This Study Shocked Me

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

374) The way cannot be taught in detail, but it can be grasped intuitively. - Miyamoto Mushashi

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

Can Standing Like Wonder Woman Trigger Your Power Hormones?

Here’s the question: Can your posture encourage the release of your good hormones?  Can it magnify the stress hormone and make you less optimistic?

Can you change your posture and become more confident, optimistic and at the same time become calmer, less stressed?

Yes.  But that ain’t all.  More in a bit…

First, this isn’t new.  Over 100 years ago, William James said this:

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

In more modern parlance we say, “Fake it till you make it.”

Here’s another one:

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. —Millard Fuller, Founder of Habitat for Humanity

Cue Wonder Woman

As the quotes above indicate, the tail can wag the dog.

Just stand as Wonder Woman or Superman and good things happen for you.  You’ve seen the stance: feet apart, fists on hips, elbows out, chin up, smile.  Rocky demonstrates another power pose as he dances at the top of the step in the classic film Rocky – arms up over his head, fists clenched, chin up, triumphant smile.

You become more confident, optimistic and at the same time become calmer, less stressed.  Open poses produce this result.  Closed postures produce the opposite.

Watch the video below to see more images. Or go to Google to see heaps.

I learned about posture and emotional states years ago in various trainings, and I reveal how you can use smiling eyes as a way to instantly become happier, in my book Simply Serene: How to Calm Down, Reduce Stress, Deal with Stress, and Be Instantly Alert and at Peace.

Heads Up: Take advantage of my Simply Serene giveaway starting February 15^th 2014 and lasting for five days.

Enter Science

Even forcing a smile makes you happier.  Years ago, researchers found that if you bit a pencil held crosswise in your mouth, thus forcing a smile, you would become happier.

Recently, Harvard Business School  professor Amy Cuddy performed some lovely research on posture and hormones.

Powerful people are more assertive, more confident, more optimistic, think abstractly and take more risks.  First, they wanted to know what hormones they might use as a marker for this state. 

High power people have high testosterone and low cortisol.  Low cortisol means you are less apt to react stressfully to a situation.  Obviously, when you relax, you make fewer mistakes.  Remember: Both genders need testosterone.

For the study, they tested the saliva of the subjects first to find their levels of testosterone and cortisol.  Then they asked some to stand in high power poses you see above and others to assume the low power poses for just two minutes.  Then they retested.

What they found shocked me.

In the high power poses, the open ones, testosterone went up.  OK.  Cool.  But what shocked me was that they also enjoyed a 25% drop in cortisol.  Way less stress.

In the low power poses, remember those are the closed postures, the subjects endured a 10% decrease in testosterone. And the lower power pose amplified peoples’ cortisol (stress hormone) 15%.  Like you need more stress hormones…

Remember this is in TWO MINUTES.  Holy poop Batman.  TWO MINUTES.

If you can find me a better deal, let me know.

Watch Amy Cuddy’s TED talk see more examples and hear more of the story.  Amy reveals her own story in the last minutes.  She becomes vulnerable and moves the whole audience including me.

So What?  How Can You Use This?

Stand like superman or wonder woman for two minutes every day.  You can do deep breathing and you can combine this with the phenomenally powerful owl eyes and owl ears at the same time, as I do.  (Simply Serene shows you how.)

I recommend using this technique anytime you go into a scary situation.  Usually, when you are going to be in a situation where people will evaluate or judge you qualifies.

You can benefit by using it before

• ·         taking tests
• ·         job interviews
• ·         first visit with a new client
• ·         a trip to the doctor
• ·         a first date.

Or you can use it anytime you want to feel more presence.

See what the video says about the job interview study they did.  Wow.

You can find Amy Cuddy’s original research here.

May you be strong, powerful, optimistic, and at ease,

William

P.S. Please let your friends know about this.

P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn’t serve you.

P.P.P.S. A magnificent opportunity if you’re an Amazon Prime member.  As a membr you can borrow any of my kindle books at no cost. 

• ·         Investigate Amazon Prime => Trial Offer for Amazon Prime
• ·         See my books => My Amazon Author's Page

More of What Works

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

339) Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power. Begin now. -- Johann Wolfgang Goethe

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

More of What Works

You may know this aphorism:

Do more of what works and less of what doesn't.

You can live your life from that.  You can have a life you love from that. 

Find things that work for you, and quit doing what doesn’t work.  Simple, sure, but not so easy. 

Take small steps.

I re-titled my book: Do More of What Works to –

Finding Your Own Best Ideas– A Practical Prescription for Figuring Out What Works in Your Life. This book contains reliable ideas you can apply to your life so that you can live a life you love – body and soul.

Get it.  Read it.  Apply it.  I repeat – take small steps, but keep stepping.

Do this experiment, it works.

Here’s a experiment from Wayne Muller’s exquisite book:  A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough.  You do this every morning and your life will become radiant.  I promise.

What if, as an experiment,  if only for one day, we lived as if we believed that there lived in us some reliable  strength, wisdom, and wholeness? 

What if we were to pretend that, regardless our health or mood, our fortunes or circumstance, we would remain quietly wise, accurate, and trustworthy in our judgments and actions? 

Even more, what if we could actually feel, sense, and know, with unshakable certainty,  that whenever we went, into whatever company or situation we were called, we would  carry with us always this capacity to move with confidence and trust in any situation?

How would we think, act, choose?  How would we respond differently to the world during such a day? 

All the Books By Wayne Muller can change your life for the better.  Get them.

Heads Up for Book Giveaway

Over five days, I will be giving you Simply Serene: How to Calm Down, Reduce Stress, Deal with Stress, and Be Instantly Alert and at Peace

Starting February 15, 2014 at 12:01 AM PST – ending midnight, PST February 19, 2014.

Let your buddies  know.

May you be radiant and happy,

William

P.S. My newest book Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey echoes all these ideas.  Go read the description and consider getting it.

P.P.S. Please let your friends know about this.

P.P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn’t serve you.

P.S. A magnificent opportunity if you’re an Amazon Prime member.  As a membr you can borrow any of my kindle books at no cost. 

·         Investigate Amazon Prime => Trial Offer for Amazon Prime

·         See my books => My Amazon Author's Page

·          

Why I Recommend Poetry

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

132)    The Zen student asks the teacher, who am I?" The teacher responds with, "Who's asking."

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

Why I Recommend Poetry

My friend, Cecily Schuler, expresses.

So what?

Here’s what: 

Expression of painful wounding can heal your life.

Expression of joy can increase your love and appreciation of life.

You may have tumbled to the notion that I frequently recommend the reading and writing of poetry to clients and to you.  I even co-authored a book – God, Death, and Poetry: A Magically Sacred Way to Make Your Life Rich, Deep, and Whole.  I recommend it to you.

Writing poetry can be a challenge, but it can help you to express more deeply and clearly than any other way.  Paradoxically,  it can help you to express what you can’t put into words.

Sharing poetry can connect you to others.  Even unshared, you will feel more in touch with your own inner life.  It works.

Cecily uses poetry better than most.  I applaud her not so you can imitate her poetry, but so you can feel her courage, wit, and wisdom…  She jumps off the cliff and expresses her honest truth.  Emulate that.

Bumblebees

Here’s joy, wisdom, and play –

Bumblebees

Copyright Cecily Schuler 2012

Putter putter petal pusher 
Stumbling through thick curtains of spring breezes,
falling into open mouthed spread legs of flowers, 
catching yourself in surprise and subtle delight,

you indelible flirt. 

The creation of public

fornication is shameless

and required. A heartbreaking sacred

act of selfless service, you own this. But

really, you own nothing

but what is, so find the fuzzy

softness that best matches

your own. Roll between silky

sheets, in smutty pollen, nuzzle down

snuggle into communion between earth and sun. 

Smother yourself in the delightful prospect

of creating something you will

never see, something that will feed

creatures you may never comprehend. 

Listen.

Do we ever know the true impact

of our efforts? Do we ever know

the significance of becoming

who we are, who we bumble

to be?          

I love the poem.  I aim to live my life out of it.  It’s what I have been trying to share with clients for years.  She articulates and expresses these rich ideas brilliantly.

Watch Cecily playfully express in this youtube video until the moment she hits you upside the head…

=> http://youtu.be/rrJTefe2WnI

Two More for You:

Lithium (Take This): (1:05): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPokrBeR04E
Close Enough (3:02): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa2nkuZmcnM

Cecily’s Books

You can get Cecily’s two books by contacting her directly at sumthn.else@gmail.com. 

The Weight of Lies and Water is $10.

Forget Everything They Should Know: You Remember is $5

Plus $2 shipping and handling per order.  She will mail you a copy and you can pay her using PayPal.

You’ll like them.

Chakras

You may be familiar with seven energy centers in the body related to nerve plexuses and endocrine glands – the charkas.

You intuitively know the heart chakra, right?  You will find the next one in your throat.  Further up, the famous third eye.

Often we want to connect our heart to our head, the throat chakra bridges that connection.  Writing poetry will help you to link your deepest heart knowing to your head knowing.  Without this connection you can act and feel a bit nuts.

Speak your truth.

Medical note: The throat chakra can be related to any throat or dental condition.  If you have one of those, think about expressing.

For example: a painful tooth – express some anger.  Express vs. acting out.  Write a poem instead of punching someone.

Write Poetry

Write poetry.  I challenge clients to write poetry.  Aim to compress all you feel into 3 or 4 lines as a challenge and to prevent wordy rambling.

You know you’re done when you read the poem and it evokes all the feeling you have in each corner of your soul.

You do not need to share your poems with anyone else although I recommend you share it with God and at least one other person.

You don’t have to memorize your poems.  And it can be useful as a way of honoring your inner child, or your creative spirit.

Walk in beauty,

William

P.S. For more great ideas that work consider reading …

Do More of What Works: A Practical Prescription for Figuring Out Your Life This book contains reliable ideas you can apply to your life so that you can live a life you love – body and soul.

P.P.S. Please let your friends know about this.

P.P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn't serve you.

P.P.P.S. A magnificent opportunity if you’re an Amazon Prime member.  As a member you can borrow any of my kindle books at no cost. 

·         Investigate Amazon Prime => Trial Offer for Amazon Prime

·         See my books => My Amazon Author's Page

The Advantages of a Morning Constitutional

Today’s Oracle

My software angels chose and especially appropriate oracle quote for you today:

192) Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am. – Voltaire

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

Morning Constitutional

I've just returned from my morning constitutional – a morning walk.  Healers a century or two ago would have recommended it.  These days, we don’t even talk about our constitution or take steps to build it.  In that way, the idea is as quaint as your building character.

Constitution refers to your physical status including your vitality, health, and strength.  It includes your ability to shrug off disease and recover from injuries.  After 40 years of working with mind/body healing, I find that your constitution relates to your character and both reflect your deepest heart.

I suggest you take a morning constitutional in order to build your constitution and you character as well as feeding your soul.

I rise early and workout with kettlebells, eat, drive to work, meditate, then I wait for the sun to come up so I can take my morning constitutional.

Walking Meditation

I use this time to quiet my mind and connect to the day.  I listen to sounds – both human and animal.  I hear the rustle of leaves and my own footfalls.  I see deeply into the distance and widely into my peripheral vision.  I center myself in my environs.

Play with those ideas for yourself.

When your mind worries at your problems, return to simply seeing what’s around you in the here and now.  And listen to the sphere of sound around you.  And feel the movement of your body internally and through space.

Your morning walk can be aerobic, but keep it on the bottom end of the heart rate zone.  Try to mosey instead.  The morning constitutional builds mind/body health and character.  We’re not shooting for sweaty aerobics here.  Do that some other time.

You can walk with other people if you want.  I’m an introvert, so I can walk with one person, not two.  And most of the time I prefer to walk alone.  Keep it intimate.

Do turn off the phone.  Really, let yourself get away for 20 minutes.  I enjoy knowing that no-one really knows where I am for that time.  I am completely free.

The morning constitutional gives you an opportunity to connect with the world and come into the full presence of the Sacred.  Each day.

How Long, When, and Where?

Generally, it takes 20 minutes for your mind to shift out of monkey mind.  So, I’d recommend at least 20 minutes.  I aim from between 30 to 45 minutes.  You can walk farther, longer.

Daylight strengthens us like other nutrients that’s why I wait until first light to take my walk.  Walk in the light. 

On most days, that’s the only outdoors time you or I will get.  Not so long ago, we each spent hours outdoors every day – in this lifetime as a child and historically as a species.

Go out in all weathers, it will strengthen your constitution – your immune system will build muscle.  And you’ll build character.  Remember, there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.  Wear what works.  I have learned to love the ripple circles that rain makes in puddles.

You can walk anywhere that pleases you.  Consider – the easier it is to get to places to walk the more likely it will be that you’ll do it.  Explore and discover what feeds your heart and soul.  Have a variety of routes if that helps.  It helps me.

When I travel, I love to explore routes in places I've never been.

May you be lighthearted and free.

William

P.S. My newest book Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey echoes all these ideas.  Go read the description and consider getting it.

P.P.S. A magnificent opportunity if you’re an Amazon Prime member.  As a member you can borrow any of my kindle books at no cost. 

·         Investigate Amazon Prime => Trial Offer for Amazon Prime

·         See my books => My Amazon Author's Page

P.P.P.S. Please let your friends know about this.

P.P.P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn't serve you.

·          

Zen Stories

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

101)    If your guides claim
That the Kingdom is in the sky,
The birds of the sky will be there before you.
If they say it is in the sea,
The fishes of the sea will be there before you.
The Kingdom is within you and without you.
When you know yourselves, you will be known.
Then you shall know that you are
Sons of the Living Father.
But, if you do not know yourselves
You are in poverty, and you are poverty.

    Attributed to Jesus, Gospel of Thomas

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

 

Zen Stories

I love stories.  Stories offer me possibilities of how I could choose to live my life.  Most of the important life changes I have made came from listening to living stories told by writers, colleagues, clients, or life coaches.

Back in the 60’s, my brother, John, introduced me to Zen.  Then I found Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings either from his guidance or from The Whole Earth Catalog.  Naturally, the koans in the book puzzled me, but I loved the 101 Zen stories Paul Reps told.

Note: The idea in Zen is to get direct insight into the mystery  of the universe.  Not an intellectual understanding but to arrive at the same place that Buddha did.  To wake up.

Japanese Zen masters use short stories called koans to nudge the student into awakening.  They’re puzzles that can’t be solved from where you are.  Your intellect and your ego will grind to a halt or explode trying to manage it.  If you wrestle with them long enough, an intuitive leap offers itself to you. 

It has that sense like something you know intimately that’s just on the tip of your tongue.  And then POW.  (See sculpture from the Seattle Art Museum depicting a Zen monk at the moment of awakening.)

Preparing for my total hip replacement surgery, I was hungering for more Zen stories and found this lovely book, Zen Masters Of China: The First Step East by Richard Bryan McDaniel.  Bryan has collected stories from Buddhism’s first entry of into China with Bodhidharma through to the Japanese era. 

Think of sitting in a coffee shop with your old friend, Bryan, who has just returned from a spiritual journey to China.  Bryan tells you stories of the people he met, some of whom you may have read about.  Bryan gives you some background, some historical perspective about these masters he met, but he mostly tells you sweet and engagingly useful stories.

I found the stories comforting, which is what I was really seeking.  (My surgery went well.)

Recently, I was reporting to my Zen coach, Osho Genjo Marinello, “Currently, I am watching and feeling the breezes.  Even when I’m indoors, I look out enjoying the wind moving through the trees bending the ornamental grasses across the street.  It helps me come back to the moment.”

Genjo then told me that the Zen master, Joshu used the wind in one of his koans.    

I found the story in Zen Masters Of China –

Another monk posed this somber question: “After the body has died and has been reduced to its constituent elements and scattered, is there anything that remains, eternal, non-material.”

“The wind is brisk today,” Joshu (Zhaozhou) replied.

Way cool, yes?  Imagine my relationship with the wind now.  And with Genjo and Joshu. 

McDaniel’s next book in the series of three books stepping east, Zen Masters of Japan, is out now.  Bryan is working on book three which will deal with American Zen masters.  He posted a wonderful piece about his lovely conversation with Genjo:

May you walk in beauty,

William

P.S. My newest book Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey echoes all these ideas.  Go read the description and consider getting it.

P.P.S. Please let your friends know about this.

P.P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn’t serve you.

 

Happy Solstice – Book Giveaway

Happy Solstice – Book Giveaway

 A dear friend heads into heart surgery this morning, another friend’s adult daughter died leaving behind a husband and two kids, I successfully passed through my hip surgery and recovery unfolds well.

So what?

Prayer will transform all three situations.  And building an altar or a shrine puts muscle, creativity, and heart into your prayer as you put your mind and hands to work.

Saturday, December 21^st is winter solstice when we welcome the return of the sun.  This celestial event lends itself to building a shrine for the coming light and the coming year.

In honor of solstice, I’m giving away my Kindle book Altar Making: An Active Meditation for Healing Your Heart and for Deepening Spiritual Meaning in Your Life for one day.

You can download the Altar Making giveaway from 12:01 AM to midnight PST December 21, 2013.

Please get it and tell your friends, Facebook and tweet with abandon.  Consider writing a review.

Go for it => Altar Making

May the light shine on you this season,

William 

P.S. Kindle Devices keep getting better, don’t they – And more affordable.  Check them out here => Kindle Devices.

And you probably know you can read Kindle books on pretty much anything these days.  I read on my PCs.  Sasha reads on her Kindle and her Droid.  People love to read them on their Apple devices, particularly the iPad.

Get the Kindle reader apps for your device here => http://amzn.to/Ae0GtB 

Best Gifts

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

212)  We painted like children in the face of nature. – Henri Matisse

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

 

The Best Gifts

Mostly, I’m a Grinch about Christmas.

You know what helps?  Reinventing the holidays.

I hang the decorations I like when I like – origami crane mobiles, red spheres dripping from the jade plant, favorite toys on the kitchen pass-through, displaying the pretty cards people send us.  And for me, staying out of the mauls (sic).

But what I like best is giving to charities.

Here are my two favorites:

The Heifer Project

The Heifer Project has their roots in WWII.  After the war, people in Europe were hungry and hurting.   An Arkansas farmer figured, “What those folks need is a heifer.”  He gave them one.  And that’s what they’ve been doing ever since.

They give folks in need breeding pairs of animals, fruit trees, bees...  And they train folks in how to care for the animals or plants.

 The owner doesn’t just eat the animal, they breed them.  That then becomes a small business that pays for clothing, medicine, and schools for their children.

The good news continues.  The recipient of the animal passes on a breeding pair to someone else and trains them.  That family then passes it on and on and on.  It’s paying it forward in a big way.  Whole villages are transformed this  way, lifted out of poverty, becoming self-sufficient and able to help others.

Can you imagine the self esteem and smiles.  Look at the website, you can find all kinds of success stories.  You won’t see starving kids.  You’ll see smiles.

And the best thing is you can give chickens, goats, heifers, ducks, and water buffalo in the name of your friends and family.  My Aunt Winnie was so happy when I gave chickens in her name.  She didn’t need a thing for herself.

 This video says it all in one minute.  Watch it.

Trust for Public Land

TPL celebrates 40 years of creating parks and conserving land for people this year.

You know this, but I’ll repeat it, “Parks are good for people.  Good for their souls.  Good for their mental health.  Good for their physical health.”

TPL wants to have a park or a pea patch garden, within walking to wherever  people live, especially underserved populations, which, not surprisingly, are the poorer sections of cities.  Lack of parks diminishes their lives and their souls, keeping them poor in spirit and in pocketbook.  Research shows parks reverse this trend.

 Chances are you have a TPL project near you, perhaps one you have enjoyed for years but never knew TPL had anything to do with it. 

Because TPL turns the projects over to local city, counties, national parks and the like. You may never know what they’ve done unless you visit their site.

They’re humble people.

Look around their website and be amazed at the heart and savvy behind their work.

And something I like, they win awards for the efficient use of your funds.  Almost all of it goes into acquiring the land.  I doesn’t go down a sinkhole of mismanaged flabby overhead.

Oh, and they never go into an area and just do good where they’re not wanted.  They are always invited in by a grass roots groups of people just like you.  I love that.

Think of what fills your heart and do that this season.  Do what you like best.

May you be blessed by your choices this season,

William

P.S. I’m giving the trade paperback version of Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey to people this year.  You might want to join me in this.  It’s pretty and will look good on coffee tables.

More importantly, Drawing the Sacred can put people in touch with what’s holy in this time of holydays.

Go for it => Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey