Podcast 319: Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and The Brain with John Ratey, MD

John Ratey MDI know that their has been lots of talk recently about our brain health.  Recently I had the honor of doing a podcast with John Ratey MD, the author of a book entitled ” Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.” In our interview together we discuss the many benefits and correlations to exercise and our brain health.

I know that many of us do not think about the “brain muscle” when we are doing our exercise programs, but the fact of the matter is that our exercise program has as much importance to keeping our brains sharp and clear as it does on building the other muscles in our body.

In a landmark study, aerobic exercise was shown to be as effective as antidepressants.  That women who exercise lower their chances of developing dementia by 50%.  Exercise even sparks new brain-cell growth, and it happens on three levels. First, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information, and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus.  The evidence is incontrovertible: aerobic exercise physically transforms our brains for peak performance.

The world seems to be getting more and more stressful these days, and the correlation between exercise and stress reduction is not big news to anyone.  But the importance that the exercise plays in improving our brain function is big news!!!.  The face that we’re much less active than our ancestors only exacerbates matters.  Just keep in mind that the more stress you have, the more your body needs to move to keep your brain running smoothly.

The next time you exercise, or more importantly decide to skip exercising think again.  Your brain really needs you to put in extra hours on the treadmill or biking to perform at peak levels.  If you want to learn more about exercise and your brain you can visit John Ratey’s website by clicking here.  There are many articles and references that I know you will find of value.

I hope you enjoy listening to my interview with author John Ratey MD about ” Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.”

Podcast 317: Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success with Ron McMillan

Ron McMillanIf you are like most people in life, we have all attempted to change a habit or behavior.  Some of us have succeeded and others have not succeeded nor have we been able to sustain the new habit or behavior we are attempted to supplant the old one with.

I can personally tell you that you have hit pay dirt with the ” Change Anything” .  In my interview with social scientist Ron McMillan we speak about the new and exciting research that his company Vital Smarts did around this very subject in the new book entitled ” Change Anything-The New Science of Personal Success“.  In my estimation the finding in the research conducted on nearly 5,000 people is truly breakthrough.

I have been studying personal growth and mastery for over 20 years, and the research finding revealed in ” Change Anything” will have a positive impact on anyone attempting to create positive change in their lives.  In the Change Anything Labs the people who applied the science of personal success are more than 1,000 percent more successful at producing change that those who tried other means.

So what is the secret–the truth is that willpower is not our problem.  As a matter of fact the scientists at the Change Anything Labs found out that our ability it change and maintain change is not a matter of willpower.   The fact is that we are blind and outnumbered by the outside factors that are effecting our ability to change and sustain our change.

What was found is that there are six sources of influence that effected our ability to change. 1) Personal Motivation 2) Personal Ability 3) Social Motivation 4) Social Ability 5) Structural Motivation 6) Structural Ability.

To learn more about these factors I encourage you to click here to be directed to a video experiment that the scientists did at the Change Anything Labs( click on the blind and outnumbered video).  This will provide you with a short explanation of the factors effecting our abilities to change any thing.

The bottom line is that willpower is not the answer.  The key to change is in understanding all of the subtle put powerful influences that shape your choices. Once you have an understanding of how you are being influenced you will no longer be outnumbered and blinded to these factors, thus making change easier and hopefully more sustainable.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is attempting to change .  It does not matter if it is a weight problem or your trying to get your debt under control. This book and the strategies outlined can be followed by anyone and most importantly successfully and they can be sustained.

 

If you want more information about Change Anything, please click here to be directed to the Change Anything website. Or  click here to be directed to a YouTube Video. You can also learn more by going to the Change Anything Book page.

I hope you enjoy my interview with Ron McMillan one of the founder of Vital Smarts.  This truly is enlightening and will shift how you look at change forever.

Podcast 310: Aware, Awake, Alive with Dr. Elliot Dacher

Elloitt Dacher MDDr. Elliott Dacher has been a guest at Inside Personal Growth previously.  I am honored to bring him back again to speak with us about his new book entitled ” Aware, Awake, Alive-A Contemporary Guide to the Ancient Science of Integral Health and Human Flourishing“.  Prior to his deep work in the Indian modalities of health and healing, Dr. Dacher practiced Western medicine for over 21 years seeing over 50,000 patients. Over this period of time, Dr. Dacher was finding that for many of his patients that the conventional ways of Western medicine were not have a lasting and sustainable healing impact that he would have liked to have had.

Through a series of serendipitous events Dr. Dacher ended up spending over 12 years going back and forth between the US and India studying the aspects of healing and what is termed in the book as “Human Flourishing”.   As Dr. Dasher state in the book ” to flourish is to move beyond the stress, dissatisfaction, and suffering that too often limits and diminishes our lives, and reclaim the profound well-being which resides at the center of our being.  That is our vision, a vision of human flourishing.

Even though each of our lives has an inner and outer aspect, they are usually unequally developed.  In modern times our focus has been on the outer aspects.  We have mastered an understanding of biology.  We know how to enhance our physical well-being, address physiological disturbances, reduce biological risk factors and promote high levels of physical wellness.  As mythologist Joseph Campbell reminds us, “where there was once darkness there is now light”.  We once knew very little about our biology, and now we know a great deal. But he also reminds us that, ” Were there was once light there is now darkness” There was a time we had a profound understanding of our inner life.  We could describe and traverse, as Plato did, the full development of consciousness from darkness to light, from confusion to wisdom. But in modern times that is no longer the case.  We have mastery of the outer world but we have simultaneously lost touch with our inner life.  It has become a buried and unseen treasure.

In Elliot’s book ” Aware, Awake, Alive” he provides the reader with a course of practice and study that is 10 weeks in length, along with more advanced material for those who master the basics and want to continue on.  This book and workbook provides the student with a complete overview of the journey to human flourishing—vision, path, fruition, and integration.   It also includes a CD to help the reader/student establish a stable and effective daily practice.

If you ready to transform your life completely, and have health, happiness and lasting bliss then you just might want to consider reading and studying the content of ” Aware, Awake, Alive” by Dr. Elliott Dacher.
I know you will enjoy this enlightening interview with someone who has devoted their life to helping us understand the miracles of how doing the deep inner work will assist in healing our bodies.  If you want to learn more about Dr. Dacher and his course please click here to be directed to his website.

Podcast 308: Love Service Devotion and the Ultimate Surrender with Ram Dass

Ram DassAbout a month ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Ram Dass about a series of audio tapes that were found in the archives at Naropa Institute.  The talks were given in 1974 by Ram Dass  to a group of Naropa students on the topic of Love, Service, Devotion and the Ultimate Surrender.

In my interview with Ram Dass we speak about the Gita and the tale of the warrior Arjuna and his divine friend Krishna.  The story serves as a metaphor for the recurring dilemmas that we encounter as we spiral into the depth of our spiritual journey.  Our dialogue together is about the Arjuna and the challenges his is faced with because he is taking his role as a warrior to seriously, and his true journey is to understand his souls calling .  Krishna is informing Arjuna throughout the Gita the various paths one can take to experience God.

As a warrior Arjuna is looking across the field seeing his family and teachers and is faced with the dilemma that he might have to kill some of his family and friends.  Krishna advises Arjuna that he should not be so upset that he is doing his Damara and they are doing their Damara, and not matter who kills who you will emerge from this battle with your soul.  Krishna in the 11th chapter of the Gita ultimately shows Arjuna that he is everything, that he is God.

The lessons that the Gita teach each of us are deep and provide a better understanding and relation to the challenges we are all faced with as we walk the spiritual path. In these sessions on this CD series, Ram Dass illuminates the Gita’s essential verses with insights spanning many traditions, from Runi’s ecstatic poetry to Basho’s koans, from devotional chant to monastic silence, from Sri Ramana’s self-inquiry to Saint Paul’s devotion to Christ.  The Destination? A new perceptive on the crucial moments of contradiction and questioning that all spiritual seeks must face again and again.

Ram Dass advises reading the Gita three times, once as an interesting story, second from the perspective of Arjuna and the third time from the perspective of Krishna.   As Ram Dass states our world is currently in turmoil and reading the Gita from the perspective of Arjuna will certainly shed light and a better understand on our spiritual paths and what actions we might want to take to awaken to our souls calling.

During the course of my interview with Ram Dass, I personally had some amazing insights and awakenings.  I hope that as you listen to my interview and clearly pause to reflect on the words of wisdom that Ram Dass is articulating—give reflection to the God within you.  Give thought to how Love, Service , Devotion and the Ultimate Surrender might yield new answers to your deepest spiritual questions.
If you would like more information about Ram Dass you can visit his website by clicking here, he also has a series of talk coming up with Wayne Dyer and Echart Tolle please click here to be directed to the registration website.  His website is a wonderful resource, video, webcasts and writings.  I hope you enjoy my interview with Ram Dass as much as I enjoyed doing the interview.  Namaste.

Podcast 307: Evolutionary Enlightenment with Andrew Cohen

Andrew CohenIf you are not aware of author Andrew Cohen, then you should be.  His new book entitled “Evolutionary Enlightenment-A New Path to Spiritual Awakening” is truly written to get the true spiritual aspirant thinking about their own limitations.  In my interview with Andrew we discuss a very important concept being articulated in the book about ” letting go”.  Now all of us who are on a spiritual path have heard or discussed this concept of “letting go” but Andrew in ” Evolutionary Enlightenment” take the concept of letting go to a whole new level.  He states “you have to take an inner journey beyond everything you are and everything you know, beyond time, form, thought and memory , all the way back to before the beginning, before anything every happened, before the universe was born”.

Now for most of us we have discussed this aspect of letting go, and have probably experienced it to some level or degree–but what Andrew is writing is about takes this concept to a whole new dimension.  Through meditation Andrew states if you go deep enough, letting your attention expand and release from all objects in consciousness, you will find that all the structures of the created universe begin to crumble before your eyes.  Awareness itself-limitless, empty, pristine–becomes the only object of your attention.

Andrew refers to this state of emptiness the Ground of Being.  A place where you cease to identify with objects, that timeless, spaceless, infinite no place emerges as the very nature of your own unborn self.  So in one sense Andrew explains the level of consciousness available to anyone so that they can come to his place of evolutionary enlightenment.

The teachings of Evolutionary Enlightenment are about the evolution of cosmos and culture as yourself. So it is essential that you make the effort to see your own self and your life-circumstances from the biggest possible perspective, and relate to your own predicament as our shared predicament.   Andrew states when you begin to awaken to the perceptive beyond postmodern individualism, in which you see your own human experience in the context of an evolving culture and cosmos, it changes everything.   When you discover dimensions of your own self and of life itself that are infinitely deeper and higher than your culturally conditioned indivuated self-sense, that “personal” dimensions of your experience is now seen as an important but part of a very big picture. In this shift of perspective, the way you understand and approach the spiritual path changes.

Andrew outlines five tenets of Evolutionary Enlightenment: 1) Clarity of Intention 2) The Power of Volition 3) Face Everything and Avoid Nothing 4) Process Perspective 5) Cosmic Conscience.

If you want to learn more about ” Evolutionary Enlightenment” I highly recommend this book by author Andrew Cohen.  You can also visit his website to watch video’s and read more about the Evolutionary Enlightenment movement.  I hope you enjoy this interview with truly a great spiritual teacher and though leader–Andrew Cohen.

Podcast 306: The Executive and The Elephant with Richard Daft

Richard DaftI thoroughly enjoyed my interview with author Richard Daft about his new book entitled ” The Executive and the Elephant-A Leaders Guide to Building Inner Excellence“.  I have interviewed 100’s of authors in the personal growth industry, but none  have as good of perspective  as author Richard Daft with the challenges we face in applying and sustaining change in conjunction to our beliefs,  behaviors and associated actions.

In my interview with Richard Daft we discuss what is referred to as the knowing and doing gap.  As Richard states ” Kings, heads of government, and corporate executives have control over thousands of people and endless resources, but often do not have mastery over themselves. From a distance larger-than-life leaders may look firmly in control of their businesses and their personal behavior.  What about up close?  Personal mastery is a difficult thing.”   The book is truly about helping leaders to recognize the two parts of themselves and to learn how to calm down, train and guide their inner elephant toward the desired success.

Richard gives an assignment to his MBA class at the beginning of the school year. He asks them to find one thing that they would like to change about themselves over a period of three weeks such as an improved exercise plan, diet, better nutrition etc. What he finds after checking in with the students is that the things they wanted to change about themselves were short lived and unsustainable over a long period of time.  He quotes from Dr. Jim Loehr ” Everyone has the same amount of self-discipline, almost none.  People mistakenly think they can change their lives if they just try harder and summon enough willpower.  It seldom happens.”
Richard says that a human beings seems composed of two selves-one it habit bound, impulsive, and emotion driven, and the other more thoughtful, circumspect, and rational. The idea of the two selves has a long tradition in Western culture; they are represented in the battle between reason and emotion, superego and id, angel and devil, the light side and the dark side, good and evil, and the spirit and the flesh.   This all adds up to as having two parts, or two selves, so to speak that sometimes are in conflict.  The bigger part is unconscious and forceful, and manages most of our behavior,  the other, smaller part is conscious and makes deliberate choices, and seems to play a subsidiary role, being used only on occasion when needed.

I sincerely appreciate how the author explains these aspects of our personality, and how they interfere with us reaching personal mastery or our highest potential.  I highly recommend this book, for its simplicity ease of reading as well as overall wisdom on the topic of personal mastery.

If you would like to learn more about the author Richard Daft please click here to be directed to his website. Enjoy this wonderful interview with a great author.

Podcast 305: Radical Self Forgiveness with Colin Tipping

Colin TippingColin Tipping is the author of a book entitled “Radical Forgiveness” but his new book entitled ” Radical-Self Forgiveness-The Direct Path to True Self-Acceptance” is a very important addition to his writings and teachings.

Colin mentions the purpose of the book is to heal the self hatred within the consciousness of the collective human species, and to help individuals feel a peace within themselves.  That is a very big order, but Colin has done an excellent job in providing the reader with insight into “Radical-Self Forgiveness” and how to let go of resentment and give up the desire to punish. If we can all get just this one little insight from the book this world would be a much better place to live.

As Colin states ” Whether we are talking about self-forgiveness or the forgiveness of others, the idea that forgiveness is extremely difficult and that only special people can do it applies in both cases.  In one case, we perceive ourselves as the perpetrator of some crime or misdemeanor, which leads to a feeling of guilt, while in the other, we perceive ourselves as having been victimized by someone or something, which leads us to feel angry and resentful.  Radical Self-Forgiveness is such a healing process, allowing deep emotional wounds to heal.

As Colin states ” The I Am Self is the spiritual self that exists above all other, and yet is the one of which we are less aware.  It is often referred to as the ” Observer” because it’s the one who observes the “I” who is “me”.   Our I Am Self is the part of us that remains connected to the Divine, or the all That Is.  The resident judge and critical parent have not part to play in Radical Self-Forgiveness, they will try to muscle in if they can.  But as long as you use the tools that Radical Self-Forgiveness provides, they will have no power, nor any say in the matter.

There are Five Stages of Radical Self-Forgiveness, and they are: Stage 1: Telling the Story; Stage 2: Feeling The Feelings; Stage 3: Collapsing the Story; Stage 4: Reframing the Story; Stage 5: Integrating the Shift.  If you follow the techniques outlined in “Radical Self-Forgiveness” you will certainly heal those aspects of your personality and live a life of freedom and self expression.
I hope you enjoy my interview with Colin Tipping your guide through  Radical Self-Forgiveness.

If you want more information about Radical Self-Forgiveness please visit Colin’s website by clicking here.

Podcast 300: Energy Healing for Beginners with Ann Marie Chiasson

Ann Marie ChiassonIt was a pleasure interviewing Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson recently about her new Sounds True program entitled “Energy Healing for Beginners“.   I thoroughly enjoyed about my interview with Ann Marie and was especially touched by the sincere way that she approaches “energy healing”. You can intuit from the beginning of our interview that she is authentic and really passionate about her work.

Her course which consists of 5 CD’s, DVD, 25 reference cards and a 107 page workbook is designed to teach you how to use movement, awareness, breath, and your hands to sense and shift energy in your body for specific results.  Ann Marie presents practices based on energy techniques that she learned from healers and teachers of energy medicine over the last eighteen years, and from a deeply personal exploration of her body as a patient, healer, and physician.

Energy medicine as Ann Marie describes in the workbook is based on the concept that ” in addition to a system of physical and chemical processes, the human being is made up of a complex system of energy.”  This underlying energy field, also called the subtle body, is housed within the physical body and extends beyond it.  She uses the analogy of a garden, where the health of the soil effect how a plant grows and flowers.  If the soil is nutrient depleted, the plant grows poorly.  Likewise, if the energy body is not balanced and the energy does not flow or move in it natural state the physical body is affected and can begin to function improperly.
Ann Marie provides the reader, listener and viewer of her program with wonderful instructions on how to learn and practice energy work on their own.  Her series of CD’s, DVD, and instructional workbook are a wonderful way to start down a path and explore techniques to heal and support harmony and balance in your body.  During our interview together she explored and tested with me a couple of techniques that I was not aware of–they were amazing in moving my blocked energy.

I highly recommend that you listen too, read and practice with Ann Marie and her new series ” Energy Healing for Beginners.  Enjoy my interview with a wonderful healer and beautiful soul, Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson.

If you would like more information on Dr. Chiasson just click here to be directed to her website.

Podcast 297: One-Minute Mindfulness with Donald Altman

Donald AltmanIn my interview with author Donald Altman about his new book entitled “One Minute Mindfulness” we speak about the benefits of being more mindful in our everyday life.  As we discuss mindfulness does not have to be one more “to-do” item.  It can become effortless and part of your everyday practices, the key is to become aware of our actions.

In Donald’s new book he provides the reader with 50 simple ways to find peace, clarity and new possibilities in a stressed-out world.  He offers a empowering perspective and how you think and act in the upcoming minute, and the next, determines nothing less than your experience of life.

His book is part guidebook and part workbook for making the present moment count.  Each chapter contains an exercise for building awareness and centering attention.  The awareness exercises are meant to help you touch this moment–which can be harder than it seems, but well worth the effort.  In this podcast Donald speak about the costs of not being present as well as the tremendous benefits to our personal and professional lives for practicing mindfulness.   I really enjoyed the one minute exercise that the author lead me through in shifting my perspective.  During our interview he asked me to just look out the window and focus on the trees and nature.  I have to admit that when I did this exercise I felt more calm and at ease and more connected to nature—pure peace.

We all have so many opportunities during our daily lives to be more mindful.  From our eating practices, to how we greet and say goodbye to someone-all of these are opportunities to be more present in the moment.   What I love about “One Minute Mindfulness” is that the chapters are short, followed by some very thoughtful exercises and reflection.  Let’s face it, mindfulness at it core is about slowing down enough to enjoy this very moment.  Not living in the past or the future, but appreciating what we have in this very moment.  The revelation to all of us will be an amazing connection to our oneness, and a much deeper spiritual experience.
I hope you enjoy this great interview with author Donald Altman on the “One Minute Mindfulness“.  If you would like more information about the author just click here to be directed to his website.  Enjoy my interview, and practice mindfulness while listening.