Our physical bodies are the pretty package that we get to be in while we work out our astral desires (which, while we are growing in consciousness, are other than a desire to reunite with the Formless Infinite Creative Force, or God.) As we shed all our desires, and the lessons associated with them, we no longer need to reincarnate.

As we do, we take with us all impressions of all our previous lives, as these were imprinted upon our causal and astral bodies and go with us from one form to another.

The many saints and sages we have experienced on the earthly plane are merely incarnations working out their last vestiges of desire and attachment before merging into the Oneness. We will follow them when our own karma (really just another word for our most commonly held beliefs and actions) closely resemble theirs.

This article (Which Part of Us Actually Reincarnates, and Why?) is a free and open source and can be re-published anywhere with proper attribution to the author and Themindunleashed.com.

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Aside from making us feel miserable, what can loneliness do to our health? Researchers have been looking at this question for at least a decade now, and their findings are shocking. People who consistently feel lonely are much more likely to die early.

The proof?

Researchers at Brigham Young University conducted an influential meta-analysis of literature on the subject, and found that social isolation increases our risk of death by an astounding 30%, and some estimates say that that number is closer to 60%!

Social isolation also has practical and circumstantial negative effects, but the health risk alone is worth digging a little deeper into.

We’re Social Animals in a Digital World 

You’d think in an age where you can reach out to “connect” with people all over the world at any time of day or night would make social isolation a practical impossibility, but that simply isn’t the case.

Rather than feel as though we have deep, meaningful relationships with people, a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has found that people who use social media more also report feeling more socially isolated.

People involved in the study, aged between 19 and 32 were asked to estimate how much time they spent on social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn. Surprisingly, those who spent the most time on social media also reported feeling the loneliest.

In other research, it has been proven that modern lifestyles are making us feel lonelier. One study lead by Dr. Andrew McCulloch, Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Foundation, argues although there is no hard, historic data to show that loneliness – which is arguably subjective – is getting worse, there is sociological evidence. He explains,

“We have data that suggests people’s social networks have got smaller and families are not providing the same level of social context they may have done 50 years ago.

“It’s not because they are bad or uncaring families, but it’s to do with geographical distance, marriage breakdown, multiple caring responsibilities [for an increasingly ill population] and longer working hours [with no productivity gains].”

So how does this break down to affect our health so deeply?

The immune systems of people who feel lonely and isolated are compromised. Their bodies choose to focus on bacteria rather than viral threats. Without the antiviral protection and the body’s antibodies produced against various ills, the result is that a person has less ability to fight cancer and other diseases.

Those who are socially isolated suffer from higher all-cause mortality, and higher rates of cancer, infection, and heart disease – in short, they are more likely to die from loneliness even than from smoking cigarettes.

Looking to Nature for Solutions 

When you look at our closest mammalian relatives in the wild, say wolves or dolphins, they thrive when they stay in a closely-knit pack.

When a single female moth emits a bouquet of pheromones to attract potential mates, she is engaging in social behavior. When a male red deer roars loudly to signal dominance and keep other males away, he is also being social. There is a whole host of intricate communication which happens when we interact in a physical way.

Even ants and other insects with the most primitive brains need social interaction.

Digital “connection” lacks a way to allow us these subtle cues. Think for instance of all the subtle communication that is lost when we simply response to one another with emojis or shoot an off-the-cuff email to someone on Facebook. This may be necessary as part of our modern world but these methods of communication don’t allow the brain-to brain, skin-to-skin interaction which we crave.

For instance, a single hug triggers a dopamine dump, nature’s feel-better chemical. This change in our hormones is built-in to natural interaction, but not into the digital landscape.

If we behaved more like our animal counterparts, we would seek in-person connection as often as possible.

Looking to Neuroscience for Solutions

There is even a part of our brains that is constantly looking for interaction with others in order to determine how we fit into the world.

As Pascal Vrticka writes,

“Not surprisingly, there is emerging evidence that evolutionary processes have favored the development of complex social behaviors in humans, along with the brain architecture that supports them. The human brain, and particularly the neocortex (which constitutes its outmost layer), is much larger in humans as compared to other primates and mammals of similar size. This is particularly interesting because the neocortex comprises many of the brain areas involved in higher social cognition, such as conscious thought, language, behavioral and emotion regulation, as well as empathy and theory of mind — the ability to understand the feelings and intentions of others. We are, so to speak, biologically hard-wired for interacting with others, and are thus said to be endowed with a “social brain.”

We also now have proof that poor social bonding when we are young leads to delayed or damaged emotional development.

Preliminary evidence from Stanford suggest that parenting our children with a lackadaisical attachment style can lead to weak social bonding abilities later.

How do we solve the loneliness problem in a digital age?

We use social media less, and meet for lunch more. We spend time in peoples’ physical presence. We talk to our neighbor when we go out to get the mail. We look into people’s eyes. Hold hands. Touch them. Hug each other!

If you are separated by geography from your loved ones, pick up the phone and call them. The human voice has an infinite amount more expression and social cues which we crave than an email, or a digital, social media post.

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