Category Archives: Meditation

The Learning Mind: Intelligence Beyond Measure

Leave a reply

Intelligence is traditionally viewed as a genetically endowed trait that can be characterized and measured by a cognitive test. The conventional view emphasizes the academic skills of linguistic and mathematical intelligence and downplays other talents and abilities, such as the imaginal dynamics of art, music, dance, and entrepreneurship, as well as the intuitive aspects required for effective relational interaction or mechanical inclination. In fact, there are many forms of intellectual acumen; some of these are malleable and do not readily lend themselves to accepted standards of measurement. In this article, we embrace broader concepts and definitions of intelligence and cognition, and focus on the various and sometimes mystifying ways in which intelligence manifests.

Ambient Communion

At its core, intelligence is a confluence of energy, the sentience of our conscious universe transmitted via the sensorium of the living organism. Each of us is tuned to individuate this organic sentience through our sensual interaction with the world around us. Nature is filled with distinctive voices that speak in the imagery of smell, taste, touch, sound and sight, reminding us that all of life is vital and interconnected. This ambient communion calls upon our elemental character and can stir profound perceptual realizations. Furthermore, a growing body of evidence in the scientific community attests to our sensitivity to electromagnetic energy fields, akin to the migratory ability of birds, which may effect neurological functioning and manifest as psychic ability. These findings share a basis with quantum energy theory and the concept of ‘unity consciousness’, which was propagated by the late Stephan Hawking, among others, and contemplates reality as all life forces, all existence, interacting within a single, unified framework.

You can learn more about this fascinating research in the article Finding The Psychic Science.

Heart Entrainment

Since 1991, the HeartMath Institute has researched and developed the science of bridging the connection between the heart and brain, pioneering the concept of heart intelligence or “heart entrainment.” This groundbreaking research has revealed the heart as a sophisticated sensory organ that receives and processes information—an organ capable of learning, memory, and functional decision making independent of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Numerous experiments have demonstrated that the heart continuously sends signals to the brain that influence the functions of perception, cognition, and emotional reactivity.

The heart generates the human organism’s most powerful electromagnetic field and permeates every cell in the body. Compared to the brain’s electromagnetic field, the electrical component of the heart’s field is about 60 times greater in amplitude, and the magnetic component is approximately 100 times greater.

Data from the HeartMath Institute’s rigorous experimental designs has produced evidence suggesting that the electromagnetic field of the heart interacts with the heart fields of other individuals to convey information and is conducive to transmissions from energy fields beyond the space/time continuum, accounting for perceptual aspects of consciousness such as intuition and precognition. The studies indicate that the heart’s electromagnetic energy field may link to subtle fields of energy containing holographic waveforms encoded with systemic information in non-local order. These compelling findings, which align with evidence of the unified field of conscious energy referenced above, have profound implications and support holonomic brain theory and the concept of reality as a quantum hologram.

You can learn more about this seminal experimental evidence in the article Heart Entrainment: Connecting Our Love Energy.

Multiple Intelligences

In his book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, psychologist and Harvard University professor Howard Gardner sets forth the theory that people are not limited to the mental intelligence measured by the typical IQ test. Instead, he proposes that we possess eight different types of intelligence which reflect the diverse ways we interact with the world.

Gardner posits that each of us possesses all eight intelligences, yet everyone has a unique profile, a signature of how these distinctive aptitudes fit together. Here are the eight types of intelligences:

  1. Visual-Spatial Intelligence: The ability to visualize things, such as being good with maps, charts, plans and diagrams.
  2.  Verbal-Linguistic intelligence: The skill of effectively using words in both writing and speaking, and comprehending written work.
  3.  Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: The ability to reason, recognize patterns and logically analyze problems.
  4.  Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: Excellent agility, hand-eye coordination and the ability to perform bodily movements such as sport and dance.
  5.  Musical Intelligence: A strong appreciation for music and comprehension of rhythms and sounds; for some, the ability to compose and perform music.
  6. Interpersonal Intelligence: The ability to communicate well and to understand and interact with different people.
  7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: The skill and proclivity for self-awareness and self-reflection.
  8. Naturalistic Intelligence: The aptitude for nature and interest in nurturing and exploring the environment.

Dr. Gardner contends that academia and culture are too focused on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence, esteeming the highly articulate and/or logical people of our society. He believes we should place equal attention and value upon individuals who show gifts in the other intelligences: artists, architects, musicians, naturalists, designers, inventors, dancers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and others who enrich the world in which we live.

You can learn more about multiple intelligences at Howard Gardner’s official site, MI Oasis.

Brain Plasticity

The brain has the ability to reorganize itself by forming new connections between brain cells and is continually reshaping itself based upon our experiences. Changes in thinking, behavior, emotion and environment create alterations in the synapses of the brain and neural pathways of the central nervous system. This rewiring of brain circuitry is known and neurogenesis, or brain plasticity. One of the quickest and most effective ways to rewire brain circuitry is through the practice of mindfulness meditation. A set of landmark research studies demonstrated how mindfulness meditation promotes brain plasticity, with subjects having documented neuron growth in areas of the brain involving learning, memory, awareness, and emotional control, including increases in neurotransmission recorded by MRIs.

Research in neuroscience has shown enduring changes in baseline brain function—activity in response to specific emotional challenges that demonstrates brain plasticity―as a result of practicing mindfulness meditation.

By teaching us to pay deliberate attention to the current moment—without attachment to outcomes predicated upon past experiences or expectations for the future—mindfulness meditation helps us become more present in our lives. We learn to identify and challenge limiting beliefs and develop a more sensory-driven relationship with the world around us. We open ourselves to a non-judgmental existence based upon increased awareness and self-possession, fostering a potent connection of mind, body and spirit that diffuses stress and anxiety, expands cognition, and enjoins the enigmatic qualities of consciousness and intelligence.

You can learn more in the article Mindfulness Meditation & Brain Plasticity: The Science of Rewiring Neural Circuitry.

Creative Cognition

Researchers are actively seeking to define and account for the role of imagination in intelligence and correlate how this functions in the brain through neuroimaging. Cognitive psychologist Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and neuroscientist Rex Young and their colleagues have been working to map out what is referred to as the default mode network, or the “imagination network.” This brain network has been largely ignored by cognitive scientists because it is mostly quiet when we are required to focus externally.

The imagination network is associated with daydreaming, retrieving memories and moderating emotional responses. This system is vitally important for internal reflection and assimilation of meaning, as well as triggering motivation, curiosity and learning. The instant we personally connect to something, our imagination network lights up. We begin making mental and emotional associations based not only upon our experiences, but our deepest seated aspirations—our hopes and dreams and secret longings.

While it is normal for the brain to toggle between the default mode network and the more outward-focused attention network, neuroscience is beginning to chart a more comprehensive understanding of this facet of creative cognition. Findings indicate that very creative people possess stronger connections between the networks and are better at navigating from one to the other.

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”

~Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein often compared his thinking and creative processes to that of poets and musicians, describing his insights as “a sudden rapture.” Many brilliant individuals, Einstein and Mozart among them, credit imagination as the source of their creativity and genius. Thus the implications of this compelling area of scientific study come as no real surprise: that integration of the default mode network—the imagination network—is implicit in the function of intelligence.

You can learn more about creative cognition and the role of imagination in intelligence by visiting The Imagination Institute.

Deductions

In consideration of the foregoing, perhaps it is prudent to suggest that attempting to quantify and measure the vast and inexplicable dynamics of intelligence poses profound limitations on human potential. While certain intellectual abilities can be ascertained and gauged to provide a baseline perspective, the testing and labeling of intelligence quotients is at best a starting point in identifying the many capacities of the learning mind.

The agencies that formulate consciousness and intelligence, both our internal interactions and those with the living, breathing universe, are not yet fully defined or understood by science. Yet these are processes that continue throughout our lives and can be altered and enhanced in any number of effective and significant ways. We can partake in the sanctity of ambient communion, practice meditation to expand our cognitive facilities, cultivate our creativity, and entrain our hearts to better transmit information encoded in the unified field of conscious energy. Indeed, we can focus and develop the multiple intelligences that comprise our unique manifestation of organic sentience—our fingerprint upon reality.

©2018 by Shawn Quinlivan, C.Ht. & Cathexis Therapeutic Imagery. All rights reserved.

Healing The Wounded Child

Leave a reply

The wounding of the inner child is a concept basic to modern psychology. A wounded inner child is one deeply affected by the sense of being unloved, or unlovable, or both. This perception can readily manifest into poor self-esteem, negative body image, addictive personality and other dysfunctions of suffering.

The wounded inner child is a psychological and phenomenological reality, one that can be extraordinarily powerful. As first intimated by psychologist Sigmund Freud, most destructive behavior patterns are, to a greater or lesser degree, related to this subconscious part of ourselves. Indeed, we were all children once, and that presence still dwells within us. Yet when we have endured neglect, abuse and emotional hardship, many of us dissociate with our child-like nature as we grow into adulthood. This abdication of an essential element of ourselves, which is typically driven by a determination to leave our painful past behind, is the basis of many behavioral, emotional and relationship difficulties.

Most commonly, it is within the framework of parental relationships and the nuclear family system that the wounding of the inner child occurs. Yet experiences such as bullying, abandonment, physical abuse, psychological abuse and physical or sexual assault—events that engender shame, guilt, rage and resentment—can also traumatize the inner child. Any experience of being physically or psychologically violated, even when it occurs in adulthood, can create this trauma.

In repressing the memories of such conflicts, we attempt to leave our child-like self behind and thus become emotionally attached to the past. We diminish spontaneity and the joy of cherishing each moment with awe and amazement, which allows our wounding to define us. Paradoxically, as a consequence of denying this essential element of our being, an internal rebellion occurs at times that empowers the wounded child to take possession of our personality and hijack our adult decision making process, creating disruptive episodes and scripting self-sabotaging behavior.

Within the psyche, emotion is a fundamental experience of the inner child. By attempting to block out the negative we also inhibit the positive, essentially muting ourselves at the emotional level. Yet this proves to be a precarious stasis which, in the presence of certain emotional, chemical and psychological triggers, can give way to fits of rage, grief, despair and depression, and may also lead to social anxiety, insomnia, obsessive compulsive behaviors and other disorders. Alas, these are the effects of being emotionally attached to unreconciled wounds of the past, dynamics that come to characterize us as victims—a volatile identity the inner child experiences as being exiled.

In adulthood, we want to believe we have left this wounded child and its emotional baggage behind.

Upon endeavoring to protect ourselves from unwanted reminders of our trauma, we project fear into new situations and confuse our perceptions, diverting our attention from the present to the past. This reaction is known as emotional looping, a symptom of what psychology calls arrested development that further tethers us to the painful memories from which we flee. This fragile vulnerability also draws us into unhealthy relationships with sketchy boundaries and unrealistic expectations, including those of rescued and rescuer, which ultimately prove to be unfulfilling and revisit aspects of the pain and hardship that trouble us.

Healing begins when we stop running from the traumatic memories and embrace the wounded child that refuses to be left behind—when we become emotionally capable of parenting ourselves and nurturing our betrayed innocence back to health. We then come to understand that the demons that haunt us are merely manifestations of the wounded child within, pleading for mercy and liberation from the traumas of the past. By letting go of our fear and delivering the inner child from its desperate longing for love and acceptance, something even more valuable than a lost part of ourselves is gained. Indeed, we come to understand the transcendent power of empathy and how it is rooted in the inner child—the redeemed aspect of our consciousness that is naturally guileless, caring, playful, uncomplicated, and whose manner is simple and straightforward.

This is why mindfulness training and the practice of mindfulness meditation have been a successful medium of transformation for so many people. In whatever ways the events of our lives have shaped us, we can only accept our fate and embrace our misfortunes as opportunities. While one cannot forget the past, it is important to acknowledge that change only occurs in the here and now. By developing the poise, self-possession and connective consciousness to actually be present with what is happening in the moment, we learn to recognize and move beyond ingrained defensive reactions and dysfunctional patterns of behavior sourced in the past, and are free to experience the boundless inspiration of reclaiming our child-like trust and wonder.

©2018 by Shawn Quinlivan, C.Ht. & Cathexis Therapeutic Imagery. All rights reserved.

The Hard Science Of Energy Healing

1 Reply

Energy Healing

How do the numerous cellular interactions between the endocrine, immune, nervous and stress systems in the body impact functioning? What are the scientific underpinnings of the connection of mind, body and spirit and its effects on overall health? How do the emerging fields of neurophysics, psychoneuroimmunology and biophysics document the impact of stress and relaxation on the physical functioning of the body? What is the scientific basis for integrating mental, emotional and spiritual functioning in the healing process? These are some of the hard question we will answer in this article.

The Holistic Paradigm

In confirming that chronic stress compromises health by creating an unremitting suppression of the immune system, hundreds of seminal research studies conducted over the last three decades have established that comprehensive health care must address not only the connection of the mind and body, but also the spirit. In this context, the physiology of spirit or spirituality considers and accounts for the existence of energy fields, both within and outside the human body. Specifically, this research documents how factors such as light, sound, electromagnetism, meditation, faith, prayer, and love translate into chemical and electrical signals that profoundly influence our physical health and mental well-being. These studies confirm a biological energy exchange consistent with ancient philosophical concepts and support alternative and complimentary modalities of energy healing. [1]

Brainwaves

Practices such as biofeedback, autogenic training and especially mindfulness meditation have shown that deep relaxation― deep enough to induce the theta brainwave state―leads to and maintains physical health.

Infograph: Meditation and its Effects on Brainwaves

Infographic courtesy of synchronicity.org. You may view the original post at: Free Infographic: Meditation and its Effects on Brainwaves

Studies demonstrate that theta brainwaves spawn cascades of relaxation hormones which substantially benefit physical and emotional health. These hormones include endogenous benzodiazapines, anandamide and other endogenous cannabinoids, melatonin, and N,N-dimethyltryptamine, a chemical thought to engender feelings of inner peace and spiritual enlightenment.

“The ideation that can take place during the theta state is often free flow and occurs without censorship or guilt. It is typically a very positive mental state.”   ~Ned Hermann, Scientific American

Hormonal cascades resulting from the theta brainwave state provide a physiological basis for emotions and experiences that Western medicine has previously been unable to explain. [1]

Heart Intelligence

Groundbreaking research at the HeartMath Institute has revealed the heart as a sophisticated sensory organ that receives and processes information—an organ capable of learning, memory, and functional decision making independent of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Furthermore, numerous experiments have demonstrated that the heart continuously sends signals to the brain which influence the functions of perception, cognition, and emotional reactivity.

Spectral analysis has demonstrated that heart beat patterns change significantly as we experience different emotions, and that these changes correlate with the structure of the electromagnetic field of the heart. Brainwaves synchronize with this energy field, which is the most powerful electromagnetic field generated by the human organism and permeates every cell in the body. Negative emotions engender erratic, disordered, non-rhythmic heart beats, while positive emotions create heart beat patterns that are smooth, coherent, and rhythmic. During sustained feelings of compassion, appreciation, gratitude and love, blood pressure and respiratory functioning, among other oscillatory systems, naturally entrain to the heart’s soothing rhythms. Heart entrainment also occurs naturally during deep relaxation practices such as meditation, which induce the theta brainwave state.

These discoveries in neurophysics indicate that the heart is an organ of far greater intelligence than previously thought, and evidence suggests a profound cognitive interrelationship between brainwaves and the powerful electromagnetic energy signals emitted from the heart. These findings have led scientists and physicians to conclude that consciousness is a function of both the heart and brain, and that ethereal forms of sentience such as intuition, precognition, mood, and emotion may formulate and resonate within this realm. [2]

Integrative Biophysics

Biophoton emissions prove auras exist

Peer-reviewed scientific evidence of biophoton emissions supports the underlying precepts of energy healing.

Expressions for traditional Eastern concepts of vital life energy, such as prana, chi and aura, have transcended New Age esoterica and joined the mainstream lexicon, both in the general public and the health care community. A certain degree of this legitimacy, along with a growing move in science from classical physics and chemistry into quantum mechanics and field theory, is due to the pioneering work of Dr. Fritz-Albert Popp and his colleagues in the biophoton field.

The biophoton theory holds that biophotonic light is stored in the cells of the organism—specifically in the DNA molecules of their nuclei—and a dynamic web of light constantly released and absorbed by the DNA may connect cell organelles, cells, tissues, and organs within the body and serve as the organism’s main communication network and as the principal regulating instance for all life processes.

In his widely acclaimed book, Biophotons – The Light Of Our Cells, Marco Bischoff summarizes ninety years of peer-reviewed, published research in the biophoton field as follows:

“All living organisms, including humans, emit a low-intensity glow that cannot be seen by the naked eye, but can be measured by photomultipliers that amplify the weak signals several million times and enable the researchers to register it in the form of a diagram. As long as they live, cells and whole organisms give off a pulsating glow with a mean intensity of several up to a few ten thousand photons per second and square centimeter, also known as ‘cellular glow’ or ‘ultraweak bioluminescence.’ These biophotonic phenomena could point to long-range interactions between biological organisms. This possibility is supported by observations of intercellular signaling mediated by biophotons via a field containing coherent states.”  ~Marco Bischoff

The holographic biophoton field of the brain and nervous system, and possibly that of the entire organism, may also serve as the basis of memory and other phenomena of consciousness, as postulated by renowned neurophysiologist Karl Pribram and others. The coherent ‘conscious’ properties of the biophoton field are closely related at a fundamental level to the properties of the physical vacuum and indicate its possible role as an interface to the non-physical realms of mind, psyche and consciousness.

The term integrative biophysics emerged from this groundbreaking work, which is a modeling of the organism based on quantum mechanics and the primacy of the unseparable whole. This addresses the essential interconnectedness within the organism as well as between organisms, and that of the organism with the environment. The foundation of integrative biophysics—contemplation of the existence of a pre-physical, unobservable domain of potentiality in quantum theory, which forms the basis of the fundamental unity and wholeness of reality from which the patterns of the material world arise—provides a new model for understanding the holistic features of organisms, such as morphogenesis and regeneration. [3]

The Pineal Gland

The pineal gland, also known as the mind’s eye and the third-eye chakra, is the psychological interface of mind, body and spirit. This critical endocrine gland, steeped in ancient lore and mythos, functions as a liaison between our internal body systems and the external world, transducing environmental information into chemical and electrical signals within the body. Sensitive to all magnetic fields and directly wired to the visual cortex in the brain, the pineal gland catalyzes our sensory perceptions into images and modulates consciousness.

Pineal Gland, Mind's Eye & Third-Eye ChakraA more accurate understanding of pineal gland functioning has emerged in recent years, largely as a result of isolating the major pineal hormone, melatonin. Research presents convincing evidence that the pineal, and not the pituitary, is the master gland of the endocrine system. By converting light, sound, temperature and magnetic environmental information into neuroendocrine signals, the pineal gland regulates and orchestrates our internal clock, body functions, and influences a broad array of life rhythms.

As the energy transducer of hormonal and electrical signals within the body and modulator of consciousness, the pineal gland also processes enigmatic forms of awareness that transcend the five senses—such as heart intelligence, biofield signaling and brainwave states—which are actuated into thought, emotion and spiritual reckoning. In their book, The Scientific Basis of Integrative Medicine, authors Len Wisneski, MP, FACP and Lucy Anderson, MSW, postulate on the ways in which the pineal gland interfaces with the other energy portals of the body, or chakras, as depicted in Eastern religious philosophies and medical systems. Many energy healing modalities are reviewed and scientific studies presented, including the putative effects of prayer and meditation and the impact of spirituality on physical health. [1]

Complimentary & Alternative Medicine

The movement of life energy has been part of virtually every traditional healing system throughout history. Unfortunately, Western medical science removed the concept of “vitality” in the 19th century and as a result, still encounters resistance to these critical ideas which are fundamental to Eastern medicine systems. During the last three decades, however, Americans and Canadians have embraced the many therapeutic approaches offered by the proponents of these traditional healing modalities.

In the United States, energy healing or ‘energy medicine’ is officially recognized as a sub-specialty within the larger field of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a center within the National Institutes of Health, is the federal government’s lead agency for scientific research on CAM; its mission is “to explore complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science, and to disseminate authoritative information to professionals and the public.”

NCCAM divides energy medicine into the following applications:

  • Veritable Energy Fields: Energy fields that can be measured for diagnosis and treatment, including mechanical vibrations such as sounds, electromagnetic forces including visible light, magnetism, monochromatic radiation such as lasers, and rays from other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
  • Putative Energy Fields: Energy fields that defy measurement by reproducible methods. Putative energies are based on the idea that a subtle form of energy—vital energy or life force—infuses living systems, a concept that has been known in traditional healing practices by many names, including pranic healing, etheric energy, auric healing, fohat, orgone, Odic force, mana, and homeopathic resonance.

A generally hostile orientation of skepticism, some of which originates from factions of the health care industry with materialistic conflicts of interest, has cast aspersions on the CAM community and created confusion among the general public. Nonetheless, each year nearly half of Americans use some form of alternative therapy, often as a complementary modality to conventional Western medicine. Medical schools and hospitals now offer courses and programs in CAM approaches, many of which are rooted in the underlying principals of energy healing. [4]

Subtle Energy

Biofields & Energy Healing

The role of endogenous biofields in regulating living organisms is a guiding construct in new research on energy healing.

The family of energy healing modalities that have been widely practiced since antiquity contemplate biocommunication and energy transfer through endogenous biofield interactions. Evidence of endogenous biofields in living organisms now exists, and current theoretical foundations are being rigorously explored and developed. A review of biofields and related topics from the scientific community reveals an emerging body of knowledge regarding the underlying origin and principles of such fields, including macrolevel concepts of our planet as a complex, self-regulatory living system. The properties appear to be based on electromagnetic fields, coherent states, biophotons, quantum and quantum-like processes, and ultimately the quantum vacuum.

A growing acceptance of these endogenous biofields, which are commonly referred to as subtle energy, is the foundation of a new medical paradigm, an integral physiological approach uniting the enormous contributions of Western medicine with the profound insights of Eastern systems of health. Subtle energy bridges belief systems and offers a neutral ground of communication for people of myriad backgrounds to communicate about phenomena that science is still endeavoring to settle. Subtle energy not only steps beyond the connection of mind and body and validates experiences of an ‘intuitive’ or ‘spiritual’ nature, but acknowledges their influence on the natural self-healing abilities of the human body.

Consideration of the complex homeodynamic regulation of living systems through the lens of subtle energy is a harbinger to the hard science that is still emerging, providing a framework for dialogue and learning about the non-physical aspects of healing. Indeed, understanding how the human body interacts with and utilizes subtle energy is the new frontier in medical research. [1] [3] [5]

References

  1. The Scientific Basis of Integrative Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health 
  2. HeartMath Institute Research Library
  3. Biofield Science: Current Physics Perspectives, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
  4. Energy Medicine in the United States, Foundation for Alternative and Integrative Medicine
  5. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health