They call it sitting disease

The Mayo Clinic is calling it Sitting Disease…

A study led by Dr. Emma Wilmot, a research fellow in the Diabetes Research Group at the University of Leicester in the UK combined the results of 18 studies and included a total of 794,577 participants. The results showed that sitting for 6 or more hours a day increases your risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes significantly.

Dr. Wilmot was quoted “The average adult spends 50-70% of their time sitting so the findings of this study have far reaching implications. By simply limiting the time that we spend sitting, we may be able to reduce our risk of diabetes, heart disease and death”.

“Our study also showed that the most consistent associations were between sitting and diabetes. This is an important message because people with risk factors for diabetes, such as the obese, those of South Asian ethnic origin, or those with a family history of diabetes, may be able to help reduce their future risk of diabetes by limiting the time spent sitting. ”

In 2009 Dr Peter Katzmarzyk and colleagues at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre published an influential longitudinal paper examined the relationship between time spent sitting and mortality of more than 17,000 Canadians.

Results = individuals who sat the most were roughly 50% more likely to die during the follow-up period than individuals who sat the least, even after controlling for age, smoking, and physical activity levels

So why?

Well you all can appreciate that while sitting we burn less calories. Also while sitting for long periods of time we typically eat more. Think about your office over the past holiday, it wasn’t fruit and protein shakes filling that break room.

Here is the really bad stuff:

• Sedentary behavior also results in rapid and dramatic changes in skeletal muscle.
• In rat models, it has been shown that just 1 day of complete rest resulted in dramatic reductions in muscle triglyceride uptake, as well as reductions in HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol).1
• In healthy humans, just 5 days of bed rest resulted in increased plasma (blood) triglycerides and LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) as well as increased insulin resistance.2

Yes triglyceride levels increased by 35%, and insulin resistance by 50%! This is a big deal; Heart disease is the #1 cause of death in the United States.

For the more scientifically inclined these findings are being correlated to the reduction of lipoprotein lipase and glucose transporter protein during sedentary behavior.

Lipoprotein lipase = enzyme which allows muscle to uptake fat, thereby reducing the amount of fat circulating in the blood (so if you have less of this enzyme you have more fat in your blood)

Glucose transporter protein = transports glucose into cells to be used for energy. If this is not present then you are going to have higher blood sugar levels.

So even if you exercise for 1-2 hours every day, if you are sitting for 6 or more hours these mechanisms are occurring. How much time do you spend sitting at your desk, in your car, in front of your television?

What can you do about it?

Changing a long standing routine is very challenging for individuals to make adjustments. So this might take you a little while of thinking about your space and your routine to see what you can do throughout the day. How about simply stand up out of your chair every 20 minutes, walk or stand while speaking on the phone, hold standing meetings, as well as using a standing desk at work and home. Go for a walk at lunch! If you watch television at night for a couple hours do a stretching routine instead of just sitting there like a lump on a log. Be creative on how you can break up extended periods of sitting while maintaining your productivity.

Some people have decided to begin using physio balls for chairs at their desk. Not only does this tend to give you improved posture (so you can remain upright) but it also tends to get you up off of your bum more. They do not recommend however for sitting on these chairs for periods extending 4 hours. You must break it up by standing and walking to the printer, etc. In my experience if your company has a bunch of cubicles they probably do not want you using a loose physio ball, because it will roll around and increase the possibility of an accident.

5 Reasons Why Sitting Is Slowly Killing You

You may have heard that sitting is the new smoking.

As surprising as this claim may sound, it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the evidence. Study after study seems to suggest that we’re just not built for sitting around as often as we do.

And often is an understatement. The average American adults spends 9.3 hours sitting (or otherwise engaged in sedentary behavior). (1)

The negative effects of sitting this much can’t even be counteracted by daily strenuous exercise. What you really need to do is redesign your daily living routines, so that they include lots of standing, walking, and squatting, as well as movement and stretching breaks.

Just keep in mind that, for optimal health, all of these micro-activities need to be performed in addition to a strenuous daily workout—not in lieu of it.

If this sounds like a lot of work, I can only assure you that it’s worth it. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why sitting is so terrible for you, in case you need some more convincing.

It makes your metabolism slow to a crawl. Almost immediately after you sit down, your body’s metabolism slows down considerably.

Over time, metabolism inhibition can foster a state of systemic sluggishness and accelerate aging. Caloric consumption is also decreased by 70% (compared to walking), which also serves as a barrier to optimal health and peak performance.

It increases LDL. With a sedentary metabolism comes a decrease in an enzyme calledlipoprotein lipase, which allows muscle to uptake fat, and thus decreases the total amount of fat in the bloodstream. (2)

Combine this with the worrying fact that sedentary activity causes rapid degradation of skeletal muscle, and you have a recipe for dangerously high cholesterol.

It leads to insulin resistance. Because of the pronounced metabolism inhibition that it causes, even just a couple hours of sitting per day can eventually lead to insulin resistance, the precursor to type 2 diabetes.

While there’s still some debate in the medical community, it seems to be a lack of physical activity—not sitting itself—that’s the issue. The negative effects of sedentary behavior are made even worse by its common association with other unhealthy habits, like eating junk food.

That being said, a long-term study that factored in fitness level found a much weaker correlation between sitting and insulin resistance. (3) Essentially, individuals who are very physically active are less likely to develop insulin resistance, despite some sedentary behavior.

Don’t take this as an excuse to log more hours in front of the TV, though. Another study demonstrated that just 5 days of complete “rest” caused the onset of insulin resistance. (4)

It takes an awful lot of exercise to neutralise a day in the office anyway, and your overall health will still be much better off if you punctuate your day with movement rituals (and thenalso fit in a strenuous workout).

It raises your risk of cancer. You can get cancer just by sitting around? Unfortunately, a number of studies suggest that the answer is a resounding yes.

Here’s the worst part: unlike sitting-induced insulin resistance—which seems like it can be counteracted with sufficient exercise—cancer seems to be linked to sitting regardless of how physically active you are.

The key factor that raised the risk for cancer was the total amount of time spent sitting on a daily basis (particularly with colon cancer and endometrial cancer). The more hours a person spends sitting, the higher risk they have for cancer—and no amount of exercise changes that correlation.

And by the way, we’re not talking about a measly percentage increase in risk. A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute claims that sitting and sedentary behavior increases the risk of various cancers by up to 66%. (5)

It’s terrible for your back. I figured I’d save the most obvious point for last. Anyone who’s spent most of their day sitting over a long period of time (and for those with a day job, that’s basically the norm) can attest to the back problems that it causes.

Some people get off easy with low-grade stiffness or soreness, and others suffer intolerable levels of pain. Anyway you cut it, sitting leads to terrible posture and dangerous spinal compression.

The muscles in our lower backs literally have to contract in an attempt to deal with the unnatural posture that sitting forces upon us.

This accumulating muscle tension and compression persists as pain and stiffness even after we stand up…and the longer we sit, the more the tension worsens.

Convinced yet?

Although your daily work life may obligate you to lengthy periods of sitting, it should be obvious by now that it’s worth it to attenuate its effects however you can.

Take at least a bit of time to stand, move, stretch, and walk every hour. Reduce your sedentary activity outside of work (or at least move in some way every hour). And if possible, explore alternatives like standing desks and medicine ball chairs.

Anything is better than just sitting all day. Build better habits at your own pace…you’ll thank yourself later!

 http://naturalmentor.com/5-reasons-why-sitting-is-slowly-killing-you/

Acting and image: You don’t have to look genetically superior to work

Katherine Heigl

The title comes from a comment by Katherine Heigl ["Grey's Anatomy" etc], who admits she used to weigh herself “every day at a certain time of day. Then I would write down the number and measure my body fat. It wasn’t a healthy way to live. Now I can tell if I’ve gained or lost weight just by the way my clothes are fitting.”

She adds (in a recent magazine interview), “When I see some of the people who are glorified in magazines these days – who are so thin it’s bordering on sickness – I just feel exhausted. I would hate to think that young girls in high schools across America think that’s what they’re supposed to look like.”

She thinks “Jennifer Aniston and Halle Berry are both in amazing shape. They look phenomenal but they don’t look sick. Then there’s Kate Winslet: She’s confident, beautiful, talented and sexy and she owns it.

“Early in my career, I read an interview she gave about how the industry wanted her to lose weight; she basically gave them the finger and said no. I remember thinking, I can do that too. I don’t have to look like one of these genetically superior people in order to work.”

[From Glamour mag. interview, June 2007; photo from her movie "Knocked Up"]

Sara Ramirez

Sara Ramirez, also an actor on “Grey’s Anatomy,” says she “always felt like I stuck out.. I was a lot taller and bigger-boned than most girls my age. My mom did a great job of raising me.. But I think she was very critical of her own body and projected that onto me. There were times when she felt she needed to lose 20 pounds, and therefore I also needed to lose 20 pounds.

“The mentality was, we should lose weight. As a result, I grew up wanting to look like someone else rather than appreciating the body I had.”

In tenth grade she got cast in her first musical and was “suddenly catapulted into this place where I was getting a lot of attention, admiration and praise. I even got accepted to The Juilliard School, a prestigious performing arts school in New York City.

“The school was full of actresses, singers, dancers… and a lot of them had eating disorders. For me, the body-image issues came in waves. I would diet hard-core, lose a lot of weight and feel really good about myself. Then I would have moments of unhappiness.

“My way of dealing was to eat and eat and eat; I’d gain lots of weight and feel really crappy. Somewhere along the line, all the self-esteem I’d felt went out the window. My weight constantly yo-yoed – at my slimmest I was a size 6; my biggest, a 14.”

In “Grey’s Anatomy” there was a scene for Ramirez (as orthopedic surgeon ‘Dr. Callie Torres’) to “dance around half-naked in my underwear,” she exclaims. “Doing the scene helped me get over a lot of my issues. I had to accept my body.” [From Glamour, Jan 2007.]

Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson has been very successful as a singer, including winning two Grammy Awards, and admits she struggled with her body image at one time. In CosmoGirl! [August], she reveals she became bulimic after she was passed over for a role in her high school musical. “I thought… If I came back and I’m cuter and thinner… then I’ll get the role.”

Clarkson was bulimic for six months. “One of my guy friends caught on to it, and I just felt so ashamed and embarassed,” she tells the mag. “I literally went cold turkey and snapped out of it… I’ve got a butt, I’m Greek – I can’t help that. And I think it’s good for people to see normal.” [US Weekly usmagazine.com June 21 2007]

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson has commented about the complex emotional pressures on actors:

“Any time that you are involved in a field that’s revolving around vanity of some sort with a high rate of failure, it can breed a desperation in people that doesn’t always have a happy ending. I think that kind of ambition with no end can really make for a lot of nastiness…”

[From my blog post Scarlett Johansson: I don't need to be skinny to be sexy.]

For many women who are actors in [and performers in music, and modeling, of course] the “nastiness” can include demands to be size 0 or close to it.

But Johansson – and many of us men who appreciate feminine beauty in a wide range of features and sizes – thinks the really skinny look is “unsexy.”Celebrating their natural appearance

As a man who isn’t an actor or model, I don’t have an inside experience of body image pressures. It just seems to me responding to those pressures in unhealthy ways, and being overly obsessed with appearance, can limit your abilities and energies.

Thankfully, women like the above who are so well-known and visible, seem to have chosen to respect and celebrate their natural appearance. And to use ways other than food and dieting to deal with the kinds of emotional challenges many, if not most, gifted and talented people experience.

 http://womenandtalent.com/63/you-dont-have-to-look-genetically-superior-to-work/

Writing social change: Tori Amos on music as a transformative power

From abuse to activism

Tori Amos is known for “lyrically opaque but emotionally intense songs that cover a wide range of subjects including sexuality, religion, patriarchy and personal tragedy.” [Wikipedia profile]

Her song “Me And A Gun” (1991) was a response to her brutal rape.

She has openly talked about her abuse, and in 1994 co-founded the rape hotline, RAINN, The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network – which lists statistics including “One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men.”

The political is personal

In an interview by Paul Tingen, Tori Amos talks about her new album American Doll Posse:

“The main message is: the political is personal,” she says. “This as opposed to the feminist statement from years ago that the personal is political. I know it has been said that it goes both ways, but we have to turn it around. We have to think like that. I’m now taking on subjects that I could not have been able to take on in my twenties.

“With Little Earthquakes I took on more personal things. But if you are going to be an American woman in 2007 with a real view on what is going on, you need to be brave, and you need to know that some people won’t want to look at it.

Speaking out for American women

“For me the new album is about representing the American women that I see and meet, but that right now is not the world’s view of American women. And there are those in the American media and right wing that try to shame these women for speaking out. And you know, I’m a minister’s daughter, so if you try to shame me, my mojo grows!”

[As a minister’s daughter, she’s long fought against the way the Christian church pushes women into guilt and shame about their femininity and sexuality, notes Tingen.]

Reminding women of their potential

“Music itself has a transformative power that tends to be forgotten. It can ignite a flame in the listener. There’s nothing stronger than making someone feel that they have the right to question those in authority. And I don’t think this battle will be won by using music the way it was used in the sixties.

“You don’t want to get dragged into the rhetoric of either party, because if you are, you’ve been seduced into their lair. Instead it’s about reminding women, and men—but there are more young women than men standing in line at my show—of their potential.”

Lower photo from the book: Piece by Piece – by Tori Amos with Ann Powers – “an autobiography that delves deeply into Amos’s interest with mythology and religion and explores her songwriting process as well as telling the story of her progression into fame.” 

 http://womenandtalent.com/51/tori-amos-on-music-as-a-transformative-power/

Empowering yourself: Halle Berry on depression, esteem, change and growth -

Contemplating suicide

In an interview in Ebony magazine [by Laura B. Randolph, March, 1997], Halle Berry talked about the devastation she felt when her then husband David Justice ended their marriage, leading her to consider suicide: “I took my dogs, and I went in the garage and sat in the car. For two or three hours, I just cried and I cried. I thought ‘I can’t face it.’ I think that’s the weakest I have ever been in my life. That’s what the breakup of my marriage did to me.

“It took away my self-esteem. It beat me down to the lowest of lows — the gum on the bottom of David’s shoe, that’s what I felt like. Somewhere in my heart, I think I knew I didn’t really want to end my life. I just wanted to end the pain.”

Not long after, she went into therapy. “I know it sounds cliche,” she says, “but you have to find a way to hold on because time really does heal all wounds.”

[According to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance site, major depressive disorder affects approximately 15 million adults in the U.S., or about 7 percent of the population age 18 and older in a given year, and women experience depression at twice the rate of men.]

Learning the lessons

In a new interview [‘My Sights Are Set On Motherhood’ by Emily Listfield, Parade.com April 1, 2007], she says with such painful experiences as her two marriages that ended, “I’ve developed into someone who takes responsibility for my choices. I’m able to say, ‘I chose it, I screwed it up, and it’s my bad. I’m not going to take an ounce of your blame or put any of mine on you.’

“It’s easier not to dwell on mistakes when you own them and learn the lesson. When I realized I had the power to change, it was eye-opening. It gave me a lot of hope.”

Breaking old habits

She continues, “I’ve been working to break old habits and change how I think about relationships. For a while, I couldn’t accept what I was doing to myself—that I needed drama. I think I’ve been so successful professionally because I always thought positively: ‘Sure, I’m going to make money. Sure, I’m going to work as an actress.’

“But in my personal life, I have a lot of fears and negative thoughts. My goal is to change my thinking from ‘I don’t want to be hurt, I don’t want to be cheated on’ to ‘I want someone honest.’”

She has sought the help of therapy throughout her life. “As you get older, you realize you have a right to feel better,” she says. “I stink at 101 things—I stink at being told what to do. I stink at taking advice from other people. I stink at marriage,” she adds, laughing. “But I know that I’ve developed really good communication skills, and that’s a big part of me evolving and learning how to be in the world.”

The value of counselling

The article notes that for the past year, Berry has been dating Gabriel Aubry, a male model 10 years her junior. “It’s a lot of fun,” she admits… I’ve accomplished things I never thought I would. Now my sights are set on a different chapter in my life, which is motherhood.”

And she emphasizes the value of counseling: “People still associate therapy with being crazy. But I think you’re crazy if you won’t consider going to get help for yourself—to learn the tools to deal with the problems in your life. Once people see what it is and what it’s not, they race to go back. They get the benefit. But it’s hard to get people to the first session because of fear.

”http://womenandtalent.com/52/halle-berry-on-depression-esteem-change-and-growth/

Tips for Every Age: How to Raise Grateful Kids

How to talk to your kids without sounding preachy

The weeks after the holidays can feel like a big let down.  
After all the expectation—and stress—of the season, 
both parents and kids may feel a sense of disappointment 
after all the gifts are opened and the treats are eaten.

We talked with Christine Carter, director of the Greater 
Good Science Centre Parenting Program at UCBerkeley, 
and author of Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for 
More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents, to get her 
practical tips on unleashing the power of gratitude. But 
is it possible to flip that script? Can parents encourage kids 
to stop thinking “what have we got to look forward to now?” and start concentrating on everything they’ve just enjoyed?

The list of the benefits of gratitude is so long “it’s 
almost ridiculous,” Carter says. “People who are 
consciously practicing gratitude sleep better, have 
more energy, and feel more connected to other people.” 
One study has even proven that kidney function 
improves when people practice gratitude. And the good 
news is that it’s contagious. “If I’m feeling strong 
positive emotion, and I’m sharing that with somebody,” 
Carter explains, “those emotions spread person to 
person” through the whole family.

So how can parents get the gratitude conversation 
started? These are her tips, for any age.

Elementary school kids may be too young to think in 
terms of classic gratitude, which requires remembering 
something from the past. But “they understand what a 
good thing is,” Carter says. “Don’t worry about the 
time frame. Just ask them to name three good things 
about their day.” And no matter how old or a young a 
child, don’t correct them when they express gratitude. 
“Let them be grateful for whatever they’re grateful for.”

Middle school kids have often learned to be grateful 
for material things, because they’ve been trained in 
the etiquette of writing thank you-notes. 
So it’s good for parents to model being grateful 
for intangibles, like health and family, or a beautiful day. 
And as kids mature, questions about what they’re grateful 
for become more complicated, Carter says. If a parent 
asks, “what are you grateful for?” a child may feel 
burdened by everything they owe their parents. 
So non-verbal expressions can be helpful at this age, 
Carter suggests, like art projects that focus on gratitude. 
And parents can also help kids to focus on what 
they’re grateful for beyond the family, by helping 
them express words of appreciation about other 
people around them, with questions like, “What do you 
enjoy about your friends? Or your teachers?”

High school students can begin to think of gratitude 
in a much larger context. And context, Carter says, is 
actually key to gratitude. Relative to many other 
cultures, many children in the U.S. “live in 
tremendous abundance,” she points out. And that 
creates what researchers call an abundance paradox. 
“We’re much more likely to feel disappointed or 
even resentful when we don’t get what we want,” 
Carter explains, “than grateful when we do.” How to 
cut this knot? Studies have shown that “gratitude only 
arises naturally without cultivation under conditions 
of scarcity,” Carter says. So high school kids who have 
been exposed to scarcity, by doing activities like serving 
at a homeless shelter, will far more grateful than those 
who don’t.

And it turns out, sad old truth that it may be, the best way 
for all of us to feel grateful may be to give, rather than to 
get.

http://time.com/3644144/tips-for-every-age-how-to-raise-grateful-kids/ 

Negative body image – Salma Hayek: “Being short was considered a deformity.”

Being short

Much of the media attention on the topic concerns cosmetic surgery enhancements, but in a new Redbook magazine article, Salma Hayek recalls another kind of body image issue: the impact of being short.

“I am 5-2, and in Mexico it was very important to be tall. People used to say that the short thing was a deformity… I’d come home saying, Everybody teases me.’ … I was really upset about my height. One day, I said, ‘Who decided that it’s better to be tall? Why is it better? Am I less healthy? Am I less capable?’

I have a confidence about myself

“I realised it was a trick. Everybody tries to make you feel something, it becomes a standard, and it’s based on nothing. And you know what? I’ve come to a place in my life where I am viewed as someone beautiful. I’ve accomplished things a lot of tall girls never accomplished. I have a confidence about myself that I see a lot of tall girls don’t. So how meaningful is it, really, to be tall?

If we got together we would be so powerful.

She is the national spokesperson for Avon’s Speak Out Against Domestic Violence program, and has donated more than $75,000 to domestic violence shelters in her Mexican hometown, Coatzacoalcos, and its neighbor Monterrey.

“Body image and domestic violence are all of ours, these issues,” says Hayek. “The limitations that are put upon us and that we put upon ourselves keep us from being all that we can be. I really think it’s important that women have this kind of unity so we can support each other and love each other. Women are not in charge of the world. Why not? We are the majority of the world. If we got together we would be so powerful.”

As another example of her concern for body image issues, Salma Hayek is an executive producer of the tv series “Ugly Betty.”

 http://womenandtalent.com/40/salma-hayek-being-short-was-considered-a-deformity/

Don't Take Your Thoughts Too Seriously

Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalised sense of self that is conditioned by the past.

In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. 

It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. 

In the ancient teachings, it is the Christ within, or your Buddha nature.

Finding that dimension frees you and the world from the suffering you inflict on yourself and others when the mind-made "little me" is all you know and runs your life. 

Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace cannot come into your life except through that unconditioned dimension of consciousness.

If you can recognize, even occasionally, the thoughts that go through your mind as simply thoughts, if you can witness your own mental-emotional reactive patterns as they happen, then that dimension is already emerging in you as the awareness in which thoughts and emotions happen -- the timeless inner space in which the content of your life unfolds.

The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much.

It wants to draw your attention in completely.

Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don't take your thoughts too seriously.

How easy it is for people to become trapped in their conceptual prisons.

The human mind, in its desire to know, understand, and control, mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for the truth. It says: this is how it is. 

You have to be larger than thought to realize that however you interpret "your life" or someone else's life or behavior, however you judge any situation, it is no more than a viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives. 

It is no more than a bundle of thoughts. But reality is one unified whole, in which all things are interwoven, where nothing exists in and by itself.

Thinking fragments reality -- it cuts it up into conceptual bits and pieces.

The thinking mind is a useful and powerful tool, but it is also very limiting when it takes over your life completely, when you don't realize that it is only a small aspect of the consciousness that you are.

Wisdom is not a product of thought. The deep knowing that is wisdom arises through the simple act of giving someone or something your full attention. 

Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness itself. It dissolves the barriers created by conceptual thought, and with this comes the recognition that nothing exists in and by itself. 

It joins the perceiver and the perceived in a unifying field of awareness. It is the healer of separation.

Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, you are avoiding what is. You don't want to be where you are. Here, Now.

Dogmas -- religious, political, scientific -- arise out of the erroneous belief that thought can encapsulate reality or the truth.

Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of "I know."

Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas.

It is true that every dogma crumbles sooner or later, because reality will eventually disclose its falseness; however, unless the basic delusion of it is seen for what it is, it will be replaced by others.

What is this basic delusion? Identification with thought.

Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.

The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thought can grasp.When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.

The mind exists in a state of "not enough" and so is always greedy for more. When you are identified with mind, you get bored and restless very easily.

Boredom means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more food for thought, and its hunger is not being satisfied.

When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind's hunger by picking up a magazine, making a phone call, switching on the TV, surfing the web, going shopping, or -- and this is not uncommon -- transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for more to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingesting more food.

Or you can stay bored and restless and observe what it feels like to be bored and restless. As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly some space and stillness around it, as it were. 

A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows, the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in intensity and significance. So even boredom can teach you who you are and who you are not.

You discover that a "bored person" is not who you are. Boredom is simply a conditioned energy movement within you. 

Neither are you an angry, sad, or fearful person. Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not "yours," not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go.

Nothing that comes and goes is you.

"I am bored." Who knows this?

"I am angry, sad, afraid." Who knows this?

You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.

Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don't see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. 

To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.

Thinking that is not rooted in awareness becomes self-serving and dysfunctional. Cleverness devoid of wisdom is extremely dangerous and destructive. 

That is the current state of most of humanity. The amplification of thought as science and technology, although intrinsically neither good nor bad, has also become destructive because so often the thinking out of which it comes has no roots in awareness.

The next step in human evolution is to transcend thought. This is now our urgent task. It doesn't mean not to think anymore, but simply not to be completely identified with thought, possessed by thought.

Feel the energy of your inner body. Immediately mental noise slows down or ceases. Feel it in your hands, your feet, your abdomen, your chest. Feel the life that you are, the life that animates the body.

The body then becomes a doorway, so to speak, into a deeper sense of aliveness underneath the fluctuating emotions and underneath your thinking.

There is an aliveness in you that you can feel with your entire Being, not just in the head. Every cell is alive in that presence in which you don't need to think. 

Yet, in that state, if thought is required for some practical purpose, it is there. The mind can still operate, and it operates beautifully when the greater intelligence that you are uses it and expresses itself through it.

You may have overlooked that brief periods in which you are "conscious without thought" are already occurring naturally and spontaneously in your life. 

You may be engaged in some manual activity, or walking across the room, or waiting at the airline counter, and be so completely present that the usual mental static of thought subsides and is replaced by an aware presence. 

Or you may find yourself looking at the sky or listening to someone without any inner mental commentary. Your perceptions become crystal clear, unclouded by thought.

To the mind, all this is not significant, because it has "more important" things to think about. It is also not memorable, and that's why you may have overlooked that it is already happening.

The truth is that it is the most significant thing that can happen to you. It is the beginning of a shift from thinking to aware presence.

Become at ease with the state of "not knowing." This takes you beyond mind because the mind is always trying to conclude and interpret. It is afraid of not knowing. 

So, when you can be at ease with not knowing, you have already gone beyond the mind. A deeper knowing that is non-conceptual then arises out of that state.

Artistic creation, sports, dance, teaching, counseling -- mastery in any field of endeavor implies that the thinking mind is either no longer involved at all or at least is taking second place. 

A power and intelligence greater than you and yet one with you in essence takes over. There is no decision-making process anymore; spontaneous right action happens, and "you" are not doing it.

Mastery of life is the opposite of control. You become aligned with the greater consciousness. It acts, speaks, does the works.

A moment of danger can bring about a temporary cessation of the stream of thinking and thus give you a taste of what it means to be present, alert, aware.

The Truth is far more all-encompassing than the mind could ever comprehend. No thought can encapsulate the Truth. At best, it can point to it. 

For example, it can say: "All things are intrinsically one." 

That is a pointer, not an explanation. Understanding these words means feeling deep within you the truth to which they point.

http://talentdevelop.com/articles/DTYTTS.html

How Intuition Works and Why You Have It

Imagine yourself being handed a magic formula that’s so powerful that whenever you put it to work, the things that are best for you can be easily acquired. 

This sounds like the beginning of a fairytale, doesn’t it? 

Well, it’s not. There IS a magic formula and it DOES bring exactly what is in your best interest through a simple, direct mechanism. The formula I’m speaking of is your natural gift of intuition.

Intuition is your direct perception of the absolute truth. In other words, it’s the wisdom in you that knows everything without having to learn it first. 

You might refer to your intuition as your inner voice, gut instinct, or sixth sense, but no matter what you call it, one thing’s for sure, YOU’VE GOT IT! Everybody does.

When do you last remember seeing your intuition working for you? Was it when you decided NOT to drive down a certain road because you sensed danger? What about a time when you thought about a person and then he or she soon called you? 

Did you recently get a sinking feeling around somebody and you weren’t sure why? Have you recently had a song come into your head where the lyrics actually applied to something you were going through?

Whether you remember things like this happening to you a lot or a little, they ARE always happening. These moments of awareness carry important information that you simply can’t get from any other source! 

They come from the core of your being, designed to guide you through life, from every point A to every point B with the least amount of stress, worry, or confusion.

So if we really have access to all that information to make our lives easier, why do so many people seem confused…worried…stressed? If we all really know the truth about everything, why isn’t life perfectly clear, secure and calm?

Blocked Intuition

Intuition is naturally active in you from the very beginning of your life. However, as you grow to become an adult your inner perception has to compete more and more with outside influences. The beliefs, desires and instructions of family, friends, teachers, coaches, the media, etc., are introduced to you all throughout your life. 

Some of those influences conflict with your natural instincts, eventually leading to tension in the body, illness, or other indications of inner stress.

To give an example of how outside influences can conflict with your inner guide, imagine that you grew up learning that it’s bad manners to excuse yourself while somebody is talking; or that the harder you work, the more valuable you are.

As innocent as these rational statements may seem, at times, they can really cause you internal conflict. 

You feel conflicted when you want to excuse yourself from a nonstop talker who’s sapping your energy because you’ve learned that it’s bad manners. 

Or you feel trapped and unhappy when you’re working so hard to be valuable to your family that you’re neglecting to tend to your health, enjoy your relationships or get adequate rest.

This is a simple illustration to demonstrate that while a lot of what we’ve been taught by influences have been helpful to us at certain times, at other times they may cause us to block our intuition in favor of the voice of our rational mind.

Do you know of any outside factors or influences in your life that might cause you to block your inner voice today? Perhaps beliefs you’ve adopted from major influences about work, money, parenting, relationships, travel, entertainment, etc? 

Perhaps you feel pressured to weigh the wants and needs of other people against your own? Or maybe you are currently doing something you know deep down is not in your best interest? 

Asking yourself these questions can help you understand how tuning into your inner voice can help prevent painful circumstances from happening.

How can you tell if you’ve wandered far from your inner voice? A good way to test if your intuition is currently blocked is to look at your life and see if any areas are in disorder. 

For example, if you’re experiencing mental blocks, inertia, dissatisfaction or are feeling stuck in a cycle of financial, relational or health problems, it’s likely that there’s a conflict going on inside you. 

There may be a clash between what your rational mind is telling you and what your innate instincts are saying.

Is Your Inner Voice Being Blocked?

Below is a list of what blocked intuition might look like when viewing it moment to moment:

• Self-doubt
• Worrying about various fears that “might happen”
• Second guessing words, events, and decisions of the past
• Frustration with other people or situations that don’t change
• People-pleasing behavior or giving too much to be nice and polite
• Having a nagging pain that can’t be explained
• Controlling others or being controlled
• Flip-flopping on decisions
• Making regretful emotional decisions
• Looking for approval and validation from others
• Grinding teeth
• Having poor boundaries
• Getting taken over, disturbed, intimidated or overpowered by another person
• Experiencing a constant sinking feeling or repeated anxiety around a person, place or situation
• Neglecting to point out the “elephant in the room”; fear of speaking what is the absolute truth
• Nervous stomach
• Getting caught up in other people's emotional highs and lows, emergencies and manipulations
• Committing to be part of things that are not in the best interest of your highest self and divine purpose

Looking at this list, do you see areas in your life that you’d like to change for the better? 

When our bodies don’t get regular exercise, they get out of shape. It’s the same thing with intuition. It can get out of shape for lack of use. 

All you have to do is bring your intuition up to the surface where you can hear it more clearly. 


http://talentdevelop.com/articlelive/articles/883/1/How-Intuition-Works-and-Why-You-Have-It/Page1.html