The Key To Transforming Our Lives

by Gregg Braden -

TURNING POINTS:

We’ve all experienced turning points in our lives, although some are more memorable than others. In the summer of 1969, I experienced two turning points that changed my life, and they both happened within less than a month of each other! 

I was on break from school that summer and working on a ranch in southern Missouri. The near-100°F temperature, combined with the near–100 percent humidity that’s typical at that time of year in this region, pretty much assured that every outdoor activity would be a miserable experience. 

This was especially true for my main job of “bucking” wire-bound bales of hay onto the back of a slow-moving truck.

Walking alongside the vehicle, I was tasked with lifting each 60-pound bale from the ground and catapulting it into the truck to be stacked just as the truck arrived at the next bale, where my co-workers and I would repeat the sequence. This went on for hours at a time. 

I looked forward to dinner each evening not only to find relief from the dust, insects, humidity, and heat, but also because it was the only opportunity to watch the evening news and connect with the rest of the world.

Turning Point 1: To the Moon

There was a tiny black-and-white television in the dining room where everyone at the ranch would gather for meals. 

The TV was in one corner of the room, and the volume was usually turned so low that we could only guess what the people in the grainy images were saying. 

One night, however, that changed. As the drone of voices at the table fell silent for the dinner prayer, the words that were coming from the TV were unmistakable. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” the voice said.1

I felt the wave of two very different realities pulse through my body as I listened—one from the world that separated us from one another before the announcement, and one from the world where that separation disappeared, if only briefly, afterward. 

The words were from Neil Armstrong, and his voice was traveling from the ladder of a fragile spacecraft on the surface of another world, across space, to the television networks around the earth, and to the little TV in front of me.

The first human had just set foot on the moon, and through the recording, I was reliving the moment it happened. 

This was the moment that humankind’s collective view of itself from countless generations past suddenly gave way to a new and expanded vision of hope and possibility. It changed me forever. It changed the way I felt about the world. It changed the way I felt about the people in the world.

On that day, we were a global family beyond North and South Americans, Europeans, Asians, Australians, and Africans. In that moment, we were human beings, and we’d just accomplished something that until that day had been only the stuff of dreams. 

Suddenly it all became real. We were on the moon, and I felt it in my body. That moment was a turning point for me, and I remember it vividly to this day.

Turning Point 2: Three Days of Peace

Just when I thought that I couldn’t possibly regain the awe that I’d just experienced, the unthinkable happened. 

The TV stations that had been showing the images of Neil Armstrong on the moon just a few weeks before were now carrying another story that the whole world was watching as well. 

As I stepped over and turned up the volume on the TV set, it was clear that the story had the attention of the tired workers with me at the dinner table. 

In a twist of fate that couldn’t have been choreographed any better in a utopian novel, the television was showing some 500,000 young people living together peacefully at the Woodstock Music Festival in New York. And it was happening during the same summer as the moon landing! What are the chances? I thought, reflecting on the irony.

The power and synchronicity of what I was seeing on the television was both surreal and deeply moving. The news reports were describing how the 50,000 or so people originally anticipated by the festival organizers had unexpectedly turned into a half million! 

The bottom line was that the facilities could no longer handle the sheer number of people safely. The organizers did the only thing they could do: they declared the festival a free event, and then did their very best to provide food, water, and medical and sanitation services to the rain-soaked audience that had turned the New York State Thruway into a virtual parking lot on their way to get there!

While it had long been known that both the landing on the moon and a gathering of so many people were possible, the unknown factor was how such events would turn out. 

The fact that Woodstock ended up being the largest and most peaceful gathering of its kind in modern history was a paradigm-altering moment in the minds of people throughout the world. 

With so many young people gathered in such a small area with so little supervision against the backdrop of heated emotions regarding the Vietnam War, the widespread belief had been that chaos would turn the event into a dangerous disaster. 

What transpired that weekend showed mainstream Americans that their fears were unfounded.

Throughout the three days (which turned into four days) of music, nudity, sex, drugs, rain, and mud, the reality of the festival became the theme for a generation: peace and love. 

The fact that humans went to the moon, walked on the surface and returned safely altered the paradigm that had held the vision of people bound to this world only. 

That this event happened during the same summer as Woodstock is a striking fact that future generations will study and marvel at. 

In the span of just a few weeks, we showed ourselves that we have the technology to visit other worlds and the wisdom to live peacefully on this one without the need for law enforcement or a higher authority forcing us to do so.

As different as the events were from one another, both Woodstock and the moon landing proved to be powerful turning points in my life, as well as in the lives of countless other people. 

While we know that millions watched both events unfold on TV, I can only describe the reason why they were so life-changing for me. Both scenarios challenged the world’s thinking, ideas and beliefs that had been in place before they occurred. 

Both scenarios showed me what was possible.

Whether a turning point is spontaneous or intentional, the key to taking advantage of it is to understand that once one occurs, it opens the door to entirely new possibilities and outcomes. 

In light of the kind and number of crises that we face in our lives today, it may be that our ability to recognize critical turning points or to create them when needed, will become the key to transforming our lives.

1 “Spoken by Neil Armstrong.” Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal Corrected Transcript and Commentary (2013): Last Revised. Print.

excerpt from The Turning Point pages 92 to 96 © 

greggbraden.com

How Our Emotions Affect Our Health

by Gregg Braden -

In each moment of every day, a conversation is taking place inside us that’s one of the most vital we will ever find ourselves engaged in. 

It’s the silent, often subconscious, and never-ending conversation of emotion-based signals between the heart and the brain. The reason this conversation is so important is that the quality of the emotional signal the heart sends to the brain determines what kind of chemicals are released into our bodies. 

When we feel what we would typically call negative emotions (for instance, anger,hate, jealousy, and rage), the heart sends a signal to the brain that mirrors our feelings. Such emotions are irregular and chaotic, and this is precisely what the signals they send to the brain look like.

If you can envision a chart of the ups and downs for the stock market on a wild and volatile day, you’ll have an idea of the kind of signals we create in our hearts in times of such emotions. 

The human body interprets this kind of signal as stress, and sets into motion mechanisms to help us respond appropriately.

A comparison of the signals between the heart and the brain in two extremes of emotion: the “negative” emotion of frustration and the “positive” emotion of appreciation. Source: The Institute of HeartMath.

The stress from negative emotions increases the levels of cortisol and adrenaline in our bloodstreams, hormones that are often called stress hormones, which prepare us for a quick and powerful reaction to whatever is causing us stress. 

That reaction includes redirecting the blood supply from the organs deep within our bodies to the places where it’s most needed in such times: the muscles, limbs, and extremities that we use to either confront the source of our stress or run as fast as we can to get away from it—our instinctive fight-or-flight response.

For our distant ancestors, this response would save them from an angry bear that had camped out in their cave, for example. 

When they felt that the threat was gone, their emotions shifted and the elevated levels of the stress hormones returned to the normal levels of everyday life. 

The key here is that the stress response is designed to be temporary and brief. When it kicks in, we infuse our bodies with the chemistry needed to respond quickly and powerfully to the threat. It’s all about survival. 

The good news is that when such high levels of stress chemicals are present, we can become superhumans. We’ve all heard stories of a 98-pound woman successfully tilting a full-size automobile off the ground long enough to save her child pinned beneath—and doing so without first considering if such a feat was even possible.

The Fight or Flight Response

In such cases, the fight-or-flight response is activated on behalf of the child, who would have died without intervention. In these instances, the extra-human strength of the mother is attributed to the surge of stress hormones pouring into the body from her feelings of do or die—feelings that originate in the heart. 

The flip side of the good news is that while the benefits can be helpful during a short period of time, the stress that triggers the surge effectively shuts down the release of other chemicals that support important functions in our bodies. 

The release of vital chemicals that support functions of growth, immunity, and anti-aging is dramatically reduced during times of fight or flight. In other words, the body can be in only one mode or the other: fight/flight mode or healing/growth mode.1 

Clearly, we were never meant to live day in and day out with constant stress as a way of life. Yet this is precisely the situation that many of us find ourselves experiencing today.

In our modern world of information overload, speed dating, multiple consecutive double cappuccinos, and the often-heard sense that life is “speeding up,” it’s inevitable that our bodies can feel that we’re in a constant state of never-ending stress. 

People who cannot find a release from this kind of stress find themselves in sustained fight-or-flight mode, with all of the consequences that come with the territory. A quick look around an office or a classroom, or even a glance at our family members over Sunday dinner, confirms what the data suggests. 

It’s not surprising to find that people with the greatest levels of sustained stress are also in the poorest health.

The rise in U.S. statistics for stress-related conditions, including heart disease and stroke, eating disorders, immune deficiencies, and some cancers, is less of a surprise when we take into account the relentless stress that many people experience in their daily lives. 

The good news is that the same mechanism that creates and sustains our stress responses, often on a subconscious level, can also be regulated to help us relieve the stress in a healthy way—even when the world is in chaos. And we can do so quickly and intentionally.

Just the way our hearts send our brains the signals of chaos when we feel negative emotions, positive emotions send another kind of signal to our brains that is more regular, more rhythmic,and orderly. 

In the presence of positive emotions, such as appreciation,gratitude, compassion, and caring, the brain releases a very different kind of chemistry into the body. 

When we feel a sense of well-being, the level of stress hormones in our bodies decreases, while the life-affirming chemistry of a powerful immune system with anti-aging properties increases. The shift between the stress response and a feeling of well-being can happen quickly.

Studies documented by the Institute of HeartMath (IHM), a pioneering research organization based in Boulder Creek, California, have shown that cortisol levels can decrease as much as 23 percent and levels of DHEA, a life-affirming precursor to other vital hormones in the body can increase 100 percent if we spend as little as three minutes using focused techniques designed to produce such responses.2 

The reason why I’m describing these phenomena is because the techniques that are found to have such benefits upon our health are the same ones that create the resilience in our hearts. 

This is the key to personal resilience in life. The quality of our emotions determines the instructions our hearts send to our brains.

excerpt from The Turning Point pages 125 to 128 © 

References:

1Lipton, Bruce. “146-150.” The Biology of Belief:Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles. Santa Rosa: Mountain of Love/Elite, 2005. Print. 

2The Impact of a New Emotional Self-Management Program on Stress, Emotions, Heart Rate Variability, DHEA and Cortisol Intergrative Physiological and Behavorial Science. 2nd ed. Vol. 33. 1998. 151-170. Print.

greggbraden.com

Science, Spirituality and the Real World

by Gregg Braden - 

During the late 1980s, I had a front row seat to one of the most frightening times in the history of the world — the last years of the Cold War — as well as the desperate thinking about how it would be won.

I was employed at the time in the defense industry, working as a senior computer systems designer while the super powers of the United States and the former Soviet Union developed a war strategy that seemed unthinkable to any rationally minded person today.

They spent the time, energy and human resources to develop and stockpile approximately 65,000 nuclear weapons. The combined power of this global arsenal was enough to microwave the Earth, and everything on it, many times over.

The rationale for such an extreme effort stems from a way of thinking that has dominated much of the modern world for the last 300 years or so, since the beginning of the scientific era.

It’s based in the false assumptions of scientific thinking that suggest we’re somehow separate from the Earth, separate from one another and that Nature is based upon competition, conflict and a relentless struggle that favors the survival of the strongest.

Fortunately, new discoveries in the fields of genetics, biology, physics and archaeology have revealed that each of these assumptions is absolutely false.

Unfortunately, however, there is a reluctance to reflect such new discoveries in mainstream media, traditional classrooms and conventional textbooks.

In other words, we’re still teaching our young people the false assumptions of an obsolete way of thinking and we’re still trying to solve our problems based in ideas of violent competition and conflict.

While we no longer face the nuclear threat that we did in the 1980s, the thinking that made the Cold War possible is still in place.

This fact is vital to us all right now for one simple reason: 

For the first time in human history, the future of our entire species rests upon the choices of a single generation — us — and the choices are being made within a small window of time — now.

The best minds of our time are telling us that we must act quickly to avert the clear and present danger of a host of crises that are converging in a “bottleneck” of the early 21st century, including climate change, shrinking supplies of vital resources and the growing disparity between poverty and wealth. 

The key here is that the way we solve our problems is based in the way we think of ourselves and the world.

From climate change and social change, to peak oil and peak debt, clearly the thinking that led to the war and suffering of the 20th century is not the thinking that we want the delicate choices of our survival based upon!

Developing a new level of thinking is precisely what we need to do today, and the magnitude of crises that face us may prove to be the catalyst for doing just that! 

The emerging bridge between the sciences that tells us how the universe works and the spiritual traditions of our past that give such knowledge meaning in our lives, plays a vital role in the new thinking that heads off the darkest possibilities of our future.

While the crises of the moment may be the catalyst for such a shift in thinking, something even deeper is emerging.

The new shift in thinking is the gateway to human transformation. 

Because of the sheer number of people involved in the shift and the growing magnitude of the crises that are driving us to change the way we think, we are standing on the threshold of human transformation at a level unlike anything ever before known on Earth.

The spiritual traditions that I’m describing are the core principles of ancient and time-tested understandings — principles now confirmed by 20th century science that include the interconnected nature of all things, the power of the human heart to positively influence the magnetic fields of the earth and all life and the cyclic nature of life, climate, civilization and change.

The spiritual traditions of our ancestors got these principles right and embodied them at the core of their lives in their time. 

It’s the marriage of these holistic principles with the best science of today that helps us to tip the scales of life, balance and peace in our favor, in ours.

While the specifics of spiritual principles may vary from tradition to tradition, the essence of their message does not.

It’s simple, direct and states that we live in a world where everything has meaning and is meaningful to everything else. 

What happens in the oceans has meaning for the climate of the mountains. What happens in a river has meaning for the life that depends upon the river.

The choices that you and I make as we express our beliefs in our living rooms and around family dinner tables have meaning for the people in our immediate lives, as well as for those connected through the fields of the human heart coherence living halfway around the Earth.

By crossing the traditional boundaries that define the science, religion and the history of our past, we are shown the power of a larger, integrated, and holistic worldview. 

I cannot help but believe that our destiny and fate as a species are intimately entwined with our willingness to accept the Deep Wisdom of a spiritually based science.

It’s all about the way we think of ourselves, our relationship to the Earth and to one another. When the facts become clear, our choices become obvious.

greggbraden.com
edgemagazine.net

Shattering The Paradigm Of False Limits

by Gregg Braden - 
The Strangest Science of All!

Fact: The Universe is made of a shared matrix of energy that underlies our physical world!

Fact: Belief is a language that "speaks" to this matrix!

Scientific evidence now reveals that belief affects everything from the healing of our bodies to the atoms of Reality itself! 

What could be more important than understanding how to use such an awesome power to reverse disease, create peace and abundance and even change Reality itself? In a world where the greatest crises of recorded human history now threaten our survival, the stakes couldn't be higher.

For a scientist, what could be any stranger than discovering that by simply watching our world in one place we've somehow changed what happens somewhere else? Yet this is precisely what the revelations of the new physics are showing us. 

As far back as 1935, Noble Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein acknowledged just how unsettling such quantum effects can be, calling them "spooky action at a distance." 

In a paper that he co-authored with noted physicists Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, he stated, 

"No reasonable definition of reality could be expected to permit this [action at a distance]."

Today, it's precisely these bizarre anomalies that have ignited a powerful revolution in the way we think of ourselves, as well as the universe. For the better part of the 20th century, scientists struggled to understand what quantum strangeness is telling us about the way reality works. 

It's a documented fact, for example, that human consciousness influences quantum energy-the stuff everything is made of-under certain conditions. And that fact has opened the door to a possibility that pushes the limits of what we've been led to believe about our world in the past. 

A growing body of evidence now suggests that these unexpected effects are more than just isolated exceptions. The question is how much more?

Are the effects of observers, influencing their experiments, actually a powerful window into the kind of reality we live in? And, if so, then we must ask, "Are those effects also telling us who we are within that reality?" 

The answer to both questions is "yes." These are precisely the conclusions that the new discoveries suggest.

There Are No Watchers

Scientists have shown that while we may think we're only watching and observing our world, in fact, it's impossible for us to simply "watch" anything. 

 Whether our attention is focused on a quantum particle during a laboratory experiment or anything else, from the healing of our body to the success of our careers and relationships, we have expectations and beliefs about what we're watching. 

Sometimes we're consciously aware of our expectations and beliefs. But oftentimes we're not. It's these inner experiences that become part of what we're focused on. By "watching" we become part of what we're watching.

In the words of physicist John Wheeler, that makes us all "participators." 

The reason? When we focus our attention on a given place in a moment of time, we involve our consciousness. And in the vast field of consciousness it appears that there's no clear boundary that tells us where we stop and the rest of the world begins. 

When we think of the world this way, it becomes clear why the ancients believed that everything is connected. As energy, it is.

As scientists continue to explore just what it means to be participators, new evidence points to an inescapable conclusion: 

That we live in an interactive reality where we change the world around us by changing what happens inside of us while we're watching-our thoughts, feelings and beliefs.

Belief Code 1: Experiments show that the focus of our attention changes reality itself and suggest that we live in an interactive universe.

The Implication: From the healing of disease and the length of our lives, to the success of our careers and relationships, everything that we experience as "life" is directly linked to what we believe.

The Bottom Line: To change our lives and relationships, heal our bodies and bring peace to our families and nations requires a simple yet precise shift in the way we use belief.

For those who accept what science has led us to believe for the last 300 years, even to consider that our inner experience can affect reality, is nothing short of heresy.

The very idea blurs the safety zone that has traditionally separated science and spirituality-and us from our world. Rather than thinking of ourselves as passive victims in a place where, for example, things just "happen" for no apparent reason, such a consideration now places us squarely in the driver's seat of life.

In this position we find ourselves faced with undeniable evidence confirming that we are the architects of our reality. With this confirmation, we also find that we have the power to make disease obsolete and relegate war to a memory of our past. 

Suddenly, the key to catapult our greatest dreams into reality is within our reach. It all comes back to us. Where do we fit in the universe? What is it that we're supposed to be doing in life?

The False Assumptions of Science.

The transformation that the reality revolution brings to our lives has erupted with a force unmatched by anything in the past.

The same discoveries that have sparked the questions have also led to the conclusion that the "facts" we've trusted for 300 years to explain the universe and our role in it are flawed. 

They're based upon two assumptions that have been proven to be false.

False Assumption 1: The space between "things" is empty. New discoveries now tell us that this is simply not true.

False Assumption 2: Our inner experiences of feeling and belief have no effect upon the world beyond our bodies. This has been proven absolutely false, as well.

Paradigm-shattering experiments, published in leading- edge, peer-reviewed journals reveal that we're bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space. 

Beyond any reasonable doubt, additional discoveries show that this field responds to us-it literally rearranges itself-in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs to become the healing of our bodies and the peace of our world! And this is the revolution that changes everything.

With these and similar discoveries in mind, we must ask ourselves the question that is perhaps the most revealing of all: Are we born with the natural ability to create and modify our bodies and the world? 

If so, then we must be willing to ask an even more difficult question: What responsibility do we have to use our birth-given power in the presence of what are arguably the greatest threats to the future of our lives, our world, and even our species?

excerpt from 'The Spontaneous Healing of Belief''

greggbraden.com

You Can Change Reality

by Gregg Braden -

Science proves that our beliefs shape our world.

Scientific evidence now reveals that belief affects everything from the healing of our bodies to the atoms of Reality itself!

What could be more important than understanding how to use such an awesome power to reverse disease, create peace and abundance and even change Reality itself?

Scientists have shown that while we may think we’re only watching and observing our world, in fact, it’s impossible for us to simply “watch” anything. 

 Whether our attention is focused on a quantum particle during a laboratory experiment or anything else, from the healing of our body to the success of our careers and relationships, we have expectations and beliefs about what we’re watching.

Sometimes we’re consciously aware of our expectations and beliefs. But oftentimes we’re not. It’s these inner experiences that become part of what we’re focused on. By “watching” we become part of what we’re watching.

In the words of physicist John Wheeler, that makes us all “participators.”

The reason? 

When we focus our attention on a given place in a moment of time, we involve our consciousness. And in the vast field of consciousness it appears that there’s no clear boundary that tells us where we stop and the rest of the world begins.

When we think of the world this way, it becomes clear why the ancients believed that everything is connected. As energy, it is.

As scientists continue to explore just what it means to be participators, new evidence points to an inescapable conclusion: That we live in an interactive reality where we change the world around us by changing what happens inside of us while we’re watching—our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

The implication is clear: From the healing of disease and the length of our lives, to the success of our careers and relationships, everything that we experience as “life” is directly linked to what we believe.

We find ourselves faced with undeniable evidence confirming that we are the architects of our reality. 

With this confirmation, we also find that we have the power to make disease obsolete and relegate war to a memory of our past. Suddenly, the key to catapult our greatest dreams into reality is within our reach. It all comes back to us.

Where do we fit in the universe? 

What is it that we’re supposed to be doing in life?

The transformation that the reality revolution brings to our lives has erupted with a force unmatched by anything in the past because the same discoveries that have sparked the questions have also led to the conclusion that the “facts” we’ve trusted for 300 years to explain the universe and our role in it are flawed.

They’re based upon two assumptions that have been proven to be false:

(1) The space between “things” is empty; and (2) Our inner experiences of feeling and belief have no effect upon the world beyond our bodies.

Paradigm-shattering experiments, published in leading-edge, peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space. 

Beyond any reasonable doubt, additional discoveries show that this field responds to us—it literally rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs to become the healing of our bodies and the peace of our world! And this is the revolution that changes everything.

With these and similar discoveries in mind, we must ask ourselves the question that is perhaps the most revealing of all: Are we born with the natural ability to create and modify our bodies and the world?

If so, then we must be willing to ask an even more difficult question: What responsibility do we have to use our birth-given power in the presence of what are arguably the greatest threats to the future of our lives, our world, and even our species?

The Bottom Line: 

To change our lives and relationships, heal our bodies and bring peace to our families and nations requires a shift in the way we use belief.

greggbraden.com

New Physics Mystery Solved

by Gregg Braden -

What’s shaking up the scientists?

Awakening the power to reshape our world. Modern science is hot on the trail of solving one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Nearly 70 years of research in an area known as the “new physics” is pointing to a conclusion that we cannot escape.

The discovery:

      Everything in our world is connected to everything else. 

That’s the news that changes everything, and which is absolutely shaking the foundations of science, as we know it today. “OK,” you say. “We’ve heard this before. What makes this conclusion so different? What does it really mean to be so connected?”

The difference between the new discoveries and what we previously believed is that in the past we were simply told that the connection exists. The new experiments, however, take us one step further.

In addition to proving that we are connected to everything, research now proves that the connection exists because of us—specifically because of our consciousness.

Our connectedness gives us the power to stack the deck in our favor when it comes to the way our lives play out.

In everything from searching for romance and healing our loved ones, to the fulfillment of our deepest aspirations and the peace of our world, we are an integral part of all that we experience each day.

That the discoveries show we can use our connection consciously opens the door to nothing less than our opportunity to tap the same power that drives the entire universe.

Through the connection that lives inside of you, me, and every human that walks the earth we have a direct line to the same force that creates everything from atoms and stars to the DNA of life!

There is one small catch, however. Our power to do so is dormant until we awaken it. The key to awakening such an awesome power is that we have to make a small shift in the way we see ourselves in the world.

New Way of Seeing

With a little shift in perception we can tap the most powerful force in the universe to address even seemingly impossible situations of life.

It happens when we allow ourselves a new way of seeing our role in the universe.

The “small shift” that we need is to see ourselves as part of the world rather than separate from the world. The way to convince ourselves that we are truly part of everything that we see and experience is to understand how we are connected, and what that connection means.

In laboratory experiments, particles have been documented to be in two places at the same time, to be connected even though they are separated by distances of many miles, to “heal” themselves and even travel in time! 

Historically, such phenomena were believed impossible. But apparently they are not only possible, they also may be showing us something more than the interesting anomalies of small particles.

The freedom of movement that the quantum particles demonstrate may reveal how the rest of the universe works when we look beyond what we know of physics.

While these results may sound like the script of a futuristic Star Trek episode, they are being observed now, under the scrutiny of present-day scientists.

They suggest that we may not be as limited by the laws of physics as we believe. Maybe things can travel faster than the speed of light, and maybe they can be in two places at once! And if things can, what about us?

These are precisely the possibilities that excite today’s innovators and stir our own imaginations. It is the coupling of the imagination—the idea of something that could be possible—with an emotion that gives life to a possibility, so it becomes a reality.

 Manifestation all begins with the willingness to make room in our beliefs for something that does not exist. We create that “something” through the power of consciousness and awareness.

For the imaginary ideas of one moment in time to become the reality of another there must be something that links them together. Somehow in the fabric of the universe there must be a connection between past imaginings and present and future realities.

Einstein firmly believed that the past and the future are somehow intimately entwined as the stuff of the fourth dimension, a reality that he called space-time. “The distinction between past, present, and future” he said, “is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

The implications of these relationships are huge.

In a world where an intelligent field of energy connects everything from global peace to personal healing, what may have sounded like fantasy and miracles in the past suddenly becomes possible in our lives.

With these connections in mind, we must begin to think of the way we relate to life from a powerful new perspective. Good, bad, right, or wrong, everything from the most beautiful life experiences to the most horrible occasions of human suffering can no longer be written off as chance happenings.

The Key

Clearly, the key to healing, peace, abundance and the creation of experiences, careers and relationships that bring us joy is to understand just how deeply we are connected to everything in our reality.

greggbraden.com
healyourlife.com

What Can We Do to Make Things Better?

by Gregg Braden -

The pioneering anthropologist Louis Leakey was once asked why his work to find the oldest evidence of human existence was so important. He replied,

“Without an understanding of who we are, and from where we came, I do not think we can truly advance.”

I believe there’s a lot of truth to what Leakey said—so much so that the bulk of my adult life has revolved around my search to know who we are and how the knowledge of our past can help us become better people and create a better world.

With the exception of Antarctica, my research into the mystery of our past has taken me to every continent on the planet.

From huge cities such as Cairo and Bangkok, to remote villages in Peru and Bolivia, from ancient monasteries in the Himalayas of Tibet, to Hindu temples in Nepal, during the time that I’ve experienced each culture, a single theme has emerged.

The people of this world are ready for something more than the suffering and uncertainty that defined their lives for so much of the 20th century.

They’re ready for peace and the promise of a better tomorrow.

As different as our cultures and ways of life appear on the outside, beneath the surface we’re all searching for the same things—a land to call home, a way to provide for our families, and a better future for ourselves and our children.

At the same time, there are two questions that people of all cultures ask me again and again. 

• The first is simply: “What is happening to our world?”
• The second is: “What can we do to make things better?”

The answers to both questions appear to be woven into a single understanding that links the traditions of prayer today with the most ancient and cherished spiritual traditions of our past.

Four hundred years ago in the high deserts of the American Southwest, the great wisdom keepers of the Navajo families were tested by the earth, nature, and the tribes that surrounded them.

Through the extremes that drought, intense heat and lack of food caused in their societies, the Navajo realized that they must harness the power of their inner pain to endure the harsh conditions of their outer world. Their very survival depended upon learning to do so.

Recognizing that life’s tests pushed them to the depths of their greatest suffering, they also discovered that the same tests revealed their greatest strengths. 

The key to their survival was to immerse themselves in life’s challenges without becoming lost in the experience. They had to find an “anchor” within themselves—a belief that gave them the inner strength to endure their tests—and the knowledge that a better day would follow.

From this place of power they had the confidence to take risks, change their lives and make sense of their world.

Our lives today may not be so very different from that of those brave individuals who roamed the high deserts of the American Southwest centuries before our country was created.

Although the scenery has shifted and the circumstances have changed, we still find ourselves in situations that shake the foundations of our beliefs, test the limits of our sensibilities and challenge us to rise above the things that hurt us.

In a world that many describe as “coming apart at the seams,” we’re challenged to find a way to live each day with peace, joy and a sense of order.

We find ourselves in a world of experiences that defy our sensibilities and push us to the limits of what we can accept as rational, loving people. 

In the presence of war and genocide beyond our borders, and hate based upon our differences within our own communities, how are we to feel emotions such as peace and healing?

Clearly, we must find a way to break the cycle of hurt-suffering-anger-hate if we’re to transcend the conditions that we find ourselves in.

In the languages of their time, ancient traditions left us precise instructions for how to do just that!

Through their words, we’re reminded that “life” is nothing more and nothing less, than a mirror of what we’ve become within.

The key to experiencing our lives as beauty or as pain rests solely within our ability to become these qualities in each moment of every day.

A growing body of scientific evidence gives renewed credibility to such wisdom and the powerful role that each of us plays in contributing to the healing or the suffering in our world.

greggbraden.com

Reality Adjustment

by C. Allie Knowlton -

Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits:

It is clear that a major transition is occurring on our planet. It is also clear that in one way or another, it is affecting the daily life of everyone. There are so many versions of what this time is all about and where it is leading our planet that it can be confusing.

Gregg Braden is a internationally renowned pioneer in bridging science and technology. In his book, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits, Braden writes that

 “Today we are at a pivotal time when three major ways of knowing -- belief, faith and science are being tested against the reality of our world. When we are asked how we know that something is true, we generally rely upon assumptions that come from one or some combination, of these ways of seeing the world to answer.”

Reviewing Our Beliefs

I would like to focus on how we can take care of ourselves during this transition time by encouraging us to review our beliefs.

We may discover that some of our long held beliefs limit us in a way that is not beneficial to us and hamper our contribution to this time.

In our practice we are finding that people are more willing than ever to address their old patterns. Perhaps these patterns were once useful in some way as part of early survival, but now, these old ways of thinking and behaving are interfering with the person’s quality of life.

Some of these patterns may be generational ones that the person has incarnated in this life time in order to change. Many of these patterns are based upon beliefs that were formed in the first seven years of our life.

According to the field of neonatal psychology, there is even evidence that the beliefs that shape our choices may have been formulated based on the experiences we had while still in the womb.

We have certainly seen examples of this in our practice. For some people, limiting beliefs, counterproductive patterns and even physical illnesses have evolved based upon perceptions that were made during the formation of their tiny being. This can appear to be scary for some of us when we hear our birth stories or review early childhood memories and traumas.

It also can be very hopeful based on the new developments in quantum science that prove our thoughts and beliefs are all made of energy which can be rerouted, transmuted and fundamentally changed to create a new or more beneficial reality.

Braden defines beliefs as

“the certainty that comes from accepting what we THINK IS TRUE in our minds, coupled with what we FEEL IS TRUE in our hearts.”

An example of a very common unbeneficial belief is the belief of “not being good enough." There are many variations of this belief which create a continuum of effects. These can range from having low self esteem, finding it difficult to leave abusive relationships and being judgmental or envious of others who are not at the affect of this belief, to name a few.

This kind of belief is clearly counterproductive and because it was formed so early it can be very persistent.

As a result, naming counterproductive beliefs, willing them to be gone, ignoring them, or resigning one’s self to their power do not allow such entrenched perceptions to shift. They continue to create a reality in daily living that is no longer useful and can ultimately lead to disease on physical, mental and/or emotional levels.

Even so, considering addressing them creates fear. It might trigger feelings of losing our identity or raise the worrisome question, “Would that be rocking the boat too much for my partner or family?”

Here we are living in a world that is clearly in need of a reality adjustment. 

At the same time, we are beginning to realize that we can not only change our reality but also by doing so will participate in changing the reality of the entire cosmos!

We are part of a great hologram of energy that is within us, surrounds us and is impacted by us.

Our Spirit Teachers tell our clients over and over that the work they are doing to transmute limiting perceptions contributes to the healing of the Whole.

As energy, we are all connected. We are the hologram. It is only our perception that we are separate beings!

For some, the logic of the brain must be addressed and replaced by new logic in order to move on. There are many resources available to retrain the thought process of the brain. These range from the work of the Institute of Heart Math, biofeedback and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing(EMDR), to name a few.

Braden includes his own version which he calls building your personal logic patch. In other words, like a computer programmer, you can use this tool to replace old, outmoded brain “programming.” He acknowledges that

“to change our beliefs through the logic of our minds, we must convince ourselves of a new possibility through inarguable facts that lead to an inescapable conclusion.”

Six Keys to the Personal Logic Patch 
(via Gregg Braden)

Key 1: State how you feel regarding your desired outcomes as if it has already happened. For your own clarity, it’s important to do this in one concise, brief sentence. Example: I feel deeply fulfilled by the success of my new business teaching sustainable living. I feel _____________. 

Key 2: State with passion what you are choosing to express. Example: I have a passion to help others. I have a passion to __________. 

Key 3: State the limiting belief(s) that you have about yourself and/or filling your need. Example: My limiting belief is that my family demands don’t allow me to fulfill this need. My limiting belief is that ___________. 

Key 4: State the opposite of your limiting belief(s). Example: My work is valuable. My___________. 

Key 5: State when you feel most fulfilled in life. This will become your goal. Example: I feel most fulfilled in life when I am creating workshops to teach ‘green’ living. I feel most fulfilled in life when __________. 

Key 6: State the inarguable fact(s) that support your goal. Example: It is a fact that I have been practicing a green lifestyle for 25 years. It is a fact that ___________.

This method as well as others listed above, usually include an identification of feelings as part of the “on board technology” that contributes to being able to follow through with changes of belief.

The logic of the mind can be by-passed by going directly to our hearts. In other words, by participating in an experience that is beyond rational explanation, we are invited, even forced to embrace a new belief .

Outside of Time

An example of this occurred in our healing work when a client was guided back to the moment in the womb when her mother was intensely feeling that she could not carry this life form to term.

The developing embryo vibrationally felt this fear and this created the belief that she must take care of her self at all costs because she cannot trust anyone else is capable of doing so.

This child may have eventually been received lovingly at the moment of birth but the imprint or perception was already established. As such, the person discovered that her relationships, jobs and total life experience was impacted by this unconscious perception.

We invited this person “to go outside of time” accompanied by a Spirit Guide or their own adult self or a trusted person. The intent was to go to that tiny baby and have an experience of complete acceptance. In these cases, the spirit of a client’s birth mother may come to facilitate this shift. Sometimes it is their own adult self who can share experiences of their undeniable worth.

While holding the baby, they speak from their heart what the newborn needs to hear to be able to let go of the old belief. In that moment, a new perception is created and therefore a new reality. The client’s experience of acceptance fills every cell of their present adult body.

This creates a new belief of worthiness, self trust, and possibility. In addition, their changed vibration impacts the energetic vibration of life around them to the benefit of all.

Power

It may seem that changing deeply embedded beliefs would require a miracle to happen. Braden describes a miracle as

“an event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature.” “This is where we find its power. It’s beyond the logic of where it comes from and how it happened. The fact is that it DID happen. And in its presence, we are changed... We must reconcile that miracle with what we’ve believed to be true in the past.”

It is crucial to add what the creator of the EST training, Werner H. Erhard, made famous, “understanding is the booby prize.” In other words, it isn’t necessary. We only need to acknowledge that some fundamental belief or embedded perception within us has been replaced and it feels right!

It is OK to trust the new belief. Modern science confirms that our brains are totally capable of modifying their cortical networks or “rewiring” themselves in response to our new experiences!

Review

What is in our control as this planetary transition continues to unfold is to allocate time to review our beliefs to see if any are outmoded and need to be changed. Once recognized, we can then tap into the amazingly rich resources this technological age offers to explore and transform what is no longer beneficial to us.

We can choose to allocate time to review any life experiences or events that have changed our perspective to assess if we have integrated the shift into our daily perspectives.

We can choose to be open to life experiences that support a new perspective. And lastly, we can name and honor the beliefs that sustain us through the meaning and joy they bring to our lives.

Shift In Belief

To quote Braden one more time,

"In the instant of our first breath, we are infused with the single greatest force in the universe --the power to translate the possibilities of our minds into the reality of our world. To fully awaken our power, however requires a subtle change in the way we think of ourselves in life, a shift in belief.” 

He continues,

“Just the way a sound creates visible waves as it travels through a droplet of water, our ‘belief waves’ ripple through the quantum fabric of the universe to become our bodies and the healing, abundance, and peace -- or disease, lack, and suffering -- that we experience in life. And just the way we can tune a sound to change its patterns, we can tune our beliefs to preserve or destroy all that we cherish, including life itself. 

In a malleable world where everything from atoms to cells is changing to match our beliefs, we’re limited only by the way we think of ourselves in that world.”

spiritpassages.com