Several of the most recent posts on this blog reference energy, science of consciousness and the power of mind. While the science is very fascinating and even mind boggling, unless we have a way to turn the information into practical use, it remains on the realm of ideas and lab experiments and of no relevance to everyday life.

Admittedly all the data is not in regarding energy and consciousness, but the new science has corroborated enough of what is contained in ancient perennial wisdom to begin using it  to live more healthy, peace filled and joyful lives! The work of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), Lynn McTaggart, Deepak Chopra, Greg Braden, Bruce Lipton and many more are all showing the way–and will continue to do so as new awareness and discoveries unfold about life, the universe and everything!   

Our mission with Living Energy is to provide both information and tools to facilitate the process of bringing the theory of energy and consciousness out of the realm of the conceptual and into the realm of practicality to help us all create happier, healthier, more peace filled and posperous lives.

Knowledge of the new science is of course helpful, but it is really only a first step toward benefitting from this information. A helpful next step is to open to a personal experience and awareness of the movement of energy and consciousness in your own life. This can feel like a bit of a challenge as you wonder where to begin, afterall energy and consciousness are a bit like electricity and the wind—they are invisible! We do however observe their movement through their effects. And,we do sense and feel them. So it is with energy and consciousness. We can develop the ability to directly experience them. Even though they are not visible , they are still very real and can be experienced. In fact you do experience them all the time, you simply do not recogniize it as such. In addition to this lack of recognition there is also a  lack of awareness regrading how to harness these abilites in order to benefit more positively from them.

One way to begin this process of recognition and expansion of ability to mange energy and consciousness is to think about your mind as possessing two diffent kinds of attention. Primary attention is the one you are most familiar with. This attention is directed outward. You pay attenion with it all day long as you direct your focus on computers, TV, people, and outer events. Even the stream of thoughts running unceasingly (and perhaps unnoticed as they tend to become background hum) through your mind are all in the province of first attention.

Secondary attention is a more of an inward experience. It is deeper, more peaceful and below the chaos of the common chattering mind. It is subtle and allows you to attune to deeper levels of awareness of yourself, your environment and the universe!
Techniques that are helpful in developing second attention are : meditation, deep relaxation and contemplation. These practices can help you become more aware of the subtler levels of your reality, the qualities and movement of energy and consciousness in your life.

Another simple way to begin to tune into the world of energy and expanded consciousness is to become aware of your thought patterns and notice not only what they are but how they affect you. Thoughts are are a particular frequency of energy and they in turn produce another type of energy….feeling or emotion which then affects your denser energetic being—your body. So you can play with thought energy, experiment in your personal laboratory and see how you are creating your daily experience: thought>>emotion>>bodily experience. You may even begin to pick up on how your inner states affect how others respond to you!

Once you develop more awareness regarding energy and consciousness you become freer to make choices that nurture and support you rather than drag you down and create havoc with you health, life, work and relationships.

In the next post we will delve deeper into the specifics of cultivating secondary attention: what it means, feels like and how you can use it to create a more whole, healthy and prosperous life!

Recent studies in neuroscience are supporting chilling out, day dreaming and a don’t worry, be happy attitude in order to be more productive and creative…something regular meditators experience as a by product of their practice along with health benefits and a less stressful life!

A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight

Researchers Map the Anatomy of the Brain’s Breakthrough Moments and Reveal the Payoff

NY Times

“In fact, our brain may be most actively engaged when our mind is wandering and we’ve actually lost track of our thoughts, a new brain-scanning study suggests. “Solving a problem with insight is fundamentally different from solving a problem analytically,” Dr. Kounios says. “There really are different brain mechanisms involved.”

By most measures, we spend about a third of our time daydreaming, yet our brain is unusually active during these seemingly idle moments. Left to its own devices, our brain activates several areas associated with complex problem solving, which researchers had previously assumed were dormant during daydreams. Moreover, it appears to be the only time these areas work in unison.

“People assumed that when your mind wandered it was empty,” says cognitive neuroscientist Kalina Christoff at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who reported the findings last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As measured by brain activity, however, “mind wandering is a much more active state than we ever imagined, much more active than during reasoning with a complex problem.”

She suspects that the flypaper of an unfocused mind may trap new ideas and unexpected associations more effectively than methodical reasoning. That may create the mental framework for new ideas. “You can see regions of these networks becoming active just prior to people arriving at an insight,” she says.

In a series of experiments over the past five years, Dr. Kounios and his collaborator Mark Jung-Beeman at Northwestern University used brain scanners and EEG sensors to study insights taking form below the surface of self-awareness. They recorded the neural activity of volunteers wrestling with word puzzles and scanned their brains as they sought solutions.

Some volunteers found answers by methodically working through the possibilities. Some were stumped. For others, even though the solution seemed to come out of nowhere, they had no doubt it was correct.

In those cases, the EEG recordings revealed a distinctive flash of gamma waves emanating from the brain’s right hemisphere, which is involved in handling associations and assembling elements of a problem. The brain broadcast that signal one-third of a second before a volunteer experienced their conscious moment of insight — an eternity at the speed of thought.

The scientists may have recorded the first snapshots of a Eureka moment. “It almost certainly reflects the popping into awareness of a solution,” says Dr. Kounios.

In addition, they found that tell-tale burst of gamma waves was almost always preceded by a change in alpha brain-wave intensity in the visual cortex, which controls what we see. They took it as evidence that the brain was dampening the neurons there similar to the way we consciously close our eyes to concentrate.

“You want to quiet the noise in your head to solidify that fragile germ of an idea,” says Dr. Jung-Beeman at Northwestern.”

To read the entire article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124535297048828601.html

In my mind this ground of Being is not only THE source of the peace and happiness we seek but it is also the space from which we create more easily, effortlessly. It is from this space that we can create most effortlessly the best of ourselves…and a life that nurtures, supports and enlivens us and those around us.

A very nice and concise way of understanding the power of your vibration.

A concept simply presented can often help remind us to pay attention to all the ways we shape our energy and emit a tone out into the world….for good or ill.

Where is your vibration now?

Where would you like it to be?

What is one small shift you can make today, in this moment, to bring your soul tone (the love, awareness and power of who you really are) more to the forefront of your life?

From The Institute of Noetic Sciences

“Recent discoveries have shown that the heart generates a mysterious and powerful electromagnetic field. In this video, Rollin McCraty, Ph.D, Executive VP and Director of Research for the Institute of HeartMath, explores the scientific basis for understanding the ways in which we are deeply connected with each other.”

http://oneminuteshift.com/videos/rollin_mccraty_video/science_of_the_heart

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Runi

Happiness is a state of being that arises from within in response to how we are experiencing a present moment. The lower mind, the province of our habitual mental and emotional states need to be trained to choose happiness. We can cultivate the energy of happiness through our choices of how and what to focus on…we can choose to make it a daily practice to engage in activities that build and support feeling happy. In short, we can make happiness a habit!

 A Meditation Memory

Rivulets of grace course through me creating

Sparkling brightness within and without

 Luminous streams move out into the air

One continuous web

Intricately woven, all of a piece

Velvet meeting silk

Ease encountering simplicity

Fullness connecting with light 

1. Meditation is a foundation technique for “energy work”.

2. Meditation helps to integrate mind, body and spirit.

3. Meditation helps clear and “reboot” the nervous system.

4. Meditation improves physiological functioning.

5. Meditation clears the mind and balances the emotions.

6. Meditation helps in the development of our connection with Truth, higher consciousness, and the  ground of Being in this experience called life.

Explore the many  different styles of meditation. Choose one that suits your temperment. Set aside time to devote to this most enriching experience. Commit to your practice as you would to Love itself. This practice will reward you with development of inner strength and ability to persist, inner harmony, connection with your personal energy and access to higher worlds.