The Applied Neuroscience Institute

Steve D wrote on Sun May 27th, 7:53pm:

The foundation of my journey of spiritual healing is grounded in gratitude and forgiveness.  It is the ability to “be” in the universe without judgment, attachment, or resistance to lif events.  With an open heart life flows through me with an abundance of gratitude.  What am I grateful for this Sundya night?  It’ usually the same things day in and dya out…health, a deeper level love in my life, an incredible relaitonship with my “soulmate”, awareness of a Higher Power in my life, the lessons learned along life’s journey even the traumatic experiences, the beauty of a sunset in Palm Springs, the incredible supoprt network I have, the gift of music in my life, the joy I feel playing tennis, the spirit of child-like play I engage in daily, the material wealth and abundance I’ve experienced in my life, the compassion I have for others, the gift of thoughts, words, actions, beliefs, and choices aligned in well-being, and on and on.and on and on and on and on….

dr.tommac wrote on Mon May 28th, 3:28pm:

1) “More extreme states of positive deviance from the norm enliven us to even greater inventiveness, vision, and greater desire for what we experience for everyone we touch.” Discuss how this has been true for you. What ANI neuropositive tools and research continue to support you in growing “positive deviance?”
I have been going in and out of the “fade” or disconnecting all of my life. Doing good and special things and then not owning it or using it to become fully visible and affect others to the degree that I could have. Examples are becoming the first Eagle Scout in my troops history and not utilizing it, developing a personal growth course and only offer it a time or two, or getting my psychotherapy license and not fully engaging in using it effectively to develop a career. Fear was the main reason, I was scared of many things, mostly unreal and self-created realities.

No matter what I have achieved, and how much gratitude and contentment I felt, I have always wanted more. My mother and others told me that I shouldn’t want more, to just be content with what I had, indicating that there was something wrong with me. In some ways I bought it and blocked me. Grateful is a strength and I find it easy to be feel, and before long I still want more and usually put those desires into action. Today, others can think I should relax and if it feels right in my heart, I will go forward.

I have lived my live from a caring perspective, but not necessarily from a loving one (for myself or for others), often with judgments and fears. Because of the open, loving and persistent approach of my new partner Judith, I may never have connected deeply to my true self. I likely would have continued to believe that I was one with the world, but lived as though I was separate from others and the world. I am grateful that I attracted and embrace both her and me. In those present, heart-centered experiences with myself and/or her, I feel very content and peaceful. When I am not, I feel neither.

I now will be living my life in a much more deviant way, more the way I planned on. Unfortunately I hide from it by developing a significant and complex defense structure; I’m starting to see it and let go of it. I am living more from my heart, loving others, the world, and myself. It still sounds trite, but I know it’s the truth.

jillangeldavis wrote on Wed May 30th, 8:14am:

  Gratitude is one of my favorite practices to teach. I find more and more reasons to be grateful every day. Frankly, after seeing the new commercials about women who have catheters in little cases disguised to look like eye brow mascara, I am grateful that I can pee each and every time. I am grateful that my attitude is that everyone is a teacher. Some teach me what not to do, some teach me what to do.
    I was a guest lecturer at a military high school recently and I told them how grateful that I was to be there; when we went around the room and they said what they were grateful for I was deeply moved that each person said either they were grateful that they were alive or that they were grateful for their fathers, or their families. I also notice that while I knew I was teaching, I ended up coaching on the spot. When each person received their strengths, including the head master, they glanced over their top strengths and immediately went to the end of their page to see what their last strength . They could all pop their head up and say what they were thought they were the weakest.  Really? Okay, my vibe core said, ‘you have been prepared for this moment. ‘ I chuckled, “Okay you guys, let me tell you about the nine to one lean in our brain and how your mind can train your brain to be heliotropic. Just like the seedlings in Dixie cups that I walked past when I entered the building…” I was in gratitude, and certain, and in flow.
    Certitude has been a challenge for me as am ANI exercise, but when I connect the pieces that I have learned at ANI, and I try to say who I am, I know that I can say for certain that I am grateful. 
    I can remember the nights when I would drift into sleep with nothing but prayers of gratitude. Gratitude helps me stay in Gamma space, my work with ANI has brought me back to the best of who I used to be, definitely broadening and building my strengths and resilience.
  I am incredibly grateful for Tom’s statement “I now will be living my life in a much more deviant way, more the way I planned on. Unfortunately I hide from it by developing a significant and complex defense structure; I’m starting to see it and let go of it. I am living more from my heart, loving others, the world, and myself. It still sounds trite, but I know it’s the truth.”
I don’t think it sounds trite at all, I think it is our work in the world.
  I am grateful and honored to be the kind of person that someone would ask to write a eulogy. I am grateful that I have usually drawn to me just the right people to walk a leg of my journey, or I have been drawn to others to help them walk a leg of their journey.

Dr.A wrote on Thu May 31st, 7:09pm:

Content, peaceful and grateful IS how I feel.  It is not a place where one feels that you can now rest, on the contrary, it has given me renewed energy to continue moving UpSpiral and to achieve new goals!  When one feels grief, despair, etc. the focus goes there, most energy is taken by negative feelings, so when in flow, there is more energy, more want and desire to grow, to be better, to learn more!  I call it my vicious cycle of positivity!  The more grateful, the more peaceful, the more content, which takes me again to more grateful.

livestrong81 wrote on Thu May 31st, 11:00pm:

My spiritual, professional and personal journeys have all had a strong foundation of gratitude. When I am in a state of gratitude, my anxiety levels disappear, my contenment increases and I generally feel much better about my life. When I was a little girl and would be scared of the dark, my Mom always told me to think of all things I was thankful for and I wouldn’t be scared anymore. I have found this to be true to not only help when I am in a state of fear, but also to bring me out of depression, to bring me into a place of problem solving when I am feeling stuck with an issue and it has helped me to “feel” better about something in my life that I don’t have control over.

In the past, when I have experienced “the fade” was at times when I was going against my own internal core belief system or life truth. Whether it was a career choice or a relationship move, if it wasn’t in alignment with my truth, I would almost immediately notice that I would feel disempowered, trapped, confused, and limited in my choices. Now I use these feelings and emotions to as a kind of internal compass as to how to live my life truth more powerfully.

Excercising the emotional gym, building upon my strengths and focusing on gratitude throughout my day has absolutely helped in my process of growth with ANI material. We limit the power of plasticity in our brains if we don’t stay in a place of positive emotion, because we will be expanding negativity instead.

No one ever wants to feel negative emotions, but I think people get complacent and get used to mediocrity. People get used to having limits on their goals and dreams by society and fearful when their seems to be no limits at all. But life is meant for fullness, greatness, truth, power, growth, wisdom and so much more!

Keeping our dreams “tamed” is like put an oak tree in a small box with the lid taped shut. The tree’s purpose is to dig its roots deep and to grow its branches long. To expand all that it will ever become from that once tiny seed, not stay trapped and whither away inside a box. Our brains and wellbeings work the same way. We must keep our minds fed, and never limit our dreams.

I love the statement above that “true gratitude is like unlocking a seed with a million more seeds inside.” Its finding one thing to be thankful for, that leads to another, to another and so on…

I appreciate this wise quote from Anothony Robbins, “My definition of success is to live your life in a way that causes you to feel a ton of pleasure and very little pain - and because of your lifestyle, have the people around you feel a lot more pleasure than they do pain.”

If we focused our energies and minds just simply on gratitude, peace and the experience of true pleasure and gave ourselves freedom from pain, I think we would start leading very different lives because we would allow our core truths to be known.

-Evie W

RachelsWell wrote on Sun Jun 3rd, 11:45am:

How do you typically experience gratitude? What are the “cues” in your life-people or events- that prompt you to feel gratitude?  Have you developed the capacity to feel gratitude even in the absence of external cues?

I’m discovering how natural it can be for me to feel gratitude - to say “Thank you thank you” - even in the face of challenging outer events that only a month ago would have sent me into a downspiral of fear and worry (where I would have stayed, trying to deal with the challenges from my weaknesses). Instead these challenging events now give me pause, and the realization that I have choice.
And for this I’m grateful…

Saying “Thank you thank you” out loud or under my breath like a mantra is a reminder to me of my connection to Source, to the Beloved, to something greater than and beyond - at the same time permeating - the material world surrounding me. 

Now that I’m paying attention by pulsing gratitude (and other UpSpiral emotions) in the Emotional Gym, I realize how often during the day I feel appreciation and gratitude. And here’s the good news: paying attention increases the appreciation (I heard somewhere: “what you appreciate appreciates” - I think it was Lynne Twist).

When my feet touch the floor in the morning, I say thank you. And that becomes a cue to appreciate (and love) the animals waiting to be fed. I give thanks for the miracle of water coming out of the tap, adding gratitude for the clouds, the rivers, the watershed: everything that’s part of the water arriving in my house. Other gratitude cues are a morning email from Gratefulness.org (this morning’s quote: “I am, therefore I thank.”(Cindy Lubar Bishop), and other synchronicities.

Since working out in the Emotional Gym, I more often than not feel gratitude in the absence of external cues. This is freeing - to not be dependent on external events to feel the UpSpiral emotions! I can go to gratitude and appreciation, to thank you, without thinking, and without external cues. Sometimes when I catch myself feeling grateful and pulsing thank yous without thinking or trying, I stop to look for something to deliberately appreciate, more than often something I might not have noticed before. This brings me into the present moment in a new way. One morning last week, for example, walking my dog, I was saying thank you with every step, feeling gratitude “just because with no because”;  when I realized what I was doing, I decided to stop and look around for something to be grateful for. And that’s when I noticed - in this dry high desert environment where I live - wildflowers pushing through sidewalk cracks or scattered in vacant lots, all turned to the sun as it was rising over the mountain to the east. Now on my walks in town - or going to the market, my office, the gym - I notice and sometimes look for these determined wildflowers growing through cracks or in abandoned spaces. They’ve become external cues to deepen even further UpSpiral feelings of gratitude, appreciation and joy. A positive loop.

Gale STEWART wrote on Sun Jun 3rd, 8:42pm:

” True gratitude is like unlocking a seed with a million more seeds inside.  It turns us on more to life and more to living, not away from it”

When I read this…unlocking a seed with a million more seeds inside…”, a picture of a dandelion popped into my mind, followed by another picture of a child blowing on the dandelion head.  What fun that was, blowng on the head and watching all the fuzzy florets fly away!  Being grateful is like that…a dandelion head with hundreds of fuzzy florets, waiting to be spread when I am grateful.  Practicing gratitude is the Law of Circulation in action…give and receive…the more I give, the more I receive.  For years, I’ve noticed that my prayers begin with, “I’m so grateful for…” and since I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal regularly, I find myself more in a state of gratitude than ever. “It turns us on to more life…and living…”.  There were some things going on in my life that I was letting color my world a dark gray.  I felt like I was in a dark pit and couldn’t find my way up.  No matter what I teach, what I knew as Truth, I couldn’t apply it.  I was so caught up in the negativity all around me, I just didn’t have, couldn’t find the strength to lift myself out.  Then I began taking this class and weekly was reminded…and held accountable…that there was a way to climb out.  Even though I knew and had practiced the Emotional Gym, knew my strengths, I just couldn’t seem to utilize them.  Perhaps I wasn’t ready. Whatever the reason, this time…these past few weeks everything began to fall into place, like tumblers in a combination lock when the right numbers are lined up.  I practice the Emotional Gym, really pulling up the emotions, and feel myself in a new, brighter, happier place. The circumstances in my life haven’t changed a lot, but I have.  I look at the world around me and see everything in a different way.  It sounds like a cliche to say that colors are brighter, but they are!  I feel differently in my body.  I feel as though I am more alive than I’ve ever been!  I have more energy.  For example, this is Sunday.  I “work” on Sundays…I’m a minister. Usually on Sundays, I’m a zombie after church.  I can hardly wait to get home and take a nap.  Every minister I know says the same thing.  Now, though I’m ready to come home and relax, I don’t feel that to-the-bone tiredness I once did.  And I don’t spend the afternoon in despair as I once did.  What’s made the difference? The Emotional Gym, bringing my strengths (once it was pointed out to me how I was not using my strengths!) into play, and keeping my focus on what I want to see, rather than what was going on, or even, what I feared might happen.  And here’s a bonus:  my son, who is a long- haul trucker, would call me to tell me the latest problem he was having. Everything that could go wrong, did, and some things no one could imagine!  Every day there was something new.  In the past month or so I’ve noticed he sounds happier and doesn’t have as many problems!  And I never said a word!  As my vibration…my VibeCore has gone up, his has, too!  Focusing on what I want has led me to the realization of several goals, already, and opened the possibility to many others.  And I know the bottom line is…joy.  All I really want is to feel joy, to feel good…and the more joy I let myself experience, the more I attract what I want.  Gratitude has led me here to the place I’m in today.  So, I want to say to Dr. Larkin and Dr. Johnson…I’m so grateful for you two.  Thank you for bringing this work into the world.  Much love to you both!  PS, today, as I ended the service, I assigned “Table Topics” for the social time.  Everyone was to tell 3 things for which they were grateful…and they did…I heard everyone there doing this!