Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Using the Imagination Wheel for Success

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Using the Imagination Wheel for Success: According to the University of Scranton. Journal of Clinical Psychology, the 10 most important New Year resolutions are: lose weight, g...

Using the Imagination Wheel for Success

According to the University of Scranton. Journal of Clinical Psychology, the 10 most important New Year resolutions are: lose weight, get organized, spend less & save more, enjoy life to the fullest, get fit and healthy, learn something new and exciting, quit smoking, help others, fall in love, and spend more time with family.

As we all know, it is a lot easier to make New Year’s resolutions than to actually achieve them. It is estimated that half of the adults in the USA make New Year’s resolutions but only a fourth of that number stay the course with what they have set out to achieve.

Making a resolution to change is a big step towards self-improvement, but the important thing is to make resolutions that are actually achievable and which allow you to be successful. From my own counseling practice in California I found that change is possible when the person making the goal is absolutely certain that this is what is desired. For a goal to be reached, you have to have a ‘desire’ rate of at least 90%. What this means is that when  you make a New Year’s resolution, in order to insure your success, your yearning for change must be, on a scale of 0-10 (with 10 being the highest level of motivation), 9 or 10 out of 10!

To make sure that you are successful, I suggest you first draw a big circle on a piece of paper and write your New Year’s goal in the middle. Then draw lines from the circle out so that it looks like a picture of the sun with rays projecting all the way around. On each ray, write a word or words that describe the benefit you will receive from achieving the goal in the middle of the circle. In addition, write words on each ray that describe what you will lose achieving your identified goal. For example, if your goal is to stop smoking, what are the benefits and what will you be giving up? Perhaps greater health will be achieved but you might have to give up that feeling of inhaling and what seems like instant relief of stress. All goals have pluses and minuses. Hopefully you will have a lot more pluses than minuses.

Next, look at the words around your circle and pick one positive word or words that seem to resonate most with you. On a scale of 0-10, how motived are you to achieve your New Year’s resolution as you focus your attention on the word or set of words you have chosen? If you don’t immediately feel it is a 9 or 10, choose another goal and start over again. The most important thing is to choose a goal that you feel passionate about achieving.

Louis Pasteur, French microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the causes and preventions of diseases wrote, “Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my success in achieving my goals. My strength lies in my tenacity.”

Choosing a goal that you feel passionate about, desirous of, and committed to will ultimately lead to your success.

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Music is in Your Genes

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Music is in Your Genes: William Cromie of the Harvard University Gazette writes, “Babies come into the world with musical preferences. At the age of 4 months, ...

Music is in Your Genes

William Cromie of the Harvard University Gazette writes, “Babies come into the world with musical preferences. At the age of 4 months, dissonant notes at the end of a melody will cause them to squirm and turn away. If they like a tune, they may coo.”

"All humans come into the world with an innate capability for music," writes Kay Shelemay, professor of music at Harvard. "At a very early age, this capability is shaped by the music system of the culture in which a child is raised.”

Just a few weeks ago I listened to the amazing original music of American composer and pianist Emily Bear. Her extraordinary gift for playing piano was recognized when she was 2. Emily is now 13 years old and she made her Carnegie Hall debut at age 9.

"Music is in our genes," says Mark Jude Tramo, a musician and neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School. "Many researchers like myself, are trying to understand melody, harmony, rhythm, and the feelings they produce, at the level of individual brain cells.”

Tramo believes that music and dancing preceded language. Archaeologists have discovered flutes made from animal bones by Neanderthals living in Eastern Europe more than 50,000 years ago. No human culture is known that does not have music.

Music, therefore, is wired within your brain. If you were raised in a home where music was ever present, you probably have an appreciation and love of music that plays an important part in your life today.

I was raised in a musical home. My father was a jazz pianist who played in smoky clubs in Chicago. As a child I heard the pleasing sounds of a baby grand piano just about every single day of my life. My dad had his own music room where his piano prominently sat. Not only did I have the pleasure of listening to him play, I could watch his strong hands and fingers move up and down the keyboard with aplomb.

Musician and composer Ray Charles wrote, “I was born with music inside me.  It was a part of me like my ribs, kidneys, liver, and heart. Music was like my blood; it was a force within me like food and water.”

Rapper and song writer will.i.am wrote, “If you are a chef, no matter how good a chef you are, it's not good cooking for yourself;  the joy is in cooking for others - it's the same with music.”

Because of my musical background, I typically have music playing when I am home because music is fantastic company. There is a time for silence and a time for music.  “After silence,” wrote Aldous Huxley, “that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music”

For me, music is an absolute necessity in life.  I cannot imagine life without love and I cannot imagine life without music. They are both expressions of the soul. Always bring music into your life. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche may have expressed it best when he wrote, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Activating Your Endorphin Rush

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Activating Your Endorphin Rush: Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. They are found in various parts of the brain, the pituitary gland ...

Activating Your Endorphin Rush

Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. They are found in various parts of the brain, the pituitary gland and the spinal cord, but their release is primarily through the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is a pea-sized structure located at the base of the brain, just below the hypothalamus and attached to it by nerve fibers. Because of the brain’s remarkable design and miraculous inner workings, the hypothalamus brilliantly controls the pituitary glands activity. In 1977 Roger Guillemin and Andrew W. Schally won a Noble prize for their amazing research and findings on how endorphins work and under what circumstances they are released. One of the things they discovered is that endorphins have the same chemical structure as morphine.

We have typically come to understand that endorphins are released when we participate in enjoyable activities like prolonged exercise, sexual activity, and the physical act of laughing out loud. But, what research has also shown is that when we are stressed and in pain, endorphins are also released. Endorphins help to reduce the stress that we experience as a part of daily living including headache pain and other bodily pain.  Endorphins are our own built-in natural pharmaceutical responses to stress, pain and participating in thoroughly enjoyable activities.

Endorphin release varies among individuals. This means that two people who exercise at the same level or two people who laugh while watching a very funny film will not produce the same levels of endorphins. Endorphins are also released during meditation and self-hypnosis. This is exciting to know because what it means is that we have the power to stimulate the release of endorphins and to create feelings of euphoria every day. Those of you who meditate know from personal experience that it brings about a feeling of deep relaxation and well-being.  

 Self-hypnosis can have a similar effect. Through self-hypnosis, using your imagination you can take yourself to a deeply relaxing place like the beach or along a creek and use your imagination’s capability to see the beauty which surrounds you, feel the peacefulness there, hear the natural sounds of the environment, and smell the natural aromas. Meditation and self-hypnosis are resources we have at our disposal to use every day, as many times during the day as we choose to use them.

Eating chocolate also leads to the secretion and release of endorphins which explains the well-being that many people have come to associate with its ingestion. If you are very suggestible, your pituitary gland will release endorphins just by seeing the chocolate in the display case. You might even find yourself going into a light trance as you walk in smelling the delightful and intoxicating aroma and imagining the delicious taste in your mouth.

Some people make a big mistake by solely getting their endorphin buzz from chocolate. Don’t forget about meditation, self-hypnosis, massage, walking, running, hiking, laughing, and sex. These will, in the long run, keep you a lot healthier than eating an inordinate amount of chocolate for your endorphin rush.

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Your Endorphin Rush

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Your Endorphin Rush: Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. They are found in various parts of the brain, the pituitary gland ...

Your Endorphin Rush

Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. They are found in various parts of the brain, the pituitary gland and the spinal cord, but their release is primarily through the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is a pea-sized structure located at the base of the brain, just below the hypothalamus and attached to it by nerve fibers. Because of the brain’s remarkable design and miraculous inner workings, the hypothalamus brilliantly controls the pituitary glands activity. In 1977 Roger Guillemin and Andrew W. Schally won a Noble prize for their amazing research and findings on how endorphins work and under what circumstances they are released. One of the things they discovered is that endorphins have the same chemical structure as morphine.

We have typically come to understand that endorphins are released when we participate in enjoyable activities like prolonged exercise, sexual activity, and the physical act of laughing out loud. But, what research has also shown is that when we are stressed and in pain, endorphins are also released. Endorphins help to reduce the stress that we experience as a part of daily living including headache pain and other bodily pain.  Endorphins are our own built-in natural pharmaceutical responses to stress, pain and participating in thoroughly enjoyable activities.

Endorphin release varies among individuals. This means that two people who exercise at the same level or two people who laugh while watching a very funny film will not produce the same levels of endorphins. Endorphins are also released during meditation and self-hypnosis. This is exciting to know because what it means is that we have the power to stimulate the release of endorphins and to create feelings of euphoria every day. Those of you who meditate know from personal experience that it brings about a feeling of deep relaxation and well-being.  Self-hypnosis can have a similar effect. Through self-hypnosis, using your imagination you can take yourself to a deeply relaxing place like the beach or along a creek and use your imagination’s capability to see the beauty which surrounds you, feel the peacefulness there, hear the natural sounds of the environment, and smell the natural aromas. Meditation and self-hypnosis are resources we have at our disposal to use every day, as many times during the day as we choose to use them.

Eating chocolate also leads to the secretion and release of endorphins which explains the well-being that many people have come to associate with its ingestion. If you are very suggestible, your pituitary gland will release endorphins just by seeing the chocolate in the display case. You might even find yourself going into a light trance as you walk in smelling the delightful and intoxicating aroma and imagining the delicious taste in your mouth.

Some people make a big mistake by solely getting their endorphin rush from eating chocolate. Don’t forget about meditation, self-hypnosis, massage, walking, running, hiking, laughing, and sex. These will, in the long run, keep you a lot healthier than eating an inordinate amount of chocolate for your endorphin rush.

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Synchronicity

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Synchronicity: While I was writing my latest book, Returning to the Land of Oz , I was listening to music playing on my jukebox which holds 400 CD’s. ...

Synchronicity

While I was writing my latest book, Returning to the Land of Oz, I was listening to music playing on my jukebox which holds 400 CD’s. I had the machine set on shuffle play, meaning that there were some 5,000 possible selections that the machine could automatically draw from. As I wrote the last sentence of the last chapter of the book, I posed the question out loud, “Is this the end or should I write another chapter?” Within seconds of asking this question, the Doors song, This Is the End, came on with Jim Morrison singing the lyrics, “This is the end, my only friend the end!”

I sat in amazement. This was synchronicity in action! I didn’t write another word.

When we have an inner thought, question, vision or intention and a person or situation appears that mirrors that thought, vision, question, or intention, this is called synchronicity. Synchronicities can be viewed as miracles. We cannot logically explain how or why synchronicities or miracles occur but we can say they happen because of some kind of divine intervention, our mysterious and wondrous connection to the universe, destiny, or because we believe in them and closely pay attention to their occurrence. Life brings us extraordinary experiences and gifts that defy our ability to fully understand how it all works. 

Wikipedia describes synchronicity as the experience of two or more events as meaningfully related, where they are unlikely to be causally related. The concept of synchronicity was first described by Swiss Psychiatrist C.G. Jung in the 1920s. He wrote a book solely dedicated to describing and discussing this phenomenon titled, Synchronicty, an Acausal Connecting Principle.

In his marvelous book Callings, Greg Levoy tells a story of a man who couldn’t decide which of two women to marry. One of the women was named Julie. While he was driving he came to a stop and noticed the license plate on the car in front of him that read JULIE4U. Levoy states that maybe the most important thing synchronicities do is reconnect us to feelings of astonishment and awe.

Synchronicity can be a simple coincidence like a phone call from a friend you are thinking about at that exact moment wherein you excitedly shout out, “I was just thinking of you!” It can be something as profound as seeing a unique object or life-changing book that you just had a dream about the night before.

Synchronicity, then, is a meaningful coincidence which appears at just the right time to remind us to marvel at the wonder and mystery of life. Synchronicity prompts us to pay closer attention to the signs and symbols that are around us and which are potentially guiding us along life’s journey. Synchronicities help us to see that life is bigger than rational thinking and understanding. They help to open our minds to the existence of the inexplicable, the mystifying, and enigmatic elements of life and to celebrate and further explore that which we cannot logically explain.